Over-wintering Queens - Hardware and Methods ...

[Little_John]

I thought a new thread might be appropriate - 'cause this is a topic I'd really like to examine in some detail.

But firstly - thanks to Pete for offering to talk me though his system - am looking forward to that. The sort of experimentation I'm doing is all very well (after all, that's how things sometimes change), but knowledge of a tried and tested system is invaluable.



I'm planning on over-wintering queens in multiple 2-frame nucs with supplementary heating next winter - still ironing-out one or two details before I start building the kit.


Just a thought as you haven't already started building the gear, do you have specific reasons for not looking towards the alternative of using three frames in the nucs? It's not so much that there's an extra comb but rather that there's an extra seam. Personally, although I know that twos work I always feel that three is a far better configuration, closer to what might be 'natural'.

I agree with you 100%, and that is exactly the route I've been taking thus far with my so-called 'six-and-a-half' frame nuc boxes, which can be run in either 2x3 or 1x6 frame modes - for a minimum of 3 frames feels intuitively 'right'.


http://i59.tinypic.com/1o6qs3.jpg


http://i59.tinypic.com/eqcr9g.jpg


The reason I'm currently opting for 2-frames for the over-wintering of queens is as a compromise: a) it has to be better than banking queens in cages, and b) how best to pack such nucs into a National box ?

This is what I've come up with so far:

http://i62.tinypic.com/kd1zj4.jpg


Not shown are 4 access holes drilled into each side of the box, with 3 additional holes in the front which are sealed-off until the box is re-located from the various mating areas onto the insulated chest base for the winter, when access is then gained only from the front.
I'm planning on 8 such boxes per chest (or 'hot-box'), but that's only because I've got some old fibreglass encapsulated farrowing heater plates, the size of which lend themselves to 2 rows of 4. I have 2 such heaters, which would then produce 64 banked queens in total (assuming no losses). Hardly an earth-shattering amount - but it's a start.

The idea isn't totally mine - I got the basic idea from:
http://mbbeekeeping.com/wintering-2-frame-nucs-in-manitoba/
although I'm well aware that Manitoba has a far harsher climate than anything I'm liable to experience.

I can foresee lifting the chest lid off and making a quick visual check of each frame feeder (which will have a perspex cover), and replacing the lid in less than a minute or so, assuming that nothing needs topping-up. Very manageable.

Well - that's as far as I've got with this idea. I plan to start building the woodwork over the winter, to be ready for next season - well, that's unless I spot a serious snafu, or someone comes up with a better idea, of course. :)

Comments, criticisms etc - would be very much appreciated.

LJ

[mbc]

I over winter lots in mini plus boxes, either single boxes with the divider pulled out or a few on double broods-roughly the equivalent of 8 national frames. I expect to lose lots of these if the winter proves tough and am thinking it would probably be more economic to up the percentage of survival of my precious queens by overwintering them in full frame poly nucs, possibly combining the bees and brood from these to make productive units for the osr when utilising the queens.

[Jon]

I am overwintering 16 nucs in Paynes boxes, some only 2 Frames plus dummies and others on the 6. I also have about 15 Apideas which I hope to have built up to at least 8 frames of bees. Got one colony in a correx nuc box as well.

[Little_John]

A couple of conflicting pieces of research (so what's new ... ?) which may be of interest.

The American 'Wilbanks' operation produces between 30 and 40 thousand mated queens annually, and overwinters between 3 and 5 thousand of them in queen cages within queenless colonies housed in a heated building.
http://www.apimondiafoundation.org/foundation/files/1983/A.%20DIETZ,%20T.W.%20WILBANKS,%20W.G.%20WILBANKS.p df

Edit - forgot to add - the above paper does reveal substantial losses (c. 50%) during one period - but other publications reveal their losses to be more usually between 5 and 20%.


In contrast, the message from Woyke's 1988 research is that injury or death invariably awaits many queens kept in this fashion, and that "it is recommended to keep reserve queens in baby nuclei.":
http://jerzy_woyke.users.sggw.pl/1988_queen_banks.pdf

The plot thickens ...

LJ

[busybeephilip]

The Manitoba idea looks interesting, might be worth trying to get more info on this

[busybeephilip]

This looks worth a read

http://www.beesource.com/resources/usda/electric-heating-of-honey-bee-hives/

[Jon]

In contrast, the message from Woyke's 1988 research is that injury or death invariably awaits many queens kept in this fashion, and that "it is recommended to keep reserve queens in baby nuclei.":

You need to look carefully at the feet as they are so easily damaged.
Most times I have rescued a queen from being balled I have noticed later it has some permanent damage, usually to the feet or a leg joint.

[busybeephilip]

Hi Jon,

Just been looking at swell heating mats - I might try a cheap mat and thermostat to winter an apidea and see what happens, running a cable would be the hardest part

I get lots of poly boxes in work that are dumped which an apidea could sit in very nicely

Phil

[Adam]

Phil, you might have to consider condensation as a problem - depending on how they are put together.

However, I've never got something as small as a single apidea sized mini-nuc through winter; I do have one 3 storey swi-bine version held together with gaffa tapewhich will hopefully get through. For ventillation, they have sealed up the mesh floor with propolis so the only air-way is the entrance as the grilles at the front have been blocked up by plywood that i've slid in place.

[Little_John]

The Manitoba idea looks interesting, might be worth trying to get more info on this

If you've got any questions - just email Lance. His email address is on his 'Contact Info' page. He's very willing to answer questions.

As he uses the 5x2-frame nuc system for mating during the season - spread around the yard - and then relocates those boxes all together on the insulated stand for over-wintering, with a change of entrance hole location as well - AND with 5 closely-spaced entrances per box - I've already asked him whether he's experienced any problems with bees getting lost/ drifting and so forth during the move - but he says no.

I'd still like to see that for myself, as I reckon it could be an issue, even with colour coding at the entrances.

But - for Lance it's a tried and tested system, and he copied the essentials from another bloke for whom it's tried and tested - so I reckon it has to be worth serious consideration.

LJ

[busybeephilip]

I emailed the contacts on the Manitoba site to get a feel for how this works, choosing the correct temperature I would imagine would be critical.

Adam, - I've managed to get Apideas over the winter , its the spring that messes things up, the numbers of bees dwindle to a dangerous level before brood rearing can replace them, and they are very greedy on stores. A frost usually kills them off so heat mat should work. jon manages to get them into the spring using a doubled up box with a total of 10 frames and i think a top feeder so there is a good starting number of bees

[Jon]

Even in a good year the success rate with overwintered apideas is about 50%.
Andrew Abrahams mentioned overwintering apideas in one of his talks at Llangollen.
He also reckoned the critical time was spring and he supplied pollen at that point.
They need to start with a good amount of bees. They don't really need an extra feeder on top and consume very little until brood rearing starts in Feb/March.
I try and check for drone layers in March and I would use an apidea queen at this point.

[Little_John]

Even in a good year the success rate with overwintered apideas is about 50%.

That's worse than I'd assumed - puts the other methods in a better light.

Meant to ask Lance in Manitoba what his success rate was - but forgot.(*)

I was rather hoping to achieve 80% or better. These figures do make for depressing reading.

LJ

(*) Have just noticed that his website says 15-20% losses ... that's more like it.

[Jon]

If you get a few days of really cold temperatures you will likely lose the lot.
Apideas are not designed for overwintering but it is worth a try if you are grafting your own queens.

You are a lot further south than me so may well do better.

[Adam]

I do have a heating mat somewhere and I could hang an electricity cable out of the garage window that I could drag to the right spot for my triple box - maybe a job for, say, the end of January.

[Pete L]

You are a lot further south than me so may well do better.

Winter 2012/13 not a good winter, and cold late spring, i over wintered 12 Kielers with top ekes in the open and lost 6, over wintered 78 queens in quad boxes and lost 3, one starved, two were drone layers... last winter i over wintered 10 kielers and lost none, i over wintered them differently, over wintered same amount as previous winter in quad boxes, and lost one.

Never attempted to over winter either Apideas or Swi-bines, but if i were to try it i would do the same as i did with the Kielers last winter.

[mbc]

, but if i were to try it i would do the same as i did with the Kielers last winter.

care to expand?

[Pete L]

Instead of wintering them out on there own, i placed them on top the crown boards of strong colonies, all of the crown boards are multi purpose and have one thick rim and one thin, in the thick side there is a cutout about two inches wide, this acts as an entrance, kieler is placed on top of crown board with the kieler entrance up against this other entrance, empty deep box placed around Kieler and filled with wood shavings, covering the kieler to the top of the box, then the insulated national roof on. So they are kept nice and warm from the heat rising through the crown board.

[mbc]

Many thanks
No mouse problems?

[busybeephilip]

A lot of the stuff on the internet refers to overwintering nucs on top of hives. Heat must be the answer but how much heat. Matts can be controlled with a thermostat, where the sensor is placed would be very important. Can anyone throw some light on this options are under the apidea, inside the apidea(under/over perspex cover) or on top of apidea - what temp would be best for wintering?

[Jon]

In the US some of the beekeepers overwinter colonies in barns which are kept at 4C.

[busybeephilip]

Also in cellars but they keep the light out. I'd imagine dysentry/nosema could be a big problem. If the temp outside is cold the bees wont fly unless desparate even if their hive is kept warm. I have seen bees come to the entrance in winter on sunny days but the cold makes them turn around and not risk flight. Its our wet and mild springs that do the damage, bee populations plummet through flight losses to the point of no return when there is no young brood hatching.

[prakel]

In the US some of the beekeepers overwinter colonies in barns which are kept at 4C.

Some great photos of the Steppler Farms (Manitoba) wintering set up can be found on their blog. There was also a great video on youtube but I've not been able to locate it at present. Ian Steppler is one of the more thoughtful contributors on beesource:

http://stepplerfarms.com/Honeyblog/

[prakel]

)

Comments...... would be very much appreciated.

To start, I'll say that my opinion of the mini-plus hives hasn't changed in the least; they're really excellent kit. In these parts they over winter really well although as with everything increasing experience has resulted in a few tweaks to the way that I go about doing so. Great value for money.

In the meantime however, I've been knocking around a few ideas for home made mating nucs to increase production at minimum initial cost. This year we ran a couple of dozen boxes made from old floor boards, 4 combs drawn at 32mm centres which worked extremely well. The basic design was such that by building a larger version of the box it would fit perfectly on top of a bs five frame nuc box
1). to over winter the small colonies in, either combined together or built up to 'fit' at the end of the season.
2). to get extra brood combs drawn out and filled fast during the initial stages of stocking -until the small boxes are self sufficient.
3). to supply food combs by being used as supers on the bs nucs through the summer and so eliminate the need for using feeders during dearth periods.

Looking forward to our first winter now with them in a couple of configurations.

[Little_John]

Heat must be the answer but how much heat [...] what temp would be best for wintering?

From my own searches, it appears that an external (to the hive or nuc) temperature of 5 degrees is optimum. That's the temperature used by the Manitoba guy right through until the end of Feb/early March, when he splits the nucs up for enlargement, and only then turns the wick up to 15 degrees in order to encourage brood-rearing.

I also remembering reading (somewhere ...) that 5 degrees is the temperature at which big insulated sheds which house the many hundreds of hives on pallets being over-wintered indoors in North America/Canada is maintained. Something to do with keeping the colonies loosely clustered to minimise their activity and thus keep food intake to a minimum, whilst still enabling them to gradually move around the combs onto fresh stores.

The only reason the Wilbanks operation maintains 15 degrees throughout winter of course is to avoid clustering ("at all costs") as their queens are in cages and many of those would be abandoned, and thus die, if clustering were to occur.

So - unless anyone knows differently, I'd say 5 degrees is the target to aim for.



Matts can be controlled with a thermostat, where the sensor is placed would be very important.

I don't know if this is any help or not - but this is a shot of one of the heater plates I've installed as an 'insurance measure'. Probably never need it, but in the event of one of our rare bitter winters, it might possibly save the day. Just an aluminium sheet mounted on stand-offs with an aluminium-clad resistor attached to the back with JB-Weld. Just an experimental lash-up - but if it should be needed and prove itself, then I might go on to make proper dummy frames with wire mesh each side to house such plates.

http://i62.tinypic.com/spjdah.jpg

With regard to temperature sensors - I plan on installing 2 in each of the 2 hives under test - located inside two diagonally-opposite crown-board feeder holes, on the assumption that any cluster will not be underneath both at the same time - so I'll be taking the lower measurement as being the true hive temperature under the crown board.

http://i61.tinypic.com/ogxe2o.jpg

Probably not directly relevant to nucs, but it might stimulate ideas.

'best
LJ

[prakel]

Some great photos of the Steppler Farms (Manitoba) wintering set up can be found on their blog. There was also a great video on youtube but I've not been able to locate it at present. Ian Steppler is one of the more thoughtful contributors on beesource:

http://stepplerfarms.com/Honeyblog/

The video is here:


http://youtu.be/5a0_JjRSOnU

[Jon]

Like the opening scene of a horror movie!

[prakel]

It does have a certain 'feel' to it!

The youtube description states:


This is a vid of inside our honeybee wintering shed. We have stacked 1050 hives in for winter where they will sit silent and content for 4 or so months until spring arrives once again end of March. The key to keeping the bees inside the boxes is keeping the shed completely dark. Bees do not see red light. Because of this we use red lighting to light the shed while we work. The hives are on pallets and stacked with a forklift 6 hives high. Old bees will fly out and die naturally as they would if they were outside so we must sweep once a month to keep mold and dust at a minimum. As the temperature increases in the spring, while they are still in the building fans are ramped up and large air flows help keep the bees content. Indoor wintering is a very efficient tool to winter bees in a cold winter climate.

[fatshark]

I've had success with an unheated* greenhouse …

214321442145

the advantage here is that there's no additional investment in heaters etc, other than mini-nucs. I dare say it could be scaled up. Fondant blocks in frame feeders are added on very cold days when the bees remain clustered. I've done single-deckers as well, but they are better as doubles. I've overwintered doubles outside as well, but had them freeze solid in a really hard frost < -10oC or lower. These images are at the end of the 12/13 winter, which was a tough one in the Midlands.

* actually, not unheated but frost free. There is a 100 W electric heater run off a temperature sensor. The remainder of the greenhouse contains agaves, its them I'm trying to protect.

[The Drone Ranger]

I've had success with an unheated* greenhouse …

214321442145

the advantage here is that there's no additional investment in heaters etc, other than mini-nucs. I dare say it could be scaled up. Fondant blocks in frame feeders are added on very cold days when the bees remain clustered. I've done single-deckers as well, but they are better as doubles. I've overwintered doubles outside as well, but had them freeze solid in a really hard frost < -10oC or lower. These images are at the end of the 12/13 winter, which was a tough one in the Midlands.

* actually, not unheated but frost free. There is a 100 W electric heater run off a temperature sensor. The remainder of the greenhouse contains agaves, its them I'm trying to protect.

These benches I use for Pelargoniums fancy leaf,scented leaf and uniques (they need min temp of 7C in winter)
http://www.twowests.co.uk/product/hot-bench
and the temp controller I use is very similar to this one
http://www.ebay.com/itm/250V-10A-Digital-Temperature-Controller-Thermocouple-Degree-with-Sensor-50-110-/291262477039?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d098b2ef
You can choose any temp you like for when the benches are to come on and off
Best measuring the air temp just at plant height

[Jon]

Found this on my computer.
Isn't this your setup Pete?

2148

[Pete L]

Yes, Jon, that is one of my quad boxes, has a full mesh floor, and a deep eke fits on top.

[Jon]

Your woodwork is a lot better than mine!

[Little_John]

Just a thought as you haven't already started building the gear, do you have specific reasons for not looking towards the alternative of using three frames in the nucs? It's not so much that there's an extra comb but rather that there's an extra seam. Personally, although I know that twos work I always feel that three is a far better configuration, closer to what might be 'natural'.


I agree with you 100%, and that is exactly the route I've been taking thus far ...

... a minimum of 3 frames feels intuitively 'right'.

The reason I'm currently opting for 2-frames for the over-wintering of queens is as a compromise: a) it has to be better than banking queens in cages, and b) how best to pack such nucs into a National box ?

Cracked it. It was in front of my face all the time, but I couldn't see it ....:)

If the comb spacing is reduced to 32mm (as you have done yourself on some kit), then 13 full-length frames will fit into a National box. For 4 x 3-frame nucs, I only need 12 - that leaves 32mm for the 3 dividers - the 2 outer dividers being (say) 4mm 3-ply, the centre divider being much thicker. Outer dividers being removable to give 2 x 6-frame nucs. Overhead feeders.

Same box for mating and for over-wintering. That's gotta be a game plan. Thanks for the nudge.

The only decision to be made now is whether to make these boxes the depth of brood or super frames ...

Super-size would need less bees. Brood-size would fit most of my other boxes ... Decisions, decisions. :)

LJ

[busybeephilip]

then 13 full-length frames will fit into a National box.

LJ

Err...opps.......should that not bee 11 frames at 35mm spacing for a standard national box with about a 1/2 inch to play with ?

35 mm is close to the metal end size (1 and 3/8 inch). So you should be able to get 5x 2 frame nucs in a standard national box with ply dividers with comfort

Best
Phil

OH forgot to add, if you make national boxes using the rose pattern/method then you gain an extra 3/4 inch if you make them out of 3/8 ply

[Little_John]

Err...opps.......should that not bee 11 frames at 35mm spacing for a standard national box with about a 1/2 inch to play with ?

Good morning Phil.

Errr - no. :)

National boxes are 460mm wide, and (should) have 18mm sides. That gives you an internal width of 424mm.
12 x 35mm frames = 420mm, leaving a 4mm gap.

I often run 12 if the box allows it, but because walls are sometimes a tad thicker, and because of propolis build-up between frames (in-between the Hoffman side spacers), people usually run 11 frames and a dummy - and very often without a dummy !


But - I did say "If the comb spacing is reduced to 32mm" ...

So - 12 x 32mm frames = 384mm, leaving 40mm to accomodate 3 dividers and a smattering of propolis ... Very do-able.:)

LJ

[busybeephilip]

Hi LJ

Oh dear.....Yes 32mm - I stand corrected - cant read. I run my nationals with 11 frames at 35mm ? or plastic ends, this gives enough room for brood on the outside frame next the walls plus space for some movement to pull the first frame out and of course the propolis does build up over time. I reckon its only around 5/8 inch total free. For me, 12 frames would be literally pushing it, must just check the size of plastic ends when i get home in case thornes are making them a bit bigger.

So you are taking a few mm off the sides of Hoffman frames to get the 4 x 3frame nucs in one box, should work a treat:cool:

[prakel]

Thanks for the nudge.

:) Lovely solution. I was beginning to think that no one had actually read my post!

Of the two 'standard' spacings I prefer the inch and half that's central to the dadant hive but at the other extreme, my experience of the 32 spacing which I've been playing with for a while in smaller boxes is very positive.

[prakel]

The only decision to be made now is whether to make these boxes the depth of brood or super frames ...

Super-size would need less bees. Brood-size would fit most of my other boxes ... Decisions, decisions. :)

I'd go for the ones which are most interchangeable. If I was starting from scratch I think it would be one size frame for everything rather than the ramshackle Dadant deep; shallow; BS deep; mini Plus; home made mini plus deep and our new home made mini-nucs!

edit: not to mention our natural comb experiments.

[prakel]

An old thread, but a nice new blog post from Ian Steppler (who's wintering video appears earlier in the thread):

Steppler Honey, December 4 2015
http://stepplerfarms.com/Honeyblog/?p=5391

[Adam]

Interesting technique, keeping them in the dark is better than bees flying out on a cold winters day in the snow to perish before they return.