Okay I'm Confused!

General Discussion of Diary Posts and Questions on Beekeeping Matters
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Colino
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Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Colino »

Everywhere I read we're supposed to reduce down to 2 boxes, put on mouse guards and close up excess entrances for winter. I look at the background photo of the diary this morning and Allen has hives up to 5 boxes high, all the entrances open and no mouse guards. Am I reading the wrong books or is that all spare equipment?
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Allen Dick
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

No, you are correct. Those are my overwintering hives.

Beginners are wise to follow rules. Experienced beekeepers know which ones to break and when.

These hives are full of honey, top to bottom and the bees are spread between a number of boxes and nowhere near the bottom board, and thus away from drafts and mice. I don't worry about much about mice. I have a few around, but with 75 hives, they don't do much damage and the owls keep the numbers down.

I could reduce the hives to two boxes, but colonies winter better in more and I have no place to put those boxes of honey. In spring, splitting will be easier since everything is right there and freshly occupied by bees, not somewhere in a stack.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Charlie
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Charlie »

Interesting... Allen in a roundabout way you just confirm a idea that I've been playing. I can see how a winter cluster can move up and down in a hive and front to back very easy. However I don't see how a cluster can move from left to right across the frames very easily without cluster breaking up.

In my hives I never see a cluster on the outside frames which are always honey. As a result I have been thinking/contemplating removing the outside frames of honey and placing them in the super on top of the hive for next winter. I would then fill the empty space with a dummy frame filled with styrene insulation. Obviously the frame would have to be custom-built to fit tight with thin plywood or some other coating that the bees will not eat. In this way there would be less wasted heat from the cluster and also makes the honey easier to get at. In the springtime they could be removed in favor of frame feeders.


We could do a couple of mockups and some fancy pictures write good story and put it out to the world for crowdfunding like "Flowhive" which is now over $2.5 million US and still counting. Then you wouldn't have to drive beaters to your yacht :lol:
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

I think you are referring to follower boards.

http://goo.gl/mNHfh9
and
http://goo.gl/IaYTOH
and
Styrofoam "follower" boards - Honey Bee World
viewtopic.php?t=254
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Charlie
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Charlie »

Yes, but insulated for the north.
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Countryboy
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Countryboy »

Everywhere I read we're supposed to reduce down to 2 boxes, put on mouse guards and close up excess entrances for winter.
That sounds like a lot of work. I almost never use entrance reducers or mouse guards. I just use bottom boards with a 3/8 opening. My brood boxes all have a 3/4 hole drilled in them, and a lot of my honey supers have holes in them, so bees have plenty of access to enter hives. Pull the supers and you remove entrances and entrances that are left are already small enough mice are seldom a problem.
In my hives I never see a cluster on the outside frames which are always honey. As a result I have been thinking/contemplating removing the outside frames of honey and placing them in the super on top of the hive for next winter. I would then fill the empty space with a dummy frame filled with styrene insulation.
Used to 8 frame equipment was pretty standard, and was considered the ideal width of a hive for a cluster.

It's a lot of work pulling frames and moving them around. Something I do is to put a frame feeder in every brood box. (I don't use deep boxes for honey supers.) That usually leaves 8 frames of comb, and the feeder is there if you need it, and it is dead air space in the winter.
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Colino
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Colino »

We are plagued by mice here. I have bait stations around our house, in my workshop and around my hives. We have 2 cats and a couple of Great Horned Owls live in the Russian Olive trees by the dugout. Still the mouse population is strong and to further complicate things we have Prairie Voles in copious quantities that attract Ermine in the winter. I'm not sure if Voles like honey comb but they sure cause havoc with my potatoes in the ground before they are dug in the fall. Also if a field mouse can get it's head through a hole it can get it's body through and some of them are small enough to get through a 3/8" entrance.
Colino
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Mice run in and out and clean up dead bees. Only occasionally does one decide to set up house in my hives. I notice one decided to chew on the entrance of one of the hives in the background picture.

I do try to control them a bit and the skunks which I tolerate to some extent are good mousers.

I put out mouse poison sometimes, but do not like to contemplate the effects.

I have too many hives and enough to share with these little guys. I can't control everything, nor should I try. In that direction lies frustration and insanity.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
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Colino
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Re: Okay I'm Confused!

Unread post by Colino »

Allen Dick wrote:Mice run in and out and clean up dead bees.
I put out mouse poison sometimes, but do not like to contemplate the effects.
I have too many hives and enough to share with these little guys.
I don't mind sharing but I hate the sound of mice scratching and chewing in the walls of the house. Every remodel I have done in this old farm house has revealed a plethora of mummified and skeletal remains of the rodents nestled in cavities stuffed with mouse litter.
Colino
Narcissism is easy because it's me or I, Empathy is hard because it's they or them.-Colino
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