Does the cluster move in winter?

[FRAMEshift]

I'm splitting this topic off from another thread because it is a surprising point which I have not heard before.

Also, contrary to popular belief the cluster in the hive does not move once established.  It will almost always be located at the top of the brood chamber and towards the side of the hive that recieves the most sunshine/warmth.  During days with little wind or sunny the bees will break cluster to gather honey from the far reaches of the hive and bring it back and deposit it within the combs within the cluster.  While some bees take cleansing flights others are moving stores.

I have wondered how the cluster could move once they have started some brood.  Does anyone else have observations on this point?

[Jim134]

Bees are broodless in New England for about 8 to 12 weeks and move a lot.Brood bee move a lot slower


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[BjornBee]

I can see changes in cluster location throughout the winter by observing the pull out tray on my hives with screened bottom boards.

I also start most of my colonies with bees in the bottom box, which happens to be a deep. In spring, one of challenges with nuc building is that the bees are almost always in the top box, which for my hives are usually a medium.

Why do you think beekeepers through the years suggest swapping boxes in the spring when the bees are in the top box?  

I can also see this movement of bees in my Warre hives. Where constant undersupering and the cluster being pushed lower and lower all summer long. And in winter, they move back up through the previous filled honey boxes. I have a Warre hive right now that is in the top box, after being three boxes lower several months ago.

If your using Italians where they never actually shut down, and refuse to change position (a situation where bees will die in the north) or are in warmer climate areas with ample warm days and just call your season "winter"....a joke for anyone in the north, then I could see how observations of a cluster not moving could be suggested. But the comment does not account for certain circumstances and discount all possibilities that a cluster move. Which is false in experience.

I use darker bee lines where they do shut down and the bees do not die for the lack of movement in winter for reasons of staying on brood in December and January. Something beekeepers in the north need to take into consideration in the type bees they keep.

[Finski]

If your using Italians where they never actually shut down, and refuse to change position (a situation where bees will die in the north) or are in warmer climate areas with ample warm days and just call your season "winter"....a joke for anyone in the north, then I could see how observations of a cluster not moving could be suggested. But the comment does not account for certain circumstances and discount all possibilities that a cluster move. Which is false in experience.

I use darker bee lines where they do shut down and the bees do not die for the lack of movement in winter for reasons of staying on brood in December and January. Something beekeepers in the north need to take into consideration in the type bees they keep.

I have nursed Italian bees 40 years. Italian bees are nursed on Polar Cirle too.
It acts like honey bee acts.


But if the colony - what ever it is , do not stop laying in September, it will be dead in December.

.

[Finski]

.
During cold winter like last winter was here, bees restrict the cluster smaller. Actually they are separate slices between frames. When it is very cold and the food ceases in one slice, bees cannot move from their place and that slice die.

The colony may drift from centre to another edge. They die if the food ceases there, even if they have a haf box full of food.

The insulation of hives saves heat and keep the hive so warm that bees can make cluster movements and reorganize during winter even if half of bees die.

When I insulated my hives 30 years ago, practically I have not lost hives for cold. Nosema makes biggest trouples to hives.

.

[T Beek]

Don't have as much experiecne as many of you, but I had to weigh in on this since without a doubt, my bee clusters move around throughout winter, not alot and not fast by any means, but they've always ended up someplace diferent than where they started.

All of my Langs (5) began near the bottom and on the Northwest sides this winter, the remaining survivors (3) so far are on all on the west sides now. 

My long hive cluster is the one that really hasn't moved much, staying close to the exit, facing south, where it began.

thomas

[FRAMEshift]

My long hive cluster is the one that really hasn't moved much, staying close to the exit, facing south, where it began.

thomas

I have heard that bee (cluster?) movement is easier in a Lang because there is only a small open gap between frames vertically.  In a long hive, there is a solid sheet of comb to move around.  But bees make transit holes in the comb all the time.  So what have you seen as far as movement in your long?  Have you seen your cluster move to the opposite face of a frame or only across one face?

[FRAMEshift]

Could someone describe a cluster in more detail?  I've never opened a hive unless the bees were flying, so I guess I've never seen them clustered.  Is the cluster one big clump covering several frames or is it more divided into slices as Finski mentions?  Does this vary with the type of bee?

[Vance G]

The cluster is a ball that expands or contracts in such a manner that it's surface can maintain a 45 degree temperature.  That may mean it is in slices separated from each other if the cluster is small and centered on the frames.  Bear in mind they are sharing heat thru the frames within that cluster.  Unfortunately, they cannot share stores unless they are in physical communication at the bottom and or top of the frame.  When they starve out in the cold country, it is usually because they eat a chimney up thru the stores and starve to death on the cover.  This was in a northern climate like Finski enjoys.  I would like to hear from him how he insulates his hives. 

[Brian D. Bray]

What can be mistaken for cluster movement as evidenced as debrie on a bottom board is nothing more than cappings, mite fall, and cleansing that didn't make it out of the hive.  The hive cluster will seem to breath as temperatures fluxuate but this lessening and tightening is not to be mistaken for movement laterally or vertically within the hive. 

In every hive I have examimed, live or deadout, during the colder months of the year I have always found the cluster to be in the top brood box with the center concentric to the year-around warmer side of the hive.  Since I've had ample opportunity to examine hives during the months of Oct-March for 50+ years, and have always found the same circumstance, ie the cluster in the top brood chamber of the hive, with noted offset, I can't draw any other conclusion than, although the cluster will fluxuate in size as it relaxes in warmer winter temperatures and decreases in size during colder periods, the cluster, per se, does not move to any significance.

In support of this I have found individual or small groups of worker bees in the far reaches of the hive clustered around opened honey cells where they were either, in the case of a live hive, moving stores to the cluster, or, in the case of a deadout, froze in place during a sudden temperature drop.


Now days with the advent of temperature sensors capable of recording heat inprints through more than an inch of wood I think that such a sensor set up to observe several individual hives whould show what I've described to be the case. It would be necessary to set the observation equipment to monitor 24/7.

[Michael Bush]

This may be why they raise little batches of brood in winter, rather than consistently raising brood.  This allows them to move after the brood emerges before they start another small batch.  While they are raising the brood, they cannot move.

[BjornBee]

Now days with the advent of temperature sensors capable of recording heat inprints through more than an inch of wood I think that such a sensor set up to observe several individual hives whould show what I've described to be the case. It would be necessary to set the observation equipment to monitor 24/7.

Why?

I think observation windows and plexiglass is also really good, much cheaper, and has already shown my cluster moves.  ;)

[BjornBee]

In every hive I have examimed, live or deadout, during the colder months of the year I have always found the cluster to be in the top brood box with the center concentric to the year-around warmer side of the hive.  Since I've had ample opportunity to examine hives during the months of Oct-March for 50+ years, and have always found the same circumstance, ie the cluster in the top brood chamber of the hive, with noted offset, I can't draw any other conclusion than, although the cluster will fluxuate in size as it relaxes in warmer winter temperatures and decreases in size during colder periods, the cluster, per se, does not move to any significance.

Wow.....I must be doing something wrong. My bees throw all kinds of different scenarios at me. Sometimes they are in the top box, sometime in the bottom box, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other.

My bees are never consistant enough to make concrete statements like that, to be identical for every single hive  over a 15 year period, let alone thinking it would of happened over 50 years.

You must have special bees.   ;)

[T Beek]

Me too, Perhaps I'm just imagining that they're moving around all winter long :? 

My stethascope doesn't lie, however.

thomas

[FRAMEshift]

Could we be talking different winter climates here?  I have not been in Anacortes where Brian has his bees, but Victoria BC is not far away and it has a Mediterranean climate with very moderate winter temps.  I can imagine that in such a climate, the bees would find it to their advantage to move to the warmest part of the hive (top on the sunny side) and raise brood while sending workers to collect stores from the rest of the hive.   In a more brutally unforgiving climate like.... say.... Pennsylvania  :-D,  that strategy would not work since individual workers could not move around the hive by themselves.  Just sayin'.

Brian, what is the coldest temp you get in the winter?  I once climbed Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island in January.  The temperatures were consistently chilly, but not extremely cold.

[BjornBee]

Could we be talking different winter climates here?  I have not been in Anacortes where Brian has his bees, but Victoria BC is not far away and it has a Mediterranean climate with very moderate winter temps.  I can imagine that in such a climate, the bees would find it to their advantage to move to the warmest part of the hive (top on the sunny side) and raise brood while sending workers to collect stores from the rest of the hive.   In a more brutally unforgiving climate like.... say.... Pennsylvania  :-D,  that strategy would not work since individual workers could not move around the hive by themselves.  Just sayin'.

Brian, what is the coldest temp you get in the winter?

Heck no...that is not what he was talking about as far as what I read. Read the comments. He stated very clearly and clumped us all together,  "contrary to popular belief the cluster in the hive does not move.......".

He didn't state the comment for a select location or individual circumstance. I think when he claims "popular belief", he is talking in very broad terms about everyone....all beekeepers.

No rationalization. No slicing, no dicing.  ;) He had plenty of time to set his comments straight if that was the case. But has stuck to it just as the original comment has been stated.

[FRAMEshift]

 Since I've had ample opportunity to examine hives during the months of Oct-March for 50+ years, and have always found the same circumstance, ie the cluster in the top brood chamber of the hive, with noted offset, I can't draw any other conclusion than, although the cluster will fluxuate in size as it relaxes in warmer winter temperatures and decreases in size during colder periods, the cluster, per se, does not move to any significance.

Brian, when do your bees go into cluster?  Do they start in October?

Do you find brood in mid-winter?   Sounds to me like your bees never really shut down.  Are they Italian?

[Finski]

Could someone describe a cluster in more detail?  

I woke up this colony. Time to start rear brood and eate pollen patty. 15W electrict heating in empty space and part of it under the cluster. Bees filled all gaps when they woke up.

[FRAMEshift]

Cool picture!  So Finski, this is not what you meant by "slice" is it?  Were you saying the bees would be divided between frames?

[hardwood]

Frame, that's just the top of the "ball" you're seeing.

Scott