Last of the apideas winter 2013-2014

[Jon]

I was just looking over the thread I started last September where I had 15 apideas and had high hopes of overwintering a few.
The last ones succumbed in a cold spell at the end of January.
I also lost most of the nucs I was overwintering. Total disaster but I was in good company as most of the local beekeepers had very heavy losses. On an average winter I would expect to get a few apideas through to a point where I could find a use for an extra queen in the spring.

At the moment I have 10 Apideas going strong, 8 of them with 2013 grafted queens which would be worth using, and 2 with older queens which were taken from colonies which were requeened. Two of the apideas are triple units and the rest are on doubles. All have been well fed and are heavy. I looked in a couple last week and queens are still laying.

There were a few interesting suggestions in the thread from last year such as overwintering apideas or mini nucs on top of a full colony. Pete-L is the man who does this routinely I think.

Anyone else got a few queens left in mini nucs? (Those double white boxes MBC, that's cheating, too big!) If I had enough bees I would have all these queens in nucs but I didn't have enough spare bees.

[The Drone Ranger]

I have three
Well 2 in a tower of apideas each and 1 in a stack of 2 wanhotz with extra(super?) box
I would have given them away but they were so late I couldn't tell if they would lay or not

[Black Comb]

I have one on a double.
But it's got nosema!

[Pete L]

Put the last eight wooden quad mini nuc boxes on top of strong double brood colonies yesterday,they over winter really well this way, central heating from below.

Just have ten poly mini nucs to place on top of strong colonies, all of the crown boards i use are kind of multi purpose, a deep and narrow lip, a two inch entrance on the deep side, the mini nucs can be placed on these with their entrance facing this side entrance, then a layer of bubble wrap around the top and sides of the nuc, this is then surrounded by a box and filled with wood shavings, topped by an insulated roof, the colony below benefits from loads of top insulation, and the mini nuc gets central heating from below.

[Jon]

You got those pics of yours handy Pete? I remember seeing something on beekeeping forum.

[Pete L]

Hi Jon, I will find some of them later, and work out how to post them on here.

[Blackcavebees]

You got those pics of yours handy Pete? I remember seeing something on beekeeping forum.

I've a Template one in my shed (Peter's design) if you want a look at it on Monday night - hoping to come up with Billy R

[fatshark]

Wasps did for most of my mini nucs this autumn so I got the last of my queens mated in 3 (National) frame boxes. However, I have one Kieler tucked up in my greenhouse with a tube to the outside. This worked so well last year I'd intended to do 10 like this … then the wasps arrived

[Jon]

Great activity today with a slight rise in temperature.

[fatshark]

Somewhere under that lot are a load of agaves, a single Kieler with an entrance tube to the outside and a temperature sensor.

Cold snap predicted this week.


--
fatshark