A quick fix is to make a crude rectangle from insulation - Kingspan , Celetox and cover the hive body - with a hole for the entrance.. And a layer under the roof. one 2 meter length will easily do a hive. (or two)
Cuts easily by hand with a knife, gaffer tape and away you go.. Pre-assemble in warm, roof off, cylinder on, insulate other roof in warm and swap roof.. 2 minute job.
Just one point about snow insulating a hive. If the temps. go below zero and the snow freezes, then it won't allow the air to pass. So make sure you clear a passage to the entrance so that fresh air can get into the hive. I learnt that the hard way. :-(
Re: Any casualties yet?
Discovered I lost another one this morn
Full frame of uncapped honey unnoticed, shame!
__________________
sent via tapatalk
That looks like a queen in the centre of the cluster in the front frame in the first photo.
I have a lot of small clustersbut I have them closed down to 3 or 4 frames which helps with thermo regulation.
It is make or break time now for a lot of colonies.
I think we are going to have a big shortage of bees in our BKA the way things are panning out at the moment.
I wonder how many people are going to find themselves regretting ordering early April queens at £30-£40 each; not to mention the damage that splits may well cause if reports of 'small' colonies are indeed fair representation of the general state of things.
I don't know, but I think those who have preordered might be the only lucky ones this year. The rest will have to wait for imports.
Is there any more about the 800 or so colonies lost in Aberdeenshire?
Wow 800 - where was the original report ?Originally Posted by Bumble
Gossip, I believe, sounded reasonable given the source but I don't think that you'll find it written down. Heavy losses near the Angus-Aberdeenshire border reaching my ears too. What I'm wondering is whether these sorts of losses (the big numbers I mean) are being experienced by folk I regard as top beekeepers, or are they coming from the guys who always struggle with higher losses than their peers. I saw an apiary in that area when visiting friends recently and wondered how the bees could possibly thrive there. Arable land with oilseed rape some distance away and little natural forage. I was told that they stayed there all summer.
Anyway, I asked on Monday at our association meeting in Dundee and although one of our members had lost more than you'd expect, no-one was talking about dramatic losses. I checked my own this afternoon, and those at the association apiary.
My own: still six colonies alive, smaller clusters than I'd like at this time of year but I can't be sure of what they're like (or indeed that the queen is laying fertilised eggs) until it warms up. Some have eaten quite a lot of their fondant but others have hardly touched theirs. One had the mouse guard hanging off and mouse droppings on the floor insert but the bees were still alive. I lost one very small colony (it came from a site with a serious Varroa problem) around Christmas (entirely predicted) and one around New Year (didn't expect that one, looks like a queen problem).
At the association apiary the colonies going into winter were generally smaller and are mostly in polystyrene of one flavour or another. A few were petering out or had died when they were brought back from the heather (very poor queen mating being mostly responsible). Many were (and still are) nuc strength and seven are still alive. They seem fairly healthy in that the cluster sizes look to be on the increase.
So, despite these stories of heavier losses around, we're not really seeing it amongst the amateurs in our area ... as far as I can tell, and so far.
By simply not having been able to look at mine over the past couple of weeks I'm claiming Schroedinger's Bees. Though I will be doing the rounds over the weekend armed with more fondant. Each hive was given a 2,5kg pack in mid Jan so they should ok, but better safe than sorry.
The main problem here is very small clusters rather than lack of stores.
Fingers crossed you will be ok.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks