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Thread: Over-wintering Queens - Hardware and Methods ...

  1. #21
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    In the US some of the beekeepers overwinter colonies in barns which are kept at 4C.

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    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Also in cellars but they keep the light out. I'd imagine dysentry/nosema could be a big problem. If the temp outside is cold the bees wont fly unless desparate even if their hive is kept warm. I have seen bees come to the entrance in winter on sunny days but the cold makes them turn around and not risk flight. Its our wet and mild springs that do the damage, bee populations plummet through flight losses to the point of no return when there is no young brood hatching.

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    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    In the US some of the beekeepers overwinter colonies in barns which are kept at 4C.
    Some great photos of the Steppler Farms (Manitoba) wintering set up can be found on their blog. There was also a great video on youtube but I've not been able to locate it at present. Ian Steppler is one of the more thoughtful contributors on beesource:

    http://stepplerfarms.com/Honeyblog/

  4. #24
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Little_John View Post
    Comments...... would be very much appreciated.
    To start, I'll say that my opinion of the mini-plus hives hasn't changed in the least; they're really excellent kit. In these parts they over winter really well although as with everything increasing experience has resulted in a few tweaks to the way that I go about doing so. Great value for money.

    In the meantime however, I've been knocking around a few ideas for home made mating nucs to increase production at minimum initial cost. This year we ran a couple of dozen boxes made from old floor boards, 4 combs drawn at 32mm centres which worked extremely well. The basic design was such that by building a larger version of the box it would fit perfectly on top of a bs five frame nuc box
    1). to over winter the small colonies in, either combined together or built up to 'fit' at the end of the season.
    2). to get extra brood combs drawn out and filled fast during the initial stages of stocking -until the small boxes are self sufficient.
    3). to supply food combs by being used as supers on the bs nucs through the summer and so eliminate the need for using feeders during dearth periods.

    Looking forward to our first winter now with them in a couple of configurations.
    Last edited by prakel; 10-10-2014 at 05:31 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by busybeephilip View Post
    Heat must be the answer but how much heat [...] what temp would be best for wintering?
    From my own searches, it appears that an external (to the hive or nuc) temperature of 5 degrees is optimum. That's the temperature used by the Manitoba guy right through until the end of Feb/early March, when he splits the nucs up for enlargement, and only then turns the wick up to 15 degrees in order to encourage brood-rearing.

    I also remembering reading (somewhere ...) that 5 degrees is the temperature at which big insulated sheds which house the many hundreds of hives on pallets being over-wintered indoors in North America/Canada is maintained. Something to do with keeping the colonies loosely clustered to minimise their activity and thus keep food intake to a minimum, whilst still enabling them to gradually move around the combs onto fresh stores.

    The only reason the Wilbanks operation maintains 15 degrees throughout winter of course is to avoid clustering ("at all costs") as their queens are in cages and many of those would be abandoned, and thus die, if clustering were to occur.

    So - unless anyone knows differently, I'd say 5 degrees is the target to aim for.


    Matts can be controlled with a thermostat, where the sensor is placed would be very important.
    I don't know if this is any help or not - but this is a shot of one of the heater plates I've installed as an 'insurance measure'. Probably never need it, but in the event of one of our rare bitter winters, it might possibly save the day. Just an aluminium sheet mounted on stand-offs with an aluminium-clad resistor attached to the back with JB-Weld. Just an experimental lash-up - but if it should be needed and prove itself, then I might go on to make proper dummy frames with wire mesh each side to house such plates.



    With regard to temperature sensors - I plan on installing 2 in each of the 2 hives under test - located inside two diagonally-opposite crown-board feeder holes, on the assumption that any cluster will not be underneath both at the same time - so I'll be taking the lower measurement as being the true hive temperature under the crown board.



    Probably not directly relevant to nucs, but it might stimulate ideas.

    'best
    LJ

  6. #26
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Some great photos of the Steppler Farms (Manitoba) wintering set up can be found on their blog. There was also a great video on youtube but I've not been able to locate it at present. Ian Steppler is one of the more thoughtful contributors on beesource:

    http://stepplerfarms.com/Honeyblog/
    The video is here:


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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Like the opening scene of a horror movie!

  8. #28
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    It does have a certain 'feel' to it!

    The youtube description states:

    This is a vid of inside our honeybee wintering shed. We have stacked 1050 hives in for winter where they will sit silent and content for 4 or so months until spring arrives once again end of March. The key to keeping the bees inside the boxes is keeping the shed completely dark. Bees do not see red light. Because of this we use red lighting to light the shed while we work. The hives are on pallets and stacked with a forklift 6 hives high. Old bees will fly out and die naturally as they would if they were outside so we must sweep once a month to keep mold and dust at a minimum. As the temperature increases in the spring, while they are still in the building fans are ramped up and large air flows help keep the bees content. Indoor wintering is a very efficient tool to winter bees in a cold winter climate.
    Last edited by prakel; 10-10-2014 at 06:33 PM.

  9. #29
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    I've had success with an unheated* greenhouse …

    130323-150722.jpg130323-150731.jpg130420-145939.jpg

    the advantage here is that there's no additional investment in heaters etc, other than mini-nucs. I dare say it could be scaled up. Fondant blocks in frame feeders are added on very cold days when the bees remain clustered. I've done single-deckers as well, but they are better as doubles. I've overwintered doubles outside as well, but had them freeze solid in a really hard frost < -10oC or lower. These images are at the end of the 12/13 winter, which was a tough one in the Midlands.

    * actually, not unheated but frost free. There is a 100 W electric heater run off a temperature sensor. The remainder of the greenhouse contains agaves, its them I'm trying to protect.

  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    I've had success with an unheated* greenhouse …

    130323-150722.jpg130323-150731.jpg130420-145939.jpg

    the advantage here is that there's no additional investment in heaters etc, other than mini-nucs. I dare say it could be scaled up. Fondant blocks in frame feeders are added on very cold days when the bees remain clustered. I've done single-deckers as well, but they are better as doubles. I've overwintered doubles outside as well, but had them freeze solid in a really hard frost < -10oC or lower. These images are at the end of the 12/13 winter, which was a tough one in the Midlands.

    * actually, not unheated but frost free. There is a 100 W electric heater run off a temperature sensor. The remainder of the greenhouse contains agaves, its them I'm trying to protect.
    These benches I use for Pelargoniums fancy leaf,scented leaf and uniques (they need min temp of 7C in winter)
    http://www.twowests.co.uk/product/hot-bench
    and the temp controller I use is very similar to this one
    http://www.ebay.com/itm/250V-10A-Dig...item43d098b2ef
    You can choose any temp you like for when the benches are to come on and off
    Best measuring the air temp just at plant height

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