My Dead Out Discussion

[tefer2]

March seems to be the month that does in colonies up here in the north.
I start watching them close until we some forage going on.

[jayj200]

if one is anticipating a dead out, ya don't want one. what do you do?
wring your hands it will pass.
or do more to provide better accommodations!
without going into the hive give the few one has left, insulate and ventilate
my thoughts jay

[Bush_84]

That makes no sense. 

[gmcharlie]

In my opinion the real question is how many frames of bees  to food ratio,  if 3 deeps is not enough you really need to let them die off and buy new in the spring! 3 8 frame deeps should have been about 300.00 worth of honey or better!

But that aside,  the size of the hive going into winter is important.  2 frames of food for every frame of bees should winter nicley witha  good windbreak, and a dry hive.

[Bush_84]

Going forward I am honestly going to break down weak hives into nucs.  Wintering hives seems to be the bane of my existence but if I can keep nucs alive with heat tape I will come out stronger in the spring than I was in the fall.  Last I checked I had 2 of 2 nucs still alive.  That could have certainly changed since I last checked, but I had two hives that filled a deep die very early in December.  Then another one of my huge hives starve in January.  So up until this point I have had better luck with my two nucs than I have with full sized hives.

There are a few things with wintering nucs that I have been figuring are key.  First off you need to make them up in July or very early august.  Then they need to be fed until fall.  They have a smaller population which means a few things.  They will need supplemental heat of some sort.  If you don't they will freeze.  You can put them above other hives.  I am using heat tape this winter.  Secondly is the fact that they will require significantly less sugar/honey to get through the winter.  You can also mountain camp them and add a proportionately large amount of dry sugar overhead.  If you can keep them alive until march/April then you can add more space and feed if necessary. 

I also plan on using poly nucs next winter.  Getting pumped!

[danno]

This is the time of the year that I have my worst luck with nucs. I guess I start to slack thinking I'm home free.  Good luck but don't let your guard down. It's not over yet

[buzzbee]

March is when they start raising more brood. With pollen from willows and maples  and skunk cabage, brood rearing is stimulated. They may now burn up the remnants of winter stores in a hurry if a nectar flow does not commence or it is too cold/wet to gather. This is when supplemental feeding is beneficial/necessary.

[Bush_84]

We are still under quite a bit of snow.  We will see if the snow leaves us in march, April, or god help us....may.  So my bees won't forage for some time.  Right now they still have the mountain camp sugar over head.  They haven't broken throughout the top as of yet.  So they are set for now, but I do plan on keeping a close eye on them until the dandelions are out in full force.

[Bush_84]

So I had a very pleasant surprise today.  I am in the process of moving.  I had the day off and was going to be close to one of my out apiaries.  This place had one hive and it was the weakest of my hives going into the fall.  I assumed it had died as a stronger hive froze in December and a stronger hive starved in January.  I started to pop the inner cover only to hear very loud buzzing!  Holy cow they were alive!  They still had around 5 out of the 10 lbs of dry sugar I placed there in the fall.  I brought them home and put an extra 10 lbs of sugar over them.  I posted it here as I had referred to them earlier as one of my assumed dead.  Had to share!