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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: hvac professor on August 24, 2011, 08:37:51 am

Title: losing hives overwinter
Post by: hvac professor on August 24, 2011, 08:37:51 am
I am a 1st year beekeeper and live in northeast new york near the vermont border. I was at a county fair yesterday and spoke with a woman from this area who claims she loses the majority of her bee hives every winter. I was pretty dissapointed to hear this and hope to hear otherwise from other beekeepers from my area.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: phill on August 24, 2011, 09:31:28 am
Last winter was unusually rough. But getting bees through the winter up around here is a challenge. Make sure they have plenty of stores, shelter them the best you can, and hope for the best.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 24, 2011, 09:58:50 am
.
First of all you should restrict the wintering space same size as the brood area is when hive stop larva feeding.
You put an extra insulated board into the hive and stop heat leaking to emty part.
Then you feed combs full of syrup  when brood are mostly emerged.

When the hive is feeded and it is ready for winter, in some stage wrap it into stone woll or glassfiber woll.

Arrange the ventilation. If you have a mesh floor, you need nothing else.
If you have a solid bottom, then you need an upper entrance. It is finger size hole in front wall.

So you have in horizontal level 2 insulation boards and between them frames.
Then round the hive put glassfiber or stone woll. They breathe condensation moisture well out.


If you have a such queen, which dies not continue brooding along the autumn, you should have no problems with wintering.  Normal proplems are 10-15% and if it hits in that one hive, you start from begin in spring.


Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: FRAMEshift on August 24, 2011, 10:03:40 am
Many of the loses are not actually in Winter but rather in early Spring.  When the bees start to raise brood, they may use up the last of the stores and starve to dearth.  Also, the first of the brood sets off mite reproduction which is concentrated on a small population of bees.  

Make sure the bees have plenty of food going into Winter.  It helps to put dry sugar over the broodnest so that the bees can get to it even in very cold weather.  And it helps if you can get the mite population down in the Fall by doing a powdered sugar shake if the mite drop numbers show a problem.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 24, 2011, 10:04:24 am
.
Restricting the wintering space.

Bee brave and restrict with harrs hand the wintering space. You shake the bees in front of hive from extra frames. When bees marsh all into the hive, they have not at leat too few frames there.

When you feed bees for winter and bees swell outside, and they do not go even at night ih´n, then give more space.

In langstroth hives put medium box under langstrot box.
In long hives give one or two frames more.

Th colony start wintering in the point where brood has bee last.
So in the box hives put brood in lower box.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 24, 2011, 10:09:08 am
 It helps to put dry sugar over the broodnest so that the bees can get to it even in very cold weather.  

Sorry pall. In cold climate bees can not eate dry sugar. It is 100% sure.

When you fill wintering frames with syrup, it is surely enough to go over winter.

NO ONE HERE put dry sugar for winterfood.

After cleansing flight as soon as possible you look inside the hive, and if you see capped food on upper parts of frames, everything are OK. When better weather come, you may look more closely how much they have stores.
Insulation saves food a lot.

I store food for 8 months for bees. They do not need extra food during that time if you have insultaion and if the hive doe not continue brooding in autumn.


They need not extra feeding, no Cristhmas super, no dry sugar. They need to be in in silence.

If you knock the hive, they allways prepare to defence the hive and rise their them up to 40C. It takes 24 h that they drop the temp to 23C which is cluster temp in winter.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: stella on August 24, 2011, 10:45:22 am
Thanks finski.
So, I will drill a finger size hole above the entrance, in the upper deep. Right?

Are the insulated boards something I buy?

I will assume that glass fiber is the same as fiberglass? I like the idea of it providing insulation and condensation removal at the same time. Do I make a hole in it for the entrance that I am going to drill?

Do I put fiberglass on the top of the hive as well?

Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: FRAMEshift on August 24, 2011, 10:45:43 am
Sorry pall. In cold climate bees can not eate dry sugar. It is 100% sure.
That must be true in Finland.  But I know that our bees use dry sugar and many beekeepers use it in climates much colder than North Carolina. If the bees run out of food and it's too cold for the cluster to move, having sugar above their heads may save them.  We spray the sugar with water so it's not completely dry.  

Quote
When you fill wintering frames with syrup, it is surely enough to go over winter.

Thanks for this idea Finski.  I used this during the dearth to give some food to a starving hive without setting off robbing.  I also thought this might be a better way to feed since it does not fill the broodnest with syrup.  Do your bees move the syrup from the filled syrup frames into the broodnest?
Quote

They need not extra feeding, no Cristhmas super, no dry sugar. They need to be in in silence.

I agree about the silence.  We add the dry sugar in mid December just before we put insulation on top of the hives.  Then we leave them alone until late February.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Oblio13 on August 24, 2011, 11:09:46 am
Sorry pall. In cold climate bees can not eate dry sugar. It is 100% sure.

Mine do. I live in New Hampshire, about 43 degrees north. I have Russian bees.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Kathyp on August 24, 2011, 12:26:20 pm
mine do too, but we have moisture to spare and we have enough days that warm for them to break cluster and move around.  they  must have the moisture for the dry sugar to be of any use and that's  not a problem in my area!! 
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 24, 2011, 12:51:56 pm
 Do your bees move the syrup from the filled syrup frames into the broodnest?

The hive is feeded so that you may feed part  in the middle of August. Then hives are still full of brood. At the start of September there is no larvae because flowers do not give pollen. Then last brood emerge.

Now, you´should give the last feeding that bees fill the empty brood cells.
If the colony is pressed into one wintering box, it happens with the aid of excluder.
The queen get only one box to lay in August. So do the professionals.

I let them lay as much as they like. Just now I move all brood frames to the lowest box and extract the honey. Now bees still need  2-3 boxes but summer bees are dying with huge speed.

I take all honey away and reolace it with sugar syrup. On average bees consume 20 kg per hive.  
This happens at the level of Anchorage.

in large USA you have many kind of beekeeping habits but I cannot see, why you do all those tricks.
At least at hobby level proceduals are really odd.

Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 24, 2011, 01:08:59 pm
.
I repeat still that our climate is so harsh that beekeepers have not much do their procedures many ways.
It is almost one alternative what you can do. If you try something eslse, you loose your hives.


I have tried to clear out that "idiot way to keep hives alive over long winter". Why should it succeed on the area where you have long snow periods. Bees can fly out but not in.

Areas which have only one week snow and sun is warming next week, it should be easy to keep bees.

What I have followed British beekeeping and beekeeping of this forum, bees are kept like aquarium fishes. All the time feeding, nursing and taking care and many does not take main product honey away. That is not beekeeping. It is petty keeping, bugs on back yard.

Actually my winter is mild and wet. We seldom have white Christmas.  When snow rains, most of it melts. So snow is wet and snow cover is not good to hives. In  north winter is cold and wet snow is rare. Bees do well under snow cover.

During 15 years the usual snow cover has been on my cottage are 30 cm. In western coast 5-10 cm is enough.

In the middle of Finland snow cover is 100 cm because ot does not melt away all the time.

I am sure that my advices are relevant in some parts of USA and Canada.
We have not popcornfields. They are found 1000 km to south.
 They need 2 moths longer summer what we have.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BeeMaster2 on August 24, 2011, 01:10:52 pm
If you knock the hive, they always prepare to defend the hive and raise their them up to 40C. It takes 24 h for them to drop the temp to 23C which is cluster temp in winter.

That is really good to know. My first year, I was told that during the winter to give a good rap on the box and listen to the buzz to make sure they are alive. Sounds like a good way to kill your bees. :-x
Thanks Finski.
Jim
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: FRAMEshift on August 24, 2011, 05:47:57 pm
Actually my winter is mild and wet. We seldom have white Christmas.  When snow rains, most of it melts. So snow is wet and snow cover is not good to hives. In  north winter is cold and wet snow is rare. Bees do well under snow cover.

During 15 years the usual snow cover has been on my cottage are 30 cm. In western coast 5-10 cm is enough.

In the middle of Finland snow cover is 100 cm because ot does not melt away all the time.


Where do you live in Finland?  What town or city is close to you?
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 24, 2011, 06:51:11 pm
During 15 years the usual snow cover has been on my cottage are 30 cm. In western coast 5-10 cm is enough.
It’s beginning to sound like Finski is living in the tropics  :-D

30cm of snow?  Parts of Michigan get over 300cm a year.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt)

Joking aside, for those of us living in the north, Finski has some very good advice. 

According to a conference I was at, in Michigan we had at least 60% of the hives die last winter before March.  We then had a cold spring that probably took out even more.  If people were really successful at wintering bees, there wouldn’t be such a huge demand for new bees from the South every spring.  The fact that there is such a huge demand, implies a lot of people fail at wintering (rather they like to admit it or not).

Getting your bees through winter is probably the trickiest part to bee keeping in the north.   
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 24, 2011, 06:54:29 pm
Sorry pall. In cold climate bees can not eate dry sugar. It is 100% sure.

Mine do. I live in New Hampshire, about 43 degrees north. I have Russian bees.

probably the condensation inside the hive wets the sugar or it provides the water that the bees use.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 25, 2011, 01:28:58 am
probably the condensation inside the hive wets the sugar or it provides the water that the bees use.

 My opinion is that bees get necessary water when they uncap honey cell, Moisture dilute the open food.

The cluster is 20 C warm. Bees respire 10 litres water during winter and most of it goes out via ventilation. Some part condensates on side walls and drills to bottom and then out.

Too humid air inside the hive makes the bees sick. Nosema is one.

Inside wet snow bees feel worse than in open cold air.


Bees consume  20 kg honey and exrecete from food 10 kg water. Handfull dry sugar means nothing in that game.

During winter ice sticks hang in the lowest frames parts like carrots. When it is mild weather, they melt away. 

Bees tolerate quite much condensation inside the hive. If someone says that he have had NEVER condensation in the hive, I do not believe it. I have condensation in the middle of summer when moist 36C hive air meets cold bottom at night.

Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 25, 2011, 01:33:29 am

Where do you live in Finland?  What town or city is close to you?

I live in Capital city Helsinki on the isle Lauttasaari.  Isle has no bees.  The size is mile x mile

My hives are 150 km away to east from Helsinki. It is 15 km from the sea.

(http://www.histdoc.net/lauttasaari/pic/Lauttasaari2007-07-05.jpg)


My hives have this kind of lanscape. Several hives are in the upper part of the picture.
balance hive brought 140 kg in one month this summer behind that lake.

Photo has taken in the middle of May. Fields are not green yeat.


(http://www.kouvola.fi/material/attachments/tekninenjaymparistotoimi/kaaavoitus/5pImKdHJY/Sippola_kilpailu.jpg)

(http://personal.inet.fi/palvelu/onnelafarm/fi/images/loc_winter3.jpg)

This area is too open and windy. It is probably December in the picture and snow cover is 10 cm
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 25, 2011, 05:53:03 am
During 15 years the usual snow cover has been on my cottage are 30 cm. In western coast 5-10 cm is enough.
It’s beginning to sound like Finski is living in the tropics  :-D

30cm of snow?  Parts of Michigan get over 300cm a year.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt)

Joking aside, for those of us living in the north, Finski has some very good advice.  

According to a conference I was at, in Michigan we had at least 60% of the hives die last winter before March.  We then had a cold spring that probably took out even more.  If people were really successful at wintering bees, there wouldn’t be such a huge demand for new bees from the South every spring.  The fact that there is such a huge demand, implies a lot of people fail at wintering (rather they like to admit it or not).

Getting your bees through winter is probably the trickiest part to bee keeping in the north.  


60% losses!  yet Michigan bee keepers can make a hive from common materials that will enable bees to maintain 34C inside  the whole hive with an outside temp  of -40C for less than $60 per hive but michingan beekepers choose not to do so... Facinating as Mr Spock would say. If you get such high losses there is nothing to loose in trying high levels of insulation.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BeeMaster2 on August 25, 2011, 12:48:43 pm
Finski,
My hives have this kind of lanscape. Several hives are in the upper part of the picture.
balance hive brought 140 kg in one month this summer behind that lake.

Are you saying you get over 300 pounds of honey from 1 hive? WOW.

I pulled a little over 100 pounds from my best hive (and still have a little more to pull) and I thought I was doing pretty good.
Jim
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 25, 2011, 02:08:49 pm
By the time spring finally got here, the losses in Michigan were probably more like 75 to 80%.  It was a cold, snowy, sunless winter with very few cleansing flight days.  They haul new bees in here from the southern US and California by the Semi truck load full every spring.  Even with the full tractor loads, demand could not be meet this spring.  Either we have a ton of new bee keepers every year (we do not), or most people’s bees die (very likely).   In the cold north, you need to do SOMETHING to increase your odds of wintering success.

I know of two commercial operations within 15 miles of me.  One with 500 hives and one with 1000 hives.  They both winter in simple wood hives and both had losses over 60%.  The 1000 hive guy had 100% losses.  That doesn’t mean they don’t make money though.  The spring flow is so strong that they can re-package their hives in the spring and still make a nice profit even from a package.  Ironically enough, this has been a bumper year for them.  Go figure!  Bee keeping is a strange business.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 25, 2011, 02:40:53 pm
.
To loose colony means loosing many more expencive things.

Combs are filled with rotten bees, frames and combs are painted with poo.

Boxes are sprayed with poo.  it is quite a job to put things into practic again..

Our biggest beekeeper has 3000 hives. He sells poly hives to many countries like to UK and to Russians. (Paradise Honey)
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 25, 2011, 05:37:07 pm
By the time spring finally got here, the losses in Michigan were probably more like 75 to 80%.  It was a cold, snowy, sunless winter with very few cleansing flight days.  They haul new bees in here from the southern US and California by the Semi truck load full every spring.  Even with the full tractor loads, demand could not be meet this spring.  Either we have a ton of new bee keepers every year (we do not), or most people’s bees die (very likely).   In the cold north, you need to do SOMETHING to increase your odds of wintering success.

I know of two commercial operations within 15 miles of me.  One with 500 hives and one with 1000 hives.  They both winter in simple wood hives and both had losses over 60%.  The 1000 hive guy had 100% losses.  That doesn’t mean they don’t make money though.  The spring flow is so strong that they can re-package their hives in the spring and still make a nice profit even from a package.  Ironically enough, this has been a bumper year for them.  Go figure!  Bee keeping is a strange business.

if bees were cattle the animal welfare people would have those owners in jail. IMHO its cruel AND stupid. if you work the insulation numbers for summer in my climate, insulation means an extra 60kg of of honey crop. I insulate my hives for their welfare, i need to be able to look my food in the eye, even if the eye looking back is compound eye. However,their welfare an the crop size go hand in hand.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 25, 2011, 08:24:18 pm
The guy with 1000 hives takes all the honey from the hive except for what is in the bottom deep brood nest.  So he winters the bees in a single deep wood hive in Michigan.  If we have a mild winter, some of those bees survive and he splits them in the spring to repopulate his dead outs.  If we have a hard winter, they all die and he buys all new bees. 

The guy with 500 hives follows standard bee keeping practices in the USA.  He feeds in the fall and winters in various hive configurations equal to about 2 deeps.  He told me he lost 60% of his colonies last winter.  So he ended up doing more work for his bees, putting more money into them (feed), and most still died.  So who came out ahead?

Other bee keepers have the opinion that you should never pamper the bees over winter because you are defeating the “natural selection” process and polluting the gene pool with non winter hardy bees.  Finski and I have experimented with electric heat on some of our small colonies and some beeks think that is just plain wrong.

As a hobbyist with a few hives, I have a different perspective and think insulation is cost effective and good for my hobby bees so I use it.  One shoe size may not fit all beeks though.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: TwoHoneys on August 25, 2011, 08:51:51 pm

Then you feed combs full of syrup  when brood are mostly emerged.


I should probably know how to do this, but I don't. Do you simply spray or pour sugar syrup in the comb and then put the comb back in the hive? If so, that's a wonderfully elegant solution.

-Liz
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: hvac professor on August 25, 2011, 10:52:46 pm
BlueBee I have been wondering about some type of heating, why not. I dont want to replace my bees every year and what a waste.
I watched a video today at a local bee supplier and there are many concerns about losing bees all over the worls regardless of the climate
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: stella on August 25, 2011, 11:44:46 pm
 Derekm, please share with me ( first year beek) just how you insulate your hive.
 I really want my hive to survive a bitter cold Minnesota winter!
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 25, 2011, 11:58:39 pm
Hvac professor, isn’t heating and cooling right up your alley?  Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun  :-D

I have a lot of posts in the experimental section of this forum on electric heat if you wanted to try something along that line.  Forum user gaucho10 also has some posts in there about his electric heating setup.

For a full sized hive, if you have it insulated and preparted for winter as Finski recommends, that should be sufficient.  The bees themselves do generate heat in the winter so if you have them in an insulated hive, they will not experience the full brunt of a upstate NY winter.

The electric heat is particularly useful if you have a very small colony of bees you want to get thru winter; say 2 or 3 deep frames of bees from a late summer split that didn’t grow as quickly as you hoped befor winter.  Such small colonies can’t generate as much heat as a full sized colony; added electric heat is kind of like having an extra 3 or 4 frames of bees in there.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: hvac professor on August 26, 2011, 12:12:12 am
Thanks BlueBee for the advice and places to find more information
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 26, 2011, 01:16:49 am

I should probably know how to do this, but I don't. Do you simply spray or pour sugar syrup in the comb and then put the comb back in the hive? If so, that's a wonderfully elegant solution.

-Liz

you need a feeding box, which has about 10 litre volume. Then you put it over frames. Heat from the hive keeps syrup warm.

The hive needs couple weeks time to cap the food.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 26, 2011, 06:21:22 am
Derekm, please share with me ( first year beek) just how you insulate your hive.
 I really want my hive to survive a bitter cold Minnesota winter!
I use hives made out  Foil coated polyurethane foam.(u can use standard woodworking tools on it). Reinforced  edges  with polyester resin and fibreglass tissue. frame rails out of alumium angle.

On Langstroth size hives 2" thick is good for  -23C,  3" thick for -41C (=-40f).

The design I use has standard internals dimensions but the entrance starts below floor level. THe floor  section is a double grill/mesh closed so the floor is 6" high in total. No top vent in winter.

If I was using a standard wooden hive and wanted to insulate it for a wild -40f winter. I would make a outer cover with 3" PU foam that had 3/8 gap between the hive and the cover and make the roof of the cover have a 1 " slope. The slope is to keep condensation off the hive. The hive would itself would be 18" off the ground but the cover would reach to the ground . 6" off the ground  a single row of  of 1/2" holes. 4 on each side. .For deep snow ventaltion a 2"plastic pipe again from 6" off the floor go to max snow depth  and then with a couple of 90 deg bend to curve over
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Tommyt on August 26, 2011, 09:19:59 am
derekm
 I am way south but very curious how people keep bees @ different lat&longitudes
Could you post a picture of one of your hives maybe show how you
have the bottoms 6"

Thanks
Tommyt
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 26, 2011, 04:27:09 pm
derekm
 I am way south but very curious how people keep bees @ different lat&longitudes
Could you post a picture of one of your hives maybe show how you
have the bottoms 6"

Thanks
Tommyt
quite often people in the uk put a "super" underneath the floor in winter I've just designed it in. heres the nuc
(http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/picture.php?albumid=289&pictureid=1617)
here's the lower grid mesh
(http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/picture.php?albumid=289&pictureid=1620)

heres the upper grid
(http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/picture.php?albumid=289&pictureid=1618)



Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 26, 2011, 06:59:02 pm
.
A huge insulation and the floor widely open. Something badly wrong in that theory.
Sorry to say that.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 26, 2011, 07:49:19 pm
.
A huge insulation and the floor widely open. Something badly wrong in that theory.
Sorry to say that.

I think something badly wrong in your observation perhaps a matter of scale .The slot openings have a max width  of 3mm (typical 2.5). The floor has about 13% open area. This  is less  open area than the conventional mesh  sold for OMF (as high as 80%) and the insulation is 50mm.
In practice, the bees dont escape or enter via the floor grill  and they manage to throw the bodies out the entrance when they need to.
its been tested it works...
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 27, 2011, 01:32:07 am
.
I have 48 years experience with bees in Finlad. Since first energy crisis we have cebated and researches energy saving of human houses.

To save energy and throught bodies via floor holes macth not in same  idea.

The heath stays up in your system but when wind blows a little bit, it wash the box from heat. Long structure aids in it.
We use to keep doors closed in human houses in winter.

How much hive consumes food during winter months and how many months?
How many frames the cluster occupyes?
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 27, 2011, 02:26:49 am
Derekm, I can see the logic behind your open floor design, but I’m wondering why you didn’t go with a more conventional insulation approach?  Why did you choose to go with an open floor and a closed top instead of a more conventional small bottom vent/entrance and a small top vent/entrance?   What are the advantages and disadvantages?

I understand your use of mesh and grills to try to create a dead air space (insulation) in the floor area of your hive.  Where I live we get a lot of wind in the winter and have to confess I would worry about wind washing the heat from the hive as Finski fears.  However I’ve never tried it. 

I also worry about the exchange of gasses (CO2, O2, and water vapor) with a closed top.  I’ve stuck with a conventional insulation design like Finski, but am always interested to hear how other approaches work.  I’m not enough of a rebel myself  :(, but like to watch the rebels at work  :)

You gotta get us a photo of this hive!!!  I’m very curious to see it.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 27, 2011, 11:28:07 am
.
Longhive itself is a big problem in beekeeping.

i started with 3 long hives  almost 50 years ago. That hive model was most popular in our country, but they are not used any more. Actually it was too small to modern breeded queens.

Hive had a huge insulation, but for beekeeping very difficult to handle and impossible to migration.

If you have more hives, only way to get good yields is migration. Pastures give the good yield. We just completed my friend's yard for winter feeding. The average yield was 80 kg/hive.
Secret is free laying, no excluder, swarm control with false swarms and clipping the quuen.

The yield period was 5 weeks.

.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 27, 2011, 03:07:57 pm
Derekm, I can see the logic behind your open floor design, but I’m wondering why you didn’t go with a more conventional insulation approach?  Why did you choose to go with an open floor and a closed top instead of a more conventional small bottom vent/entrance and a small top vent/entrance?   What are the advantages and disadvantages?

I understand your use of mesh and grills to try to create a dead air space (insulation) in the floor area of your hive.  Where I live we get a lot of wind in the winter and have to confess I would worry about wind washing the heat from the hive as Finski fears.  However I’ve never tried it.  

I also worry about the exchange of gasses (CO2, O2, and water vapor) with a closed top.  I’ve stuck with a conventional insulation design like Finski, but am always interested to hear how other approaches work.  I’m not enough of a rebel myself  :(, but like to watch the rebels at work  :)

You gotta get us a photo of this hive!!!  I’m very curious to see it.


finski - those pictures are of a nuc (half size) hive, it takes  5 British national frames.
As regards knowing about  air movement and insulation  several years i worked for the UK subsidary of Svenska Flaktfabriken (Flakt).

blue bee: the full size hive is just twice the width. internal dimensions are just british national. Though next year they will be extended to 14x12.

Inside the hive there is good air circulation provided by the heat of the bees and the cooling of the wall. Cold air and Co2 will fall to the grid  Co2 will tend to fall faster, further, the the higher humidity air will be denser  and so there will be low velocity interchange with air below the first grid (floor).  The small gaps in the second grid again 3mm prevents high air velocities in the below floor plenum chamber.
There is no wind washing near the floor, the wind is baffled by the deep sides and bottom grid, and to really sure there is the vermin mesh under the second grid (12mm mesh).
 In winter survival, in a snow cave you build a ledge  with a pit alongside and sleep on  the ledge.  the cold and and CO2 accumate in the pit. my  hives have a grid so the Co2 and cold air can keep falling.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 27, 2011, 03:31:06 pm
I’m not seeing any photos :(  I'm running IE8 on a Windows PC.  It looks like you may have posted photos in reply #32?

It sounds like an interesting design and it sounds like you’ve thought things through.  Very interesting, I just wish I could see those photos.

I use a photo sharing service (photobucket) for my photos and then copy and paste the “img” tag into my posting to show the photo.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: derekm on August 27, 2011, 04:17:34 pm
you can see them at http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/all_albums.php (http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/all_albums.php)
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 28, 2011, 12:47:54 pm
.
ENTRANCE VENTILATION

When summer is over and the hives have 1-2 boxes, I use  size on main entrance 10 cm x 0,8 cm. Then one upper entarance in front wall. I may push my small finger to the hole.

So, that had been enough to my hives.

Many beekeepers are mad with their mesh floor. Like many say, it is "a modern bloor". Nonsence, it come with varroa and it is called often varroa floor.
*ll*lll*

if you have a mesh floor, you need not upper entrance.

...,.........

We have in winter a proverb: shut the door, it is byed heat!..

.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 28, 2011, 12:52:04 pm
.
I have seen many times in the middle of winter, when temp is near zero and snow is wet, a bee ventilates with its wings inside the of upper entrance.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: hvac professor on August 28, 2011, 02:33:13 pm
Finski, I have 5 deep boxes on my 1st year hive as I mentioned before, I will be extracting sometime this week because Irene is dumping lots of rain today. Assuming hives are full of bees and honey you believe that I should still drop down to 1-2 boxes for winter?

Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: T Beek on August 28, 2011, 07:00:55 pm
Especially in cold climates, condencing/squeezing bees down is neccessary for survival, meaning;  "Leave no empty boxes or frames on hives over winter." 

It is wasted space.  Up here we've already begun the process.  It also really affords the ability to get a last good inspection in before winter.

We get pretty cold up here and our winters typically last more than six months.  If it were'nt for DRY SUGAR my bees would've starved on many occasions. 

That brings up the most important point of this conversation.  All Beekeeping is Local.  What works in North Wisconsin may not work in Finland or Florida.  Take all advise at your own risk.

thomas
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 28, 2011, 08:07:34 pm
Finski, I have 5 deep boxes on my 1st year hive as I mentioned before, I will be extracting sometime this week because Irene is dumping lots of rain today. Assuming hives are full of bees and honey you believe that I should still drop down to 1-2 boxes for winter?



i am during it just now at the level of Anchorage. I do not believe that  that New York climate is in same situation.



When the flowers are away and plants prepare themselves to winter, foraging bees die rapidly on fields.

When I take honey frames off now, there are only few bees on honey frames. Bees are by themselves in two box around brood frames. It is very easy to meke decision, one or two.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 28, 2011, 08:26:46 pm


That brings up the most important point of this conversation.  All Beekeeping is Local.  What works in North Wisconsin may not work in Finland or Florida.  Take all advise at your own risk.


that is the point. And every hive is individual. Does it have 5 or 15 frames brood.

Advices is not a risk. Risk is if you do not use your O W N brains.

We are changing here ideas. 

you may follow the idea that give to the hive 3 wintering boxes and 60 kg food, ooooorrrr
press into one insulated box and feed 20 kg sugar as syrup.

They are your hives. You may give to them  mere honey and they consume your all honey + dry sugar too.

MOST importat, to be succesfull, you must have a bee stock which react in proper way that fall is coming.
I have read that in Britain New Zealand bees are splended but in my climate none on then survive over winter what ever you do.

.

Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: stella on August 28, 2011, 10:51:22 pm
Does anyone wrap their hives in fiberglass?
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: BlueBee on August 28, 2011, 11:13:50 pm
I don’t, but knowing bee keeping, there is always somebody keeping bees in every manner conceivable to man..... 

An obvious problem with fiberglass is it loses its insulation value if it gets wet.  Maybe if you wrapped your hive in insulation, then covered it with a big plastic garbage bag and cut holes for top and bottom vent/entrances, it might work. 

Keeping a garbage bag on the hive might prove difficult with the wind during a mid west winter.  You could try strapping the bag over the fiberglass, but if you compress the fiberglass too much, you end up reducing its insulation capabilities.

Fiberglass might also make a nice nest for mice. 

I’ve never tried it, just listing some things I would worry about.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 29, 2011, 03:10:22 am
.
Glassfiber - no....

I use polyhives and then I make wind and snow protection from geotextile.

Now I ad bird net, because wood peckers have learner to make holes in hives.
They make holes even in summer.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: T Beek on August 29, 2011, 07:40:29 am
Personally, I try to insulate my hives w/ what nature provides.  Piled Hay/straw, followed by snow cover.  Although I do use 2" rigid insulation inside my vent/feed boxes for winter.

thomas
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: Finski on August 29, 2011, 09:47:59 am
.
Moist hay, straw = mold. 

natural = wool shirt to the hive.
Title: Re: losing hives overwinter
Post by: T Beek on August 29, 2011, 09:58:53 am
Different strokes for......... ;).  I'm not giving up my wool shirts :-D  My bees and I Don't have any problems w/ mold.

thomas