First Winter and I have a couple of Questions

[loving_allsorts]

Good evening Folks.

I'm after a bit of advise really. I noticed the weather was warm today so I wondered up to my hive on my allotment. It is the first winter for my first hive and so hefting the hive is a waste of time for me as I can't remember how it felt in October when I finished feeding them and I don't have the experience to know how it should feel this time of year.

I noticed a few bees were braving the wind to take a fly. Didn't notice any pollen coming back in with them but I'm sure they were not wasting their time, maybe bringing other resources back.

I can't see the frames through the reduced entrance and the hive is all strapped up and hessian sacked so it is a bit of a pain to unwrap it. I'd rather not open them up unnecessarily as I've wintered only on one brood chamber as the colony was relatively small.

So my question -

How do I know if they have stores left? What is the harm with feeding them now? If it wont hurt, What should I be feeding them at this time of year. I've read a few books and they tend to say only feed in an emergency but I don't see why you can't do it regardless of if the food is required or not.

Thanks for your help in advance

Mark

 

[region2]

On a warmish day you could take a look but probably just best to feed fondant...

R2

 

[Cedar]

As a fellow newbee first winter I have been hooking a spring balance (scales) to the back of the hive and gently lifting until feet come clear of ground then take weight reading is not the most accurate but gives a bench mark for next time until I get more experience, as for feeding I was going to check their stores when I oxalic acid them this week now its arrived, and add fondant if neccesary.

Cedar

 

[Midland Beek]

You gotta heft really. And you really got to be treating with oxalic acid.

 

[thurrock bees]

on a warm day, if your worried like it sounds like you are, open them up and peak down the frames, but dont pull the frames out. You could place some foundant on top and if they need it they will take it down, The only true way though is to heft the hive.
It maybe a idea to find someone local to you who has a few hives and a couple years experence and ask to heft his/her hives for experence?!

TB

 

[Skyhook]

The problem with feeding when they don't need it, is that pretty soon the queen is going to want some empty cells to lay in. If they are all still full of stores then they will swarm at the first opportunity.

Having said that, the starving season (Feb-March) comes before the swarming season (rarely before April but someone has laid a bet for March this year given the funny season). My conclusion would be- really try to work out whether they have stores or not, either by hefting (if you lift one side and think blimey, that's heavy, they're probably OK), by looking in, or by getting someone more experienced to look: but if at the end of that you still don't know, better to feed than risk starvation.

Inspect on the first day mild enough (a very quick in and out is possible from 14 deg. C). If they have no space, then you can either a) swap a full frame for an empty one if you have any drawn brood comb, b) bruise the stores and put a super on for them to move the honey up to (if you have drawn super frames), or c) take a couple of frames of stores out and extract them. The obvious alternative to a) is to take a frame or 2 out and put new frames of foundation in, but as we are talking about the very start of the season, I will leave it for more experienced beeks to say when this would be possible from- it is hard for bees to draw foundation at low temperatures.


.

 

[Apisboy]

Apart from store combs, fondant is all you can feed right now. No harm in giving them some if that gives you peace of mind, they should take it if they need it if warm enough to allow it. Help and advice will be available at your local BBKA association, am sure someone with experience will heft it for you.

 

[region2]

I understood that fondant was used rather than stored or am I mistooken?

R2

 

[enrico]

As this is your first winter I would take things really easy. If you fed well in Autumn then don't worry about extra feed now. The bees are flying which is a good sign. This is not to collect more stores but mainly for them to have a sh**t so don't leave white washing out!!! Leave them alone until the spring. Once a week put your ear flat against the side of the hive. Tap the hive and if you hear a good healthy buzz the all is probably well. If the buzz is really weak then ask for help putting fondant in. Otherwise wait till warmer days of real spring and feed one to one water and sugar to give them an early boost and all will be well, Forget about oxalic acid this year. This is your first real year and you want to just do things gently. Next year will be hard enough with uneven comb, loads more bees and swarming so relax now and let the bees do what they do naturally .... survive. Good luck and keep asking the questions
E

 

[region2]

I agree with Enrico!

 

[Hivemaker.]

I understood that fondant was used rather than stored or am I mistooken?
R2

Both,depends on the time of year it is being fed.

 

[oliver90owner]

I understood that fondant was used rather than stored or am I mistooken?

Just a matter of terminology, I would suggest. It will be 'taken down' either way - to be stored or used. Both will certainly not 'leave it up'.

It cannot be stored unless fair amounts of water are added (bees don't store it as fondant) and fairly pointless to add water if it is needed for thermal energy (latent heat of evaporation is a large negative) in the short term. Bees work efficiently, they've been practising for longer than we've been out of the trees!

 

[loving_allsorts]

Thanks for all the advise guys.

I think I will wait for a nicve warm weekend and open up and shine a torch down the frames to see if they have stores. I'll drop some fondant in there then.

I changed teh floor to a mesh floor late last year just atfter I treated for Varoa. It was useful as I was able to see what fell off the bees.

I found just two mites on the floor so hopefully they are doing ok and as Enrico said, I wont have to do acid treatment this winter.

Thanks again for the advise

Mark

 

[VEG]

As this is your first winter I would take things really easy. If you fed well in Autumn then don't worry about extra feed now. The bees are flying which is a good sign. This is not to collect more stores but mainly for them to have a sh**t so don't leave white washing out!!! Leave them alone until the spring. Once a week put your ear flat against the side of the hive. Tap the hive and if you hear a good healthy buzz the all is probably well. If the buzz is really weak then ask for help putting fondant in. Otherwise wait till warmer days of real spring and feed one to one water and sugar to give them an early boost and all will be well, Forget about oxalic acid this year. This is your first real year and you want to just do things gently. Next year will be hard enough with uneven comb, loads more bees and swarming so relax now and let the bees do what they do naturally .... survive. Good luck and keep asking the questions
E

Why would you wait until the buzz is weak then feed?
Could be too late by then. If the bees are flying then it is warm enough to have a quick look.

 

[chrismcd]

I checked on the fondant levels in mine and had a quick look at the frames in the super because I was alarmed by how much lighter the hives were after the good weather in November.

Conclusion, still plenty of stores and the bees are not taking the fondant above the crown board because they do not need to!

So, as has been said earlier, no reason for concern and I was fretting to no good effect.

 

[Moggs]

Irrespective of the unseasonally warm weather that we are experiencing, the bees' welfare is still largely dependent on the actions that we took in autumn. Hefting, as far as I'm concerned is probably the surefire indicator of store depletion. There are other signs, e.g. highly active bees need energy, chewed cappings under the hives indicate such activity - heft more frequently! I would be very reluctant to disturb bees, even in this warmer weather - why stir them up unnecessarily, all it will do is result in greater consumption of stores and if we do get a cold spell.... there are still quite a few weeks before we can rely on income! As far as I can tell, most of my well-fed hives are still heavy with stores. I've put fondant on where they're noticeably light. Hefting isn't such a mystical art, after all, if things are OK in autumn, that initial weight of a well-stocked hive is something to remember.

Oh - before I forget, as mentioned elsewhere (on a tangent), if excess stores are 'bruised' to encourage movement upstairs to a super, it could be that this 'honey' may well contain more sucrose than anything else and would probably not be suitable for extraction, bottling and sale.

 

[RoofTops]

Forget about oxalic acid this year.

No don't forget about it. We don't know what varroa treatment you did or how effective it was but if you used some sort of thymol product then the normal advice is to use OA in winter as thymol is not effective enough.

It would be a shame to lose you first colony through inaction.

No doubt there will be some who will strongly challenge this advice but before listening to them (and they are inthe minority) it is worth remembering that on a recent poll on this forum the number of people using OA greatly outnumbered those who did not. Just do a search for "OA Poll". and look at the thread about winter 2011/12.

 

[BeeMoustashe]

Must admit I wasn't going to OA being my first winter, but the forum, collectively, persuaded me.. 22 mites dropped in 48 hours after treatment. Pleased it was a fairly small number, but still, 22 mites (as things stand atm) less to breed has to be good.

My main worry is isolation starvation- how likely is this given it's not sub zero temperatures and the cluster isn't quite as tight? I have plenty of stores in the hive but am worried about them starving in the midst of plenty!

 

[enrico]

Not likely at all
E

 

[oliver90owner]

isolation starvation

Only experienced it, for fairly definite, once in ten years. Much later in the winter and after a warm spell; the bees clustered at the wrong part of the hive when the weather turned very cold for about three weeks or more.

Some have said that they can get isolated from stores above by the bee space between boxes, but I doubt that would happen unless the cluster was very small. A hive with far too much top ventilation, or wrong bee space for some reason could be at risk, I suppose.

RAB