It is typical in the winter for the winds to change directions and bring warm air from the South. After several weeks of quite cold weather, the temperatures rose today to pleasant flying conditions for the bees. Honey bees remain in a cluster and don’t fly until the temperatures reach 50 degrees. I ventured into one of my bee yards today and found bees flying from each hive, a most reassuring sight. The bees have been confined for at least two weeks. During this time, the bees huddled together creating warmth by vibrating their flight muscles and eating their high-energy food, honey. Temperatures had been well below freezing for days, and I leave the hives’ screened bottom boards open for ventilation. With the bees flying, I was able to briefly open the covers of a number of bee hives today. It was too cold to remove any frames or make an extensive examination of the hives; however, I was able to observe bees in each hive in the yard.
Many of the hives appeared as the one in the photo. I found a large number of bees in the upper box of the hive. Here the cluster is seen spread across a large number of frames. The cluster expands with warm temperatures, like today, and contracts with cold temperatures. The cluster of bees had moved upward through the hive as the winter progressed, eating its way through the honey stored in the comb. With the cluster at the top of the hive, the bees are vulnerable to starvation. They have eaten all of the honey surrounding the cluster, and there are not any available flowering plants in bloom. When the temperatures fall, the bees will retract their cluster into a tight ball. With the cluster in this constricted configuration, the bees often starve even while there may be honey stored only inches away. It will be necessary to feed the bees to sustain them through the months of February and March.
--Richard
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Richard: The timing of this post is perfect. I went out and checked my bees today. I took the inner cover off and they are all across the top as in your photo. The end frames are empty of honey (my hive tool cracked the wax) while the inner frames still have honey in them. So should I check again in a week, two weeks? And should I go ahead now and put a hive top feeder on and continue to feed? I am a little confused since this is my first January with bees. Your comments please?
ReplyDeleteThe months of February and March are often the harshest for honey bees. This is the time that they often run out of stored honey and die of starvation. If the cluster of bees is located at the very top of the hive, they may have eaten most of their stored honey. Even if they have not consumed all of their food, it may be located in a part of the hive where they won’t access it. If it is extremely cold, the bees can’t break out of their winter cluster. They sometimes starve with ample amounts of honey only inches away. The bees’ tendency is to move upward.
ReplyDeleteEven greater pressure will be placed upon the colony’s honey stores as the queen starts producing brood. The bees will use its stores to feed the brood as well as consuming greater amounts of honey to warm the brood nest to 95 degrees. Over the winter without brood present, the bees probably regulated the cluster temperature around 70 degrees, thus consuming considerably less honey. They further conserved energy and food by not attempting to warm the empty space within the hive.
With the winter cluster located high in the hive and frames of empty honeycomb showing, it looks like some emergency feeding may help get them through the winter and early spring. You can place a hive-top feeder on the hive on a cool day without overly chilling the bees. The bees will use the feeder whenever it is warm enough for them to break out of their cluster. I will be giving my bees some syrup this week.
--Richard
Would 2:1 be the right ratio of syrup?
ReplyDeleteAnd have you tried the dry sugar method? I see where some call it the "mountain camp" method of putting sugar on top of newspaper which is then placed on top of the frames.
Which would you recommend? I ask because I'm reading a lot of comments on the dry sugar method and lots of people using it now.
It is usually suggested that we feed the bees a heavy syrup of two parts sugar to one part water in the fall. The bees will turn this syrup into honey and store it for the winter. It is also recommended that we feed a light syrup of equal parts sugar and water in the spring. The thinner syrup more closely resembles nectar from flowers and acts as a stimulant to encourage the bees to forage. The ratio is really not critical, for the bees add or remove water as necessary. However, we are in the middle of winter, even though we may be experiencing some warm weather. The calendar tells us that there will be more winter weather in the next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteOften the only forms of feeding that can be used by the bees in the winter are dry, granulated sugar or fondant. Today, January 19, 2010, I posted a picture of bees feeding on sugar that we placed on the top of an inner cover. The bees seem to be eagerly accepting this feeding. There are times when they will carry the sugar out of the hive and discard it, though. Some beekeepers are feeding granulated sugar by placing a sheet of newspaper over the top bars of the upper hive body, leaving an inch of opening at one end. They then dampen the paper with a spray bottle of water. Sugar is placed on top of the paper and dampened with a spray of water. An empty super box surrounds the sugar. The bees chew through the paper to access the sugar. To use the sugar, the bees gather water to dissolve the crystals.
Fondant boards are made up in advance and used for emergency feeding. The boards, that look much like inner covers with wooden rims, are placed at the top of the hive and the bees eat the solid sugar candy.
--Richard