Helping wintering with electrict heating

[Michael Palmer]

I know. All professional beekeepers become mad when they heard about electrict heating. They loose their night sleep.

Loose sleep?

 

[Finman]

Loose sleep?

It is splended skill to laugh without a reason. If you wait a good reason, it may take several years that you can laugh.

Electrict heating teached to me really much about importance of heat to the spring build . I get such yields in my short summer that I o not need to be humble in front of professional beekeepers. Isn't that funny.

 

[Finman]

Michael, have your tree leaves fallen allready on your district?

On my beekeeping place they falled 4 weeks ago, but in Helsinki along sea coast they are dropping down just now with good speed -4C has been so far lowest temp here.

.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Yes, Finman they have, mostly. Last weekend, -4˚C and 2" snow.

 

[mbc]

I am seriously considering using heat to bring on a couple of hives close to home to see if I can get lots of early selected drones reared for breeding.
Finman is the only source of practical information on the subject I've found, bravo Finman!

 

[Finman]

I am seriously considering using heat to bring on a couple of hives close to home to see if I can get lots of early selected drones reared for breeding.
Finman is the only source of practical information on the subject I've found, bravo Finman!

If you have normal hive, 15W reptile heater cable is the best and cheapest.

You may get lower wats with electricity timer. 15 min on, and 15 min off. 7 W is as good to one box give.
In double brood 15 W is good.

At least you will see, how important heat is to colonies.

You can use such cable in extraction. When I uncap combs, I have a heater cable under the mesh, where cappings drop. It keeps capping uncapping honey warm, and it drills from wax better.

When I keep queen cages on the cable, queen and assistant workers do better in that heat than in 20C room temp.




.

 

[derekm]

If you have normal hive, 15W reptile heater cable is the best and cheapest.

You may get lower wats with electricity timer. 15 min on, and 15 min off. 7 W is as good to one box give.
In double brood 15 W is good.

At least you will see, how important heat is to colonies.

You can use such cable in extraction. When I uncap combs, I have a heater cable under the mesh, where cappings drop. It keeps capping uncapping honey warm, and it drills from wax better.

When I keep queen cages on the cable, queen and assistant workers do better in that heat than in 20C room temp.




.

7W is roughly the equivalent of 3300 bees in terms of heat

 

[Finman]

7W is roughly the equivalent of 3300 bees in terms of heat

Are they in spring rearing brood or are they in winter cluster in autumn?.

In -15C frost consumption is bigger.

In autumn a good hive consumes 2 kg sugar in month, but in spring it consumes 2 kg in four days. (0.5 kg a day)

That information comes from beehives on balance.

Brood produces as much heat as resting worker. 30% of mature larvas' weight "burns" during pupal stage.

Difficult to calculate those things.

However, I have noticed that during frost weather 3W heater does not get any reaction in normal size bee cluster. Heat escapes somewhere.



.

.

 

[For want of a better word]

If you have normal hive, 15W reptile heater cable is the best and cheapest.
Is that like the 15W heater cable I use under my mushroom propagator ??... 240 V mains plug one end.. flexible heater around 2meters long.. a metal bobble thermostat at the other... heats to 75 degrees Fahrenheit


I pick mushrooms in February..takes mind off of bees!

Yeghes da

 

[Hivemaker.]

I use around 35 to 42 W's worth to heat below the crown board and keep each of the four 3 W's worth warm during winter, with added top insulation of 10 inches of cedar shavings and 25mm of kingspan.

I don't bother with insulating the solid floors, stands or paving slabs that some are on.

 

[Finman]

.
Actually I knew 40 years that hive heating.

75 old man teached me first when I was 15 y old. He had ordinary light bulb over inner covers.

2003 I had 18 hives in autumn and next spring I had 2 normal colonies and 3 nuc size colonies.

Varroa had become Apistan tolerant and it killed part of my yard. Part died for dry weather, and bees did not get enough pollen for winter. Over 200 y old pines died on cliffs along coast in that year.

In Finland, Sweden and in Germany many beekeepers lost 60% of their hives. Reason was dry summer and lack of pollen.

My hives were almost died out in April 2004. I went to nearest petty chop and I bought different size terrarium heaters to see, what they do to bees. For example, I saw that 3 w was suitable to the 2 frame nuc.

Heating's duty was to keep emerging brood alive When I took brood frames from big hives to small hives. Nights were often -6C and days +4C in April. 2-frame nuc is not able to rear much its brood.
I fed colonies with pollen honey mixture. That patty feeding I had done 12 years before that disaster
.

Everything went so fine that I got more honey from 6 hives than last summer from 18 hives. Pastures were better when les hives shared the nectar crop on field.

That was the beginning of electrict heating. It was a real adventure.

.

 

[Hawklord]

I would have thought placing the heater under the colony would benefit the whole colony rather than the heat from above warming just the top of the cluster?

 

[Millet]

If you have normal hive, 15W reptile heater cable is the best and cheapest.
Is that like the 15W heater cable I use under my mushroom propagator ??... 240 V mains plug one end.. flexible heater around 2meters long.. a metal bobble thermostat at the other... heats to 75 degrees Fahrenheit


I pick mushrooms in February..takes mind off of bees!

Yeghes da

What type lol.. the Magic ones are gone after September.. haha . but then again F Man may have found some.. lol

 

[Hawklord]

What type lol.. the Magic ones are gone after September.. haha . but then again F Man may have found some.. lol

Fly Agaric's.

 

[Honeybeeco]

How huge/deep are the snow drifts where you have beehives usually?

They really vary, last year drift were only 3 to 4 feet, the year before 6 to 7 feet. It's not just the snow but the huge winds we get, like today we have been at 47 mph already coming up the side of the valley. Dm for our 2 onsite weather station log in details.

It's a double edge sword but this time of year our apiary has a 10 ft wood fence tight around it in winter - 4 x 1 1/4 inch overlapping lengths of wood, to allow some wind through so the place doesn't get too damp, but to stop the drifts and too much wind getting into the hives. We then remove the top 6 foot of wood every year to allow the sun to come interpose they won't move till 10am every morning. Our hives are concreted into the ground on tall hive stands so we have somewhere to fix them - 90+ mph gusting winds every year mean I'm concerned they will go over otherwise - as past experience shows.

I'm also with Michael, that some snow has a benefit to insulation, it's the damp I'm paranoid with as it's our main problem here on the side of this little hill.

I'll work out how to add pictures of the snow to the thread to show how nice it looks up here when it drifts.

 

[Finman]

I'm also with Michael, that some snow has a benefit to insulation, it's the damp I'm paranoid with as it's our main problem here on the side of this little hill.

I'll work out how to add pictures of the snow to the thread to show how nic.

You have there couple of weeks snow.

We have normally in South 3,5 months snow from January to mid of April. At the beginning of March I must dig the hives from snow. So, snow covers hives only 2 months out of 7 wintering months. Actually snow has no meaning here.

I have had polystyre hives 25 years. No probkems since then. As I said, snow keeps only wet the hives on South Finland. In North snow stays under freezing point almost whole Winter after Christmas.

If you have wind, search a new site to hives. At least snow will not help you.

I have visited In Snowdon. By the way. Fine Castles along coastline there!
.

 

[Hivemaker.]

They really vary, last year drift were only 3 to 4 feet, the year before 6 to 7 feet. It's not just the snow but the huge winds we get, like today we have been at 47 mph already coming up the side of the valley. Dm for our 2 onsite weather station log in details.

It's a double edge sword but this time of year our apiary has a 10 ft wood fence tight around it in winter - 4 x 1 1/4 inch overlapping lengths of wood, to allow some wind through so the place doesn't get too damp, but to stop the drifts and too much wind getting into the hives. We then remove the top 6 foot of wood every year to allow the sun to come interpose they won't move till 10am every morning. Our hives are concreted into the ground on tall hive stands so we have somewhere to fix them - 90+ mph gusting winds every year mean I'm concerned they will go over otherwise - as past experience shows.

If you have wind, search a new site to hives.

We often get deep snow and high winds here on Exmoor as well, which would not be good for the bees in winter, so all the colonies are moved down into well sheltered valleys for the winter... then moved back out over the hills/moors in spring.

 

[For want of a better word]

Should a thicker layer of insulation be put atop the Paynes polly nucs that I am overwintering some colonies in?

Would a heater benefit them if placed on to of the perspex cover...... last winter was a cold but wet average... few days when the mercury dropped below freezing...
I have placed a thermometer on top of one of the roofs on the outside with an insulating slab of Kingspan over it... temp was the same as the ambient temp around the hives... so wondering if there is any significant heat loss there.....???

Mytten da

 

[Finman]

We often get deep snow and high winds here on Exmoor as well, which would not be good for the bees in winter, so all the colonies are moved down into well sheltered valleys for the winter... then moved back out over the hills/moors in spring.

That is good for spring build up. It rules, what will be the summer yield.

.

 

[Finman]

Should a thicker layer of insulation be put atop the Paynes polly nucs that I am overwintering some colonies in?

Would a heater benefit them if placed on to of the perspex cover...... last winter was a cold but wet average... few days when the mercury dropped below freezing...


Mytten da

When I have cold, I have two months
under -20C. The long time means that cluster is not able to change its place from seam to seam and it is not able to reformulate. The food store in one seam may be finish and that seam dies .

Even in higher temps wind is bad. It push the cluster to some corner.

Notice the wind. Polyhives are surely warm enough in your weather. And notice that mesh floor.

Under zero is nothing cold.

Rain is not bad unless it keep wooden hive wet all the time. The polyhive it cannot harm.