Last of the Apideas

[Jon]

I have two apideas with virgin queens recently emerged. one is a scrub queen made from a cell after i removed the mated queen from the apidea and the other I plucked off a comb last week from a nuc which balled its queen and made queen cells.
In this weather the chance of a successful mating flight is near zero.
I have another couple with queens which emerged a month ago which are bound to start laying drone quite soon.
The temperature today got up to about 12c at best.

I have about 15-18 apideas with mated queens and I hope to overwinter these.
If we have a winter like the one before last I will lose the lot but I would hope to get a few through to Spring in a mild winter.

Anyone else having a go overwintering queens in mating nucs?

[fatshark]

I have a few going into the winter. I think the last queens got out to mate last weekend - I should know in a few days. They were in well populated Kielers from which two other queens have already been mated this year. Any that don't look OK in 7-10 days will be subjected to regicide and the box united over newspaper with another Kieler (as an aside, this is a bit of a pain with these mini nucs as the effective depth of the upper box is shallower than the main body ). Others have well established queens and are already two storeys high and packed with brood and stores. I'm not treating them with Apiguard this year as mite drops from my other hives are negligible. I will probably use OA in mid-winter.

This year I've built some frame feeders for fondant. It was a pain last winter splitting the boxes to replace the feeder in the main body of the mini-nuc - too disruptive to the small colony. These feeders can be replaced by simply turning up a small bit of the cover polythene. I've also used fondant in the top level of a triple storey Kieler but a) am concerned about the dead cold space above the colony, b) can't afford enough third layers and c) lost a couple last year with fondant leaking through the brood nest. The frame feeders hold about a half kilo of fondant and have simple QE sides. The bees clean them out, vacate them and then are unfussed when I sneak a replacement in

These Kielers will be kept in the garden, tucked away in a sheltered spot. I have a couple with what I consider more precious queens in and have considered moving the mini-nucs into the unheated greenhouse with a simple pipe entrance. I know beekeepers in the USA overwinter nucs in their basements (in the cold states). This wouldn't be too different though I'd worry they might fry if we had a very sunny winter day though realistically the temperature shouldn't rise much above the external temperature. It would however shelter them from the worst excesses of the temperature here - two winters ago we had lows of about -12oC (I know this is nothing to Gavin and friends in the Highlands) and the agaves all survived in the greenhouse with a single low wattage heater to prevent night frosts.

In the meantime the ivy is starting and there's still some HB about so with some good weather (and it has been good recently) they should all be strong going into the winter.

[Jon]

Hi FS
I have put up slot shelving on the outside of the back end of my shed and have apideas and nucs lined up on 4 levels.
We get prevailing wind from the West and this is on the sheltered East side.
I have more at the allotment still to move home and a couple still at the association site.
Last winter I used single or double apideas with an apidea super on top with about 2k fondant in a plastic bag inside the super.
They hardly touched the fondant and i think the trick is to feed well in October so that the 5 or 10 frames in the apidea are capped with stores. A frame holds about 3/4lb I reckon.
We had a week of temperatures down to -12 two years ago.
If this happens again I will number each apidea and its space and move them somewhere where the temperature is nearer to zero until the cold spell passes.
I reckon it is a good idea to feed thymolated syrup as a nosema treatment as mini nucs are stressful to bees and the nosema levels could build up.
One problem I have at the moment is weak apideas with a mated queen but bees over just 1 or 2 of the 3 frames. They really need to be on 7 or 8 frames going into winter.
I might have to add more bees by taking young bees from a strong colony.

[nemphlar]

I'd hoped to take 4 mini nucs into the winter as possible replacements for spring failures, they were laying and looking OK. Only 1 of them survived the onslaught mainly from wasps

[Jon]

The wasps are a bugger most years but less of a problem in this season.
Funnily, at the association apiary one of our BKA members lost a couple of nucs to wasps last week right beside where the apideas are stationed.
They have destroyed a few apideas but it seems odd that they would take on a 3-4 frame nuc when the apidea is an easier target.
I reckon the worst is now over with regard to wasps, touch wood.

[nemphlar]

I think they're past it here as well, just the odd sluggish loner. Unfortunately damage is done. Need to get the router out for next year and make up a more complex maze type entrances for them

[gavin]

I also have two with queens laying. Need to have a final check around all of mine and the association nucs to make sure they're not needed, than maybe I'll do as Jon suggests and boost them a little to help them through the winter.

There were still wasps on the prowl late last week. Haven't been back since.

[Jon]

If we are anti import we need to have queens available in April to meet the demand and overwintering successfully is really the only option we have.
Dan B suggested sending genetic material to a warmer clime then importing back the queens but I think a local solution has got to be better.

[gavin]

Yeah, me too.

[prakel]

If we are anti import we need to have queens available in April to meet the demand and overwintering successfully is really the only option we have.

Totally agree with the need to overwinter queens to meet the early demand but there are a couple of aspects which I do question.

Firstly, I'm not totally anti import although I may possibly come across that way on occassions. I think that selective imports of good quality breeders is not necessarily a bad thing. The main issue is not simply a case of who's hands they end up in but as importantly, how their selected daughters are distributed. With the greatest of respect no quality imported queen is going to be much use to a person that makes no effort to raise his/her own queens. Likewise there is never going to be a benefit to the community at large if repeated imports of hybrids OR different raises are made in an indiscrimate manner over a period of years by individuals who simply want to 'collect' different types of bee for their own amusement. Local breeding programmes need a central stability, that, I'm sure we'd all agree on.

Second, I'm not actually that sure that there's a genuine need for April queens (unless they're heading wintered nuclei) I tend to believe that a lot of the rush for these very early queens is the result of the availability of imports rather than the cause of imports.