March came back at us
with another bout of cold and snowy weather.
But its spring now and I am ready to work with my bees.
In the past few warm days I cleaned out my six dead-outs to
see what I could learn. Two of the
dead-outs had been classed as weak hives last fall and I would say their loss
was due to starvation. Although I had
fed those two beginning in mid-August I could not find any honey in the entire
hive( 20 frames). The clusters of dead
bees were rather small. So I surmise
they had been too weak to even pack away the sugar syrup offered last
fall. If I had followed the edict to not
take weak hives into winter and combined those two hives I probably would have
avoided losing them.
One dead-out had the signs of a Nosema infection; diarrhea
deposits on the frame top bars. I may
need to reconsider my non-use of fumigilan.
There were at least 5 full frames of honey in the hive. However, I have not used fumigilan for several
years without signs of Nosema.
The fourth was interesting.
The cluster was on the left side of the hive. On the right side were 3 full frames of
honey. In the middle was a PLASTIC
foundation frame that did not get drawn out.
I think this bare frame acted a block during the cold weather and prevented
the bees from moving to the food supply.
The bees are hesitant to draw out plastic foundation except during the
honey flow and last year I was culling all undrawn plastic foundation from my
hives, but apparently missed that one.
The 5th was a strong Carniolan hive last fall
when I graded the hives. There was honey
in frames. No signs of Nosema, DWV or
other problems. I could blame it on an
un-acclimatized California package queen, but really I just don’t known.
The final dead-out had been a marginal Russian hive all last
summer and never made any surplus honey.
I think it was a case of the beekeeper having a sentimental heart and
giving a poorly performing queen a second and third chance instead of just
replacing her.
As previously written
I had graded all hives by strength in early October by quickly peeking under
the inner cover. I did this in about 5
seconds so I wouldn’t start second guessing myself. Strong hives had 8-10 frames covered with
bees. Medium hives 6-7 frames. Weak hives 5 or less frames.
A summary of the over-wintering statistics are:
-Overall there was 85% survival in my apiary although I
think one hive will dwindle away unless I give it a boost with bees from
another hive. My survival target last
fall was 70%, so I am happy.
-Losses by hive strength rating
Strong hives had
a 4% loss.
Medium hives had
a 30% loss.
Weak hives had a 66%
loss.
-Losses by queen type (ignoring strength)
Russian-8% loss
Ankle Biter-25%
loss NOTE: ankle biter hives had a higher percentage of weak and medium
strength hives due to their being started later in the summer.
Package Carniolan-40%
loss
-Losses by queen type (with hive strength recognized)
Russian strong
hives-0% Russian medium hives-25% Russian
weak hives-100%
AB strong hives-0% AB medium hives-34% AB weak hives-100%
Carniolan strong
hives-34% Carniolan medium hives-100% Carniolan
weak hives-0%
-Wrapped versus unwrapped hives were a tie again this year. Lost 3 (or 15%) of the wrapped hives versus 3
(or 15%) of the unwrapped hives. NOTE: Even
my unwrapped hives are located behind a tree wind break to protect them from
the prevailing winds. In the previous
two years there was no difference between wrapped and unwrapped hive losses
either. The following link is a summary
of extensive research done in Madison, Wi, which showed hives with and without
insulation should survive in this locale.
-There are several top bar hives in my apiary. These hives are not as easy to work
throughout the season, but even harder to work in the winter. There is no easy way to feed these hives in
the winter. You can’t easily open the
top to see where the cluster is. The
fragile cold comb will shatter if touched in the winter. Even if you know the cluster’s location there
is no way to get emergency feed to the cluster.
The only place to put emergency feed is on the bottom of the hive, but
the cluster is at the top. Maybe
switching over to Russians, which overwinter with a smaller cluster, would
eliminate the need for emergency feed.
COMMENTS:
1)
The recommendation of only taking strong hives
into winter was confirmed by my data. Next
fall I need to do a better job of eliminating or combining the weak hives.
2)
Mite resistant queen types (in my case either
Russian or Ankle Biter) survived better in my small sample.
3)
Russian queened hives had a slight advantage in
survival over Ankle Biter queened hives. When hive strength is factored in both types
were about equal.
4)
The California Carniolan queens received with
packages last spring were a disaster this past summer and winter; 6 of 9 did
not make it through one year. And I
think 2 of the 3 surviving hives had superceded their queens shortly after the
package was installed based on their extremely slow buildup. Therefore
my future plans are to replace all package queens prior to winter. My
long term aim is to completely stop buying replacement packages; hopefully next
year.
5)
My mite control effort last fall was my most
thorough effort to date. MAQS applied mid-August, oxalic vapor applied
mid-September and mid-October.
6)
Most of the surviving queens (31 of 34) in my
apiary this winter were first or second generation mite resistant stock. Roughly two thirds of those (~20) had queens
that I raised. My amateur queen raising
efforts seems to not have adversely affected these queens or their winter
survival.
7)
From my limited data I can’t definitely say if
the milder winter (only got down to -10F instead of the usual -20F), improved
mite control or the mite resistant queens were the biggest factor in my greatly
improved hive survival. It may be a
combination of the three. Next year I
will try to explore this further by stopping mite control on a few hives.
In summary my plans for next winter are: 1) Only winter
strong hives, 2) practice effective mite control, 3) feed all 1st year hives, 4)
incorporate mite resistant and local survivor genetics into my stock, 5)
replace all package queens, 6)get the
undrawn plastic frames out, and 7) pray
for mild winters.
My next major project will be to clean the bottom boards on
each surviving hive. I do this by
reaching in through the entrance with a slim hook and drag out the dead bees
before they start to mold or decay. I
won’t open hives for a more thorough cleaning until it is at least 70F. It is important to NOT chill the developing
brood. Following that I will be waiting for a few
warm (greater than 70F) days in succession and begin rearing a few queens. Hopefully mid-April will provide that
opportunity.
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