Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I'm a 1st year beekeeper and I need help, I have 3 hives and 7 queens.
1 hive is a 2 queen hive separated by excluder,1 is in a nuc, 2 in queen castle. Assuming this remains the same.
I am hoping to get them thru the winter. With fall almost here and winter soon after,
what can I do and what kind of setup will give them the best chance for survival?
Any advice, thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi SmithN:

The most important thing that I have found is to go into winter with healthy bees. Simply put, bees that are relatively free from varroa and tracheal seem to survive better.
I also want to make sure that the bees have adequate stores. No sense of trying to get the bees trhough if they are only end up starving to death in the late winter/early spring.
I would then concentrate on the number of bees. When I check my bees in the fall, I want to see a good sized cluster for my regular hives. I prefer something around the size of a volleyball. If I do not have enough bees I combine hives.
There are many people that are successful in keeping bees in nucs through the winter. Again, health and stores.
The bees I am most concerned about are the ones in the queen castle. These boxes only allow for 2 frames and can become congested quickly. I am unsure of their insulative properties so I can not presume upon the bees ability to keep warm and function as a normal colony. Is it possible the could be transfered into nucs and fed immediately to bulk up for the winter?

best regards,
Kurt

Hello Kurt:

Thank you so much for the advice!

I’m sorry I didn’t give you more detail about my queen castle.
I have the queen castle set up as two compartments (4 frames + feeder) in each side, attached robber screens to front & back entrances and covered the two side entrances with screen. Right side of queen castle has a good number of bees covering most of the frames. The left side has fewer bees, covering about three of the four frames. I will move them into nucs and plan to add a nuc medium to each nuc for winter stores. I am feeding and have been since I set them up. I am doing mite counts and plan to treat them soon. I will treat the nucs as well. Do I treat with half the amount of treatment that’s recommended for a regular hive body?

Thank you again,
Smith N

Sounds like you are off to a good start. Feeding will definately help boost the population this time of year which will help the bees to overwinter.

As for treatment... Yes you can cut your dosage. If I were to use Apistan, I would only use 1 strip. If Api-lif Var, half the wafers etc...

good luck.

Kurt