what would you do

Bosleeu said:

I would like to express my admiration for all the beekeepers that has been posting advice on here.


Irishguy I really hope you get these hives sorted in time for winter, but you really have to listen to the guys that spend a lot of time planning things for you. They know what they are talking about. Print it out or make notes you can take to the apiary with you.

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I would just like to quote from a quite few weeks ago, it's like it's even more true now................ you could have had it ALL sorted if you just listened.

It's almost like you can't help yourself you have the right thing and the wrong thing to choose from and you always choose to do the wrong thing.

Poor bees. They deserve better

Time to close this thread off Pete but leave if for those who can learn in the future ... nuff is enough ... Phil

Thread reopened. Apologizes to anyone who took offence from my bad language.


Hive updates!
On Fri I removed the extra brood boxes along with the strips. I also fed more with 2:1 SS. I also covered the main 2 hives in insulation covered completely in duct tape and aluminium tape. I had to fill the rapid feeder again yesterday in both hives and topped up the caste feeder. All hives are busy bringing in a flow.

Yesterday when I was moving one hive a few inchs I noticed I could feel some warmth under the hive. I'm wondering now was it to warm, maybe not and I was just imagining it.

I have been keeping an eye on the mite drop and the max over the week from one hive is 6/7 mites, didn't see any in other hive. I was using a white board on the ground to catch drop

I took one frame from super and scrapped honey with wax into a siv and drained away for 24 hours. I ended up with 1 and 3/4 jars full of honey. The stuff tastes amazing, best tasting honey on this island IMO.



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Have been keeping a close eye on the hives everyday and bees are still very busy bringing in a flow so I decided to do a quick check in the caste and the hive without the super. The caste is doing great, capped brood on 3 frames, larvae and almost filled out all remaining frames with capped stores, just need last 2 frames at bottom capped, all cells filled. I finally got to cover this in insulation and had to open up the entrance abit more than just a bee space because there was loads bees at entrance fanning the hive and entrance was busy enough.



Next up I opened up the hive without the super. I only had a quick look, removed last frame which was full of stores and half capped. I took next frame out and was covered in stores and all capped apart from a very small patch on one side of frame. Went and had quick look at brood area and still lots of capped brood and a few capped drone brood cells. Didn't spot any SS cells thou didn't check all frames because I was afraid incase I squashed queen because most frames all stuck together. When putting 2nd last frame back in place I noticed a few cells of capped brood, not beside each other thou. I find this strange because its nowhere near the main brood area. Is this normal when a queen has nowhere to lay or is it unusual.
Seeing as all the cells in the hive are completely full, I added a super below full of foundation with few scattered patches of drawn wax. Was this the right thing to do, I don't know, but with all the late swarms I'm reading about I thought this was the best approach. If I was wrong in doing this, hopefully someone will explain why. I added more feed in the rapid feeder, covered in insulation. I'm now wondering, can I remove this super when the flows over and queens stopped laying. Reason I'm asking is that I've already made up the insulated outer cover and now won't cover with super under broodbox.(see pics below)

Fed the other hive which had the super with honey under it and covered with insulated cover.




Today I fed again and stood at hives for 40mins. The hive that has been the busiest (hive with super with honey)was abit quiter today while the one with the new added super was mad busy. Maybe most of the bees where out in the quieter hive but it has me worried incase I did get a swarm from this!. What I did notice in the hive with new added super, there was lots of bees lined up along the entrance fanning the hive while there was lots of bees waiting to enter the hive. The caste was also getting fanned but the middle hive wasn't!


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Edit: didn't use smoke when inspecting

Well ... it's been said about twenty times now to you ...

Time you just left them alone ... leave the super on the bottom ... leave the insulation on ... leave the roof on and LEAVE THEM ALONE ...

Curiosity killed the bees ...

As for swarming - if they did there is bugger all you can do about it at this stage apart from try and catch the swarm ... too late for anything else and very unlikely to happen.

pargyle said:

Well ... it's been said about twenty times now to you ...

Time you just left them alone ... leave the super on the bottom ... leave the insulation on ... leave the roof on and LEAVE THEM ALONE ...

Curiosity killed the bees ...

As for swarming - if they did there is bugger all you can do about it at this stage apart from try and catch the swarm ... too late for anything else and very unlikely to happen.

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That was my last ever (quick) inspection this year. When you say there's nothing can be done, what if I seen QCs, I could have done an A/S before I lost them. You see, I'm not there all day and I might miss the swarm.

P are you saying I shouldn't have opened even thou every cell in these hives are full and we've still few weeks left of good weather/flow still coming in. What would the bees do with the next week or 2 flow if hive is completely full?

irishguy said:

That was my last ever (quick) inspection this year.

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Yeh, right.


Dusty

That was my last ever (quick) inspection this year. When you say there's nothing can be done, what if I seen QCs, I could have done an A/S before I lost them. You see, I'm not there all day and I might miss the swarm.

Like I said ... chances of swarming were slight ... you DIDN'T see QC's so they won't be swarming .. or perhaps you will open them up again next week in case you think they are stupid enough to swarm in mid-October


P are you saying I shouldn't have opened even thou every cell in these hives are full and we've still few weeks left of good weather/flow still coming in. What would the bees do with the next week or 2 flow if hive is completely full?

Yes .. You were told on another thread that, if you were worried that they were running out of space, the best thing to do was just put a super underneath the brood box ( Remember Nadir ?)... no need to open them up and look .. indeed, I thought that's what you had done ?

IS IT ME ???

pargyle said:

That was my last ever (quick) inspection this year. When you say there's nothing can be done, what if I seen QCs, I could have done an A/S before I lost them. You see, I'm not there all day and I might miss the swarm.

Like I said ... chances of swarming were slight ... you DIDN'T see QC's so they won't be swarming .. or perhaps you will open them up again next week in case you think they are stupid enough to swarm in mid-October


P are you saying I shouldn't have opened even thou every cell in these hives are full and we've still few weeks left of good weather/flow still coming in. What would the bees do with the next week or 2 flow if hive is completely full?

Yes .. You were told on another thread that, if you were worried that they were running out of space, the best thing to do was just put a super underneath the brood box ( Remember Nadir ?)... no need to open them up and look .. indeed, I thought that's what you had done ?

IS IT ME ???

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No that's them defo closed up for winter. All I'll be doing is taking insulation off to feed a little more then when they've taken all they need, I'll close up the hole. As for you saying I didn't see any QCs, sure I wouldn't have knew that if I didn't open, still not 100% thou because didn't take all the brood frames out.

I do remember the posts in other thread about putting supers under but the other poster mentioned about a quick look in hive and that's what I did but like I said, that's them closed up for winter for sure. All I've to do now is feed then move hives onto a stand so all 3 can get tied down for winter. I'll be moving a few inches a day. I don't know if this isn't good for the bees this late in season but I need to do this so they can all go on the one stand I've built up.

Hopefully come spring 2015 these bees will still be there after all this hard work I've done looking after them and next year will be a lot better with my bee keeping skills lol

Hi irishguy,
Have I got this right. You are still putting more feed on the hive you are concerned about in case of swarming due to it being honey bound?

beeno said:

Hi irishguy,
Have I got this right. You are still putting more feed on the hive you are concerned about in case of swarming due to it being honey bound?

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That's a good point ... if the hives are full of honey stop feeding them syrup .. you will need to be hefting or weighing them through the winter to check the weight of the hives so if they get a bit light in early spring you will be able to put some fondant on top of the frames if they need a top up.

With insulated hives you will find that they don't consume a huge amount of stores so you could end up with half a hive of stored sugar syrup left in spring - you don't want to be selling that as 'honey'.

I wouldn't move the hives now as it would be much easier when they've stopped flying for winter to just lift them all onto the new stand in one go. They will re-orientate when they start flying again in spring or if you get a mild sunny day and they decide to do some cleansing flights.

pargyle said:

That's a good point ... if the hives are full of honey stop feeding them syrup .. you will need to be hefting or weighing them through the winter to check the weight of the hives so if they get a bit light in early spring you will be able to put some fondant on top of the frames if they need a top up.

With insulated hives you will find that they don't consume a huge amount of stores so you could end up with half a hive of stored sugar syrup left in spring - you don't want to be selling that as 'honey'.

I wouldn't move the hives now as it would be much easier when they've stopped flying for winter to just lift them all onto the new stand in one go. They will re-orientate when they start flying again in spring or if you get a mild sunny day and they decide to do some cleansing flights.

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with those covers you be worried why they seem to be not eating...
oh and they will fly a bee or two out on any bright day above freezing

beeno said:

Hi irishguy,
Have I got this right. You are still putting more feed on the hive you are concerned about in case of swarming due to it being honey bound?

Click to expand...

pargyle said:

That's a good point ... if the hives are full of honey stop feeding them syrup .. you will need to be hefting or weighing them through the winter to check the weight of the hives so if they get a bit light in early spring you will be able to put some fondant on top of the frames if they need a top up.

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I was told, feed until the bees don't need it no more or until hive is full. Beeno I can only do what I've been advised as I'm a newbie, if i shouldn't be feeding then can you explain to me why because its been repeatedly said to me to feed.

derekm said:

with those covers you be worried why they seem to be not eating...

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What do you mean by this?

pargyle said:

That's a good point ... if the hives are full of honey stop feeding them syrup .. you will need to be hefting or weighing them through the winter to check the weight of the hives so if they get a bit light in early spring you will be able to put some fondant on top of the frames if they need a top up.

With insulated hives you will find that they don't consume a huge amount of stores so you could end up with half a hive of stored sugar syrup left in spring - you don't want to be selling that as 'honey'.

I wouldn't move the hives now as it would be much easier when they've stopped flying for winter to just lift them all onto the new stand in one go. They will re-orientate when they start flying again in spring or if you get a mild sunny day and they decide to do some cleansing flights.

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Will they not finish off the remaining cells that need capped with this SS. If my supers end up with a mixture of SS/Honey I won't be selling it, I'll consume them myself if its OK to eat.

Another point, when is it I put my mouse guards on. Should I do this now or leave for a few weeks.

Mouseguards.......is it cold at night?
We had a slight ground frost here two nights ago so my guards are on.

irishguy said:

What do you mean by this?

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it can be very very surprising the difference to standard bee keeping lore. it worried me a bit the first time ... But I wouldnt admit here at the time, as I was getting enough flak for trying this stuff. Just in case, the prototype hive had the option for vents, which we initially tried, and then observing the amount of air flow and the amount of effort the bees made to closing them, we removed the vents.
All I had to rely on back then were the results of 40 year study and some rough and ready thermal calcs. Since then I have done more research and measurements.
Now there are quite a few of people doing this stuff.

derekm said:

it can be very very surprising the difference to standard bee keeping lore. it worried me a bit the first time ... But I wouldnt admit here at the time, as I was getting enough flak for trying this stuff. Just in case, the prototype hive had the option for vents, which we initially tried, and then observing the amount of air flow and the amount of effort the bees made to closing them, we removed the vents.
All I had to rely on back then were the results of 40 year study and some rough and ready thermal calcs. Since then I have done more research and measurements.
Now there are quite a few of people doing this stuff.

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And with your research, are the bees consuming less food in the insulated hives or is it the opposite. This might sound silly but Will they need more feed to keep temps stable in the hive rather than heat it. Reason I'm asking is that when I took the insulation off yesterday, I touched side wall off hive and it was warm, I defo wasn't imaging it so maybe it might be to warm in there.

irishguy said:

And with your research, are the bees consuming less food in the insulated hives or is it the opposite. This might sound silly but Will they need more feed to keep temps stable in the hive rather than heat it. Reason I'm asking is that when I took the insulation off yesterday, I touched side wall off hive and it was warm, I defo wasn't imaging it so maybe it might be to warm in there.

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much much less stores are consumed.

Compared to 50mm PIR the 19mm of wood is nothing. The same thickness of PIR is 4 to 5 times better than the same thickness of cedar and 50mm is more than double 19mm.

So a 50mm PIR is 10 times better at keeping the heat in.

That means when you take the cover off, the wood inside is close to the temperature of the bees.

Are the bees going to be too hot? This level of insulation is what they expect to get if we hadnt chopped down all the hollow trees.

In last years hot summer we didnt see any rush for the water or mass bearding.


Are they going to have the same ways bees in just a wooden hive ?... No that i can say for sure.


Are there books on how behave differently in this level of insulation?. No I haven't written any yet

derekm said:

much much less stores are consumed.

Compared to 50mm PIR the 19mm of wood is nothing. The same thickness of PIR is 4 to 5 times better than the same thickness of cedar and 50mm is more than double 19mm.

So a 50mm PIR is 10 times better at keeping the heat in.

That means when you take the cover off, the wood inside is close to the temperature of the bees.

Are the bees going to be too hot? This level of insulation is what they expect to get if we hadnt chopped down all the hollow trees.

In last years hot summer we didnt see any rush for the water or mass bearding.


Are they going to have the same ways bees in just a wooden hive ?... No that i can say for sure.


Are there books on how behave differently in this level of insulation?. No I haven't written any yet

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Sounds good. I'm very confident my bees will over winter OK with my insulated cover. Mines is 100mm so even more insulated than the 50mm you mention above.

Thanks for popping in and contributing to my thread. Its giving me confidence that the bees will survive the winter.