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Post by HarryVanderpool on Aug 25, 2011 19:40:38 GMT -7
 I have 20 to overwinter this year. Feeding them daily to bulk them up. We figure that, if you lift a nuc and it feels like someone filled it with concrete, its ready for winter. |
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Post by rbz on Aug 25, 2011 21:03:32 GMT -7
Don't those little plywood hive top feeders work great? My ten frame feeders are fitted with two holes.
Anyway...While my fivers certainly don't look as crowded as yours, they're filled with plenty of bees and they're really looking good.
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Post by alisafaulk on Aug 25, 2011 23:01:16 GMT -7
How do those feeders work? Are they just a hole cut into a top with the jar dropped in?
Thanks!
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Post by rbz on Aug 25, 2011 23:43:15 GMT -7
How do those feeders work? Are they just a hole cut into a top with the jar dropped in? Thanks! Yup...well...perferated lids |
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rjoki
Worker Bee
Posts: 144
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Post by rjoki on Aug 26, 2011 8:58:30 GMT -7
So Harry - are these nucs that you just created by pulling some misc frames out of exhisting hives and then adding a queen - and is the purpose so you have 20 replacement hives available next spring to replace 20 that didn't make it through the summer ?
Just trying to figure out the thought process for creating them. It would make sense to use the fact that there is lots of extra brood and bees in the boxes now, and I guess a strong hive wouldn't need them to finish getting ready for fall. Am I on the right train of thinking...... ?
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Post by HarryVanderpool on Aug 26, 2011 18:35:33 GMT -7
I wish you could have attended the WAS convention last year; I answered your questions in detail. As Uncle Normy always says, " There are a thousand ways to cook a pot of stew". So I'll give you my answers for my operation. I am going to take somewhere around 340 hives to CA to pollinate almonds in February. As soon as they hit the orchard floor, I begin a careful examination of each hive. Every year I find a number of hives with sputtering or drone laying queens. The problem is that queens are not available in Feb!!! What to do? I overwinter nucs every year for that purpose. To fix queen problems in CA. Some years I use 8, some years 12, last year 14. This leaves me with nucs to restart dead-outs. Every year I take two or 3 pallets of dead-outs to restart in CA with leftover nucs after hive inspections. I do not charge my almond grower for those. Here is another fun tidbit for you: I have not ever lost a nuc overwintering. At this point, I have 100% overwintering sucsess. I wish I could say that for my full strength hives!  Here is a cool story for you: My Almond grower does not have my hives inspected. Instead, every day that I am there working the hives at some point I can count on him pulling alongside the group that I am working on, getting out of his car, putting on a viel and watching me work hives for a pallet ot two. I look forward to it. We shoot the breeze and enjoy the company. Well one time he pulled up and I opened up a hive that was just jam-packed with bees. His eyes popped open wide and he says, "WOW!!, look at that!" I replied, "See anything wrong?" "No, that is a very strong hive" he said. So I said, "Do you notice how the bees are running and roaring loudly?" He just looked at me puzzled.  Two or three frames into the hive and sure enough, emergency cells all over the place. So then I install a five frame nuc of brood and bees. NOW we have a strong hive!!  |
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rjoki
Worker Bee
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Post by rjoki on Aug 27, 2011 0:10:58 GMT -7
Thats interesting. You have an awesome survival rate as those 20 nucs are hopefully more than enough to restart the problems out of 340 hives, leaving a few extra for the existing deadouts.
I remember reading in February about how you rebuilt some of your hives in California this year.
So the hives that are queenless but still full of bees don't have a problem accepting five full frames and a queen that are put directly into their hive without a chance to get to know each other, or do you use new paper to keep them separate until they have a chance to sniff each other out for a bit.
I have up to this point, thought of nuc's as a way to start a hive from scratch in May, but didn't think about the fact that they could be combined complete with queen to an already fully populated hive that happens to be queenless.
Thanks for sharing that !!
PS. I also noticed that Drew winters a nice big bunch of nucs and has excellent survival with those as well. Makes me wonder about my plan to winter my girls in an extended condo with two deeps and a medium (which has a good honey stash).
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Post by rbz on Aug 27, 2011 0:33:47 GMT -7
Can't speak for Harry, but when I find a queenless hive, I simply put a nuc in bees and all in the top box in the 1-5 position. I plug the queen cage with candy and wedge her between the #1,2 frames so she's surrounded by her bees. Provided there's no virgin "little queen" running around, almost 100 percent success rate.
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Post by rbz on Aug 27, 2011 0:40:14 GMT -7
rjoki..I think the reason for the high success rate is...
There's a long break in the brood cycle so you don't have to worry about mites...usually
You're going into winter with a queen less than five months old, and if the queen had any issues sh'd be superceded by winter
You feeding in the late summer early fall such that bees has plenty of brood.
and for reason I can only speculate, bees winter much better crammed in tight quarters.
Oh and OA dibble (gotta keep those top bars bleached clean) is a snap to eliminate what mites there are.
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Post by rbz on Aug 27, 2011 0:50:51 GMT -7
Sometimes, I'll even winter over a few western three framers.  Of course, they take a lot more TLC and prolly better than 30 percent loss. |
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rjoki
Worker Bee
Posts: 144
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Post by rjoki on Aug 28, 2011 10:27:58 GMT -7
Two parts of this that are still alluding me.
1.) When Harry adds a full winterd nuc to an existing queenless hive in February, I am assuming that the queen is not in a cage, but is already a participating part of the nuc, and is the same queen that has overwintered in the nuc. If so, is there still no issue with the rest of the queenless hive about having a five frame nuc inserted directly into their hive, or does it take some intoduction method like newspaper between for a slower introduction.
2.) In preparing a nuc for winter, how do you be sure to supply them with enough honey for a full winter. If it takes 80 lbs of honey for a full size colony to winter, it would seem like a nuc would still need 30 or 40 lbs onboard by the end of fall. With only 5 frames for them to work with, and needing room for the colony itself to gather, can they store enough honey in the remaining frames that surround them ? Or are you instead vigilant about additional feeding throughout the winter when you use such small boxes ?
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Post by rbz on Aug 28, 2011 10:51:07 GMT -7
Nope... transfer bees, brood and caged queen into queenless hive all the time...sure there's a little conflict, but a whole lot.
Well..that's the thing with nucs...they need feed coming out of the winter, but in Febuarary, a properly provisioned nuc will still have a fair amount of honey. Once brood production begins in earnest, I start feeding them with those hive top feeders.
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Post by drew on Aug 28, 2011 21:43:08 GMT -7
That is the trick(black art) to winter nucs. When to feed (and what to feed), and when to leave them alone or slow them down. I could not explain the method it changes every time. It is just a feel. How is that for great information  |
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Post by HarryVanderpool on Aug 29, 2011 9:30:10 GMT -7
Nobody that I know, cages the queen when installing nucs into existing hives. I do try to make sure that the queen is on one of the inner frames as they are installed. As for conflict, when the hives are inspected in almonds, there is SOOO much mixing and shuffling, no fighting, no problem. The trick to getting them through winter feedwise is to feed them constantly about RIGHT NOW until they are basicly honeybound. |
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Post by HarryVanderpool on Oct 2, 2011 17:41:24 GMT -7
 I thought it might be interesting to see how the weight of nucs changes between now and February 1st when they make the trip to almonds. The first picture is of a nuc with 3 frames of empty comb and two frames of foundation. No bees. This is just for tare weight. It weighs about 23 lbs.  Nuc #28 weighs about 47 1/2 lbs  Nuc #22 weighs about 54 lbs!!  We can weigh them from time to time and see how they are doing. |
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