Keeping Bees

[DrewInToledo]

That's interesting to note, Manny. I don't have any ventilation from the bottom up, but I do have a screened, open bottom. I won't close the bottom, even in the winter as I don't want the moisture to be trapped. Curious if you close your's up?

[pa_friendly_guy]

I did use a screened bottom to help with ventilation, but I didn't use spacers between the boxes. I have never seen anyone around here doing that. Would it let water in during a strong rain or wind storm? I suppose you could take them out for winter to help with heat.

[mannytheseacow]

I don't know if I would leave that screened board on the bottom all winter, Drew. You will probably want to put a sheet of plywood under it or something.

Yeah, those spacers will let a heavy rain in, probably. What we've been using is typically about 1/8 inch. The average rain probably won't make it in but a doozy will. You would take them out when preparing the hive for winter, though the bee lady also tells me to put 1/8-1/4 spacers under your inner and outer covers, too. As for wintering, the winters my hive did make it through had 2" of foam wrapped around them and on top, all bungeed on. Still had that air gap at the top and bottom, though.

[DrewInToledo]

Manny, I thought the same thing about screened bottoms, but check out this except from a study done:

"LESSON 66: Screen Bottom Boards In The Winter & Fall & Winter Feeding
In a previous lesson, I shared several approaches on how to prepare for winter. In this lesson I want to go into more detail about screen bottom boards and winter feeding.
Bottom Board 001 Screen bottom boards prove to be very beneficial in the summer for reducing mites and for increasing ventilation. But do they pose a threat to a colony during the winter? That's a debated issue. Some cover their screen bottom boards while others leave them open. A few years ago, we did a simple test. We placed covers over 3 colony's screen bottom board and left the others open. We lost all three that were covered. So we always leave our screen bottom boards open all winter. It is our opinion that an open screen bottom board cuts down on excessive moisture. Cold air sinks and warm air rises, so the threat of an open screen bottom board, in our opinion, is minimal."

That was from . I was skeptical at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it seems to make sense. I believe they are in Springfeild, Illinois, so I don't think it can stay much warmer there than is does here.

[mannytheseacow]

Hmmm. I'll have to ask the bee lady about this. Springfield is quite a bit south of me but they definitely still get cold winters. Springfield is usually a whole month ahead of us crop wise. They're harvesting corn down there already.

I noticed in the article that it says they lost all 3 covered hives but doesn't exactly say how many of the uncovered hives died or made it. Still, I might try it. I'll do some more reading.

[DrewInToledo]

Well, I lost my camera a month or two ago after receving about 5" of rain in 1 hour. It took a while, but I have another cam up.

It's here: http://72.240.84.81:8020 user: guest pass: beez

It requires a small plug-in.

After connecting, just be sure to select the pull down in the upper right where you see MAIN STREAM, and select SUB STREAM, otherwise the video will be uber-slow.

Drew

[mannytheseacow]

I love that bee cam, Drew. What an awesome idea.

I finally chatted with my bee mentor about the screened bottom board- she says no way. It's not a natural opening for them. She's all about how things would be naturally for the bees. I think it's a good approach because that means you've got a good healthy colony. I also like that humans aren't a natural part of the bee colony so that means I don't have to mess with them but a couple times of year!

Anyway, just some food for thought. You are a bit south of me so you might get by with a screened bottom.

[DrewInToledo]

Thank you for sharing Manny. You certainly have me thinking about closing off the bottom now.

I visited a bee keeper with lots of experience in the area and I spoke to him about my thoughts and he told me that he's heard of a guy that keeps an open bottom in Vermont. But then he eluded that maybe they get more snow than we do here and the snow might surround the bottom thus keeping the hive "sealed".

The bee-cams getting fun. Wasps are trying to get in and I'm catching a battle from time to time. Lots of drones are getting kicked out and left for dead on the porch. Mass exodus!

[mannytheseacow]

I'm really liking this mentor from the Dept. of Ag that has been helping me along. She is really teaching me the ecological approach to keeping bees which works very well with my low-input (lazy) mentality.

This year I pulled 3 boxes of honey off of my hive. Two were totally full and capped and the third was only half full. This is amazing for a first year colony; though my colony did get a jump start off the old hive that died last year.

One full box was taken to the feral hive that we extracted to feed them because they are still weak from the extraction and relocation. One full box was harvested for myself, which is still way more than I will use in a year (and I'm pretty liberal with sharing). The half a box I left on to feed my bees through the fall here.

Most bee keepers feed their colonies with sugar syrup in the spring and fall. My friend is really promoting using honey instead of sugar. You have to leave a little bit more for them but since they already provide so much for us, it's not too much to give up. It just makes a lot of sense, too. Even as humans, would we do better on honey or cane sugar? Less processing, less stores, less "buying", just good common sense.

In the past, when I harvested my honey I would try to scrape every last bit of honey off the frames and then get them all cleaned up to store them over the winter. You can't wash them with hot water because the wax foundation will melt, so I would end up using luke-warm water and half this half bucket of mild honey water. I'd try to ferment that but it would never be all that great. This year I just scraped the honey I could off the frames and put them right back on the hive. The bees cleaned them right up for me. Now they're cleaner than I could have gotten them for winter and it fed the bees even more in the process. Bonus.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Sounds like your hive did great this year. Giving the new feral hive some honey is a great idea and should improve their chance to make the winter. From what I have been told a hive needs about 50 lb of honey for the winter, A medium super holds about 40 lb to give you an idea of the amount. All in all your bees seem to be very healthy and productive. I plan to start again in the spring with a new hive, so take anything that I say with a grain of salt, my bee keeping skills have not proven to be very good so far.