# Did those northern nuc's overwinter?



## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

I figure it is officially spring, and so it's OK to ask if those folks who attempted to overwinter nuc's above other colonies, or in another manner, this past winter were successful? There were a couple of interesting threads last year, and I would like to know if anyone in my region, or further north, was successful. Thanks, Adrian.


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## bee_wrangler (Jan 21, 2007)

*success!!*

These hives were headed by untreated survivor stock grafted in July. I overwintered 9 hives in a single deep hive body with emergency dry sugar on top thanks mt camp! The hives are in central iowa. Even more suprising was 2 nucs that my uncle had in south east Iowa that never covered more than 3 frames in the fall. They are now building up!?!? All of these nucs were fed syrup with HBH and fed pollen sub through the fall.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

0 for 2 here, my fault. The swarm I caught late August and overwintered in a single deep is going great guns right now.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Some did. Some didn't. We had some -16 F weather that took it's toll.


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## pzbeez (Mar 18, 2007)

i made up 5 frame nucs in june and got them up to 15 frame(3 nuc boxes high) by the fall. Pushed them together into pairs and tarpapered them and they are going great guns now (maples just flowering now). On the other hand the small swarm i got in july, stumbled along and never grew out of a 5 frame nuc. It made it until the very last cold snap and died due to moisture. It was the first time i tried to overwinter a five frame and it did way better than i expected.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

We overwintered plenty of 5 frame nucs. They are getting ready to be transferred in 10 frame deeps. Like everything else some are really strong, most are normal and some small.
Survival rate this year is 80%. I do a lot of selection of those nucs before entering the winter which includes requeening if needed and unification. 
None of these nucs have received any kind of chemical treatment.
They are kept on proven yard with strong honey flows and don't need any feeding in the fall.
early April I fed the some syrup and gave them a frame of honey saved from last year.
I did overwinter some half frame matting nucs with much higher survival rate.

There are some pictures in my photo album.

Gilman


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## berkshire bee (Jan 28, 2007)

Gilman, Nice pictures. Looks like you're doing all the right things.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

We had great wintering in Vermont this year. Still unwrapping production colonies, but loss is less than 10%. I've seen all the nucs, and fed those in need. Went into winter with 310 
4 and 8 frame nucs. 282 survived, with many strong and meduim plus. The mating nucs are amazing this year. They are 8 mini-frames. More than 170 alive, with most thriving. In fact, the mating nucs are too strong this year. Usually I have some losses. The dead ones go on top of the live, and they expand upwards...giving me lots of brood for this summers mini-nucs and helps prevent swarming. Not many empty boxes. Hoping to get those wintered queens into my production colonies...they're the best.


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## Timothy (Jul 24, 2006)

this is is my 2nd year overwintering nucs i use the 5 frame double nuc last year i lost about 30% this year a little less but the big difference is the strength of the colonies this year they are much stronger i will soon give them more frames. I contribute it to learning more about queen rearing and how heavy they really need to be. This year i plan on doing the 4 way mating nucs as well this way when i make up the 5 frame nucs with cells if i have any poor mating then i can replace with queen from mating nuc or combine. 
I would encourage everyone to try overwintering nucs a few years ago i attended the sneba meeting were micheal gave a talk about raising your own queens and overwintering nucs and since then my beekeeping has totally changed, i use no chemicals and i found queen rearing to be a very enjoyable and satisfying part of beekeeping not to mention my bees have never been stronger Tim


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Timothy said:


> I would encourage everyone to try overwintering nucs a few years ago i attended the sneba meeting were micheal gave a talk about raising your own queens and overwintering nucs and since then my beekeeping has totally changed, i use no chemicals and i found queen rearing to be a very enjoyable and satisfying part of beekeeping not to mention my bees have never been stronger Tim


You know...That's exactly how I felt when I got going raising nucs to over winter. Changed my beekeeping forever...for the better. Not to mention...my bees have never been stronger!

Why do I travel all over presenting the plan to beekeepers? It's all about Tim and Erin and Karla, and many others. It's easy, fun, and it works!!

Good for you, Tim


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Michael Palmer said:


> Hoping to get those wintered queens into my production colonies...they're the best.



Do you merge some of your OW nucs with your production colonies or just take the queen?


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

I was just going to post here, even though I am really a "southerner" (beekeeper that is- not my birthright) but now since I have been named, I am jumping right in.

We are totally on board with this OW (overwintering nuc) program. We have been blessed with incredible success in our first year. Our sample is humbly small (especially compared to Mike's hundreds) but our success rate high! Out of our group of 5 who did this (2 nucs each), we only had one nuc loss. And for VA, we actually did have a cold winter. The nucs that went into winter with new queens are rockin and rollin and the dandelions are blooming.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

winevines said:


> Do you merge some of your OW nucs with your production colonies or just take the queen?


I use my nucs for 4 purposes...

1. Replacing winterkill
2. Requeening weak colonies in the spring...kill old queen, give nuc.
3. Making increase
4. Starting this year's round of nucs in mid-summer. These are the weakest of the nucs that made the winter. They are allowed to build up in 2 boxes, and divided into nucs in July. This way, you have a supply of brood and bees without going into your production colonies.

There are 3 groups of nucs...by strength and performance. 

The best go into my breeding program...the best of the best are selected for breeders or drone mothers.

The average...still good...are for general use or sale.

The worst are used for making more nucs in mid-summer. 

In this way, your apiary becomes self sufficient.


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## fatscher (Apr 18, 2008)

Michael Palmer said:


> I use my nucs for 4 purposes...
> 
> 2. Requeening weak colonies in the spring...kill old queen, give nuc.


Mike, can you explain further how you requeen with a nuc? Is it as simple as taking the 5-frame nuc and placing those 5 frames into a queenless hive?

Do the queenless bees readily accept their "sisters" on those 5 frames?

Also, I may have mentioned before, but winevines is my mentor. Through her efforts, I was able to overwinter two nucs which we are passing on to this spring's students. Overwintering has made a disciple of me too. And, well I'm sure you know how brutal our Virginia winters are.


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## Scott J. (Feb 6, 2007)

*not so good results*

I tried o overwinter 35 five frame nucs. Four are still alive. These were set 12 inches off the ground in a 3/4 of the day sunshine. I had pushed them together in three 10 nuc groupings. I did not do any protective wrappings. The tops were the migratory style. The vast majority died from moisture problems. THey were not on top of another hive.

I'm looking for a better plan. Ideas include using Homasote as a vapor collector. Then maybe putting 2 inch insulation board on top of that then wrapping it up using tar paper. Cold is really not a problem where I live. But when it can rain 60-90 days straight in the winter, moisture is the problem to overcome. Scott


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

fatscher said:


> can you explain further how you requeen with a nuc? Is it as simple as taking the 5-frame nuc and placing those 5 frames into a queenless hive?
> 
> Yeah, we are a little clueless. Can you just put the nuc frames inside the hive to requeen?
> 
> ...


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

fatscher said:


> Mike, can you explain further how you requeen with a nuc? Is it as simple as taking the 5-frame nuc and placing those 5 frames into a queenless hive?
> 
> Do the queenless bees readily accept their "sisters" on those 5 frames?
> 
> Also, I may have mentioned before, but winevines is my mentor. Through her efforts, I was able to overwinter two nucs which we are passing on to this spring's students. Overwintering has made a disciple of me too. And, well I'm sure you know how brutal our Virginia winters are.


Yeah, your winters are brutal! Shoot, up here in the tropics, we still have some snow banks...15F tonight again.

I usually transfer my nucs to 10 frame boxes before I do any requeening. About the end of April, many nucs are filling their box with bees and brood. In a 10 frame box they can expand to their hearts delight...until they fill that box, too. 

So, after transferring, when I find a weak hive, I kill the old queen, and reduce what's left of her colony to 1 box. Then, unite the box with the nuc and young queen on top of the ols weak hive. You can do the newspaper method, or spray scented syrup on them. The old hive will readily accept the nuc...especially if you let them build up some in their new box before uniting. Remember, your new queen in the nuc is a laying queen, not a shrunk up caged queen shipped in from who knows where.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Scott J. said:


> I'm looking for a better plan. Ideas include using Homasote as a vapor collector. Then maybe putting 2 inch insulation board on top of that then wrapping it up using tar paper. Cold is really not a problem where I live. But when it can rain 60-90 days straight in the winter, moisture is the problem to overcome. Scott


I added an upper entrance by drilling a 3/4 auger hole on the opposite end of the nuc box from the entrance. Took care of my moisture problem. I expect you have more moisture than I do. Chef Isaac has wintered nucs in your climate. I wonder what he does about the moisture problem.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

winevines said:


> fatscher said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, we are a little clueless. Can you just put the nuc frames inside the hive to requeen?
> ...


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Michael Palmer said:


> Yeah, your winters are brutal! Shoot, up here in the tropics, we still have some snow banks...15F tonight again.


You were down this way a year ago today. Dandelions were blooming at the airport. But I think we might be even cuz in August/September it is like the Sarahara desert down here (for a bee) and we are buying sugar by the truckload to feed our bees who are absolutely thankless and nastier than can be, you are all taking in the goldenrod flow more often than not!


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## REWERT (Jan 30, 2009)

Does anyone have a good resource/book/site that would give indepth processes and details of this 'overwintering nuc's' idea? This thread is very facinating and interesting but I'm obviously missing all the details/theory/particulars of the process; would like to learn much more. I'm (just beginning) from the COLD north and have had concerns about the process. Thanks!


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

REWERT said:


> Does anyone have a good resource/book/site that would give indepth processes and details of this 'overwintering nuc's' idea?


We're waiting for Mike to write it! Serioulsy, there is a lot here on beesource about it.


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## oldenglish (Oct 22, 2008)

Michael Palmer said:


> I added an upper entrance by drilling a 3/4 auger hole on the opposite end of the nuc box from the entrance. Took care of my moisture problem. I expect you have more moisture than I do. Chef Isaac has wintered nucs in your climate. I wonder what he does about the moisture problem.



Not sure that Chef has the moisture thing down pat just yet. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=382319#post382319


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## Scott J. (Feb 6, 2007)

I said I had a moisture problem... not a RIVER problem! Ha!

Does anyone have experiance using the homasote board to absorb moisture?


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## oldenglish (Oct 22, 2008)

Scott J. said:


> I said I had a moisture problem... not a RIVER problem! Ha!
> 
> Does anyone have experiance using the homasote board to absorb moisture?


Would it be better to have air flow to help dry out rather than something that will hold moisture in the area ?
I just made some temporary covers from one inch thick polystyrene insulation, it has a silver foil bonded to one side, I have that side up.


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## talkingplant (Mar 11, 2009)

Moisture is bad. I keep hearing over an over from the northern folks that it isn't the cold that kills bees. It's the moisture.


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## Timothy (Jul 24, 2006)

here is what i found with my limited 2 year experience 
1 make sure there heavy!!
2 i use the feed bag as inner cover with a 1'' insulation board on top and underneath
3 3/4 or 1" hole oppiste end of entrance for ventilation
4 i wrap them loose , i put 4 boxes 8 nucs on a pallet and with a telescoping covers i butt them up together so it leaves an 1 1/2 " air space between boxes then wrap the sides and top with tar paper has worked for me so far. Larry conner`s book increase essentials covers overwintering nucs 
5 Have a good young queen tim


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

winevines said:


> You were down this way a year ago today. Dandelions were blooming at the airport.


I remember, and what a difference a year makes. Flying into the airport from a thousand feet I could see Yellow!! Still 6" of snow on my front lawn, and I fly into spring...Dandelions, Redbud, green grass, and the smell...WOW! Got home that Sunday...still 6" of snow.

This year was different...no snow. It melted in March...mostly. Bees were flying at 60F. Will finish unwrapping today...all 33 yards done my the middle of April. Last year I didn't even get started until I got home from VA.


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Scott J. said:


> I said I had a moisture problem... not a RIVER problem! Ha!
> 
> Does anyone have experiance using the homasote board to absorb moisture?


Tony Jadczak,ME St Apiarist, has advocated homasote as a winter insulation for a while.

Cut a piece of homasote to fit between the inner and outer cover.

Make a 3/4" wide by 1/4"deep dado in the homasote to match up with the center hole and the notch in the inner cover.

I use a 3/8 strip of wood to secure 15# felt and to hold the outer cover away from the notch to provide ventilation/upper entance in the winter.

All winter the bees can be seen sucking/chewing the absorbed moisture in the homasote over the center hole.

Jack


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Also Erin Forbes, Mainebeekeeper uses homosote.

We used sugar to absorb moisture.


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Michael Palmer said:


> I usually transfer my nucs to 10 frame boxes before I do any requeening.
> 
> So, after transferring, when I find a weak hive, I kill the old queen, and reduce what's left of her colony to 1 box. Then, unite the box with the nuc and young queen on top of the ols weak hive. You can do the newspaper method, or spray scented syrup on them. The old hive will readily accept the nuc...especially if you let them build up some in their new box before uniting. Remember, your new queen in the nuc is a laying queen, not a shrunk up caged queen shipped in from who knows where.


Do you wait at all after killing the old queen before the newspaper combine with the nuc (now in a 10 frame box)?


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

winevines said:


> Also Erin Forbes, Mainebeekeeper uses homosote.
> 
> We used sugar to absorb moisture.



After the sugar absorbs the moisture where does the moisture goes, stays on top of the bees right?

Gilman


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

bleta12 said:


> After the sugar absorbs the moisture where does the moisture goes, stays on top of the bees right?


You are probably right, and much more experienced than us. we are brand new at this, and found it challenging to manage the nucs to have enough honey going into winter as they kept making more brood. We felt that we needed this extra feed of sugar so we started it in january and they inhaled it- so not much worry about wet sugar staying around. we were fortunate in january and feb to have a few 60 degree days so we could put it in there.

what we really did for moisture was to make shim with a notch, so that there was some ventilation. seemed to work well. 

also we used SBB's, but with mite trays in, so the moisture could have passed through the screren I guess,and the mite tray is easily removed and cleaned off which i did several times. never saw any moisture on the trays. maybe the SBB also provided some small ventilation as well.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

double


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

winevines said:


> You are probably right, and much more experienced than us. we are brand new at this, and found it challenging to manage the nucs to have enough honey going into winter as they kept making more brood. We felt that we needed this extra feed of sugar so we started it in january and they inhaled it- so not much worry about wet sugar staying around. we were fortunate in january and feb to have a few 60 degree days so we could put it in there.
> 
> what we really did for moisture was to make shim with a notch, so that there was some ventilation. seemed to work well.
> 
> also we used SBB's, but with mite trays in, so the moisture could have passed through the screren I guess,and the mite tray is easily removed and cleaned off which i did several times. never saw any moisture on the trays. maybe the SBB also provided some small ventilation as well.


We all are students of Nature so we all are learning.
My advice is to put the nucs in the best yard with the best fall flow so they can get heavy. If not, try to feed some heavy syrup early so they can process it like mid September.
Upper entrance like a hole in the nuc box may help.
Enlarge the lower entrance, but screen it against mouse.
Some protection from the wind.
There is a fine line between lots of moisture and not enough humidity, when the bees start rearing brood. We should let the bees regulate that humidity and if we interfere with it in the wrong part of the year, in the form of dry sugar, when they are rearing brood, we are not doing any good.
In a brood rearing colony the humidity is very high.
It is a learning process for all of us.
I am just not able to accept the use of dry sugar on top of the colony as a regular management but only as an emergency intervention which should be avoided with the right steps in the previous fall.

Gilman


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

I'm late to the party, but I tried overwintering nucs this year for the first time (well, it was the first time I tried nucs, period). I had 2 of 6 survive. They were late summer splits with new, MH queens using two frames each donated from my six hives. I am using the 5-frame polystyrene hives. The 4 that died, starved, a stupid mistake on my part, underestimating their needs. The first time I could get into them after November was mid-February, when we had a brief thaw. By then the four were gone, but I was able to save the other 2 by feeding dry sugar and pollen pattties. They did great with no moisture problems and are booming now. Will be transferring them to deeps as soon as the boxes arrive from Rossman.

I really like these polystyrene hives (although I am sure they are too expensive for anything more than a hobbyist) and just had 4 more delivered. I wish they had shims, like regular hives to make it easier to add sugar and patties (you have to be careful to make sure the lids are not too high after supplementing). Thought I had the answer, when I saw ps nuc shims advertised in the BetterBee catalog. I even called them to make sure they were shims to raise the lids on the ps hives and was assured they were. But, they arrived yesterday and are the wooden front boards for the revolving entrance. Duh. Dumb name to give something that doesn't lift an object from another object, as other shims do.

Having had a small taste of success, I am addicted. As I have posted elsewhere, this year I am going to take a stab at raising my own queens using two methods - 1) the Nicot system, and 2) just putting frames with swarm cells in 2-frame nucs. I'll be using a Cloake board on my hive of choice to get things rolling . Will report on my success or failure with each method.

The way I am doing things is not cheap, since I buy pretty much everything (don't have the skills to make my own, nor the time to learn the skills, nor the time to use the skills I took the time to learn). BUT, it is definitely cheaper than buying new bees and/or queens each year. Last spring I spent~$600 on six packages, plus another $60 when I had to get two new queens to replace two that failed in the packages, plus another $150 for the six MH queens for the nucs. This year I spend ZERO on bees. The satisfaction of success is much more important than saving a few bucks, and I'm spending plenty on new woodenware, etc., anyway. But, I'd much rather buy equipment to add hives, than bees to replace losses. May not be so lucky again, but it is encouraging.

Following the advise of MP, MB and others, I want to raise my own queens, because 1) it gives me better quality control over what I am putting into my hives, 2) I think it makes me a better beekeeper, and 3) it is just, plain cool.

Thanks, everyone for all the great advice and thanks for reading.

Bill


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## abeeco (Dec 6, 2008)

*lots of small clusters*

Had decent survival in 5 frm divided westerns (60-70%) 
and not so great in a few divided deeps.

took all the losses in the spring, most/all were alive a month and a half ago. tough spring (temps up and down) some tried to start raising brood too early, others just had too small of a cluster and starved with plenty of honey in the box when the temps dropped.

Although I thought we had good frugal bees, there is a big difference between a small cluster coming out of winter in single deep/ 2 westerns and these double nucs.

*Many/ most of the surviving nucs still have really small clusters- only a few are booming. How to best manage these/ nurse them along, any advice?*. Yes, go ahead and say this is just because we are using westerns. I know this is true.

I do not think moisture was our biggest problem, although? We used an entrance (5/8-3/4") near the bottom of the box and a screened vent 3/4" -1" near the top on the same side of the box. black "shade cloth" inner cover stapled to divider. flat wood lid, small notch for some limited ventilation. a few with migratory tops with better top ventilation. frame rests cut for top beespace. piece of 1" or 2" foam on top of wood lid overlapping at least 3" in all directions. we did not wrap.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

abeeco said:


> *Many/ most of the surviving nucs still have really small clusters- only a few are booming. How to best manage these/ nurse them along, any advice?*. Yes, go ahead and say this is just because we are using westerns. I know this is true.


What are westerns? 6 5/8 Mediums?

At this point, you let them expand as they will...or give some emerging brood.

Most of the wintered nucs in my apiaries, that have really small clusters, swarmed on the Loosetrife or Goldenrod flows. Any chance that happened?


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## abeeco (Dec 6, 2008)

6 5/8" boxes

We don't have much of a fall flow but it is possible that there were just too many bees in some of them fall... i didn't see any sign of late swarms

Many of my full size colonies are looking really small this year as well, I think with the rainy spring they just haven't been able to get out and collect any pollen.


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

bleta12 said:


> I am just not able to accept the use of dry sugar on top of the colony as a regular management but only as an emergency intervention which should be avoided with the right steps in the previous fall.
> 
> Gilman


I agree, and none of my full hives needed emergency sugar. I will have to learn with practice how to get the OW nucs enough honey in teh Fall to go in to winter. Fall flow does not exist where I am- it is more like Fall drought in most years. The lack of stores was not from a lack of feeding them 2 to 1 (which I did), I think it was more due to our missing how to balance the number of brood frames and the number of honey stores going into winter. I did not wanting to take out brood frames but I may find that doing this, and giving room for more honey stores is the better approach. Management is clearly the art!
Thanks for your input!


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Karla,

In my area the good fall flow is the key to a successful overwintering, big colonies and small.
If you constantly don't have any good fall flows you should reconsider to change the area you are keeping those colonies and the size the colonies you are overwintering, not necessarily 5 frame nucs but 10 frames. Also adjust the time and size you make those summer splits.
The whole idea is to have those summer splits to grow and be as self sustained as possible. 

Gilman


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