This article describes how I and some close beekeeping
friends keep our bees. These methods may
or may not work for you or fit with your beekeeping philosophy.
We are now about two thirds of the way through our central
Wisconsin winter. I consulted my records
for the previous 4 years and a majority of losses always occurred in January. Early January had its share of below zero
nights, while in late January there were several short thaws. Weak hives usually succumb during those below
zero nights, so I am always apprehensive when checking hive survival after
that. I heard we are now getting 2
additional minutes of daylight every day.
This should soon trigger the queens to begin laying eggs.
Do you know the status of your hives? Now is the time to find out because it is
time to place your reservations for bee packages. Its also the time of year to make plans for
the next bee season. Are you going to
replace losses via splits or packages?
Are you going to expand your apiary?
Current thought is that its best to expand using local bees, but the
choice is up to you. February is a good time to refurbish old equipment
or assemble paint new equipment.
As of January 31st my hive survival is not as good as last year. I tried to repeat last year’s winter
preparation process, but simply put the results are not to my satisfaction and
are falling short of last year’s good results.
Currently, my overall survival is at 72%. Survival by queen type is: Saskatraz-100%, Ankle Biters-91%,
Russians-73% and a miserable 33% for package queens, which I think were
Italians. The competition between wrapped
versus unwrapped hives is a draw. This is the first year the Russian queened
hives have not performed the best. I’m
wondering if their genetics are getting diluted as the hives replace their
queens. The poorer performance of the
package queened hives was not unexpected.
Package bees just don’t seem to handle the Wisconsin winters as well as
bees acclimated to cold winters. I’m
kicking myself twice; first because I didn’t replace those packages queens; the
second time because I raise queens and have them readily available for my
personal use. Several hives have also
shown signs of Noesema apis. As a
precaution I have added Fumigilan to the emergency food sugar disc’s I put in
the hives in mid-January.
My experiment with overwintering nucs is also not going
well. Only 1 of 3 is surviving. The surviving nuc was set up in early
August. The two that succumbed were not
set up until late September. So next
summer I will make sure nucs planned for overwintering are started by early
August. We’ll see if the remaining nuc survives.
Emergency food is in all but three hives and I am hoping for
no more losses until spring, but spring is still a long way off. In February I will be topping off the
emergency food supplies in each hive and also adding a partial pollen/protein
patty.
Looking at my data I see that hives that I had fed in the
fall have a slightly lower loss rate. I
may need to rethink my fall feeding methodology. Last fall I had fed sugar syrup only to
startup hives; 2nd year hives were not fed. Last year I had fed all hives and overall
survival was higher. Is this the
difference?
First year queened hives have a slightly higher survival
rate than hives headed by two year old queens.
However, I can’t be sure if the fact that I fed all first year queen
hives, but not two year old queen hives is affecting the results. Is it the feeding or age of the queen that
makes the difference? So far, I can’t
tell. So next fall I will just feed all
hives and then I can get a clearer comparison between one and two year old
queen survival.
I have been dreaming about spring and thinking about long
term improvements for my apiary. I
currently have two Mite Mauler queens on order; which are reputed to be more
aggressive against mites than the Ankle Biter.
I will also be getting either a Saskatraz breeder queen or several OHB
(Olivarez Honey Bee) Saskatraz production queens to round out my genetic
improvement plans. With these new queens coming and the need for
bees to support the queen rearing aspect of this hobby I have decided to go
against my own advice and order several packages. (Last fall my intent was to have high winter
survival and replace all losses through splits.
I didn’t quite make it.) However, I do plan on replacing the package
queens when the Mite Mauler and Saskatraz queens arrive. By doing this I hope to avoid the package
hives from raising drones and putting their undesirable genetics into the local
gene pool.
