How much honey does a hive need to overwinter?

[Baldybee]

Hi All, I'm a total newbie on here although I have kept bees for a few years now with reasonable success. I normally take my last honey harvest towards the end of July and in most previous years the bees have gone on to produce enough honey to get through the winter without a problem. The last 2 years though, this has been different and I've had to feed them. So could anyone please tell me how much honey (in weight) your average hive needs to get through the winter and when should I do the last extraction to ensure they can produce enough. I prefer to leave them with their own produce rather than syrup and I live near Milton Keynes.

Any advice appreciated,

Baldybee

 

[deanrpwaacs]

I think its a case of feed until they take no more down . I have a 14 x 12 hive that has taken 18ltrs of 2.1 syrup so far and there is still ivy to come in if the weather picks up again . They were heavy with pollen when the weather broke this afternoon .

 

[oliver90owner]

Most books quote a minimum of 40 lbs in old units. 20kg is close enough in modern units. Getting them through spring expansion will use up far more than winter subsistence. Stores usage will depend on several factors. These might include, duration, severity of weather, insulation, ventilation, size of colony. So quite a few variables.

 

[GlenJ]

Hi All, I'm a total newbie on here although I have kept bees for a few years now with reasonable success. I normally take my last honey harvest towards the end of July and in most previous years the bees have gone on to produce enough honey to get through the winter without a problem. The last 2 years though, this has been different and I've had to feed them. So could anyone please tell me how much honey (in weight) your average hive needs to get through the winter and when should I do the last extraction to ensure they can produce enough. I prefer to leave them with their own produce rather than syrup and I live near Milton Keynes.

Any advice appreciated,

Baldybee

Hi, I'm struggling with the idea that you've kept bees this long and have not picked up this information from all the books etc. and then not worked out what works for your bees and the way you keep them. I would suggest that only confusion will result from asking too many people a basic question - the best you will get is "safe" answers.

 

[fred scuttle]

Keep feeding up with 2:1 syrup until they stop taking it.. BUT ONLY SMALL AMOUNTS AT A TIME otherwise they'll just fill the brood nest and HRH won't have any room for laying in When you heft the hive and it is a real effort to lift it you are usually in a good position... That's only the start though. Regular hefting over the winter months and checking where the brood nest is by monitoring their uncappings will tell you where the cluster is... It's no good if all frames of stores are at one side of the brood box and the bees clustered at the other end. If you finds this is the case put a frame of stores next to the cluster but always making sure they have a frame of stores between the cluster and the wall of the hive for insulation purposes.

Also...do remember to remove the Queen excluder for winter and pop an empty super under the brood box to add a bit more insulation to the hanging cluster.

Hope this helps but sure others have lots more information about this than me....

 

[fred scuttle]

Sorry, nearly forgot to say that the reason you remove the Queen excluder is so the cluster can move up to take the fondant you might need to put on top of the Crown board in the depths on winter. I've used Neopoll with no losses for the last 4 years and usually put a 1kg bag on top of each hives crown board under a clear plastic takeaway carton to keep the heat in and also keep it moist, whilst also keeping the bees in and it is clearly visible when carefully lifting the roof in mid winter whether the fondant needs topping up or not.

I also normally put a slab of kingspan insulation on top of my crown boards with a cut out for the takeaway carton (opened side downloads containing the fondant) which seems to helps keep the heat up for the cluster.

I've not lost any colonies since adopting this approach to over wintering but will echo OliverOwners comments about all the variables... There is no guarantee.. If you go into winter with weak colonies it may be wishful thinking to get them through. Merge now if not sure I'd personally say...others on here may shoot me down in flames for this advice but you asked for advice and this seems to have worked fine for me so hope it helps.

 

[oxnatbees]

The amount varies depending on how long and severe winter and spring are, how well insulated your hive is, and even thetype of bee - Italians will go on laying too late for ourUK weather, then need extra food because they are trying to keep brood warm instead of settling down to a cool cluster.

The books tend to overstate how much honey is needed because they do not know which part of the country you will be in. You can imagine a hive in Scotland will need perhaps twice as much honey as one in Devon to get through winter and spring. And the amount might vary by a factor of 2 from year to year due to a long cold spring.

There is more interest in heavily insulated hives now. Bee farmers are becoming interested in polystyrene hives. There are wraps (like anoraks) for Nationals, and there are unconventional hives like Warres and WBCs where one of the main design features is insulation. If you want to move hives around for pollination purposes, though, you want them nice and light, which generally means the insulation is not great - so Nationals need more stores for winter.

So the answer is, "it depends"

 

[PaulCarroll]

I agree - the two most important elements in my humble opinion are to ensure starvation is avoided and that hives are kept warm and dry. I believe that work in the apiary in September and October is so important and influences the opportunity for a successful season in the forthcoming year. Simple attention to detail such as feeding systematically responding to what the bees are telling you in terms of when they don't want anymore feed. Providing insulation and protection against the elements and then moving stores to the cluster if needed are all the beekeepers part of the unwritten contract with his/her bees in my opinion. The more care and attention we provide at this time of the year seems on average to be repaid in honey crop next summer. I may be being a little simplistic but find that trying to keep my beekeeping as simple as possible works for me as a hobby keeper!!

 

[Swarm]

Hi, I'm struggling with the idea that you've kept bees this long and have not picked up this information from all the books etc.

Me too.

 

[user 6228]

Maybe the OP is sceptical about whats written in the books.

I am too and I'm not alone

An emminent entomology Prof recently declared the commonly accepted number of 60,000 bees per colony as "probably bogus" as both he and another world renowned Prof had never been able to get much above 40,000

 

[drstitson]

An essentially full B+1/2 or 14x12.

 

[B+.]

I normally take my last honey harvest towards the end of July and in most previous years the bees have gone on to produce enough honey to get through the winter without a problem.

You can't be more than 15 miles from me and the forage in my area is pretty much the same. If you don't move your bees around, you'll have to feed from late July onwards in most years(but, watch out for wasps because there a nuisance around here).
As others have said, a National double brood or a brood and a half as an absolute minimum. Personally, I try to overwinter in double Langstroths with the top box full of stores. That way, you won't be running around like an idiot trying to feed fondant between cold, wet spring days.
Are you a member of North Bucks or Bedfordshire BKA?

 

[fred scuttle]

I'd not considered it idiotic to feed your bees fondant in early Spring if they need it... More idiotic to sit at home then wondering why you lost your colonies.... Just my opinion of course, and no offence intended just don't want to give new beeks the wrong message on regular checking over Winter / Spring....

 

[B+.]

I'd not considered it idiotic to feed your bees fondant in early Spring if they need it...

Of course. Its much better to think ahead and provide adequate stores in late September/October though. I would even start earlier in my area so they have time to organise their stores for winter. I am amazed at the number of people who still think a single National brood box is enough to over-winter. A reasonable sized colony needs much more than that.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I am amazed at the number of people who still think a single National brood box is enough to over-winter.

If fed up during October they are usually fine regards stores until late March or early April, may not be so with Italians though.

 

[oliver90owner]

And it depends on what people call winter. By March, if the weather is warm, they may be brooding heavily. That uses up far more stores than simply 'over-wintering'. That would need thin syrup feeding in those circumstances.

Fondant being fed late in the winter usually means too little stores taken into winter or uncertain beekeepers worrying too much. I run 14 x 12s and have not fed fondant over the winter for about the last seven or eight years apart from a couple special cases which were noted much earlier than panic feeding.

Indeed, it is more likely that stores are removed in spring to allow faster expansion. My losses over the last ten years has been well below 10%. There will always be some unavoidable winter losses. I might get a poor winter result at any time, but I would not worry too much as there would be a simple reason for it. I don't count drone laying queens as a winter loss, unless the colony is lost. They are often due to a failing queen being replaced by a virgin before the winter. Can't really call taking a colony into winter without a fecund queen as a winter loss; if a nosemic queen and no brood, that is recoverable if spare queens are overwintered, so not a winter loss.

I've only bad two drone laying queens in springtime, over the above period, btw. One was known to be late supercedure, for certain.

 

[B+.]

I've only bad two drone laying queens in springtime, over the above period, btw. One was known to be late supercedure, for certain.

I know we've covered this subject before, but, I had one queen in a 5-frame Langstroth nuc that turned into a drone layer eventually. I would usually have despatched her much earlier but I left her as an experiment to see if she would mate: she didn't
Are you aware of any literature that would suggest why some queens don't go on mating flights? Other queens in the same apiary mated well so it wasn't a lack of mature drones or poor weather. I wondered if I had somehow damaged her during the marking but there was nothing visible (I emerge queens in an incubator and mark them with numbered plastic disks before introducing them to nucs). It is possible that glue had somehow been transferred onto her wings and she couldn't fly but I am very careful of that sort of thing. I wonder if the bees prevent her from going on a mating flight sometimes (unlikely??).

 

[Thymallus]

A reasonable sized colony needs much more than that.

And therein lies one of the biggest mysteries in beekeeping. What constitutes a reasonable sized colony! Or a strong colony or a weak one.
We regularly bandy these words around as reference points but rarely define what they mean.
For example, a colleague proudly showed my his "strong" colony of bees. It was on 6 frames of brood in a single national brood box. To my set of reference points that is a weak colony.
It's a perennial problem that could do with addressing in some way.

 

[B+.]

What constitutes a reasonable sized colony!

I agree. The problem is that a strong colony in spring on a National frame would be different to one in summer on a Langstroth/Dadant/Commercial/etc. You could possibly use a percentage of the available space as a reference but, again, they wouldn't be comparable with different hive types.
I mentioned a method used in other European countries in another thread (http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35291) but there didn't seem to be much interest.

 

[Hivemaker.]

For example, a colleague proudly showed my his "strong" colony of bees. It was on 6 frames of brood in a single national brood box.

When...was in in late may or October, what strain of bees are they, Amm or Italian.