Winter Losses 2011/2012

[Neils]

Good point, I think at the moment I'm not desperate enough to save her at the expense of weakening another colony. I'm always torn when this happens, on the one hand I don't want to lose a colony, on the other, I don't want to 'encourage' bees that can't get through winter (or may be harbouring other nasties). The Main hive that's my candidate for queen rearing was just what I want to see, plenty of stores still in the hive and a good 4.5 frames of brood in all stages when I looked yesterday.

[EmsE]

So far so good with no losses so far out of the 5 hives I took into the winter. 2 hives went into the winter with less than 4 frames of bees, 1 of which i didn't expect to make this far as it wouldn't take any food down in the autumn despite not having very much in the way of stores. I did give it a deep frame of sealed stores from my strongest hive and after Christmas put fondant on which seems to have kept them going. When I checked at the weekend it had no stores except the fondant so gave it a super of honey that I'd entered into the local honey show. Hopefully that should be enough for now but will keep a close watch. There was a small patch of sealed & unsealed brood so fingers crossed it will pick up. If not they'll get a new queen once one of the other colonies raise one.


One of the hives was stronger that what it was when I last checked in the autumn. I didn't look any further than just a peak under the crown board to make sure there were stores in the top box.

[Jon]

Hi Emse.
If the colony is small giving it extra space up above with a super will not be helpful as all the heat will rise and make life more difficult.
Small colonies are better put into nucs. Alternately you can restrict the area of the brood box with dummy frames or a divider with insulating material behind it. A small colony will grow more quickly in a small or restricted box as it can maintain a larger brood area due to less loss of heat.
At this time of year I have small colonies reduced to half the brood box and I only give them more space as they need it.
Swapping a couple of empty deeps from the brood box for a couple of full shallows from the super would be another option.

[EmsE]

Hi Jon,
I kept the 2 small ones on a single brood with the dummy board in place (however admit that was more to do with the risk of them being blown over) I Had wanted to put them in the same box with a bee tight divider between them hoping that would help them both through but didn't get around to it. I really need to get some nucs made up for cases like this don't I. The one I made out of a set of old draws didn't go down well with the bees as 2 colonies absconded so am wondering if the wood had been treated for woodworm?

Do you think it will have a chance of becoming a successful colony?

[Jon]

You can make up insulated dummy boards to reduce the space quite quickly out of scraps of polystyrene such as the stuff a new fridge is protected with. Check the skips!

These are the ones I use, all shapes and sizes.

dummy boards.jpg

A small colony with a laying queen should survive with a bit of TLC but it will definitely struggle in a large space. Good to get all your colonies through the winter so far.

[Beehive]

Had a look in to check stores and was very happy to see that 11 out of 11 had made it hrough the winter. A couple may need some additional feeding soon. Just waiting now for a warm day to check and see if all the queens are ok and laying.

[kevboab]

Popped along to apiary yesterday afternoon as weather was superb. No sign of activity in one colony so popped lid to find out colony was deceased. Next move is to get a sample of bees from it and ensure it wasnt disease that knocked them off. Pretty sure it was lack of numbers through cold spell though but no harm in checking.

[susbees]

Love the way people report losses before first inspection...lol. On that basis our survival was 17/17 (including quite small nucs) with all taking in pollen in some way or other. On further observation I flagged one as failed supersedure DLQ....one dud. And this week one turned out to be failing with little brood: queen was quickly swapped into adjacent hive which had been antsy all autumn/fondant check...possible nosema (no signs of dysentery and last varroa drop nothing special) I suppose but queen was laying. We'll see. Meanwhile snotty queen (from strong snotty hive) was moved up the apiary and put into a nuc with no queen but plenty bees - testing (I expect short-term but she lays well) the theory that grumpy queens can dislike something about their situation. Again, we'll see.

And I do post sensibly on the BBKA forum too, Gavin....even when RP tells everyone that he never uses any insulation and we're all namby pambying our poor (quality) bees! Sigh...

[Jon]

Roger lives about 400 miles south of most of us. Top insulation can do no harm. Why let the heat escape.
I only found one drone layer out of 18 - a late supersedure queen who failed to mate and her replacement has been laying well for a fortnight.
A few of them are small but I am optimistic these will all make it now. I got a proper inspection done on all of them during last week's heatwave.

[chris]

I live about 1000 miles south of Scotland but still have overhead insulation all year round.It has nothing to do with warmth, but rather having a dry cluster in winter and comb that doesn't sag in summer.
I went into winter with 7 full colonies and 2 weak late swarms that I didn't think would make it. They didn't , but the other colonies are fine and building better than usual.The big problem that is coming up is lack of rain. Yesterday was the 2nd rainy day of the year. I thought the bees were going to have problems finding nectar, but they are obviously good at it judging by the amount of comb they've filled.