Can I over winter queen & bees in apidea?

[bellsbees]

I have 2 good strong apidea with mated queens and I am now wondering if they will over winter ok in the apidea. What's the best way to do this?
I was going to sell the queens but some of my hives had EFB , the seasonal bee inspector did not have time to come back and give my home apiary the all clear. ( I am sure my apiary is clear of EFB now)
Can I leave them in the apidea? Will they be warm enough?
One apidea has 4 supers and a feeder, the other has 3 supers and a feeder.
I really do not want to kill queen and bees, they maybe useful come the spring.
I could wrap cellotex round the apidea?
Any advice would be helpful. Thank you

 

[user 6228]

make a cellotex/recticel cover 100mm thick with top and sides. Glue the joints then seal the joints with aluminium tape inside and out. You can make it out of 50mm but make it double layered.

Apidea need significantly thicker cover walls than hives to achieve the same levels of heat loss per bee.

 

[itma]

People do.
Extra supers, that's good.

But being small, they have a lot of surface area in comparison to their volume (and thus number of bees) - so they are actually 'cold'.
I've heard of people putting them inside a hive (or nuc) for extra shelter and warmth, but a Celotex 'bonnet' should be even better.

If you have enough spare Apidea bits, you could figure out the 'empty' weight, so that you could determine the stores usage/remaining by simple kitchen-scales weighing, only opening to feed fondant if really needed.

 

[bellsbees]

Thank you itma. I will do as you say and weight empty apidea/supers/frames and weight full stock and then work out stores. I have actually filled the feeder super with fondant and dribbled a little syrup over fondant. Last time I looked inside apidea I thought pollen stores were low, so might put some pollen substitute in as a precaution.
I did notice today bee bringing in pollen between the heavy rain.
Apidea are very useful bits of kit, spare queens are so useful.

 

[bellsbees]

derekm, I will try and make what you suggest and if it works will post a photo. Thank you for your suggestion, I am going to have to rummage in the workshop for aluminium tape, pretty sure I have some somewhere.

 

[itma]

... I am going to have to rummage in the workshop for aluminium tape, pretty sure I have some somewhere.

About £6 for a big roll at Screwfix. Lidl's sometimes, but not at the moment.

 

[bellsbees]

Apidea have solid floors and the only ventilation is the front red plastic grill and small entrance, should I keep the red plastic grill section open and free for fresh air?
I have made a cellotex cover as suggested but modified as I did not have much 2 inch, so I have used 2 inch cellotex for top and 1inch for sides. I have just roughly taped it with gaffer tape until I get to screwfix.

 

[Windowbee]

How did they overvinter?
In PL they can not survive in such of bee hive type.
And i am very curious is it possible in UK.

 

[protheroe]

How did they overvinter?
In PL they can not survive in such of bee hive type.
And i am very curious is it possible in UK.

I have brought keilers through on six frames with a feeder board on top and small three frame minI nucs but I stack them two high and insulate all around in a hive because they aren't meant to be stacked ant there's gaps between the boxes.the kielers have no side bars on the frames and the bees stick the comb to the sides of the box.I had one abscond while trying to detach the comb from side of box so that's now in a five frame nuc