Last of the Apideas

[Jon]

I have had a colony throw up a supersedure cell a couple of times and on each occasion I removed it. The queen was still laying well 18 months later and it was definitely the same queen as I mark and clip. It is always a hard call knowing whether to leave them or remove them. The best policy is to have spare queens.

The survival of apideas is a bit of a lottery. If we get really cold weather the clusters will likely freeze.
I would love to work out a system for overwintering queens in something smaller than a nuc.

I have a couple of strong colonies headed by queens which overwintered in apideas last year so it does not seem to do them any harm. One of them spent 9 months in its apidea before I made a nuc from it at the end of May. I think the apidea was a triple by the time I transferred the bees to a nuc. I took a frame of sealed and emerging brood from another colony and put it in a nuc with a frame of stores and a drawn comb. I shook all the bees and queen from the apidea into this. A week later I removed the frame which had the emerging brood, now full of eggs and larvae, and gave it another of emerging brood. I got it up to 5 frames of bees in about 3 weeks.

The brood frames from the apidea got transferred to other apideas so nothing got wasted.

[fatshark]

Very cold here tonight so shifted a pile of mini-nucs into the greenhouse. This has my agaves in and is kept at a couple of degrees above freezing. Forecast is for sub zero for the next few nights. A couple of the Kielers felt worryingly light so they might benefit from some TLC.

[Jon]

Do we have a bet on how many apideas survive?

Only 5 left now.
Not looking too good as they need to survive until March if I am going to find a home for any of these queens in queenless or drone layer colonies.

[Blackcavebees]

Only 5 left now.
Not looking too good as they need to survive until March if I am going to find a home for any of these queens in queenless or drone layer colonies.

Jon, have you considered overwintering these on top of full colonies? Above crown board but below insulated roof. Not sure on physical size of your apideas but would two not fit in a deep eke adapted to national footprint with void filled with insulation or wood shavings etc? Just a thought, as heat rises and it may give that extra wee boost of it gets really cold, as I think it will this winter.

[Jon]

Hi

These are apideas:

hatched queen cells.jpg apideas piled high.jpg bees fanning on front of apidea.jpg

They are effectively mini poly hives and are very well insulated.
They are designed for getting queens mated and not for overwintering so this is just a little experiment with spare queens I had at the end of the summer.
An apidea should hold about 500 bees and a queen.
Some of these ones were a bit short of bees so had no real chance.
Last winter I had 4 survive but it was exceptionally mild last year.

You can see last years in this thread.

[Blackcavebees]

Hi Jon

I know what apedias are like, but don't have one to stick a tape on for size. It was just a thought as freezing I think will be your biggest problem. I have a mini nuc myself that I feel hasn't enough bees in to last the winter, but it was a late queen and just got mated. Got as much feed into them as possible but not enough bees I think. Anyway, ever the optimist. Got them double insulated with copious amounts of kingspan inside and out. Just thought that you could put a couple of apedias above a national for extra warmth that just might make the difference.

Didn't see your last year's post- some good links, thanks

[Easy beesy]

Hi Jon

I know what apedias are like, but don't have one to stick a tape on for size. It was just a thought as freezing I think will be your biggest problem. I have a mini nuc myself that I feel hasn't enough bees in to last the winter, but it was a late queen and just got mated. Got as much feed into them as possible but not enough bees I think. Anyway, ever the optimist. Got them double insulated with copious amounts of kingspan inside and out. Just thought that you could put a couple of apedias above a national for extra warmth that just might make the difference.

Didn't see your last year's post- some good links, thanks

BCBs

Can you explain how you got 'king span inside and out' (especially inside) of a mini nuc please?

[Blackcavebees]

My mini nucs aren't insulated but I don't plan to over winter in them. I make most of my own kit and have national nucs made with double skins, imagine a national footprint but insulated inside with 1" kingspan all round and inside finished with 1/8" ply, divided into two so each side takes 3 national frames plus frame feeder. Outside look like commercial to accommodate inside insulation. The one I was taking about is also wrapped in kingspan outside and above as there really wasn't enough bees and I wanted to give as good a chance as possible before it reached tipping point.

Next winter I plan to overwinter my small colonies from late mini nucs in purpose built 4 way boxes on top of strong colonies, heat rises. Hope this explanation isn't too confusing!

[Jon]

BCB
The insulation is not critical if you have enough bees in the box, ie at least 3 seams in a nuc.
Apideas are vulnerable to freezing as they only contain a few hundred bees.
My national nucs are just folded correx election posters about 3mm thick with 50mm of insulation on top.

[Jon]

Opened an apidea today to remove a feeder and give it 2 frames of stores instead.
I think I still have 5.

apidea-21-12-2012.jpg