Newbees and slightly worried

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Your obs hive is indoors I believe? maybe as it's warmer less of a necessity to maintain heat? or could be they're showing off

 

[bee ginnner]

Take these scenarios
scenario 1 brood box with stores - bees will move en masse around the frames in the brood following the food - they will stay in their cozy little cluster with queen safely tucked nice and warm in the middle - bees will feed her.
scenario 2- brood box then super with stores -bees will move en masse around the frames in the brood following the food, bees will move up onto the frames in the super when food supply in the brood runs out - they will stay in their cozy little cluster with queen safely tucked nice and warm in the middle - bees will feed her.
scenario 3 - brood box, crown board with hole in, lump of fondant over hole - super as an eke over fondant -bees will move en masse around the frames in the brood following the food, when food runs out cluster will move until directly under hole and some bees will pop up, get fondant and tuck back into cluster - queen safely tucked up etc etc
scenario 4 - brood box, queen excluder then super with stores -bees will move en masse around the frames in the brood following the food with queen safely tucked, etc.etc, until stores run out in brood then
either bees will move up onto the frames in the super queen left behind under QX not safely tucked up etc etc therefore queen is dead
OR
Bees being bees refuse to abandon the queen to her fate thus all stay beneath the QX within sight but not reach of plentiful stores thus whole colony dies - ISOLATION STARVATION.
I know someone who this has happened to - not a beginner but an experienced beek (I won't embarrass the SBI in question by saying any more

yes but none of those are the scenario that i am describing.

 

[Dishmop]

Your obs hive is indoors I believe? maybe as it's warmer less of a necessity to maintain heat? or could be they're showing off

Yes it is indoors but if I touch it with the back of my fingers I can feel that the glass is often cold to the touch. Fresh air is still getting into the hive from the tube, but they still stay in the lower part of the hive (where the tube is) When the wind is strong they will move away from the tube, creating an vacant arc shaped area. Those that are on the store frames are either working or eating, but difficult to work out the difference. Those on the empty brood frames are doing nothing.
I suppose that until somebody builds a hive full of cameras we will probably never know exactly what they do in the winter with regard to moving about, but even that would not equate to another hive which has a QE on and a reduced entrance block and an OMF sitting in the middle of a field with no stand and no shelter.
One would think that if they are warm they might decide to move about a bit more, but they have no reason to do so,, waste of time, cant go outside, lets pretend we're teenagers and just lounge around until the sun comes out, raid the larder and go out and annoy the neighbours. So whilst they are not doing much they only need food to stay alive and make heat to keep warm.

 

[REDWOOD]

yes but none of those are the scenario that i am describing.

Please tell me the scenario you are describing,

 

[BeeJayBee]

yes but none of those are the scenario that i am describing.

Please tell me the scenario you are describing,

That's why I made this post earlier :-

We have the brood at the bottom with an alluminium excluder then a super and then the queen board on top of that. We started with the fondant over the oval hole in the board but not a sniff of being taken, so I put it directly on top of the excluder and they seem to be really interested in it now.

Just to be sure everybody's talking about the same components it might be worth checking the diagram on this page http://barnsleybeekeepers.org.uk/hive.html

I'd assumed you'd made one or two typos in your description, but I wanted to be sure everybody was talking about the same components, and where they are in your hive.

 

[drstitson]

"However, it still leaves us Newbees with the problem of how to assess when a hive is light on supplies. Both hefting and weighing rely on knowing the base weight - which depends so much on individual configuration and what's going on inside. "

get a suitable box (brood box with floor and roof ideal but cardboard box is fine, just needs filling more).

fill with bags of sugar.

heft.

 

[itma]

"However, it still leaves us Newbees with the problem of how to assess when a hive is light on supplies. Both hefting and weighing rely on knowing the base weight - which depends so much on individual configuration and what's going on inside. "

No - the idea is to be able to infer "what's going on inside" from an external 'measurement'.

That 'measurement' might be precise (from a digital luggage scale) or approximate (by feel and comparison with memory), but the principle is the same.
Using a scale provides an objective measurement, without training or experience.
Luggage scales (a hook hanging from a handle) are cheap. Even with an LCD display you should get change from £10. Those with a dial were on offer in Asda and Poundland for £1.
Some screws (pennies) or a couple of hooks (couple of quid) and a (free) short length of cord will allow the scale to hook onto the hive(s).
It is easier to lift left and right sides of the hive individually and add them, than to try and lift and balance the whole (heavy) hive from a strap while taking the measurement!
Just lift a few mm, and as near straight up as possible.


Measuring the *total* hive weight a couple of times at Autumn inspections *and* using those inspections to visually estimate the stores will give a good enough idea of the net weight of the hive hardware.

Example, two inspections (a week apart) -
1/ Measured total 19kg, stores estimate 10 kg
2/ Measured total 23kg, stores estimate 12 kg
The first indicates 9kg of hive, the second 11kg, so lets average the results and say that hive would weigh 10kg with zero stores.
And that in turn means that you shouldn't worry about emergency feeding until that hive was showing a measured weight of less than about 15kg ... (decide your own safety margin, depending on the season - 5kg stores in March would be much less worrying than 5kg in early January.)
And if you add or remove ekes, etc, its simple arithmetic to compensate.

 

[Dishmop]

Has anybody ever carried out a week by week test to see how much (approx) is consummed each week?

i.e. Do they eat steadily all the while throughout the winter?

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Little is consumed at this time of year. Once brood rearing starts - around mid Jan perhaps, then fuel consumption increases markedly.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

yes but none of those are the scenario that i am describing.

Maybe you'd like to let us know which particular scenario you actually had in mind and we can try and answer.

In your second post you described scenario 4 then in your next post 'something like' (I think) scenario 3 but without the crown board to separate fondant from brood box.
If you are using the super as an eke - i.e. with no frames in - just an empty box to house the fondant in which in this case IMO should be above the crown board in a suitable container then surrounded by insulation the bees won't 'get up' there and leave the queen behind - same if you put the fondant directly on the frames then an empty super on top (i.e. no frames in, no insulation) the bees will just stay on the frames under the fondant and help themselves although in that particular scenario they will have a lot of space above them to heat up.

 

[Geohorn]

Today we fitted a mouse guard, cleared the entrance of a few dead bees then weighed the entire hive with base but minus the roof. It totalled 38lb. But what we don't know is what weight a National hive is with 11 frames in the brood (I think!) the super is empty I,e, no frames. Be good to know what it was empty but we didn't know at the time about hefting!!
They have been given fondant and are eating it pretty quickly! Still some bees out and about collecting pollen! I will heft again next week to see if there is any change in weight

 

[beeno]

Little is consumed at this time of year. Once brood rearing starts - around mid Jan perhaps, then fuel consumption increases markedly.

Hi all,
That statement is based on a 'normal' British winter whatever that is these days. I would like to 'caveat' that as two of my smaller colonies have lots of cappings under OMF which would indicate that they are consuming winter stores at a rate of knots. Also, as far as I am concerned, based on late inspection and observations at the hive entrance, neither have they had a brood break yet (apologies to Oliver for this statement but I have to listen to my bees).
Yes, ITMA I do know the big picture. However, I did not realise that 1:1 spring feeding was to assist in bread making, so thanks for that, but I do not intend to do that if I can help it.

 

[Outlander]

Hi all,
That statement is based on a 'normal' British winter whatever that is these days. I would like to 'caveat' that as two of my smaller colonies have lots of cappings under OMF which would indicate that they are consuming winter stores at a rate of knots. Also, as far as I am concerned, based on late inspection and observations at the hive entrance, neither have they had a brood break yet (apologies to Oliver for this statement but I have to listen to my bees).
Yes, ITMA I do know the big picture. However, I did not realise that 1:1 spring feeding was to assist in bread making, so thanks for that, but I do not intend to do that if I can help it.

Would that be a sweet loaf then or honey bread.

 

[itma]

Would that be a sweet loaf then or honey bread.

Sourdough in this case!

 

[itma]

... then weighed the entire hive with base but minus the roof. It totalled 38lb. But what we don't know is what weight a National hive is with 11 frames in the brood (I think!) the super is empty I,e, no frames. Be good to know what it was empty but we didn't know at the time about hefting!!
They have been given fondant and are eating it pretty quickly! Still some bees out and about collecting pollen! I will heft again next week to see if there is any change in weight

This means that you are light by roughly whatever the weight of your hive might be.
Frames, wax and bees are pretty inconsequential compared to the weight of the hive structure and hopefully the stores. .
A poly national brood + super + floor might weigh about 3kg. Ply might be more than 3x that. Cedar in between.

You should aim to heft/weigh with the roof in place (so you aren't taking it off all the time).

 

[drex]

Just working from memory, but when I weighed a cedar national - T's budget,( BB, floor and CB +roof)+ frames + empty comb + my Dave Cushman design single stand I think the whole lot went at 15 KG. Super plus drawn frames adds another 2.5 Kg.

 

[richardbees]

Geo

= national BB with 11 drawn frames, floor (not inc. stand) and cb weighs about 20lbs. I expect them to weigh minimum 55+lb plus by now. We've had lot's of discussion on this but imo it's too late to feed syrup so keep a block of fondant on top of the feed hole.