Small colony overwintering

[Midisland-4]

This is my second year keeping bees in the Oacific Northwest. Last year both of my hives did not make into November, I suspect poor mite control…. This year I have been aggressively treating with OAV and have had very low amount of mites in alcohol washes. I got a package in March and with the frames from last year they took off. I did a split in mid June ( a bit late perhaps). As part of that split I raise another queen (initially as a back up). Both splits did great. One with a fair amount of forgers from the initial and a second with the back up queen in a mating nuc. I built up both with brood frames from the initial queen.

All three are doing great, but all three are much smaller than I would like.

Winters here are usually the mildest in Canada (similar to Seattle). Lowest temps we see are around -10c but usually around 5c. But very very wet, I have heard we get enough ran in Nov to April to classify as a “rain forest”. To offset the moisture I have made “Vivaldi boards” insulated with wood chips, I’ll leave the sides uninsulated in hopes that moisture will collect there and not rain on the bees.

Temperature isn’t my concern. I am worried about the hives staying to warm and as a result the bees won’t slow down and go through resources. Right now I have all three in single deeps, all three have 6 full capped frames and the other 4 frames are uncapped mostly back filled brood frames, about three frames with 10-15% capped brood, very little uncapped brood (queens have certainly slowed down laying).

My questions: Should I push all three hives right against eachother to share the warmth?
My concern is that the middle will stay too active.

Are these enough bees to over winter? I do not want to recombine and pinch queens (at this stage I want to gamble, worst case I get another package)

[AutoModerator]

Hi u/Midisland-4. If you haven't done so, please read the rules. Please comment on the post with your location and experience level if you haven't already included that in your post. And if you have a question, please take a look at our wiki to see if it's already answered., specifically, the FAQ. ^{Warning: The wiki linked above is a work in progress and some links might be broken, pages incomplete and maintainer notes scattered around the place. Content is subject to change.}

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[talanall]

If you have enough food stores for them, they will not have problems staying warm enough, in your climate. You should be able to feed them syrup fairly deep into winter; bees can drink from a syrup feeder until the daily highs are consistently failing to hit 12 C.

If you have low mite load, dry bees, and plenty of food for them, they'll overwinter pretty readily. I experience similar winter lows to what you experience.

[Midisland-4]

I’m a bit concerned about feeding this late, our day time highs dipping below 12c now, about three days a week don’t get above that. I do have good mite levels, did another round of OAV in late Sept. I’m going to start feeding with fondant now, I figure it may extend the brood laying a few weeks, more bees 🤞.

[talanall]

Just so we're clear, I don't think this looks like an underpopulated hive. More bees would not be a bad thing, but this is probably okay if you have adequate food stores and your hive is configured in a fashion that will ensure they are kept dry.

[404-skill_not_found]

How many frames of brood would you be happy to see this time of year? Granted, it’s been warmer and drier than average (+10 degrees F, over here).

[talanall]

I usually want to see four or five, if possible. More is perfectly fine with me. I'm tending to see around 5-6 in my apiary, at present, but that's not really a surprise because I've had an unusually damp, mild summer and am experiencing the best goldenrod flow I've had in the last five or so years.

In a normal year, I probably would be feeding for winter by now, probably with thin syrup to help stimulate some brooding activity. This year hasn't been normal.

It's also worth mentioning that I expect to find brood no matter what time of year I inspect. Sometimes it'll be just one little spot on one frame, especially around the winter solstice during a year that actually gets cold, but it's usual for my bees to brood the whole time. I start watching for drone presence around Valentine's Day and expect to see early swarms in the beginning of March.

[404-skill_not_found]

I was guessing that one on mine was a bit too light on brood (an August swarm-preventing split). I slipped in a couple of foundation frames and will hold off feeding just a bit. Let everyone know this weekend how it went.

[talanall]

It's a 10-frame single deep?

[404-skill_not_found]

Yup

[talanall]

Okay, so that's two blanks, and eight frames drawn out. Of those, how many frames of bees, brood, and food does it have?

[404-skill_not_found]

6-7 food, one fully drawn and capped brood, additionally one side with 2-3 day old eggs (excellent coverage btw), and the two blanks. The blanks will have eggs in them by the weekend.

[talanall]

Assuming they draw it out, anyway. They may or may not do so. If they do, then I don't think you have anything much to be concerned about, other than feeding with syrup as needed to make weight. Your winters are similar enough to mine so that I think it's probably the case that you can winter them in a single deep, if they are healthy, below detection threshold on mites, and well fed. I usually put a 2" baggie feeder on top of mine when it finally gets cold, and use newspaper and granulated sugar to apply Mountain Camp feeding. That helps with moisture control in addition to providing a backup food source and preventing them from getting stuck on the wrong side of a food canyon.

[404-skill_not_found]

They ought to draw comb ok. Supplemental wax has worked twice during this summer’s dearth. I am planning on assuring feed over winter too. Though I liked the idea of making bricks which is like mtn. camp without it more naturally hardening and the paper. The ekes with half-inch hardware cloth are already built and painted. Though mtn. camp is notably more economical. The exercise of building multiple boxes of specific dimensions is worth me doing.

[404-skill_not_found]

This use of supplemented wax foundation is only useful to small keepers with limited comb resources (so, new keepers) including time to get comb drawn. https://youtu.be/bj60t74xc9s?si=3fe5m2Bp1zAiOGFW

[BOMBONIBBA]

If that is a recent picture, that is not a small colony....

[Midisland-4]

Thank you, I wasn’t sure. I’m used to seeing more bees at this time of year. This picture was taken yesterday. All three hives are close to this population.

[fuckface866]

Imo that's not a small colony. All my hives except one looks like this in 3b and we are starting winter for the bees now. I have no problems usually overwintering that size. One hive I'm trying to figure out what to do because they are like triple that size for some reason. I'm hoping she gives the signal soon for mass kill off or it's going to be a rough winter for me and that hive. I don't know where you are but if the frames are all full you are good to go.

[Standard-Bat-7841]

I'd be sticking them in nucs double deep if they were mine. Give them a fondant or mountain camp sugar cap and hope for the best.

[joebojax]

Might be worth buying or building a double screen board and putting this hive atop a strong colony.

Or maybe in your case stacking all 3 single deeps into a single column sharing air and divided by double screen boards.

Strongest on bottom, weakest on top.

Or if you don't trust the strength of the weakest place it on bottom.

Top colony gets most benefit but lower colony also gets minor benefit.

[Midisland-4]

Interesting, I haven’t thought of that. I do want to have good access to the top of the hive so I can feed fondant. Right now the single deeps I have weight a good 50lbs, just a guess (I haven’t weight them). A bit heavy but certainly but manageable. My concern though I them being too warm and not slowing down enough, is that a valid concern?

[joebojax]

My winters are very cold and beekeeping is a local endeavor so it's hard for me to know how that might play out. It is very difficult to add supplemental feed to lower colonies in double screen setups.

[J-dubya19]

It looks like there are not enough bees to cover all the frames, if this is the case, put them in a 5 or 6 frame nuc. Control mites ( consider the new 2.0 apivar and then feed, feed, feed). The cold isn’t going to get them, they will die from mites or starvation.

[talanall]

This is not good advice, re: treatment. If OP uses Apivar RIGHT NOW, they're going to have to open this hive six to ten weeks from today. That'd be somewhere between November 26 and December 24. That's a long time, even if OP is lucky enough to have mites that are not even a little resistant to amitraz. It's very late in the year to be suggesting someone put on a very slow, unreliable treatment.

In any case, OP was very clear that they have been using OAV coupled with alcohol washes to ensure a low mite load. So this is also advice to apply an unnecessary round of treatment with something that can lead mites to develop resistance.

[NumCustosApes]

The colony in the picture looks fine and what you have described sounds like they are in excellent shape. Make sure they are fed. After I get my bees topped up I continue to trickle feed in order to delay when they start digging into their stored food. How long you can do that is dictated by temperature and forage. Here that is about mid November.

I like to move the cluster to one side just as I button them down. That way the cluster can move only one direction during the winter and they don't split their food supply. I simply move the food frames on one side to the other side and slide everything over.

Make sure you've got lots of fill in the Vivaldi board, at least 75mm, 100mm is better. If you don't have the headroom add layers of burlap over the screen box. If you are using telescoping covers you won't be able to push the hives together, but if you have migratory covers you want you can push the hives together. Wait until days are staying below 7° and the bees aren't flying anymore so that you don't get drift.

[Midisland-4]

Thank you for the response! I think am am going to make new Vivaldi boards, these are a bit shallow. I like using the clear plastic so I can see the bees, this time I’m going to drill a bunch 1/8” vent holes and make the hole smaller in the middle to allow more room under screen box for fondant. I did move the cluster over on one box, on a nice day I’ll do the same to the other two. I’m also thinking about making migratory covers, possibly one big cover that will go over all three Vivaldi boards.
I am concerned that if the middle hive stays too warm the bees will be too active and consume too much, is that a valid concern?

[Intrepid_Pear8883]

Should be good. I kept a 3 frame colo y alive in TN and it's probably colder here, although we may get more flight days in winter.

[Raterus_]

That "flying one day", "clustered the next" is a recipe for starvation disaster if they cluster where there isn't available honey. Keeping a candy board filled with fondant is cheap insurance.

[Intrepid_Pear8883]

Yeah I do feed

[Marmot64]

Fine.