advice i got on wintering in oregon

[Kathyp]

this came from a 3rd generation bee keeper in my  area.  since she knows what she's doing and i don't   :? i'm going to give her advice a try.  thought i'd run it by you guys too.  see what you think.

from a package in april, i ended up with 2 deeps of brood, etc., 1 deep with some brood but most pollen and honey, 1 full honey super.  

after she quit laughing at me for getting "robo queen in a box", here was her advice:  she suggested that i get down to two deeps for the winter.  to do that, i was to take off the honey and put a queen excluder between deep box 2 and 3 after making sure that the queen was in one of the bottom two boxes.  this would allow the hive to raise the brood in box 3 but keep the queen from laying in there.  then i was to leave things alone through the fall (except for medication) and allow the bees to rob box 3 for fall feeding.  by winter, i am to remove box 3 and winter only the two bottom boxes.  feed in the spring and add supers as needed.

reasons:  we have nasty winters most of the time.  it's not the cold as much as the constant wet.  she has found that a smaller hive wintering over, keeps the hive drier and warmer, thus not allowing for conditions conducive to disease.  because the hive population goes down in winter, reducing size is not harmful as long as i super early enough in spring.  

?????

[Denise]

This is good to know. It gets really gross all winter with the constant rain around here. At least we rarely get cold. But I can see the dampness being a problem for them. We will be sure to remove all the honey supers and get them down to the 2 deeps before the monsoon season starts in October. Blah.

[Finsky]

I don't know what is the idea. I do this:

In the first week of September almost all brood have emerged. I rob the rest of honey.  Then I feed during one week sugar to bees instead of honey.  Before that I give pollen frames to hives for winter.

2-box hive needs here 20 kg sugar and one box hive as much it take in. It depends how much they have allready honey in the box.

In the first week of August yiled is over and I start to diminish the hive.

Just now I try to give to queen as much room as it needs for brood makeing. I like to winter in two deeps but part of hives are in one deep.

If I use exluder, I put it now on 2 deeps and  white brood combs under exluder, but it is not necessary.

I live here at the level of Anchorage. Bees are still getting honey. It is now very dry here.

Now I am busy to extract all hives. They are full but this is not a good honey summer.

.

[Kathyp]

In the first week of September almost all brood have emerged. I rob the rest of honey. Then I feed during one week sugar to bees instead of honey. Before that I give pollen frames to hives for winter.

sounds like kind of the same idea.  i think the reason she told me to let them have the honey in super 3, is that i wasn't sure what to do with that much honey this first year, and it would give them a good feeding into winter.  one full shallow of honey is all i can deal with right now.  i got way more than i expected for a first year hive.  

i'll have to play it by ear.  sometimes we have warmer and drier winters.  if that is the case and the bees stay active, i'll have to rethink what i am doing and watch the food/brood situation.

i'm sure i'll have plenty of questions!

[shado_knight]

I live in northeast ohio, & I was told to do pretty much the same as you were told.  

[Finsky]

If hive has in mid summer  2 deeps and one medium it hardly will be over winter in two deeps.

If you have 2 box wintering hive it should have 2 deeps full of brood one month before autumn.  In my hives bee ball in winter will be as big as brood area in August.

If you give too much room for winter hive will have moisture problems.

[Brian D. Bray]

In the PNW 2 deeps is the norm for wintering a hive; how you achieve that is up to the keeper.  If you don't want the extra surplus then the advice was good.  
I use 4 medium 8 frames which is the same size, overall, as a 2 deep 10 frame.  The narrower 8 frame tends to keep the bees balled better than what I use to observe in a 10 frame.  A little ventilation to vent the moisture keeps the hive dry.

[Michael Bush]

Depending on the size of the cluster I overwinter in anywhere from one to five eight frame medium boxes.  The queen can lay where ever she likes, and I don't use an excluder. I just reduce the hive down to what fits the bees in the fall and still leaves them enough stores (weight) to get through the winter for that size cluster.

They seem to do better on less in the eight frame boxes as they don't leave so much excess stores on the side as they move up.  Last year I pushed all the hives together so they were butted up against each other.  Since that's the long side, it cuts the wall area down to more than half.