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Winter
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:28 am
by Wally
Someone asked me about prepping hives for winter a month or so ago. At that time I had no plans. I have now gotten rid of all but 5 hives. 4 of those are very heavy and ready for winter. The fifth one in at a guesstimated 100 lbs. with a deep and 2 mediums. That leaves only about 35 lbs. of pollen, honey, wax and bees. I will feed them an additional 25 to 30 lbs. of sugar and reweigh them. Other than that, I will not be doing anything for winter prep. The drought has kept the brood rearing down, especially the drones, so there is no reason to treat for mites.
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:56 am
by Kurt Bower
I have myself recently treated for mites with Apiguard, a thymol gel product.
I am very glad that I did. Despite the lack of brood rearing I found some of my colonies to be infested with varroa. I was very surprised at some of my Russians which are "mite resistant." They revealed heavy mite loads into the thousands!
Please do your IPM's before deciding on mite treatments. It could be life or death to your bees come Spring.
Kurt
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:22 pm
by the kid
ok just remember your the one that started this thread..
now I'm feeding and there taking it as fast as I can feed,, I put a bag on and they suck it up and act like I never gave them any ..It taks them less then two hours to suck up 4 cups sugar and 1 1/2 cups water ....
now do I feed pollin to or not ... guess it woudnt hurt ,,, right ...
2 got in my vail and stung me at the same time an inch apart ,, on top of my head ,,,,, guess they never learned the saying ,,,,,,
never bite the hand that feeds you...
the kid
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:04 pm
by Wally
>>>>now do I feed pollin to or not ... guess it woudnt hurt ,,, right ..<<<<
It never hurts, and if they are low on pollen, they will not raise the brood needed for winter. It takes as much or more pollen to raise brood as it does honey.
>>>> 2 got in my vail and stung me at the same time an inch apart ,, on top of my head ,,,,, guess they never learned the saying ,,,,,,
never bite the hand that feeds you... <<<<
Did they bite you on the hand??? I don't think so.
They never heard of an old saying......Don't sting the beek. In fact, I don't think any of them have heard it.
