During our March club meeting we passed out a survey to gauge winter survival. I also added in data from a few local non-members where I knew the situation. This data was from 18 beekeepers; 10 members and 8 non-members covering a total of 143 hives in the ECWBA area of operation. The survey was anonymous and was not meant to flag winners or losers, but rather to gather data to help all beekeepers increase their winter survival. My feeling is that having good survival isn’t a simple matter of luck, but hard work and attention to details.
The best survival to date goes to a club member who had 6 of
7 hives (86%) surviving at this time. A
close second went to a non-member visiting the club meeting from Appleton. He had 10 of 12 hives (83%) survive. These two respondents were in a league of
their own. I will try to contact these
individuals to get more details on their beekeeping practices so we can pass them
along to everyone.
The next grouping was at the 50% survival level. This was composed of 3 club members. The author was in this group. (I can’t decide if I should feel good or
terrible with this result. But I am
determined to do better next winter. I am slowly analyzing each of my deadouts
to ascertain whether mites or other causes were the reason for the hive’s
demise and will report these results in a later post.)
There were two with 25% survival.
Finally, the bulk (13) of respondents with 12% or lower
survival.
There are obviously lessons to be learned from the two
beekeepers with good survival. I will
try to contact these individuals to get more details on their beekeeping
practices so that we can all learn from their success. They both indicated they treated against mites
3 or more times.
From the survey form I can see that they both also used
screened bottom boards. Screened bottom
boards do two things. One, they let
dislodged mites fall through the screen and they can not climb back aboard a
bee. Some data indicates this can reduce
mite levels by up to 20%. Second, which may be more important, is that
these beekeepers used the screened bottom boards to monitor mite levels. One respondent indicated he schedules a
treatment if his weekly inspection of the sticky board below the screen shows
more than 12 mites (roughly a 2 mite drop per day).
Mite resistant queens (Russians, VSH, Ankle Biters,
Saskatraz) may be a key factor in improving survival, but is not a silver
bullet. Four beekeepers reported their
surviving hives had mite resistant queens.
The beekeeper with the 85% survival reported using mite resistant queens
(type unknown) in all hives.
Powdered sugar? The
one respondent that used powdered sugar for mite control had 12% survival.
The only beekeeper that did not treat with either chemical
or powdered sugar lost all hives.
The composite survival rate for club members (48%) beat the
composite survival rate (28%) of non-members.
However, when I take out the top four club performers the club composite
rate drops to 36% survival. I also saw a
report out of the Wisconsin state apiarist that hive loses have been running in
the 50% range the last few years. This
includes beekeepers that make their living with bees.
As stated above the survey was anonymous. If possible, I would like the two top
performers to contact me, so I can quiz them a little more on their beekeeping
techniques. Call Fred at
920-229-2204. Thank you.
I live in Iowa but I follow several bee blogs around the country, including yours. I've only been beekeeping for 4 years, but since I had similarly high survival rates as a couple of your members, I figured I'd chime in and share some of the things I do (or don't do). I'm sure some of you will disagree with at least one or two of my methods (maybe all of them!) but I will throw in a disclaimer that I am only a hobby beekeeper and do not rely on making money off of the honey.
ReplyDeleteThe winter of 2015/2016 we had two hives; both were packages from Georgia and both absconded the first week of December before the weather turned cold. The winter of 2016/2017 we had 100% survival with three feral hives we had caught in the spring. This winter we had a survival rate of 87.5% (7 of 8). Five of the hives were newly purchased Russian hives that I acquired in June and had already been overwintered in Iowa. The other three were the feral swarms from the year before.
1. I do not use any kind of insulation on our hives. I'm sure your winters are colder than ours but our coldest day without wind-chill was -23 degrees. Four of the hives were closely protected from the west and north winds by sheets of plywood (the dead hive was at this location). The other four hives were out in the open with trees to the west and north.
2. I use both lower and upper entrances on the hives. I feel this has quite the benefit for keeping good airflow and reducing moisture since the warmth generated by the bees will always cause an updraft through the bottom of the hive and out the top.
3. I try to keep a maximum of three or four hives together, sometimes less. My seven hives are spread between three locations. If I need the hives near the same location I will put additional hives 50+ feet away (arbitrary distance I picked), but I stick with a cluster of only three or four maximum. Due to the possibility of spreading disease through bees drifting between hives, I feel that by placing a small number of hives together I will minimize the spread of mites/disease due to drifting. I'm sure it's extremely rare in nature to find two beehives in the same tree, or in trees within a couple feet of each other. This may keep them segregated from other hives in case of a catastrophe in one hive. I just don't see us doing the bees any favor by cramming 20 hives next to each other. But I do understand how it helps the beekeeper if they don't have additional locations for hives, as well as the time it can take to go from location-to-location.
4. I do not do manual queen replacements. I do understand why some beekeepers replace queens in an attempt to keep honey production and brood production as high as possible. But as a hobby beekeeper not concerned with maximizing honey production in order to pay my mortgage, I feel the bees know the condition of their queen better than I do and will take care of replacing her on their own when they feel it's necessary. Until then, if it's an overwintered queen with seemingly good genetics and is adapted to my local environment, I want her making drones for as many years as possible so that those genetics can continue to be part of the gene pool in my area.
5. I do not treat my bees with anything. I've read several articles online where the end result is: "Whether you treat or not, you will probably lose the same number of beehives." I decided to take an approach to beekeeping where I don't spend time and money doing treatments. There have been studies done that prove over 8,000 organisms live in wild beehives. Not enough studies have been done to figure out all the symbiotic relationships between those organisms, the bees, and mites/diseases. When treating for mites, you're undoubtedly killing off possibly thousands of other organisms that could be key to helping the bees, whether directly or indirectly.
This is only my 4th year so I still have a lot to learn, but these are the things that have worked for me so far.
In my beekeeping operation I do many of the same practices; Russian queens, upper and lower entrances, no wrapping in the winter etc. These items help with winter survival, but not the complete story. The primary reason for my winter losses is the varroa mite and the viruses and bacterial diseases they vector.
ReplyDeleteThe European honey bee will, given enough time, develop defenses against the varroa mite. This make take year, hundreds of years or tens of thousands of years. In the scope of nature this is nothing, but in human terms is not acceptable.
Varroa populations tend to peak the 2nd year in the life of a hive. Good survival one winter can turn into a disaster the second winter.
If you don't want high losses some sort of intervention is required. Some of the less obtrusive aids are screened bottom boards, drone brood removal, brood breaks, varroa resistant queens, etc.
I've known many beekeepers who have tried exactly the program you have outlined and lose everything every few years.
I'd be interested to hear about your winter survival after a few more years.
I too am interested to see how it all works out through next winter, especially with the new Russian hives. I figure if Russian bees from the Primorski region have lived with varroa mites for over 150 years without going extinct, it's good to get some of those genetics into my local area.
ReplyDeleteI do not attempt to stop swarming of my hives so I do have the benefit of brood breaks to keep varroa populations down from where they would be in a hive that does not swarm.
I just wish we could figure out a way to stop the viruses that are spread by the mites. The mites themselves are not a problem. They are a parasite, and a parasite has no reason to kill its host. Otherwise it will have killed its food source, which means death for the parasite, and what's the point of that? The problem is the diseases that the mites carry, so if someone can figure something out on that front we would be a lot better off.