There are a few months remaining before we're officially in our Winter.
These are just seasonal words, fall, winter, spring.
The Met. guys (BOM , here in Aussie) have to own some points of reference and so largely copy
the NH model despite much of Australia not complying. The Northern Territory (NT) has a better
system focused on "the Wet" and "the Dry", further broken down to five seasons by the
indigenous peoples around flora and fauna changes.
What is your winter? Will you have 3-4 months where the bees will be clustered and can't get out to poop?
That's winter. But that is a good thing because they won't eat the house and home when there is no way
to resupply it.
Brian I have had this 'thinking' (come mantra) talked over with Mr. Bush in another place, as not
only is it flawed in use as an excuse for Aussies not understanding how clustering works - tho'
many an Aussie b'keep does not, thinking an observed cluster is only bees making wax
(cascading) - but also demonstrates a wholesome lack of understanding as to bee-thinking in
times of dearth.
Bee-thinking being the essence of much of Mr. Bush's work.
A dearth being any period bees cannot forage for environmental reasons, airtemp being just
one.
The actuality for much of Southern Australia is an accumulation of days within the cooler
times('seasons') which fall between 18 celcius and 10 celcius with wind or rain (or both
simultaneously) where bees cannot fly and forage. Bees decide, and they cluster - they
also slow or cease completely any brood rearing.
Very common and well documented by savvy b'keeps. That time can be as long as four
months in dearth. Back in the day nobody fed bees however with utterances from
supposed "esteemed dignitries" visiting from the USA, and the advent of the Internet,
many do today feed bees.
Wholly for the wrong reasons and in my view actually abusing the organism they hope to
care for, or not... in some heads.
In Northern Australia we are a great deal better off in not owning a constant yearly (cyclic)
"winter" , as, if it gets below 18 celcius most drag out the Vicks [tm] and the horse blanket
to huddle in the pickup, motor running, heater on!
Buuuut what we do get
in some years is an extended Wet, and in the Dry a failure of
known reliable species to flower. Our bees "cluster" in these rainy periods and as many have
discovered in woe - having kept right along ripping honey off supers - their bees die, massively
so. When these times extend out to three months, maybe four in some years, colonies drop off
the perch, or swarm, leaving behind a real mess of moth and beetle infestation.
I personally have a rule for honeybadgers - one I do teach as a mantra - which goes like "if
there is no wax wing it", the expansion being... if you do not see new wax formed around the
tops of frame in drawn comb then forget extraction regardless of the state of capacity on
frame inspection.
I have long held bees know better than us just what weather lays ahead or indeed maybe
what flora is coming on.. and they will tell you if you are listening. One of their messages
around excess is to begin building in what was previously beespace. They do that in saying
"good times ahead, here you have some fella... yer a Good Guy"... or some such romantic
drivel..heh :)
So, regardless of the "seasonal word" Brian we do have exactly the same behaviour
happening here "Down Under" as in the NH, the bees know no latitude numbers, they just
deal with what they have wherever they bee.
Yes, I know many a NH b'keep jumps up and down with pointy finger claiming temps below
0 celcius for weeks, maybe months on end creates a special circumstance - however, there
is Man-brain thinking, rampant... for bees
"wintering" is simply an adjustment in
longevity.
No...?...think about your (NH) wild hives in existance since the Pilgrims bought "honey in a
box" to America's lands. What we (Man) has done is screw them over with so many opinions
on variances in housing we are then forced to provide stop-gap measures in maintaining the
Colony in an actuality many of us do not understand/comprehend.
The irony in all of the "that's there this is here" argument is the same housing that works
here will work in the NH, as it is primarily that factor which Man has varied from out of the log
hollow.
Change is all that is required, and that I will address in that Cold Weather thread,
Bill
