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  • What do you do to get your bees ready for winter and did it work?

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More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
 #4530  by Chrisbarlow
 15 Aug 2019, 15:48
I would leave super on, feed em up and take QE out.

I stop feeding when they've got enough stores or they stop taking it. If they stop taking it but still haven't got enough stores , I would stick a slab of fondant on for them to access.
 #4539  by MickBBKA
 16 Aug 2019, 19:50
I think 8 national frames or the equivalent of liquid stores is about right to get a national brood box full of bees through winter. talk of hefting hives is always ambiguous as hive types can be very different in weight. I would say it should just feel very bloody heavy :shock:

Cheers, Mick.
 #4541  by Patrick
 17 Aug 2019, 08:44
MickBBKA wrote:
16 Aug 2019, 19:50
talk of hefting hives is always ambiguous as hive types can be very different in weight. I would say it should just feel very bloody heavy :shock:
Yes I don’t claim much different calibration to that either tbh Mick. Maybe an intermediate notch between “bloody heavy” and “Strewth, is that box empty? of “Hmm, that’s not heavy ” .

The middle notch only raises an eye brow depending when it occurs in the winter period. In my part of the South, light in a warm April probably not an issue , light 6 weeks earlier = issue. Let’s face it, for most dozen colony beeks it’s hardly an onerous task when you already there anyway.

Hive types and configurations differ in absolute weights - nucleus to double brood etc but it’s still possible to make educated guesstimates. It’s like the fish, I never weigh them anymore but just go for a visual guess before returning them - they are mostly huge, obviously😋😂

As with all things, if its no good to you, don’t do it. :D
 #4792  by Chrisbarlow
 10 Sep 2019, 16:45
Something that ive tried this year is use thymol in sugar syrup

I also intend to buy some more poly roofs for wooden hives instead of the traditional tin/wood roofs
 #12242  by NigelP
 02 Dec 2021, 11:10
Never too late to put them on. Might be worth asking yourself the question as to whether you need them or not. I've never used them just reduce the entrance size. I've probably had 2 mice incidents in what must be well over a 1000 hive winters and only one of those caused serious damage. However if you live in a high mouse area (we have a cat!!!) then they might save you a lot of strife.
 #12244  by MickBBKA
 02 Dec 2021, 11:59
In my garden I discovered mouse droppings on the varroa tray once, I don't know if it was from above or under the mesh as they can squeeze in a very small gap as thin as a pencil. There was no damage to the comb but they could have been picking bees off the outer of the cluster. So I set a mouse trap under the hive and caught 14 mice in 16 days. Our estate is crawling with cats but I think 'Townie' cats only kill garden birds and not mice. ;)
 #12245  by AdamD
 02 Dec 2021, 17:44
I had a couple of mice incidents last winter (one in the frames and another one inside a WBC - on top of the crownboard) - but haven't put guards on this year. I don't have a cat although there's a ferel one that comes in from next door.

I guess you could stop a mouse getting out if one was inside already if you put a guard on now!
 #12246  by Alfred
 02 Dec 2021, 18:46
Fortunately(?) the only rodent vs beekeeper attacks I've had so far is a rat in the apiary shed tearing shreds off a new floor I'd made- presumably attracted to the linseed oil.
I deployed a Mk4 trap and got the bgger the following week.
But, like Alec Guinness says, they will be back and in greater numbers.
Mice got to the fondant momentarily but that's now stored in an army surplus ordinance box
I've got metal guards on the hives but next year it will be tunnels