Over-wintering Queens - Hardware and Methods ...

[busybeephilip]

I emailed the contacts on the Manitoba site to get a feel for how this works, choosing the correct temperature I would imagine would be critical.

Adam, - I've managed to get Apideas over the winter , its the spring that messes things up, the numbers of bees dwindle to a dangerous level before brood rearing can replace them, and they are very greedy on stores. A frost usually kills them off so heat mat should work. jon manages to get them into the spring using a doubled up box with a total of 10 frames and i think a top feeder so there is a good starting number of bees

[Jon]

Even in a good year the success rate with overwintered apideas is about 50%.
Andrew Abrahams mentioned overwintering apideas in one of his talks at Llangollen.
He also reckoned the critical time was spring and he supplied pollen at that point.
They need to start with a good amount of bees. They don't really need an extra feeder on top and consume very little until brood rearing starts in Feb/March.
I try and check for drone layers in March and I would use an apidea queen at this point.

[Little_John]

Even in a good year the success rate with overwintered apideas is about 50%.

That's worse than I'd assumed - puts the other methods in a better light.

Meant to ask Lance in Manitoba what his success rate was - but forgot.(*)

I was rather hoping to achieve 80% or better. These figures do make for depressing reading.

LJ

(*) Have just noticed that his website says 15-20% losses ... that's more like it.

[Jon]

If you get a few days of really cold temperatures you will likely lose the lot.
Apideas are not designed for overwintering but it is worth a try if you are grafting your own queens.

You are a lot further south than me so may well do better.

[Adam]

I do have a heating mat somewhere and I could hang an electricity cable out of the garage window that I could drag to the right spot for my triple box - maybe a job for, say, the end of January.

[Pete L]

You are a lot further south than me so may well do better.

Winter 2012/13 not a good winter, and cold late spring, i over wintered 12 Kielers with top ekes in the open and lost 6, over wintered 78 queens in quad boxes and lost 3, one starved, two were drone layers... last winter i over wintered 10 kielers and lost none, i over wintered them differently, over wintered same amount as previous winter in quad boxes, and lost one.

Never attempted to over winter either Apideas or Swi-bines, but if i were to try it i would do the same as i did with the Kielers last winter.

[mbc]

, but if i were to try it i would do the same as i did with the Kielers last winter.

care to expand?

[Pete L]

Instead of wintering them out on there own, i placed them on top the crown boards of strong colonies, all of the crown boards are multi purpose and have one thick rim and one thin, in the thick side there is a cutout about two inches wide, this acts as an entrance, kieler is placed on top of crown board with the kieler entrance up against this other entrance, empty deep box placed around Kieler and filled with wood shavings, covering the kieler to the top of the box, then the insulated national roof on. So they are kept nice and warm from the heat rising through the crown board.

[mbc]

Many thanks
No mouse problems?

[busybeephilip]

A lot of the stuff on the internet refers to overwintering nucs on top of hives. Heat must be the answer but how much heat. Matts can be controlled with a thermostat, where the sensor is placed would be very important. Can anyone throw some light on this options are under the apidea, inside the apidea(under/over perspex cover) or on top of apidea - what temp would be best for wintering?