Are your bees ready for winter?

[NormCounterman]

So, you think your bees are ready to make the trip through the winter; do you?
Please tell us what you have done to help assure their survival.
Oh, by the way; do you know what the average annual winter loss is in the Northwest?
Normy

[drew]

nope

and

nope still feeding up for winter ;D need some warmer weather so it would go faster

[Thom]

Assure their survival? Not here, my friend. I guess shook bees throw off the ratio of winter loss surveys.

Sorry.

[Todd Balsiger]

Here's some of the things I do, then I'll list some of the things that I don't do.

What I will do or have done:
*Check-mite removed after 45 days; Apistan,56. Put in Apistan this year Aug. 4; haven't removed yet.
*Treated with "blank" for foulbroods. Done.
*Check all hives for weight. Haven't entirely done yet, but have stack of unextracted boxes waiting for any light ones, may feed honey that was dropped on the floor too.
Entrance reducers/mouse gaurds -- haven't done yet. Will do in next 10 days.
*Hives tilted up so water drains off away from entrance, hives facing south; protected from wind, pockets of cold air. Yes, they're always like this.
*Check for proper ventilization. Will do. I also staple black plastic to the lids -- no leaks, wood last longer, warmth.
*Unit weak colonies with moderately stong ones -- or terminate them. I'll try to find.
**Preceding all this, and what I believe is most important is timing and hive configuration. I take my honey off at the beginning of August, and at this time hives are pared down to winter configuration. For me winter config is a deep on top, western on bottom. These boxes were reversed to this position when I take honey off. All the brood and empty space goes up top, and they get hit with meds there. I have a way of manipulating boxes -- same way George Hansen and others do it. Same reasons (plural).

What I don't do -- and it may come back to haunt me. I don't treat for tracheal mites. Knock on wood, but I don't ever plan to. I buy resistant stock, and if their susceptible, then I want them to die. When I first started taking care of bees I experience a major die off -- bees crawled out on the snow in Feb. and died. The hives that remained -- no problem with trachael then on.

*I don't always feed suger water, nor Fumidil B every year. I sort my super frames when I extract-- any dark ones that had brood, pollen, etc. I hold and place on light colonies. It amounted to about 3 boxes last year. Normally it's an Italian that's way too light, out-of-sink with the season.

I have suffered extremely little winter loss for the last 3 or 4 years. -- less than 5%. But this could change dramatically, especially since I stopped using grease patties for tracheal mites.
Slatted rack bottom boards may contribute to my success. I never have chaulk brood any more -- haven't seen it for years.
The day varroa mite treatments stop working, which seems to be approaching based on what I hear, will be a great bottle kneck period. I know Harry looks forward to this. I will not stay in beekeeping if it involves ridiculous, ardous mitigation procedures. I'm counting on genetics.

That's about it. Of 37 hives checked to send to California this year, 36 were good to go. Got full payment, none died. Only one dead out recently -- queen failure. Other losses, about 4 out of 60 hives and nucs this summer -- were stupidity losses (some spray)-- suffication, bad queen intro (Norm, you straightened me out on this -- don't check your new queens for a long time), EFB in nuc, etc.

[NormCounterman]

You're a dam good beekeeper, Todd.
I disagree with your T-mite thrust; but you are still a good beekeeper.
Not many like you around any more.
Keep up the good work!
Normy

[Todd Balsiger]

Do you think I should revamp my grease patty regime, Norm. Maybe that was helping a lot and I didn't realize it?