New colony new keeper

[Alfred]

Thank you very much for this.
I'm quietly confident with it all so far and will seek mentoring.
Its the end of the year which I really feel most apprehensive about, as that's where things went wrong for my previous colony.
They were not in good shape and by all accounts the previous guy had not helped things much
I really want to be a step ahead for them this time ,so with a dearth of experience ,all I have is preparing well in advance.
I would gladly adapt early season activities and forego honey this year to enhance their chances if it would help.
I am using national wooden hives .
I've been given the idea that a small well-insulated brood area is good to overwinterand to reduce the box to half a dozen central frames with insulation on the outer spaces is a way to do this(hence my question of how to wind the colony down to this configuration)
If this is the way forward, how does this fit in with the supered-stores underneath as you mention?
Bear in mind the forum responsible for most of my knowledge to this point was unprofessional to say the least....

[Chrisbarlow]

Have a look at this thread

https://www.bbkaforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=387&p=2715#p2715

If you are going to add insulation put it on the outside not the inside at the expense of stores. Your colony will want 40-50lb of stores to overwinter successfully and even that might be a bit light depending how harsh the winter is or is not. So keep all the frames inside and make sure they're full of stores. Oh and treat for varroa, see thread

[Caroline]

Chris has already detailed the amount of stores the average colony requires to get through a winter.

I'm not sure how much you know Alfred, but to clarify......

If you're running a brood box with 11 frames, then keep 11 frames, don't take any out. Once a source of forage becomes available in the spring, the colony begins to expand the brood nest and , depending on the size of the colony at the beginning of spring, the age of the queen, the available forage and the weather, etc etc (beekeeping is not an exact science!), the brood could be across 8, 9, 10 or 11 frames at the height of the season.

At the end of the summer the bees prepare for the winter (actually you could say that their winter preparations begin in the spring) and the brood nest contracts; the bees back-fill the empty brood cells with nectar for winter stores. By the end of the autumn there will be some brood surrounded by stores on the central frames, and stores in the outer frames (this will include any syrup the beekeeper feeds).

When the temperature drops during the winter the bees will cluster, consuming the stores adjacent to the cluster. When the temperature rises the bees will break cluster and if necessary will relocate stores from the outer frames. When the bees next cluster they will cluster next to a supply of stores.

I'm in the South East, so the winters here may not be as harsh as in your location, but I have been over-wintering bees in single-walled cedar national hives without insulation for 10 years; there have been a couple of harsh winters during that time; I have not lost a colony yet.

Bees are amazing at looking after themselves. Here's an example.

Due to personal circumstances I did't unite a small colony last autumn. It remained in a national brood box with 11 frames, 5 of which were foundation. I didn't get chance to do my usual feeding of syrup either. In December I had to relocate my hives from my out-apiary. At that time this particular colony felt very light (I had anticipated it would) and so I placed fondant above the feed hole in the crown board, on the basis that if they need it they would use it.

Another hive on double brood was knocked over by workmen before I got chance to relocate it. This happened at 9am on the Thursday morning, I got the message at 2pm on the Friday afternoon. During that time the weather had blown an absolute hooley, with torrential rain and gale force winds all Thursday night and Friday morning. Friday afternoon, with the help of two other beekeepers, the frames were hastily realigned in the brood boxes and the hive reassembled. We had no idea if the queen had survived the crash or not. Time would tell.

I inspected both hives for the first time during the Easter weekend. The small colony had just begun to draw comb on the next frame, so a spell of decent weather and they will be well away. The double brood colony had brood on 18 frames with the original queen laying well.

Get to know your bees during the spring and summer and by the time the autumn comes you will be able to assess how much supplementary feed they will need.

Stick with this forum and you'll be fine!

[Alfred]

Thanks for such clear advice-I am prone to overcomplicating matters.
I will update once I get started

[Patrick]

Strewth Caroline, the double brood toppling sounds a nightmare!

Alfred - nothing to fear regarding overwintering you will be fine. What your mate did or didn’t do with his bees is unknown, but you will be in a different position.

Excellent advice above. The advice to actively wind colonies down is mistaken in my view. A strong healthy well fed colony in winter is the aim. My only other suggestion generally is keep it simple in your first year and don’t try too many interventions at once. They may not all be compatible and will get confusing, for you and the bees!

[Alfred]

Just one more for now regarding arrival day-I had it in mind to shut them in.
I'm aware of a 3ft/3mile guideline,and that there's a margin of error that goes with it.
Road mileage from their current site is well in excess but without resorting to Ordinance Survey I'm a bit squirmy about the radial distance.
I'd rather not have anyone phoning home!
What's the verdict on this?

[AdamD]

If it's a reasonable distance, I would not be too worried - in general if it's over a mile or so there will be very few that would return to the old site from my experience.

(For the past 3 or 4 years I have an apiary which is under 600 metres from my home and I don't see too many bees return home if I move a colony from one to another).

[AdamD]

You are right to think ahead. One semi-commercial beekeeper summed it up quite well when speaking to me a few years ago. "The honey the bees collect up to the end of July is mine, anything after that is theirs" So you have time. (We don't have heather honey).

For your nuc, 'sensible' feeding will do no harm and the colony should be able to draw out frames over the coming months to grow the brood nest (until early July) and fill with stores. Varroa treatment can go on around August time and the colony fed after that so by the end of September, it's ready for winter. You have a little leeway on the timing and the above is a 'rule of thumb' for my part of Norfolk.
For winter preparation, see this:- http://www.norfolkbee.co.uk/beekeepers-FAQ/winter-preparation

(I was asked to see a colony that had swarmed with a current years' queen a few years ago. New queens don't usually swarm so we had a look to see what had happened. The colony had been lovingly fed since it had been received - upon examination, EVERY frame of the WBC brood box was full of syrup - apart from a few small arcs of brood at the bottom of the centre frames, with the queencells attached. They had been over-fed without any understanding of the bees requirements !)

[Caroline]

Others may disagree but I would say in the current temperatures you don't have a problem; open the entrance the day you get them.

Last year I moved a colony 0.64 miles 'as the crow (or bee) flies', in the summer. In order to help them realise they were in a new location and to re-orientate before flying off, I placed a garden fork in the ground directly in front of the entrance (a little trick I've picked-up along the way). I kept an eye on the original location and no bees turned-up there.

I've used an on-line map to check the flying distance between two points (sorry, can't find the link at present).

[Caroline]

Strewth Caroline, the double brood toppling sounds a nightmare!

Yep, you can imagine my reaction when I got the message! I was at work at the time and hastily called two beekeeping friends who (being retired) dropped everything and headed off to my apiary. By the time I arrived they had assessed the situation and lit a smoker.

Both brood boxes were on their side a good foot apart. It transpired the bees were all in the bottom box. My friends did all the lifting for me! They were expecting angry bees and were amazed at how calm the bees were, with only a little smoke required to disperse them from the top of the frames. All three of us had bees on us but the bees were not agitated at all. My friends were also surprised at the number of bees, as it is a strong colony - something that I think helped them survive the ordeal so well.

We moved the colony the following weekend. I had decided that if there was a problem and the queen had not survived, the colony would issue a roar when picked up to be moved. There wasn't a sound and I considered this to be good news. At the new location we opened the entrance and stood back; bees came out in an orderly fashion and immediately started to re-orientate at the entrance. I was confident everything was OK. Happily I can now confirm it is.

I have heard of an incident where a hive floated down a stream in a flood and the bees survived. Makes the toppling of my hive sound trivial in comparison!