Overwintering a queen

[mbc]

Down here nucs need to be made with plenty of bees from here on in or robbing pressure (wasps and other bees) gets them.

[derekm]

Hi guys,

How many bees would it take to over winter a queen (mated) frames of nursery bees stores ect ?
Also when would this be too late to do ?

Thanks in advanced
G

To stay at the same level of thermal stress per bee, for each halving of the population you need to halve the lumped thermal conductance of the hive. Or put in more practical terms the natural logarithm of the ratio of the outside dimensions divided by inside dimensions, needs to double.

Regards Derek

typo

[Jon]

Derek.
You can overwinter a queen in a small insulated box such as a double apidea with less than 1000 bees in an average winter.

[derekm]

Derek.
You can overwinter a queen in a small insulated box such as a double apidea with less than 1000 bees in an average winter.

Its amazing how much you can increase the stress on the bees and often get away with it. Bees are tough little so an sos

The physics tells you how much you are increasing the stress.

[Jon]

The physics tells you how much you are increasing the stress.

How do you measure stress on bees? Insulation is one factor out of about 50 you could take into account.

[derekm]

my original posting is about thermal stress, the energy to maintain homeostasis.

[The Drone Ranger]

Its slightly at a tangent but E.P.Jeffree did a whole study on "Colony Size Throughout the Year and The Best Size To Overwinter"
The study was conducted in Aberdeen
He was working out the best size of cluster to go into Winter with
Apparently too big is as bad as too small

The smallest colony only had 690 bees at one point in the year and still survived

They compared single and double wall hives and found it made no difference to their overwintering success
Odd and counter intuitive

[derekm]

Its slightly at a tangent but E.P.Jeffree did a whole study on "Colony Size Throughout the Year and The Best Size To Overwinter"
The study was conducted in Aberdeen
He was working out the best size of cluster to go into Winter with
Apparently too big is as bad as too small

The smallest colony only had 690 bees at one point in the year and still survived

They compared single and double wall hives and found it made no difference to their overwintering success
Odd and counter intuitive

the devil is in the detail... did he actually measure the conductance of the hives? and give values?
that lecture doesnt appear to be publicly available can you dirct me to a copy?

[The Drone Ranger]

Tell you what derek if I get a chance I will scan it and post
It is April 1959
No conductance I am afraid
I think they had figures for the outer and inner temperature of the cluster
The surface area of the cluster dependent on the number of bees etc
They were more interested in survival rates, colony size fluctuations, and honey produced

[derekm]

If you can that would be great. Unfortunately almost all bee research seems to lose vital bits of info as regards heat loss. E.g size of colony or thermal properties of the hive. Often all they say is 'insulated' or 'double walled' which is bit like saying 'South' but not saying where from or how far.