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Author Topic: Wintering in the Top box  (Read 3320 times)

Offline Hemlock

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Wintering in the Top box
« on: October 18, 2011, 01:09:16 am »
I thought the bees usually started Winter in the Bottom box.  Am i wrong?

I have double deeps.  All 5 colonies are packed into the top box.  All the surplus stores are going into the bottom boxes.  If they don't drop soon (very soon) they'll start Winter beneath the inner cover.  They wont be able to move up into fresh stores as the Winter progresses.

Should i reverse the boxes now?  Or wait until they're out of room and do it then?
Make Mead!

Offline rdy-b

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2011, 01:36:56 am »
do you still have a queen ?? RDY-B

Offline Hemlock

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2011, 01:42:07 am »
All have (2011) queens and 4 to 6 frames of brood...in the top boxes.
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2011, 01:49:47 am »
 never seen honey stored in the bottom-pollen yes
 i think i would do something to get the honey above the brood -how                                                                    much honey is in the the bottom box-?? RDY-B

Offline rdy-b

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2011, 02:08:55 am »
  I just read your journal -great job on the journal-  :lol:
 if those where my bees i would switch boxes and keep feeding you will
be fine-those hives look great from what i saw--RDY-B

Offline T Beek

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2011, 06:49:35 am »
This has been debated in the past.  Some will tell you it NEVER happens, but I've also experienced bees going into winter and starting in the top super.  Happened a couple years ago AND they survived winter and Spring (until the Bear caught wind of em :'( 

They know what they are doing.

thomas
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Offline L Daxon

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2011, 11:06:54 am »
As I think I have posted here before, on my last inspection of the fall I always take my brood frames and make sure they are in the bottom box with a frame of honey and pollen on each side, then move the rest of the stores over the brood frames, with one empty frame in the middle for the girls to move up on too.  Bees tend to move up over the winter, if they can.  But this is just the way I do it.  Ask 10 keepers and you will get 10 different answers.
linda d

Offline Finski

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2011, 11:51:03 am »
.
If you are going to ask 10 beekeepers, why don't you ask Idaxon first.
She gove a good answer.

You must arrange the hives before feeding so that brood and pollen framer are in lower box and honey and winterfood combs are upstairs.

In upper box do not put pollen frames or dark comb beside wall  because they c
take easily mold.

Order is

wall
foundation or white comb
food com
pollen comb
food
food
........

Pollen comb on boath sides are ment for spring and will stay next to cluster.

In the lower box they have brood and those brood need much pollen when bees emerge.

Then you start to feed,
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Offline mikecva

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2011, 04:07:59 pm »
 :buttkick: I hate your journal. It looks great. Good info. Good Pictures. Make mine look spotty. Mine works for me but now I think I should upgrade some.    Good work

I rearranged two of my hives that were high brooding it about eight years ago and everything worked great. I left one of the high brooders alone to see what happened. That hive lost all but the queen and a few hundred workers (big mistake.) Just my input, hope it helps you decide what to do.  -Mike
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Offline Finski

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2011, 04:31:29 pm »
.
Decison what to do?

It is easy, put the brood down. But if you "decide" to let them be up, what happens...

The cluster starts wintering in the place where were last brood. 
so the bees eater upper box clean first.

If it comes a cold spell, that bees are upstairs and the food is downstair, the colony will starve. Perhaps Virginia is so warm that this will not happen. In my climate starving happens this way but perhaps not in Virginia.

But then we go to the spring. The bees tend to make brood upstairs. Consumption is high and food is down stairs.

Ok. You have nursed bees the whole year around and you have succeeded well. And now you decide save your time couple of hours and let them be. You chat 2 hours in forum what to do, and what you do, it is not so important.

Next year you may infrom the whole globe that nohing happened even if.

But then it comes a hard winter and kills most of your hives.

You must prepare hives for worst winter because when it comes,it is late to do anything

a big hive can reach the food store, where ever it is, but often colonies become seriously smaller, and they abity to reach food store is limited.

During hard frost the food may cease only in one gap, and the that gap of bees die. Bees are not able to move place. They do not know their food store and they do not know, where to go.

.i have much experinece on this but I live in cold climate.

.
..

.
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Offline Hemlock

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2011, 04:58:56 pm »
Alright then, I'll move the brood to the bottom boxes over the next week or so.  That's what i needed to know. I'll arrange the frames per y'all's instructions too. 

Finski - bees in Virginia can die during Winter just like everywhere else.  Yes it's a milder Winter than you have.  Fly days almost every week from December to March.  Your bees would love to Winter here.  It would be a holiday to them.

mikecva - The Journal comes with a pitfall though.  Every time i spend a few hours updating it i get an email from my wife (in the next room) complaining about her status as an "Internet Wife". 

Thank you every one.  And for the kind comments about the Journal.


Make Mead!

Offline mikecva

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2011, 01:05:14 pm »
.
Decison what to do?

Ok. You have nursed bees the whole year around and you have succeeded well. And now you decide save your time couple of hours and let them be. You chat 2 hours in forum what to do, and what you do, it is not so important.

Next year you may infrom the whole globe that nohing happened even if.

But then it comes a hard winter and kills most of your hives.

.i have much experinece on this but I live in cold climate.


Finski, you may have more experience then I. I started in beekeeping when I was about 12 with my uncle and I am now over 60. I have tried many things with my bees, some worked well and some were near disasters. You attack me as being on the forum 2 hours a day, well I seam to always see you on here (but that's OK with me.) I will always try not to tell others what they have to do, as it is their hobby not mine. I will tell others what I have done and my failures and leave the decision to them.
Finski, to you I say - good luck with your own bees.
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Offline Finski

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #12 on: October 19, 2011, 02:33:54 pm »
[
Finski, to you I say - good luck with your own bees.

i started  at 15 and now I am 64,5 years. I need no luck any more. It goes how it goes.

Why I cannot know everything.  i have had time a half century to learn.

Simple things. If you know that answer, don't  tell it.

Enten tenten teelika menten.
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2011, 02:47:19 pm »
  I think I hear violins---RDY-B

 Paganini Caprice Nr. 5, performed by Monty Bloom

Offline mikecva

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2011, 03:23:53 pm »

Enten tenten teelika menten.

A Finnish children's song, I wish I could join you but I do not know what it means.

So we are almost the same age (64 here) with the same years in this hobby. I hope the cold does not effect your bones as it does mine as I tend to slow down in winter. :brian:
I like to try new things if they sound like they might work, so that is why I need luck.
I often wonder if a new thing I try is not something I have done in the past but have forgotten about.  -Mike
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Offline Finski

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #15 on: October 19, 2011, 03:52:35 pm »
.
Bones but I am afraid that it affects most into brains...

Enten tenten is a "selecting procedure" in games and in plays. 

It continues in Enlish ....wise skies pools loo, a old woman dropped  through the ice hole, a old man arrived to help, soon woman was picked  off .    .....
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Offline KD4MOJ

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2011, 09:20:52 am »
WOW Hemlock!!! Great journal!

...DOUG
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2011, 12:24:26 pm »
Seems like in my part of the country the bees seem to spend the winter in the top box.  I see no advantage to trying to make they do otherwise, and potential problems if I do.  The know where everything is before I rearrange it...
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Wintering in the Top box
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2011, 02:30:27 pm »
Seems like in my part of the country the bees seem to spend the winter in the top box.  I see no advantage to trying to make they do otherwise, and potential problems if I do.  The know where everything is before I rearrange it...


 plenty advantage to lots of feed above the brood as they move up-when my bees are in the top box i wory-when they
 have feed above i dont wory--RDY-B

 

anything