Heating hives over winter

[davemacdon]

Quick question / idea.

Does anyone have experience of or any ideas relating to a low heat under the hive during winter nights to help keep the temperature more even and therefore less bee deaths?

I realise that some hives (including observation hives) are indoors with external exits. Do these colonies survive the winter better than the outside hives?

I have an idea for a night time low heat source, but am wandering if it would cause any other problems or not be worth attempting for reasons that you may be able to tell me.

Thanks in advance,

Dave.

 

[aberreef]

The cold of winter puts the bees into a semi dormant state that means they don't need so much food. Also if the hive is heated I'd imagine this would encourage flying in unsuitable weather that will lead to bee deaths.

Last winter was particularly cold but be losses were less than other years as far as I'm aware.

Keep 'em cool

 

[newportbuzz]

talk to finman i think he uses heaters for spring build up

 

[Vergilius]

talk to finman i think he uses heaters for spring build up

I was going to suggest this. I think he uses some form of internal heating to help his hives get through the arctic winter.


Ben P

 

[nonstandard]

For winter survival cold is not the problem, damp is the killer. As aberreef has hinted at, the colder it is the less active the bees are and the longer the stores will last.

 

[Finman]

If you want to keep the wintering champer warmer to bees, the most important thing it to give insulated boxes = polyhive.
It gives the best results in Spring build up.

To aid small nucs over winter, heating aids them. The heater is like a bigger part of cluster.

Normal hives do not need heating.

In spring i fasten the the build up. With pollen patty it is even 3 times faster than with "let them be" system.

Small hives get easily sick in that handling (chalkbrood). It is better to wait that you get emerging brood frames from biggest hives.

********
last december I noticed 6 hives very week when I gived Oxalic acid. I put to them heating, and at the end of April they were on average good hives in my yard. Cold did not stressed bees so like non heated hives. They had easy winter.

My experince in heating is 8 years. 2 frame colonies go easily over winter with heating.
With their own they have no change.

 

[Finman]

For winter survival cold is not the problem, damp is the killer. As aberreef has hinted at, the colder it is the less active the bees are and the longer the stores will last.

Cold kills. Why then hives die in winter so much. In Britain 30% winter losses.

Damp is not a proplem when you handle it.

uk has mysterious ways to feed bees before winter. i bet that feeding kills more than cold and damp together.

If the hive has brooding all the time, it comsumes food greatly. So it is better to get bees which have real dormant period.

Weaking of colonies before spring is worse than one or two colonies die totally.

 

[Finman]

For winter survival cold is not the problem, damp is the killer. As aberreef has hinted at, the colder it is the less active the bees are and the longer the stores will last.

when you set up the heater you MUST take care that it does not brake the cluster and hive is not active. That is the first point. You see it with eyes when you lift the cover.

 

[newportbuzz]

what temp do you set it for finman to avoid breakin cluster? or do you set it so it only comes on below a certain temp?

 

[Finman]

I put the heating on when temps use to be -5C or less.
I put the heater over the cluster or on side. if bees try to go out, they meet hard cold.


But when I heat the hives in spring, bees are not more active in heated hive than in unheated.
Bees use to stay calm when they have nothing to do. They have no hobbies, i suppose, like in cold or in rain flying.

 

[rae]

Note there is a big difference between Finland and most of the UK! My limited experience of Finland is that -5 is a pretty warm winters day - whereas for us it would have the weather forecasters telling us "you're all going to die".

Unless as colony is a true hospital case (i.e. so small that it simply can't generate heat, no matter how much honey is available), I can't see that heating would help.

I recall another thread where some moderately scientific research had been done (I think it was by an Edwardian beek) - he heated, and his losses were catastrophic.

 

[Skyhook]

I recall another thread where some moderately scientific research had been done (I think it was by an Edwardian beek) - he heated, and his losses were catastrophic.

I think that is the crucial difference- he was trying to keep the hives warm over winter ( as the thread was discussing), whereas Finman uses it (sparingly) in early spring build up) Warming hives over winter has been proved to be a BAD THING, as Rae says.

Very good point Finman makes about heating from the side not the bottom- bottom heat would have seemed the natural way to go.

 

[itma]

For winter survival cold is not the problem, damp is the killer. As aberreef has hinted at, the colder it is the less active the bees are and the longer the stores will last.

Could/should that phrasing be turned around slightly?
Stores usage will increase during mild spells, because the bees would be more active. So isn't it a case of the difference between say +8 and zero that's more important, rather than the difference between zero, -5 and -15?
So rather than 'the colder', isn't it a case of 'the more consistently cold' the longer the stores will last?

 

[Finman]

.
Honeybee has developed in Africa. It likes warm winters.
It has adapted almost to every climate except tropic. That is why African bees were imported to Brasilia.

Actually now with gene maps it has been revieled that scutellata genes have been imported to USA before killer bee arrival from Mexico.

To hope something suitable weather to bees is not speak of healty man. The weather fluctuates as it does. if you in Britain hope some weather, I think that it is "no snow to car drivers".

 

[Finman]

So rather than 'the colder', isn't it a case of 'the more consistently cold' the longer the stores will last?

it is not so.

 

[newportbuzz]

finman what would you use as your cue to start heating for spring build up?

i am trying to find something that would be common to both our climates to use as a marker.

 

[Finman]

.
You need not take this as climate queastion.

Bees get advantage from heating up to 17 C day temp.
Nights and rainy days are cold and heating helps bees to keep bigger brood ball in the hive.

Once I was in England. Rape bloomed and lots of flowers. Every morning I scabbed ice from car's windows. Day temps were 7C and it was May.

Bigger brood ball gives bigger forager gang after 6 weeks.

We have raspberry blooming in second half of June. It gives sometimes a huge yield, even over 10 kg per day more weight. those bees which forage raspberry have been layed in the first half of May.

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

Quick question / idea.

Does anyone have experience of or any ideas relating to a low heat under the hive during winter nights to help keep the temperature more even and therefore less bee deaths?

I realise that some hives (including observation hives) are indoors with external exits. Do these colonies survive the winter better than the outside hives?

I have an idea for a night time low heat source, but am wandering if it would cause any other problems or not be worth attempting for reasons that you may be able to tell me.

Thanks in advance,

Dave.

On a couple of especially cold nights last winter I did suggest to the current Lady DD that she pop out to the hives with a hot water bottle or two.

Uncharacteristically, there was some resistance to this proposal.

So the bees had to make do on their own - and survived the rigours successfully.

 

[Poly Hive]

When Craibstone tried to over winter super sized hives they failed. As in three normal colonies made up into one unit, it just plain did not work and the reason they came up with was over heating and over consumption of stores, death by nosema and starvation.

Bees know perfectly well how to over winter, it is up to us to assist not thwart them.

PH

 

[For want of a better word]

Canadian cousin suffers - 20 for weeks on end
Overwinters some hives in his unheated but well ventilated cellar blocks them in and does not feed until spring... with a pollen patty....
sats he has not ever lost one single hive to bear attack since he started doing this!