tempted to do OA tomorrow

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beeno

Queen Bee
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Hi All,
I am tempted to do OA tomorrow weather permitting. It will be the end of two weeks continuous frost (not three) and may be as good as it gets? No pollen coming in the week prior to frosty period. However, what I do find attractive is that it is forecast 10C. Any thoughts?
 
Hi Beeno,
Even better next W/E here in ME8 Medway.Kent
Sat 3/12c
Sun 2/12c

Whatever you do don't hang about inside, get crown board back on pronto.
Bob.
 
2 weeks means even if she stopped laying then that there would be sealed brood.............and guess where the varoa mite loves to live..........yep spot on.
For me its next weekend as it will be 3 weeks and even though I may have larvae I wont have any sealed

Dont use cold oxallic and be quick and efficient.

Good luck and let us know what your knockdown is

Pete D
 
2 weeks means even if she stopped laying then that there would be sealed brood.............and guess where the varoa mite loves to live..........yep spot on.
For me its next weekend as it will be 3 weeks and even though I may have larvae I wont have any sealed

Dont use cold oxallic and be quick and efficient.

Good luck and let us know what your knockdown is

Pete D

The varroa will start going into any new unsealed brood at 18 hrs prior to sealing, so if HM lays today, that's 21st December before the varroa have started diving into the brood
 
2 weeks means even if she stopped laying then that there would be sealed brood.............and guess where the varoa mite loves to live..........yep spot on.
For me its next weekend as it will be 3 weeks and even though I may have larvae I wont have any sealed

Dont use cold oxallic and be quick and efficient.

Good luck and let us know what your knockdown is

Pete D

Hi Pete,
Thanks. I will do my PH weather permitting and see what the knockdown is before I do the others. Long range weather forecast has been rubbish for my area. This was the colony with the highest number of mite drop 9 per day (I know other variables may have changed that position comparatively speaking). She is due a brood break as she never stopped so I might be lucky. So many ifs and buts and they don't read the books anyhow. The Forsythia was flowering in someones garden, so maybe spring is just around the corner!
 
I belive that the egg laying is effected as much, if not more, by the length of day as well as temps. Also, I think oxalic is best done when they are clustered in the seams and at tomorrows temps they may be a bit lively when you take the crown board off.
 
I belive that the egg laying is effected as much, if not more, by the length of day as well as temps. Also, I think oxalic is best done when they are clustered in the seams and at tomorrows temps they may be a bit lively when you take the crown board off.

I can see why you think its day length but the research says day length isnt a major factor... and its not temp either ...

that leaves ?
 
Hi All,
I am tempted to do OA tomorrow weather permitting. It will be the end of two weeks continuous frost (not three) and may be as good as it gets? No pollen coming in the week prior to frosty period. However, what I do find attractive is that it is forecast 10C. Any thoughts?

It is middwinter now. After 2 weeks it becomes January.
If the hive has not brood break, it has not.

The probability to brood brake is biggest during these weeks. Soon bees start naturally again brood rearing.

It makes no harm to bees if you give oxalic acid, even if the hive has brood.
The stuff affects 2 weeks or so.


If I bye here queens from South Europe, they often continue brood reading in Autumn so that they die.



What affects most to laying in winter? - It is a beekeeper, because he selects the bee stock- Some keep the brood brake and some not. Then there are cases and crossings between these.

Continuous feeding affects too, but when pollen store is finish, bees eate larvae away and stop to make new larvae. - Lack of protein.

Breeded queens are not so natural as in theory.
The colony stops brood rearing in autumn but often it starts it again when winter feeding starts.

But the probability that hive is broodless....
 
I am tempted to do OA tomorrow weather permitting. It will be the end of two weeks continuous frost (not three) and may be as good as it gets?...

Probably too early, you'd be more likely to catch them broodless around New Year or a little later. Although nothing is certain in the UK. Patterns elsewhere, such as the US are not reproduced here.

There is a FIBKA article here: http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/articles/supobs.html
Uncredited, but there are references to work by the NBU, actually looking at tropilaelaps mite susceptibility, and work by Bernard Mobus near Aberdeen in the 1970s (the paper is copied on Polyhive's web site). There's not a lot of work on brood counting over winter because of the assumption that bee colonies are best left alone. The research findings, as the article says, are that:

"Like the subsequent NBU results no predictable period of broodlessness was found. Unlike American observation, stops in egg laying were seen more often in the New Year."

Different hives in the same apiary have broodless periods at different times. It does seem that a broodless period is more likely in the New Year rather than December. The variation within an apiary implies that there is no simple link to any of geography, forage, weather or daylight. Some hives have more than one broodless period, some none, and those hives can be right next to each other. A prediction of exactly when a hive will be broodless appears to be elusive.
 
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"Like the subsequent NBU results no predictable period of broodlessness was found. Unlike American observation, stops in egg laying were seen more often in the New Year."

.

American beekeepers are blind what is " America". Typically they mean their home door.
WE IN AMERICA DO THAT AND THAT. 300 milj people

Florida is at the level of North Africa. Canada has altitude like Neatherland.

Alaska is at same level as Finland. Helsinki and Anchorage have boath 60 degree altitude.



When I had my bees on forest pastures, willow herb stopped its blooming at the firts week of August. So my bees stopped larva feeding too.
Nowadays I like to keep my bees near red clover fields and so brooding continues one month longer. Red clover makes winter clusters strong.

2 frame mating nucs stop very early because it is too cold at night at the end of August.



.
 
I've done lots of my bees with oxalic in the last week and there wasnt any brood in the few I checked.
 
mbc

I know you're in the middle of the gulf stream but did you actually open up and go through brood frames to have a look?

It was 'christmas crackers' here all week!

richard
 
American beekeepers are blind what is " America". Typically they mean their home door.
WE IN AMERICA DO THAT AND THAT. 300 milj people

Florida is at the level of North Africa. Canada has altitude like Neatherland.

Alaska is at same level as Finland. Helsinki and Anchorage have boath 60 degree altitude.



When I had my bees on forest pastures, willow herb stopped its blooming at the firts week of August. So my bees stopped larva feeding too.
Nowadays I like to keep my bees near red clover fields and so brooding continues one month longer. Red clover makes winter clusters strong.

2 frame mating nucs stop very early because it is too cold at night at the end of August.



.

Hi Finman,
Red or white? I always assumed you had yours on white.
 
.
Luckily I did not understand

short of humour in UK

I was trying some Scandinavian humour there. Obviously, failed. Reading your posts I always assumed that you had your bees on white clover and now you mentioned red clover. Whats the difference to the bees and what do the farmers do with these crops?
 
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The harvesting system of hay fields have changed so that we have not much white clower. And we have not cattle any more here and white clover was usual on cattle pastures.
The grass is cutted several times in summer and they store the hay into white plastic balls.

Red clover is used in hay mixtures and it is used as in fields as natural nutrition to soil.
Red clover blooms late in August when the is no other pollen plants. Modern red clover does not give nectar, what ever the weather is. It is probably breeded to grow continiously.

Red clover is now usual but bees do not visit on them if they have other flowers to forage.

2 years ago I looked red clover field. It was 6 hectares. i saw one bumlebee there.

After two weeks when fire flower has stopped to bloom, there was 4 bumbles per square meter.

6 x 10 000 x 4 = 240 000 bumbles in one field!
Last summer was wet and bumbles died before August.

.
 
American beekeepers are blind what is " America". Typically they mean their home door.
It's a quote from the article citing a specific research paper. Avitable, A., (1978) Brood Rearing in Honeybee Colonies from late Autumn to early Spring, Journal of Apicultural Research 17(2): 69-73

They found there are conditions in New England (University of Connecticut) where bees were found to have a consistent broodless period in late November and early December. All the UK research I have seen says broodless periods here are variable, even within the same apiaries.
 
Depends also on the strain of bee,location,forage, a great many are broodless here from late August until late september.
 
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