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Author Topic: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?  (Read 17017 times)

Offline derekm

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2011, 04:09:33 pm »
Derekm, you noted earlier in this thread that you treated your hives for varroa.  Was that just a precaution or did you have a high mite count?

What did you use for treatment?  Did you consider heating the bees up to kill the mites?  With a super insulated hive, this seems like an ideal way to treat for mites in the winter when the bees are broodless (assuming it works that is)

I’ve read a few posts on the bee forums now that heating broodless bees (mites on the bees) to about 46C for 10 minutes has been found to kill most if not all the adult mites.  What do you think?  A good experiment for your super PU hive?

just using the std thymol treatment... a much lower varroa count for the PU hive, which may be an artifact of the floor contruction. These bees arent broodless at the moment...
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline windfall

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #21 on: October 30, 2011, 11:03:16 am »
I don't think the nuc I have been talking about is going to provide much useful data this winter.

Yesterday warmed up a bit and the bees started hauling out dead with DWV, and I can now see 8-10 varoa on the bottom of entrance tunnel.....ah well. On the bright side none of the other hives are doing this yet.

I was planning to attempt no-treatment, but must admit a have been reading up a bit on oxalic....now I may have to look into Bluebees heat suggestion! Since I don't have electric heater I suppose I could just point a heat gun in the entrance for a spell :shock:

I may still learn something useful to share from the other weaker nuc.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #22 on: October 30, 2011, 11:26:36 am »
I read about using heat to kill varroa on another forum, probably beesource, I can’t recall.  There might be some references here too.  If I recall what I read, the idea may have originated in central Asia, one of those ex Soviet countries above Afghanistan.   Believe it was also studied in New Zealand or Australia. 

The idea is that all creatures have hot and cold limits for survival.  We all know you can kill wax moths by freezing them.  Turns out you can kill them with high heat as well.  Same supposedly holds for varroa.  Supposedly about 116F for a short period of time (I recall 10 minutes) kills all the varroa and has little to no affect on the bees.  I have NOT tried this personally, so this is hearsay and dependent upon my memory recollection.

Not sure how to best experiment with this.  I think you would want a setup which can warm the hives up to 116F fairly rapidly and then cool it back down fairly quickly.  My existing cement bee heaters have a thermal time constant of about 1 hour and hence they would seem like a bad choice.  On the other extreme, un regulated high temp from a heat gun could be a disaster.  I’m thinking some sort of modified hair drier.

Offline windfall

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #23 on: October 30, 2011, 12:20:40 pm »
well cooling down is a piece of cake this time of year. I suppose if I really wanted to pursue it, I could build a small cardboard tube and tape it to the entrance. Then use heat gun or hair dry, mixed with ambient air (venturi style) to get the temp you want/need.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #24 on: October 30, 2011, 01:04:06 pm »
If I have any varroa this winter, I hope to run the high heat experiment.  Should be relatively easy to heat up our already super insulated hives and like you say, it will be REAL easy to cool them back down this time of year.

This high heat approach may be relying on the thermal mass of the bugs for a selective kill.  A mite has a much smaller mass than a bee and hence high heat will get to its innards faster than it will to a bee.

I suppose we could start a whole new debate among beeks rather or not the insulation value of the mites exoskeleton affects the flow of heat into the bug……  but I’m all debated out for this month :-D

Offline derekm

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #25 on: October 30, 2011, 02:40:05 pm »
The other colony I have has Varoa real bad with DWV evident. although this has a larger number of bees, its not looking good for this one. This was wood until a month ago... I the more I learn, the more I see of the PU hive bees, the more I think thin wooden hives are a really bad idea for the bees... time will tell.
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline windfall

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #26 on: October 30, 2011, 05:04:04 pm »
here is a link to the heat treatment study...done right here in VT it turns out.

http://mysare.sare.org/mySARE/ProjectReport.aspx?do=viewRept&pn=LNE96-066&y=1997&t=1

They use a plexi box with a heater element and cage, and shake the bees into that....eliminating the thermal mass of the comb and stores.
pretty labor intensive but interesting nonetheless.

sorry for the thread drift derek.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #27 on: October 31, 2011, 01:39:55 am »
Once again Robo has us beat.  He’s got a 1991 patent up on his website that talks about killing mites with high heat and a forced ventilation setup.  See the patent called “MethodAndApparatusForRemovingParasitesFromBees.pdf” on his website.

Here’s Robos site: http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/patents/

The patent is for an in hive heater, or more specifically an on-hive heater.  It heats the bees inside the hive.  

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #28 on: October 31, 2011, 02:59:00 am »
Windfall, thanks for the link to the Vermont study.  I read it tonight and thought it had a lot of great information in it.  While I would try to heat the bees inside the hive, the info in the report should make in hive heating attempts get off to a better start.  Not sure what I would do about the queen.  Finding her in a big hive would be pretty difficult and probably impractical.

I’m surprised I haven’t read more posts about heat treatment for mites in the various ‘organic’ bee keeping forums.  Maybe they’re there and I missed them?  For people who want to avoid chemicals, this seems like a productive avenue to pursue.  I’m not opposed to chemicals, but if something as simple as heat can be effective AND I already have super insulated hives, heat would seem like a good route to try.

Offline windfall

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #29 on: October 31, 2011, 09:37:27 am »
I also came up with a company called Varoa-Blaster, making a heat/humidity controlled hive like chamber that you load frames into with the bees for 2 hours...but they of course were just advertising with little hard info.

I will check out Robo's link later when the kids stop crawling on me. Go figure: the 3 year old just is not quite as fascinated with all of this as I am....but she does like the pictures.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #30 on: October 31, 2011, 05:02:59 pm »
I haven’t done it, but I just don’t like the idea of pulling frames of bees from one hive to another in the winter!  While I haven’t tried heating a hive to kill varroa yet, I have used electrical heat to heat hives last year.  When the hives get too hot, the bees tend to leave the combs and cover the walls and top.   

Now imagine moving frames of fairly calm bees from a winter hive and cooking them in a separate unit for 2 hours.  Once heated up to 35C+, they’re going to be more than a little active.  I would fear you would end up with bees hanging on the walls and top of the cooking box.  That would make it difficult to get the bees back into your winter hive.  If you try to shake them some will fly and perish in the cold.

Besides my vivid imagination of a catastrophe, I’m too lazy to go to all the trouble of moving bees back and forth in the winter  :-D

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #31 on: November 04, 2011, 02:12:42 pm »
Derekm, if your countrymen are any indication, your bees might to be too super insulated for your climate!

I finally got a copy of Brother Adam’s,”Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey”.  He talks about his experiments with super insulation on page 56.  He constructed super insulated boxes having a 4” floor, 6” sides, and 8” top.  He then wintered 4 hives in each super insulated box.  He reports those boxes came through winter bone dry and not a sign of mold anywhere.  That was great, but the bees lacked the desire to build up in the spring!  He says his unprotected bees did much better.

A quote from his book:

“A trial was now conducted on a total of 168 colonies and in two divergent localities (in England).  The outcome proved absolutely identical to the tests made in the first instant (at Buckfast Abbey).  In short:  this form of wintering did not only prove a complete failure, but in actual fact had a detrimental effect on the well being of the colonies”.   Brother Adams, page 57

Brother Adam seems to suggest there may be something in the bee’s physiology that is triggered by cold and without that trigger they fail to build up in the spring.  While he found extra protection in the winter to be detrimental, he did postulate that extra protection in March and April would probably be beneficial to the spring buildup.

What’s your take of Brother Adams?

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #32 on: November 05, 2011, 06:17:46 am »
I’ve been reading more from Brother Adam!   I’m enjoying his little book since my bee keeping has been trending toward the way he kept bees at the Abbey.  Maybe you should trade in Democracy for the Abbey?  :)

Brother Adam says winter condensation is one of the great problems in your moist UK climate.  He says he experimented with a number of techniques to mitigate this problem and found a TOP VENT worked best for him.  I had to chuckle when I read that.

You’ve definitely got a very innovative hive design; it will be interesting to see how they make it through winter and the spring buildup.  I think Brother Adam would be skeptical, but also very interested to see how they do.

Any new updates on the super insulated hives?  

Offline derekm

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #33 on: November 05, 2011, 03:48:41 pm »
they've laid stores and are now reducing their brood floor temp still at 18c, The high probe is now down to 28c.
I think a key difference is this isnt a colony I just super insulated for winter. These bees including the queen have been born in this environment. I havent mucked them about and the almost constant 18c means the bees are following a behavioural path, which is means something is happening that bees are suopposed to do. Bees are keyed by photo-periodism(how else do they know to startup build up in Feb) and temperature. It seems these bees know what season it is inspite of being warm in the in the hive.


If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #34 on: November 05, 2011, 08:10:42 pm »
Yeah, I was a little surprised with Brother Adams report.  My climate gets so cold in the winter that even with my 2” of foam, my bees are going to get cold enough to spend plenty of time in cluster.  Here the foam is just going to prevent them from experiencing severe cold (-20C) and reduce their winter food consumption.  

Brother Adam reported his super insulated hives were “bone dry” in the spring.  I saw the same thing in my electrically heated nucs last spring.  As I’ve noted before, my small electric nucs did not build up very fast in the spring.  I was befuddled why.  Got me wondering if maybe they were TOO dry?  If so, maybe your open bottom screen and closed top design will prove more productive when combined with a super insulated hive; the bees will have access to more water via condensation inside your design.

Offline rail

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #35 on: November 06, 2011, 10:46:34 am »
BlueBee,

Did Brother Adam reference brood chamber size and over wintering?
Sirach

Offline derekm

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #36 on: November 06, 2011, 01:51:40 pm »
 Bluebee you are right. insulation plus top vent = dehydration. isnt that what everyone wants?

Bees have a repetoire of behaviours for managing temperature and humidity, I think all we need to do is ensure the environment is inside their control range. if we give them enough insulation so they can be mobile most of the time (so they control their environment)  and then have sufficient entrance/floor slots so that they can drive the temp and humdity as they want.  Top vents in winter take heat and humidty away but in not  a bee controlled manner.  Bottom slots and entrances mean that if the bees want to do something, they get a work party to do it.
   
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #37 on: November 06, 2011, 07:49:47 pm »
Rail, Brother Adam said his hives held 12 Dadant sized frames.  As for wintering, he wintered in normal wood boxes.  He used bottom entrances and shimmed the lid with 1/8” sticks in the winter for ventilation.  Sounds like 1 stick over each set of frame ears.  That’s probably a vent area of about 1/8 x 19 x 2 = 4.75 square inches.  Really a pretty large sized top vent area!  (mine are 0.56 sq inches)

Brother Adam believed that bees need a good chilling in the winter to build up properly in the spring; hence he did not insulate, wrap, or otherwise protect the Abbey’s hives.  He did live in a maritime climate and was not subject to the prolonged bitter cold we get in the Northern third of the USA. 

Sounds like his biggest winter problems were Nosema and weak hives going into winter.  Evidently collecting late season nectar from heather plants on the moorlands in the UK can be very lucrative and/or very hard on the bees (cool, misty conditions).  So some years when the moors were bad, he would go into winter weak.

Quote
insulation plus top vent = dehydration. Isn’t that what everyone wants?
:) That does seem to be a goal of bee keepers doesn’t it  :)

Offline windfall

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #38 on: November 10, 2011, 05:43:51 pm »
Today checking out the hives. I found both my foam nucs to be fanning again into the evening, at least 3-4 visible in and along the entrance "tunnel". They are the only hives doing this.

We have had a couple warm days..mid 50's and even mid 60's and lots of activity. Today was cooler (although still unseasonably warm), low 50's and windy. None of the hives flying.

The stronger nuc has a small (1/4 X1/4") top vent, it is actually moving enough air that I can feel a slight in-draft at that vent. This hive was also bringing in pollen during that warm spell.....no idea where they are finding it. None of the other hives are.

I still don't have any way to pull temps but will soon I think.

Shall we keep adding observations here or start a new thread?

Offline BlueBee

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Re: 0c 32f outside 18c inside at floor should i be worried?
« Reply #39 on: November 10, 2011, 06:51:22 pm »
Windfall, don’t worry colder air is on the way!

Brrrr…it’s cold out there.  I checked my hives with my IR temp sensor a shade after 5pm today.  33F outside.

1.5” foam nucs are reading on average about 50F at the bottom entrance.  17F over ambient.  I didn’t pop the top to look inside.  It’s cold out there!  There are a few bees that fly when it’s sunny and 45F outside.  However they’re not even making a dent on their stores yet.  As long as they’re not all flying or flapping I would argue they aren’t burning many calories.

My full sized Dadant hives (single box hives) are reading 58F to 68F at the top entrances.  25F to 35F over ambient.  Those have 2” foam on all 6 sides.