BC this post is for you

[Cindi]

My top super has about 5 frames of honey. They are still bringing in pollen. I'm feeding them sugar syrup (2:1). I'm planning on feeding them until the end of the month and then I'm going to feed them Bakers dry sugar. I was using ziplock bags but I can't keep up with them. I've gone to a frame feeder. I'm not too happy with this because I'm losing a lot of bees.
I also use grease patties with salt ( the pink stuff for livestock ) and wintergreen oil. I haven't seen any mites. I didn't treat with mite-away. I've been told that I better or I could lose them. Is it too late to put a pad in? I wasn't being lazy. I just sometimes worry about that stuff in the hive.
I wrapped my hive in tarpaper this weekend. I have a cork size hole in the top super just below the handle. I also glued popsicle pieces on all 4 corners of the innercover.
This is my first hive. Any rookie mistakes so far? Let me know.

First off, I am across the river from you (I responded to your post in the greetings forum).  You should not be feeding any more sugar syrup.  That should be discontinued in our area around the first week of October.  The reason for this is that with the syrup, the bees do not have that much more time now to process it and store it for their use.  Stop, don't feed anymore.  You say you top super has 5 frames of honey, that should be ample for the size of hive that you have.  About 7 pounds per frame, 35 pounds of honey, or so, very, very loose calculations.  In our area a colony will require about 60 pounds of honey to last them until they can again forage strongly for nectar, but 35 pounds will get them easily through the worst of our winter.   During the winter, when it is cold, the bees require less honey than if it is warmer outside.  Come February, you will begin to feed them pollen patties.  You don't have to, but it will supply extra pollen in case they need it.  The queen by this time will have begun egg laying in earnest, having additional pollen, in the event that they did not store enough, will ensure that they have enough to feed the brood.

I think you glued the popsicle sticks to the inner cover for ventilation.  That is good, but perhaps was not required.  Does your inner cover have a slot in the front?  That is pretty standard for equipment here.  I would like to know.  If there is a slot on the inner cover, that would be enough ventilation, the popsicle sticks were moot.  That is more so used when in the summer to add extra ventilation.  Why the hole above the handle on the box?  Again, I am thinking that you may have done this for ventilation.  If there is a slot in the inner cover, this was not needed.  If there is a slot in the inner cover, I would suggest you plug this hole.

I don't know everything, but these are some of the things that I must tell you, from my courses that I have taken and many things I have learned throughout my beekeeping.  Our areas and climate are identical.

We have had some extremely cold nights the past week, as have you.  The afternoons have been very warm.  The bees are out full bore, gathering what remaining pollen would be around, doubt if there is much nectar, but some perhaps.  My fall asters have bit the dust, they provided sustenance for the bees, but gone now, frost kill.  Not much out there.

Feeding them dry sugar is for an emergency food, not for "feeding".  You can put it on the colony for emergency use, but I can bet your bottom dollar they will not require it, but it will be there "just in case".  That is good enough.  What is Bakers dry sugar?  Don't know that.  When I have placed dry sugar on the inner cover (my inner covers have a hole in them that I can open just a little bit or close right off, depending on what is going on), I just use plain ol' white sugar, the brand, Rogers.  Nothing too special.

About the mites.  You got a nuc in July.  I would presume that you got the nuc from a reputable bee breeder and that that colony would not have had many mites, perhaps a few, but not many.  Don't worry about the mites right now.  The time has passed where any strips could be put into the colony.  Those mite-away things are temperature specific and it is too cold.  Next year you will need to worry about mites and keep an eye on them.  If there is not any intervention on your part, to do mite counts, sugar shakes, oxalic or formic acid, whatever, you can bet your bottom dollar that you will lose your colony, due to a mite overload.  With luck, you will have a hygienic colony and you will not need to treat, but you must monitor.  I made a mistake during my second year of beekeeping, was not aware of how mites can devastate a colony, never paid any attention to the mites and I lost all but one of my colonies (four of them, if my memory serves me well).  Total colony collapse -- mites are a very serious threat to honeybee colonies.

BC, I hope I have addressed your queries.  You will have a thousand more questions, ask them.  You will get responses from many friends on our forum, it is important to ask questions.  They are powerful learning tools.  You will find that beekeepers are always very willing to help others out.  Nice to have another Lower Mainland beekeeper.  AND....have that most beautiful and awesomely great day, health.  Cindi

[BC]

Hi Cindi,
I got my Nuc from DR. Bee in Pit Meadows.

I said they had about five frames of honey. I need to check again. Some of the frames were not full frames. Looking down at the hive I can see the white capping. I will let you know. One frame that I checked had first stage eggs ( looks like rice ) at the bottom just below the honey cells of the frame. I don't check as much in fear of chilling the brood thats on the bottom. I also treated with Fumagillin B two weeks ago.

Baker's sugar is a finer grind of sugar. You can do the same with regular sugar by putting it in a blender. I have read that Bees like it.

My innercover does have a cut out in the middle and a front slot. I do have another one without the sticks that I can change out. I can plug the hole in the front in the top super. It is a cork size hole and I have a cork to plug it with. Yes, the popsicle sticks and front hole are for ventilation. I worry about condensation. Any more information would be very much appreciated.
 
Thank you for your time.

[Cindi]

BC, Dr. Bee, (Ron) is a good friend of mine.  He is the one that I originally took my level 1 and 2 beekeeping courses with, my equipment, everything, the imported packages from Australia.  He is a good man to deal with and will answer any questions that you may ever need to have answered.  You can be assured that you would have received good quality nucs from him and that they would have been as mite free as bee colonies can be.  He keeps a very clean and beautiful operation there and loves his bees deeply.  Good, sounds like you have the queen still laying, that is good to have young bees going into winter.  Around our area, we can expect the queen to have stopped laying by November 1.  That is when people that use Oxalic Acid vapourizing for mite control usually perform this action, when there is no brood, that way no hidden mites.  Fumigilan is good for our wet climate too.  I haven't treated for years with this, but I do know that John from the Honeybee Centre recommends it, and he also keeps wonderfully strong colonies.

The only ventilation that you require in our area is the slot in the inner cover.  Do that, plug that hole with a cork, exchange the inner cover for the one without the popsicle sticks, that is too much ventilation for our rainforest climate in winter.  Trust me, that slot in the front of the inner cover is enough for wintertime here.  That hole in the middle is used for feeding in any form that you wish to feed.  I use the baggies placed on the inner cover, I place wax cappings on the inner cover, the bees have a tiny area beside the plug for the inner cover to come up and feed, it works well for me.  You can also when you feed by the baggie method, put the baggies right on top of the frames, that works too.  But with food on top of the inner cover (and a shim in place so that there is room for the bees to come up and feed), you don't have to enter the colony, surprising how much the bees enjoy wax cappings that have honey residue in it.  This is for future information, when you get honey, smiling....

The bees don't care if the sugar is finely ground or not.  You can use the Bakers sugar if you so choose, but it it is more expensive than just the regular grind sugar, don't use it, for cost reasons only.

I can't think of other things, you must ask the questions, answers will come by others, not only me.  Good luck and have that most beautiful and awesome day, with great health.  Cindi

I had my Husband make the hole for my inner covers near the end, so that I could easily fit a gallon baggie feeder in.  Most inner covers have it in the centre, for ease of the inverted jar/pail feeding, that is probably where yours is.  If the hole is in the centre, still several smaller baggies can be placed on the inner cover.  This method of feeding is good because the warmth from the colony warms the syrup and the bees much prefer warm syrup than cold.



This is a massive amount of cappings that I put in the colony one time.



The baggie feeder works well on the colony when weather is warmer.

[Irwin]

Thank's for the pic's cindi :)

[Cindi]

Irwin,  :) :) :)

And this is what they do if that opening in the inner cover for the bees to come up through is too big, like in the picture in the previous post with the baggie feeder, I shouldn't have left that opening so big, quite a bit smaller, I think the bees got confused, smiling.  Have a great and most wonderful day, health.  Cindi

[Irwin]

Cindi I'm going to make one of those today but I'm going too put a 3/4 inch hole in it. And thanks for the pic's of them closing it up :-D

[BC]

Hello Cindi,
Checked the hive on Monday. They don't have five frames of stores. There are four. One is full on both sides. One has a side full and the other side is up the middle. It is a wide area with no comb on the left or right of it. Just foundation. The next one is the same ( up the middle ) and not much on the other side. The last one has very little. Kind a like a half moon shape with nothing on the other side. No comb. I use plastic frames. Could there be a problem with some of the frames. Or should I have started feeding earlier. What do you think?

Thanks,
BC

[Cindi]

BC, in our area we begin to feed 2:1 sugar syrup around the beginning of September.  There can be a fall flow, lots of nectar in September, but that is a good rule of thumb, and feed syrup lot a day later than October 5.  THe bees need to have time to work the syrup and store it in cells.  Personally, I think that you are OK with your food for the bees.  Remember, if the weather is colder, the bees cluster and don't eat as much.  If the weather remains warmer they can break cluster and eat more, hence more stores.  Last winter, I know for a fact the bees couldn't have broken cluster from the middle of December to the middle of February.  Our area had two months of below zero weather (yours did too).

It will not hurt one little bit to put dry sugar on the top of the inner cover, so the bees can have emergency feeding if they need it.  That is if they can break cluster to get to it.  One safer method of feeding sugar to the bees is to put some newspaper directly over the frames, below the inner cover.  This allows the bees to have access to the sugar as the cluster moves around inside the colony.  Sugar covering the tops of the frames allows access.  The sugar on top of the inner cover is extra, extra feed.  I would do both in the colony if I were to feed dry sugar.  Pick a day when the sun is shining and take a moment to put some newspaper over the top bars and some dry sugar.  You can open the colony on a day when the temps are cool, if you only open it for a few minutes.  It won't hurt, but it should be done soon if you are going to feed this way.  It sounds to me like for the size of the expected amount of bees, you have enough food for the most part of the winter.  Once April comes you can begin to feed 1:1 sugar syrup to the bees, but not before then.  Pollen patties can go in around the beginning to middle of February, whenever the weather becomes good enough to go quickly inside, and only quickly, no inspection is done yet.  Have you joined the Langley bee club?  They have a good club, and there will be many people that will be willing to help you out with questions you will need to ask.  And ask here too, but weather depending questions will be very varied, as there are not too many members that live in our close area.  Have that wonderful and most awesome day, health.  Cindi

[BC]

Cindi,
Thanks again for the help. I'll try the dry sugar. No I haven't joined the Langley club. It would be hard to attend meetings with my line of work. I find the internet and this web site a lot easier for me to get information.
In February when you feed pollen patties, do you put then on top of the frames? I read somewhere that a person put them in between the frames.

Thanks,
BC

[Cindi]

BC, you make a honkin' big pollen patty.  When I make mine that are the size of my two hands put together, (actually my hands are not that big, but they weigh about 500 grams (about a little more than one pound) then I roll them between two pieces of wax paper.  This pollen patty is placed RIGHT ON TOP OF THE BROOD FRAMES.  You will know what are the brood frames because that is where you will see most of the bees on the top of the frames.  The brood caring bees need as easy access to the pollen as they can possibly get, and that is right on top of them.  Well, when you put the pollen patty on, gently put the patty where there are no bees and then push it over to the brood area, the bees will move out of the way, be careful to not crush any bees, it is surprising how easy bees are to move, if you are gentle.  Gentle, slow motions ALWAYS.  Quick motions catch their eye and they become alarmed, and we know that that can do, smiling.....Not sure why someone would say to put it between the frames, the bees need to move around freely and this would inhibit this activity a great deal.

This picture below is what the pollen patty looks like after rolled out.  It will cover about half the tops of the frames usually, very big.  I also believe that the pollen patty helps to keep the brood area warmer too.  The bees love pollen patty, yummy.  Have that most wonderful, most awesome day, with great health too.  Cindi

[BC]

Cindi,
Thanks again. Now, I hate to be a pain. Do you have a recipe for pollen patties? I've looked on line and there are different ones. Also, there are recipes for people with 50 or more hives. My wife and I would be fighting for freezer space with 50 lbs of patties. I just have my lonely little hive. I only need a small recipe. some to feed and a little to freeze. How many hives do you have?

I tried to post a picture of my hive. I got a response saying I had to post more messages on this board. I don't understand.

Cheers,
BC

[Yappy]

BC, glad to hear your bees are doing good.
 What race are your bees? I haven't ordered yet.

CINDI,  great pics, you mentioned top vents, do you use only top entrances?
What race are your bees?
 Do recommend feeding pollen to a new package of bees when first starting?
Really good to see some posts about problems and solutions that work in our area,
please keep them coming.
... Rob

[BC]

Hey Fireguy,
They are Italian. Like the Sopranos!

[Cindi]

you mentioned top vents, do you use only top entrances?
What race are your bees?
 Do recommend feeding pollen to a new package of bees when first starting?
Really good to see some posts about problems and solutions that work in our area,
please keep them coming.
... Rob

Rob, mine were originally Carniolan, they are still pretty dark, but I wouldn't doubt if through supercedure, they have mingled with other bees and are now just mutts, but they are strong, tried and true, overwinter in small clusters and are a good breed, whatever they may now be.  They could be still pure Carniolan, no clue about that too.

Absolutely.  In our area we need to feed pollen patties when hiving a package of bees.  They do not have pollen yet gathered to feed the brood.  The queen is generally released from her cage within a few days, she will be laying eggs no longer than a week after hiving.  They MUST have pollen or they cannot feed the brood.  Granted, the foragers may have gathered a little pollen, if the weather has been good enough for them to get out, but who wants to take a chance of starving babies?  Not me, and I don't think anyone should either.

We don't have the worries of the small hive beetle that also love pollen patty.  We are very fortunate that we don't have that hideous thing in our area, and just hope to your lucky stars it never gets over here.  There will be many tips that will be found out through your studies, which will be pertinent to our climate.  Go to the provincial government site for beekeeping.  There is a mountain of great information which will also assist you with your studies of Lower Mainland climate, we are a very interesting climate in our area.  And it is a difficult one to beekeep in, as someone here on the forum mentioned.  It is the moisture that is the crapper here.

Yes, I have bottom and top entrances.  The top entrance is the opening on the inner cover.  IMPERATIVE in our area (and other places too) for the moisture from the colony to be released and not stay within the colony.  I will give a picture of one of my colonies.

I went into winter last year with 9 colonies.  You know we had that 2 months of weather from mid December to mid February where the temperature never went above zero.  That is unheard of in our climate, a most severe winter.  Usually we only have that cold spell in the January month.  It was a nasty winter.

I lost 8 of those colonies.  I attribute that to the queens that I had requeened the colonies with (except that one colony, which I never gave a new queen to).  These queens did not build up the colonies as they should have.  I was rather neglectful and should have combined colonies to make stronger ones for the winter, but didn't.  I had stuff going on in my life, and just never got around to it.  Small clusters, couldn't move around to get the honey, starved out.  Plain and simple.  So I have one colony now.  Strong, strong, strong, going into winter with a massive sized bunch of bees.  Good.  Next year will be my year of building back up my colonies and if all goes well, this master colony will do me well.  It is a good breed of bees, even though they may be mutts.

Rob, yes, I have a great recipe for pollen patty.  I don't have the time right now to get it, but use mine, it is a tried and true recipe, comes from Jacquie Bunsie, the BC bee inspector.  It is good, it makes not too many patties and is good for the small time beekeeper.  I will get it for you in the next few days.  Actually, I will get it right now.  It is in one of my old posts, just gotta do a little searching.  When you are looking for information, on our forum, use the search button.  It is a powerful tool and you will be directed to many posts from our forum members that have great information.  Hold on....retrieving post....

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,7448.0.html

Please pay attention to this post, it has a mountain of great information in it.  Please also pay strict attention to what our forum member, Finsky, speaks about.  He is an extremely knowledgeable keeper of bees, he keeps bees in the harsh, harsh winters of northern Finland and has great things that he always tries to teach.  He will be a great helper for you, if you listen to his words.  You can also search his profile for GREAT information, pay attention to him, his English can be rather broken at times and sometimes a little difficult to understand, but you will easily get the gist of what he is speaking about, very valuable -- as are many other members of our forum.  You also need to check out the website of Michael Bush, he has a mountain of incredibly wonderful information, just at your fingertips.  Take this winter to study, study and study more, and as much as you can.  That is how you will become great beekeepers, and that day will come.  Have that most incredibly wonderful day, to love and live our lives with great health.  Cindi

[Yappy]

 Cindi,  re: the pollen patty
Where do you get your 8 cups of brewers' yeast from? I have only used bakers' from S...way and it comes in very small sizes.
What is your source for 2 cups pollen? Your own or ?
Please know your posts are very much appreciated
Keep up the good work.
 ... Rob

[Cindi]

Where do you get your 8 cups of brewers' yeast from? I have only used bakers' from S...way and it comes in very small sizes.
What is your source for 2 cups pollen? Your own or ?
 ... Rob

Rob, thanks for the kind words.  In previous years I had brewers' yeast that I had received from a friend, he had received a 50 pound bag from Jacquie Bunsie's Son.  It was good brewers' yeast and made a great dark patty.  Last year I bought some from the building supply in Mission and it was used for cattle.  I was not pleased with that brewers' yeast at all, it made a horrible patty that fell apart.   The original patties were a joy to work with because they were so strong, in that they did not fall part.  By the time that I was ready to place it in the colonies, by then I had seen the colony deaths.  I didn't have to use pollen patties because I had enough pollen frames in the dead colonies to feed to the survivor colony.  So I didn't use the brewers' yeast patties, they were terrible anyways.

So, there becomes a quandry.  I will again encounter how to made a good pollen patty this year for my one little colony, smiling.

Something that I will need to work on, is to find out what to do.  I have a friend that does not even use brewers' yeast.  The best pollen patty is that of plain and simple sugar and pollen, so I have heard.  I have heard that from Dr. Bee (Honeyland Canada) and my friend. But how they get the pollen and sugar to stick together so that it doesn't fall apart is beyond me...I have never tried this method and I will need to do some investigation....which I will, over the next while and I will post this. I am a seeker of knowledge and do lots of seeking of that beautiful thing (knowledge).

I have only in the past used irradiated pollen that I have purchased from Honeyland Canada.  That farm is about 1/2 hour from me.  That is a trusted source of pollen.  If I was not so lazy, I would have put on my pollen traps and obtained my own pollen, I trust my own colonies health enough to do that, but just haven't done that.

It depends upon how much you want to travel, etc.  But you are in North Vancouver, and Pitt Meadows is not that far away, when you think of the actual travel.  I would suggest that you get irradiated pollen from this place, or find someone, perhaps in Richmond that sells irradiated pollen.  There are bee supply places, do you get the magazine called BeeScene?  I do, it is a local magazine.  I will look up some suppliers for you.  I will give you a PM here on the forum and give you my e-mail address.  We can correspond that way about vendors.  I am busy right now, but over the next few days will assist you.  Have a wonderful and most awesomely great day, health.  Cindi