Windbreak netting distance & height

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Do higher losses over a given winter in the UK correlate with a higher than usual autumn ivy flow perhaps?

no - I don't know what the obsession is with Ivy - I think it's a wonderful source of late autumn nectar and pollen.

 

[Antipodes]

The weather is causing so many anomalies in nature

Forecast 34 degrees today and then the warmest night expected in over 100 years.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Do higher losses over a given winter in the UK correlate with a higher than usual autumn ivy flow perhaps?

This idea is brought is fairly often
Bees and Ivy have coexisted for millennia
If you consider that a winter prepped National has around 40lb of stores that is 8 frames. The bees cluster in between the frames of stores and eat them as the winter progresses. If you find few bees and lots of stores isn't it more likely that there have simply been not enough bees through the winter to eat them?

 

[Moobee]

When did you nadir the shallow?

When did you nadir the shallow?

Hi Dani, all the supers were nadired towards the end of September. Was my timing wrong in this instance?

 

[Antipodes]

The bees cluster in between the frames of stores

Yeah ..but not really. Bees need wintering cluster space with empty cells.
Also, you misunderstood about the ivy. I mentioned ivy because it is a late season food source and some years, perhaps I think last year, it is particularly abundant. With your milder autumns now (with the climate warming) and the hive packed with food (doesn't matter what sort of food...it could be Ivy, human intervention with sugar syrup, intertbee, fondant or whatever) the bees haven't got time to eat enough of the stores to create proper cluster space with empty cells (and perhaps also areas for the queen to lay), and then along comes a cold snap (perhaps like in the Oxford valley which is colder than surrounding areas), ...whammo! Trouble. 37 out of 40 colonies gone.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yeah ..but not really. Bees need wintering cluster space with empty cells.
Also, you misunderstood about the ivy. I mentioned ivy because it is a late season food source and some years, perhaps I think last year, it is particularly abundant. With your milder autumns now (with the climate warming) and the hive packed with food (doesn't matter what sort of food...it could be Ivy, human intervention with sugar syrup, intertbee, fondant or whatever) the bees haven't got time to eat enough of the stores to create proper cluster space with empty cells (and perhaps also areas for the queen to lay), and then along comes a cold snap (perhaps like in the Oxford valley which is colder than surrounding areas), ...whammo! Trouble. 37 out of 40 colonies gone.

I’m sure the bees do both, cluster on the frames and in empty cells. A decent size colony easily weathers a cold snap.

 

[Moobee]

Apiguard can be so-so in it's effectiveness , I gave up using it several years ago after losing colonies and have ever since simply vaped OA for my treatments.
As for nadiring I don't bother, I prefer to extract any thing left or unsealed and feed it back properly above their heads so they actually take it down and store it, that way one knows for sure they are dealing with it.
Come mid October I may think about excess sugar feed if I feel the ivy is slow or colonies heft lightly , typically I will have cast an eye on the main stores within, during late Sept and calculated in lbs how much they have .

I’ve not had issues using Apiguard as my autumn treatment but think I will go OA this year.

 

[Antipodes]

I’m sure the bees do both, cluster on the frames and in empty cells. A decent size colony easily weathers a cold snap.

They tend to pack food around the brood in autumn. It's what they do, sacrificing brood space and empty cells. Looking in my nadired colonies at the moment, any cell without capped brood in it has nectar, uncapped honey, capped honey or pollen in it..just a few eggs. Packed to billy-o. Little brood at all really . No totally empty cells that I can see. They aren't using much food as there is not much active brooding (we often hear of and see a total brood break in autumn-brooding completely wound back ) and it's that warm, there is no need to use anything much in that respect. As I sit here now typing, it's 25 degrees at 6.45am on an autumn morning. We've just absolutely smashed the March highest minimum temperature since records began.

 

[Curly green finger's]

They tend to pack food around the brood in autumn. It's what they do, sacrificing brood space and empty cells. Looking in my nadired colonies at the moment, any cell without capped brood in it has nectar, uncapped honey, capped honey or pollen in it..just a few eggs. Packed to billy-o. Little brood at all really . No totally empty cells that I can see. They aren't using much food as there is not much active brooding (we often hear of and see a total brood break in autumn-brooding completely wound back ) and it's that warm, there is no need to use anything much in that respect. As I sit here now typing, it's 25 degrees at 6.45am on an autumn morning. We've just absolutely smashed the March highest minimum temperature since records began.

Your autumns getting warmer to?
Over here we’ve lost over 3 weeks of frosts this winter.

 

[Antipodes]

Your autumns getting warmer to?
Over here we’ve lost over 3 weeks of frosts this winter.

Absolutely yes. The waters of the east coast here are warming at more than four times the global average. It's staggering Curly.

https://www.redmap.org.au/article/c...le-isles-doorstep-eac-warms-tasmanian-waters/

On land, it seems to keep getting warmer and drier. This past summer we were about 1.5 degrees warmer than average (during the day) and about a degree warmer overnight. The dry really stuffs up the forests where the honey comes from. They catch on fire for one thing.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/tas/summary.shtml

 

[Antipodes]

If you find few bees and lots of stores isn't it more likely that there have simply been not enough bees through the winter to eat them?

No, I don't believe so. If you read the report linked in my earlier post and the field evidence therein, it was said of the hives that died that, "Typically they had been strong colonies going into winter". I take it that by strong colonies they mean lots of bees and by "going into winter" I take it that they meant basically "at or upon the occurrence of winter".
There could be issues with honey bound colonies in mild (and getting milder) autumns with good natural flows (of ivy for example), both in relation to lack of space for the queen to lay up winter bees, and then a lowish demand on food (not much brood) with a lack of cluster space in empty cells in cold snaps. Big colonies are going to need potentially more cluster space which contains emtpy cells.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Big colonies are going to need potentially more cluster space which contains emtpy cells.

I have some clear crown boards. Mine seem to cluster without empty cells in the two-beespace between the combs. I shall check mine likely in April. Going into winter mine were stuffed with stores and big colonies. I'm not convinced of the Ivy theory. If that were so then there would be far more losses than 40

 

[Moobee]

I have some clear crown boards. Mine seem to cluster without empty cells in the two-beespace between the combs. I shall check mine likely in April. Going into winter mine were stuffed with stores and big colonies. I'm not convinced of the Ivy theory. If that were so then there would be far more losses than 40

I re-read all my hive notes to double check - all mine that I lost were strong colonies going into winter and had stores in the BB ((as well as the nadired supers). When I opened them up, there were just small handfuls of dead bees clustered on the comb. No heads in cells as they were all sitting on top of stores.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

'strong colonies going into winter' means very little really - if those bees are the residue of the late summer foragers they will all be burnt out and dead by the time the last bonfire night firework is let off

 

[hemo]

Nosema will kill off a colony and is a silent killer that can often be forgot about.
I think the other option one needs to think about about is Autumn/ winter feed and whether critical laying space was taken up. The same can be said even if the stores were naturally collected by the colony, laying space is still needed for 10 - 15k of bees to be laid up over the Autumn.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Nosema will kill off a colony and is a silent killer that can often be forgot about.
I think the other option one needs to think about about is Autumn/ winter feed and whether critical laying space was taken up. The same can be said even if the stores were naturally collected by the colony, laying space is still needed for 10 - 15k of bees to be laid up over the Autumn.

Yes it’s why I leave feeding till as late as I can then it gets banged in quickly

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hi Dani, all the supers were nadired towards the end of September. Was my timing wrong in this instance?

If you had already fed for winter then yes.It would be been ok on top. The only time I nadir supers is when there is some unripe honey there and they go on before I feed them.

 

[ericbeaumont]

a few likely feed far too much, too early and don't give much thought in UK about later ivy flows that go on longer due to milder Autumns

More than a few, I reckon, but it is tricky to read a colony at that fluid time of year when competing needs - brood, varroa, stores - must be met.

I recall older advice that autumn feed should be given incrementally, which makes sense as some of it would be used for feeding brood and keeping the queen laying, yet without clogging combs. A late bulk feed - or ivy - would bring the colony up to weight later on.

The issue is that novices (and not so novices) aren't aware of ivy or the bulk it gives, or fear that it may not produce reliably, and so over-feed instead. One September I bumped into an old boy (kept bees for years) and he complained cheerfully that having fed heavily in August for winter, discovered that he'd have to feed them again as they'd already used the lot.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I recall older advice that autumn feed should be given incrementally, which makes sense as some of it would be used for feeding brood and keeping the queen laying, yet without clogging combs

Yet I was taught the opposite ( unless there was a dearth like last year)

 

[Moobee]

If you had already fed for winter then yes.It would be been ok on top. The only time I nadir supers is when there is some unripe honey there and they go on before I feed them.

I hadn’t fed for winter as it was so unseasonably warm, they were still foraging like mad and most had filled a super after my last extraction so as some were part capped, I thought best course of action was to nadir & allow them to pull the stores up into the brood boxes. All hives good weight.
Interestingly the hives that have survived hadn’t made enough to nadir and were fed syrup in the autumn. A (hard) lesson learned I think.
Thanks for the advice.