Overwintering Apideas

[Jon]

One of the big problems with UK queen rearing is that it is hard to have queens ready before June and certainly not by April when a lot of folk are looking for them.

You could get around this by overwintering queens in Apideas.
At the moment I have 4 still going.
This winter has been exceptionally mild but I wonder is it possible to regularly overwinter Apideas.

This one here is the strongest. It probably has the equivalent of a couple of frames of bees in it as it is a triple with 15 apidea frames inside.



Closer view.

[bees4u]

HI Jon, it was nice to watch your bees busy taking in pollen etc. I tried to over winter a spare queen last year and they all died at the last minute, mainly I think from the damp, so I've decided to to try it again this year and put a mesh in the floor to over come the damp I found before. I think that it's almost like queen banking. I plan to put them inside a brood box up on bricks for air & flights. It would be interesting to see how your queen does now in a normal hive. regards Jean

[fatshark]

I've got a 50% success rate this winter (my first attempt) using Kielers rather than Apideas. Again, these are triples. I'm aware of several others doing much the same thing with at least as good, and often better, success - including in parts of Scotland. I'll be interested to see how the queens do early in the season after presumably having reduced space to lay late last season. I've just built a simple board to allow me to unit the Kielers with a standard queen less nuc, on the assumption that I'll be taking the queens out well before queen rearing proper can start this year (so cannot reuse the workers as I would normally do).

[Jon]

Hi Fatshark
These are all late grafted queens which were mated and started laying in September.
They were given extra bees and brood when I combined them with other Apideas from which I had removed queens at the start of October.
I don't thing reducing space/banking/whatever makes much if any difference in the long run.
I have had queens in Apideas for a couple of months which have gone on to produce very big colonies.
Kielers are probably better for overwintering because of the extra volume but I much prefer Apideas for general use in the summer.

[fatshark]

Hi Jon

Mine are also late grafts and then united. The one thing I don't like about Kielers for overwintering is the entrance. I think it can get blocked with dead bees when the colony cannot fly. During the season this isn't an issue as you get relatively few deaths and regular flying, but it's the other way round in the winter. The last dead out I cleared looked blocked to me (though this wasn't what did for them, that was Nosema). I've got a couple of ideas on how to improve things for next winter.

Finally, a triple storey Kieler or Apidea isn't an inexpensive way of doing things! A super split into four compartments over a strong (warm) colony might be better.

[Jon]

It's not cheap, but once you have made the initial investment the Apideas should last for decades.
I have read a few bits and bobs on US websites about overwintering queens in nucs or supers above strong colonies and that is definitely an idea worth checking out.
I have 3 nucs overwintered in home made correx boxes and that is cheap ('bout 50p a box) but the thing about the apideas is being able to overwinter a queen with about 1000 bees rather than 5000-10000+ in a nuc.

[bees4u]

It's not cheap, but once you have made the initial investment the Apideas should last for decades.
I have read a few bits and bobs on US websites about overwintering queens in nucs or supers above strong colonies and that is definitely an idea worth checking out.
I have 3 nucs overwintered in home made correx boxes and that is cheap ('bout 50p a box) but the thing about the apideas is being able to overwinter a queen with about 1000 bees rather than 5000-10000+ in a nuc.

Hi Jon, do you have the web site or info on the USA's take on over wintering queens ? regards Jean

[Jon]

I can't remember where I read it but the principle was to put a couple of nucs with mesh floors above a strong colony with a mesh screen on top so that the rising heat would help the nucs.
In places like Florida the bees forage all year long.


There is a Powerpoint presentation here with a few references.

[bees4u]

HI Jon, I found that very interesting, some very good points, thanks very much.

[fatshark]

You could also take a look at this thread on Beesource which is about the construction of mini-nucs that fit into a super (or shallow, or whatever it's called in the US).