What did you do in the Apiary today?

[madasafish]

-1C here.
Snow still on parts sheltered from South.

Not seen a bee for weeks. Al hive roofs covered in frost today as opposed to snow yesterday.

Not weather for opening a TBH.. (which is most of the time!)

 

[Tonych224]

43 Varroa Drop over a 16 day period

Week 1 = 32
Week 2 = 11

Have removed board now as lots of condensation was forming so need air circulation back. Cold weather passed now... I hope!

As this is my first year maybe I didn't apply enough OA in the right places 30ml over 6 seams...didn't want to burn their eyes!!

 

[beeno]

managed to get down to my 2 hives to do the oxalic today. Both clustered and decidely upset when I took the roof off they were even more upset with the acid being put in. Another first for this newbie ticked off the massive list of stuff to do in the beekeeping lark.

My first hive does look however look like I have a DLQ in residence. I really have had no luck with that bugger.

Hi sgeek,
If you think, you probably do, and if you are completely honest with yourself you probably know you do. This is coming from a newbie and 'realist' some people call me a pessimist. I do believe that standard wisdom is that there should be hardly any drones in the hive at this time of the year. How many workers are there left?

 

[beeno]

43 Varroa Drop over a 16 day period

Week 1 = 32
Week 2 = 11

Have removed board now as lots of condensation was forming so need air circulation back. Cold weather passed now... I hope!

As this is my first year maybe I didn't apply enough OA in the right places 30ml over 6 seams...didn't want to burn their eyes!!

Hi Tonych,
I have more confidence in your trickling skills than you do yourself. Let's face it is not difficult. It may be that your bees only had small infestation (mine 392 over 4 hives first week), had brood OA does not kill varroa in brood or you did not see to count all the varroa on the board. I actually picked mine off the board and was amazed how many i missed first count with glasses! Anyway you'r done on that score. Roll on spring and sunshine. Hazel pollen nearly there here!

 

[Rob den Dekker]

Hi Rob den Dekker,
They can get to it? Signs of flying? Plenty of stores already? Hope it's three yeses.

Hi Beeno,

There have been signs of flying and I left them with plenty of stores. The only thing I'm a bit paranoid about, is that it might be a bit high up, as I left a super and eke on, which had some stores in them and wasn't worth extracting. Will they cross the super to get to the hole in the crown board when they run out of stores in the brood and super, I'm wondering?

Cheers for taking an interest!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Will they cross the super to get to the hole in the crown board when they run out of stores in the brood and super, I'm wondering?

Cheers for taking an interest!

Probably not.
If there were enough stores in the super they may have moved up there for the winter though.

 

[Ely]

Visited the hives to find them flying. Hives are tilted dangerously though as the stands have sunk into the water logged earth. Time to get some breezeblocks out and make a better stand. Also fed fondant as they felt light. Would bees feed from fondant or leave it alone if stores (ivy honey) were still present? Do they store it or eat it straight away?

 

[Rob den Dekker]

Probably not.
If there were enough stores in the super they may have moved up there for the winter though.

Could be. Didn't see them when I looked through the hole in the crown board though. Maybe I should have put the fondant on top of the brood frames in hindsight. Not much I can do about it now without opening the whole thing up I guess.

 

[dclewis]

Finally got round to cutting the hedge around the apiary as the last of the snow melted and the sun came out temps hit a dizzy 10° the veil was needed as the bees came out in strength to reorientate and clense and didn't much appreciate the hedge trimmer!

 

[beeno]

Could be. Didn't see them when I looked through the hole in the crown board though. Maybe I should have put the fondant on top of the brood frames in hindsight. Not much I can do about it now without opening the whole thing up I guess.

Hi again,
I am probably going to be shot down in flames..., but next day temp. of 12-13C I would take super off, put a flattened bit of fondant on top of brood frames followed by crown board, unless they were well stocked with stores in the brood box. If it is cold and they are out of stores they won't move up anyway, so super largely only more room for them to heat. If they are flying they will have broken cluster anyway, but you may chill the brood. However, a worse scenario would be starvation. Be as quick as you can. Good luck if you do it.

 

[Rob den Dekker]

Hi again,
I am probably going to be shot down in flames..., but next day temp. of 12-13C I would take super off, put a flattened bit of fondant on top of brood frames followed by crown board, unless they were well stocked with stores in the brood box. If it is cold and they are out of stores they won't move up anyway, so super largely only more room for them to heat. If they are flying they will have broken cluster anyway, but you may chill the brood. However, a worse scenario would be starvation. Be as quick as you can. Good luck if you do it.

Cheers for the suggestion, but seeing as they went into winter with plenty of stores, I don't think I'll risk disturbing them now.

 

[itma]

... I left a super and eke on, which had some stores in them and wasn't worth extracting. Will they cross the super to get to the hole in the crown board when they run out of stores in the brood and super, I'm wondering?

Cheers for taking an interest!

Cheers for the suggestion, but seeing as they went into winter with plenty of stores, I don't think I'll risk disturbing them now.

Rob, firstly I'm confused by the eke. Please elucidate.
Secondly, I hope you removed the queen excluder before winter.
Thirdly, if the super (and whatever) are now empty of stores (seemingly they were far from full in the Autumn) they are now a handicap to your bees and should be removed (to safe storage) at the first weather opportunity you get.
Quite apart from giving the bees excess draughty space, unless you intend running brood and a half, you want that thing off the hive before any brood gets laid in it.



IMHO, if you thought it was necessary to disturb them to put some fondant into the hive, its worth a little more disturbance to put the fondant where the bees might best be able to use it.
If you have assessed their current position and decided to add fondant, then its worth doing it properly.
But you shouldn't be offering fondant at all, if you are confident that they still have plenty stores, now.

 

[Luka22]

We have fed more fondant today. All our hives are very small colonies and they had only small stores, so even if it sounds crazy, we keep opening them every 1.5-2 weeks and put some fondant straight on the frames. They also got fondant on top of the CB and when its warm, they eat from there, but as soon its colder they stop walking up there. That is why we feed them directly on the frames and each time, most of the previous fondant is gone.

So, yes it sounds crazy to open them up in winter, but so far we must have done it right because they are all still alive and we are sure they would have died by now otherwise. I would think most important is to be quick and than they should be fine. At least ours should not die from starvation, I hope.

 

[Rob den Dekker]

Rob, firstly I'm confused by the eke. Please elucidate.
Secondly, I hope you removed the queen excluder before winter.
Thirdly, if the super (and whatever) are now empty of stores (seemingly they were far from full in the Autumn) they are now a handicap to your bees and should be removed (to safe storage) at the first weather opportunity you get.
Quite apart from giving the bees excess draughty space, unless you intend running brood and a half, you want that thing off the hive before any brood gets laid in it.

IMHO, if you thought it was necessary to disturb them to put some fondant into the hive, its worth a little more disturbance to put the fondant where the bees might best be able to use it.
If you have assessed their current position and decided to add fondant, then its worth doing it properly.
But you shouldn't be offering fondant at all, if you are confident that they still have plenty stores, now.

Cheers for your comments. The eke is still there, as they had made brace comb in it when the apiguard was in there and seeing as it's only a few cm high and there were stores in there, I decided to leave it.

Not to worry, I have removed my queen excluder. I don't know if the super is empty of stores, I just popped fondant on the crown board so they can take it if the need it. I guess from your comment you don't agree with that practice.

I don't think taking the roof off and replacing some fondant isn't as much disturbance as actually exposing the broodbox to the elements.

 

[Luka22]

I don't think taking the roof off and replacing some fondant isn't as much disturbance as actually exposing the broodbox to the elements.

You misunderstood, we have some thin cut fondant directly on the frames in the BB under the CB and a Plastic pot of fondant on top of the CB. They only eat a little bit from above the CB and only when it is warmer, but eat all from the frames. So, we are opening them up and expose the broodbox, but still they will rather die from starvation than from few seconds of cold air. At least, this is our opinion. The CB got some Kingspan, with a cut-out in the middle for the fondant and on top of that is the roof.

They are only small colonies, but we think we do our best that they make it through the winter and each time we see them, they are still moving and eating the fondant, so we have to wait and see.

 

[Rob den Dekker]

You misunderstood, we have some thin cut fondant directly on the frames in the BB under the CB and a Plastic pot of fondant on top of the CB. They only eat a little bit from above the CB and only when it is warmer, but eat all from the frames. So, we are opening them up and expose the broodbox, but still they will rather die from starvation than from few seconds of cold air. At least, this is our opinion. The CB got some Kingspan, with a cut-out in the middle for the fondant and on top of that is the roof.

They are only small colonies, but we think we do our best that they make it through the winter and each time we see them, they are still moving and eating the fondant, so we have to wait and see.

I was responding to Itma's post.

 

[Luka22]

Oh, sorry, just realise it....

 

[itma]

Yes (Luka), a few seconds (minutes even) of opening the box in +10C 'cold' will do negligible harm to the bees. Brood is more sensitive, but 1/ there ought to be little or none right now and 2/ even they are more robust than you might guess. (ADDED and 3 / any small amount of brood now is pretty inconsequential to the colony's survival.) Even brood should be just fine as long as you don't start pulling brood frames right out of the box.
Its not totally unusual to rearrange frames in the brood box, to bring stores to the bees (and get empty frames out to the ends) on a mild day in wintertime.
Lactic acid spraying (rather than Oxalic trickling) *requires* every brood frame to be taken out for spraying - and +5C is generally regarded as fine for that.

Again - if you have adjudged that they do or could need fondant, then put it where they can access it easily.
If you think they don't need it, don't put fondant on the hive.


If there is any doubt, feed (properly) while the weather is mild.
You don't get a second chance with starvation.

 

[drex]

RdD. It sounds like you have a BB + a super on, which is the configuration that I use on my nationals to overwinter. My colonies are big established colonies and this is usually enough to get them through winter. You said you put fondant on in December and that has not been touched. I would leave them be, just keep an eye on them by hefting. If you are not used to this, get some luggage scales and weigh the hives, or heft an empty set up ( if you have the kit) and compare to your populated hives - many threads on this recently.

It would have been better to have removed the eke, even if there was some honey in the brace comb, as the wild comb is only likely to get worse, and might be a right old mess come spring, but I would not worry about that now.

Of course the main thing to do is to feed well in September so that you can be confident that they will have enough stores to go through winter.

Looking at the cappings under the hive in winter can give you an idea of what is going on as well.

Not to disturb your bees without good reason applies at all times of year, especially in winter

If you feed too much now, the hive will be sugar bound and HM will not have room to lay. I will start keeping a closer eye on my hives from now on as laying rate will be on increase, as will consumption of stores. I will not open up, at least until March, unless other things are not right and indicate a need to do so. I overfed, over winter, in my first year of beekeeping.

 

[Rob den Dekker]

Cheers Drex, I will follow your advice. First year taking my bees through the winter, so a bit paranoid. Can't wait to open the hive up again!