Posted on 04/17/2014 10:38:54 AM PDT by chessplayer
Frustrating because I had 2 italian hives, 1 carnolian, and 1 buckfast. Of them all, the supposed miracle buckfast hive went silent first. A wild italian swarm that my wife captured two years ago lasted into March but died off in the last cold snap.
I have 2 questions. I have pot plants on my patio and I cover them or take them in the garage when it is going to freeze. Why can’t the hives be protected in the winter?
Next question. What about wild bees in cold climates, how do they survive the inter?
Must have been wintering on sunny beaches like all other snowbirds.
Around East Texas the bee keepers supplement with sugar water during the winter.
Seriously?
Not that kind of “pot” silly! Geraniums, Cosmos, Hibiscus, all growing in flower pots! But you knew that! ;)
Impossible! global warming would have kept all those bees buzzing and happy!
This has got to be some right wing plot !
/s
A friend in GA. has hives set up with internet monitoring. He has the hives on scales. He can tell when the bees return in the evenings by the weight. Also as the season progresses he can tell how much honey has been produced before he goes to the hive. Pretty cool.
Grove owners in Florida paid him quite handsomely for the use of his bees. More than enough to cover the transportation costs
If they have enough honey, they can keep themselves from freezing even in the harshest of climates.
Moving a hive is tricky. First, bees are very set on the exact location of their hive as they orient themselves to the exact location of their hive on their first flight. It is said you can only move a hive less than three feet or more than three miles. There are ways to encourage to bees to reorient themselves when a does have to be moved. Furthermore, if you were to take the hives inside, they would think it was spring or at least think the weather was warm and some would leave the hive for cleansing flights. Some might even leave to forage.
Beehives do survive in harsh climates, but they need food.
Beehives survive winters covered in s
Did you have two deeps for each hive?
That may be feasible for a beekeeper with hundreds of hives, but if you only have a few it may not be worth it.
Additionally, while I understand that pollination of crops is vital, the transporting of beehives across the nation also spreads disease and mites across the country and that is the biggest threat to bees and beekeeping.
To my knowledge, you can move a hive between 18-24 inches a day otherwise, like you say they have to be buttoned up and moved over two miles away and left there for a few weeks before “coming home” to their new location on the keepers property.
Thanks for info interesting.
So at the end of the honey making season you should not collect that last batch of honey?
If they have enough honey, they can keep themselves from freezing even in the harshest of climates.
Yup. But in a never ending winter like this one, the poor little critters go through their entire food store long before it warms up. Where I am, we just got dumped on by another huge snow storm. The poor robins came back too soon and are absolutely frantic trying to find food. By the time this latest snow melts, I suspect they will all be dead of starvation.
The honey belongs to the bees. We only take what is extra.
I will freeze one full super of honey for every three hives and add frames if needed in the winter. If they do not consume it, I harvest it for myself.
“He says, in a normal winter, a hive needs about 60 pounds of honey. “And they just eat the food and then shiver their muscles (to create heat) and huddle together so they are warm enough, and they don’t get frozen.”
“But, this was no normal winter. And it also followed a very poor goldenrod season, a plant many honeybees use to make honey.”
“If they run out of food - which most likely is what happened this winter just because it’s cooler than usual, they would use more food,” says Huang. “And when they run out of food, they’re dead.”
“Huang says probably only one in ten of his hives survived the cold.”
http://michiganradio.org/post/harsh-winter-killed-many-michigans-honeybees
Wow. With a bad goldenrod season, the bees food pantry was probably already below normal before winter even started.
Why didn’t he move the bees into the green house? He could have thrown a heater in the green house and kept the temperature at 25 degrees. I think he only has himself to blame.
Producing heat requires energy, so I presume the less exposed and more insulated the hive is, the less likely it is to run out of fuel.
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