# Unlimited broodnest adjustment



## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

I think you could safely leave your bees with only two deeps for winter as long as they were stuffed well with stores. I use all medium boxes, and I winter mine in three mediums in a colder climate than you, and my bees still have honey left in the third box, with the clusters partially occupying the third box right now. John


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Of all the things I could possibly do to them, starving is probably the most reprehensible, that is unless it was their own fault and not mine.

What if they are not packed out, what if I still have three boxes that still leave room for brooding? I don't know when yours start brooding, but I don't know exactly when mine do either.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

I will say however, that my bees are still in winter, we have had about two days over 50 all winter, so needless to say we are at least two weeks from having any nectar or pollen coming in from the trees, if we're lucky. I have lost alot of hives this winter due to cold/starvation, so the ones I have left alive are getting down to the last few frames of honey so spring needs to come along soon for us up here. John


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

How dark are your bees? What are their wintering characteristics?


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Yeah, I don't want it to be my fault either if they starve, this winter I lost many hives to starvation, but I don't feel it was my fault, it was just so dang cold and windy for so long that the clusters couldn't move one frame over to save their lives. John


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

In a man made hive, which is in a man made environment, starving is not the bees fault, it is always the beekeepers fault.

However wintering in 3 boxes is not needed long as you can give them enough, both honey, and empty comb for clustering and heat making. Just a couple of partly empty combs is enough.

There are though some who swear by wintering in 3 boxes, if they get good results, power to them.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Honestly, I don't know for sure when they begin rearing brood in the late winter, they should be brooding in February according to the experts. My bees are solid Italians, they don't winter well in this climate in my opinion, I'm getting some Carniolan packages this spring to try them out for a change. Italian's are known for rearing brood very late in the fall season and they don't cut back much if at all on brood rearing when there isn't much coming in. Carni's are supposed to be better at rationing their food. John


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Oldtimer, I just happen to disagree, starvation even in a man made hive is not always the beekeepers fault. Maybe it is our fault, when bees die, that we are trying to winter bees in climates that are too harsh, bees do die of cold contrary to what many would have you think. John


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## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

I winter a lot of hives in single deeps. Below is a hive that was started as a nuc in late July. The pic is from Jan 3rd. I have put a second deep of drawn comb on them and they occupy six frames of that deep now. I feed each single about 23 lbs of sugar in 2-1 syrup in October. I also keep a patty that I mix on them all winter. Each single hive being fed about 5 lbs of patty, during the winter.

David

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h10/dave_sc/nucs/100_1506.jpg


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

scdw43, nice looking hive, they should be producers this year for you. John


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

jmgi said:


> Oldtimer, I just happen to disagree, starvation even in a man made hive is not always the beekeepers fault. Maybe it is our fault, when bees die, that we are trying to winter bees in climates that are too harsh, bees do die of cold contrary to what many would have you think. John


Uh oh! Here comes another argument thread!!

Just kidding dude!

I haven't experienced winters as harsh as yours so can't comment on your situation, from my own experience. 

What I can say from my own experience is I worked in an outfit with around 4,000 hives, and typical winter losses would have been 1, 2, or 3 hives per year. AND the boss would be unhappily wanting to know exactly why the hive was dead and whose fault it was. If they starved, they had not been fed enough. if they froze, they had not been insulated enough, postioned correctly, or whatever. By taking personal responsibility for what some folks would just leave to chance, we didn't lose much.

My belief is if a hive is sent into winter healthy, well housed and well fed, it will come through. if not, an autopsy will reveal the cause, which will be a learning experience to ensure next time, that base is covered.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Sometimes it is neither the beekeeper or the bees fault, they just die of NATURAL causes. What I mean by this is that because of conditions outside the control of the beekeeper or the bees, they fail to survive, such as the climate in general, or a particular winter that was abnormally severe. No matter how perfect everything may seem to be going into winter with a colony, sometimes things go wrong that you can't help. John


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

>My belief is if a hive is sent into winter healthy, well housed and well fed, it will come through. if not, an autopsy will reveal the cause, which will be a learning experience to ensure next time, that base is covered. 


Yes, in my case the autopsy showed that my bees died of starvation due to prolonged severe cold and them not being able to move one stinkin' frame over to get to more food. The only thing that would have changed the outcome of many of my dead hives would be if I would have physically moved the hives indoors to a warmer temperature during the early winter, but that was not possible or practical. John


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

David, it's good to know that can be done, but I don't feed. Nor would I unless I had taken too much honey which I endeavor not to do. I guess the key is leaving the right amount of honey.

I wish I had that many bees coming out, but that won't happen for another few weeks.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

jmgi said:


> The only thing that would have changed the outcome of many of my dead hives would be if I would have physically moved the hives indoors to a warmer temperature during the early winter, but that was not possible or practical. John


I had the same thing happen to two of my hives, spring nucs freshly shipped in from Georgia. I call it cold starvation. Funny thing, it happened long before temps below 10F. It happened sometime in November. I was still riding my motorcycle daily back then. They just didn't have the chutzpah to winter properly in this climate.

I too am working on better wintering stock. I've ordered some queens from Zia who advertises Northern Michigan and Rocky Mountain stocks.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They can burn up a lot of honey in the spring buildup. It won't go to waste.

As far as starvation, I tend to agree (although you can play semantics) that whether it is the beekeepers "fault" or not, once you are stealing their honey, feeding if necessary is your responsibility as you removed the bees having control when you stole their stores.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Wanted or not, here is my point of view. If one puts bees in boxes for the keeping of them, they are just as much your responsibility as children or pets or any other livestock. Therefore one should do all one can to keep them alive. If that means making food available to them, then that is what one should do. Short of doing so is inhumane.

Just like in the Thread which discusses the youtube videos of burning out of bees and swarms. Gross negligence.

There seems to be a failure to understand or accept the fact that a colony of bees does not die because of cold temperatures. Unless I am misunderstanding some comments made previously. Cold does not kill bees. But, perhaps that is another Thread.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Mark, would this fall under the definition of semantics? Yes, the bees in the box are our responsibility because they are our bees. I am doing everything to keep my bees alive, including NOT withholding what I feel is sufficient food for them to survive the winter and make spring. But, sometimes it just doesn't work out the way we planned. Is is our fault all the time when the plan falls short of what we intended? When we have losses due to cold/starvation we could surely leave our bees more food the next winter to try to prevent it from happening again, but there are no guarantees it would work then either. The beekeeper has to battle many variables every season out of their control, I just don't feel that it is always our fault when they die of starvation due to severe prolonged cold snaps. I think you know what I mean. John


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

sqkcrk said:


> There seems to be a failure to understand or accept the fact that a colony of bees does not die because of cold temperatures.


Semantics. Cold can prevent bees from breaking cluster which leads to starvation. Chicken/egg. End result is dead bees.


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Sol, A colony of bees will start rearing brood just after the Winter Solstice- (Dec 21 st.) Brood rearing is triggered by day length.Even in the extreme north they do this in preparation of the coming season because the seasons are so short. There have been many studies on this subject. As far as having excess honey, that is a good thing as far as food is concerned. BUT too much honey in left in the brood nest in the spring with fresh nectar coming in can be a bad thing also. The colony is in a Honey Clogged condition. No room for momma to lay and expand the nest. Colony expansion is slowed down. More nectar comes in--Colony SWARMS. Most of the time it is a pitiful swarm at best due to the fewer numbers of bees the colony had. We adjust our brood chambers in this condition by moving a nearby empty comb or two in and the excess honey is placed somewhere else in the colony. Bees this winter at least in the South did not consume a lot of stores. The optimum temperture for overwintering is around 45 degrees average temp. This was about the mean temp for the winter in the south this year. Bee will not burn alot of calories at this temp. Thus this year many colonies in the South are honey clogged. Swarming will be heavy. Beekeepers should adjust their management accordingly. TK


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

ALthough we are getting off topic, I believe it was Farrar, in the 40's?, that wintered a hive with just a framework for a supper. We have noticed that it is the smaller clusters that tend to starve with honey inches away. Myabe part of our resposibilty is to make sure that the populations are large enough going into winter for the type of bee we are ussing. You should have seen the look on the hobbyist's face when we opened one of our hives last summer. Good wintering hives are built before winter.


Crazy Roland


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Ted, that was a truly an informative and interesting post, thank you for sharing your experience.

I have begun preparing for this season by placing empty comb and or foundation next to the broodnest. I am noticing that nearly all the hives seem to have lost capped brood to cold. The primary reason for this I have found is skunk predation. It has set all the hives back several weeks. 4 of the five have several frames of brood but few or no foragers. I've come up with a new configuration to combat the skunk, but the damage has been done.

You make a good point about the hives being honey bound, it has been my habit for quite some time to avoid that. 

I'm just about as far north and one can be and still be in the south. Our winter has been short, but we pushed record cold temperatures and record snowfall. I have already put out swarm traps, let the swarms come.


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## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

As far as how many boxes that a hive should have, that is a latitude question that is better answered by local beekeepers. I agree that the reason that a lot of bees die in winter is not the cold. When someone posts that they have a hive die the first thing some people ask is did you treat. I don't use anything but sugar, soy, and brewers yeast, if needed, in my hives. I don't call that treating but some people do. I believe that more bees die from condensation (lack of ventilation), bad queens, and making nucs/hives too late for the queen to raise enough winter bees (small cluster size). I think that other than condensation, and lack of stores, most of the problems originate from the queen. If the queen is not maintaining enough bees to generate enough heat so the cluster can move to feed that is a queen problem. You might say the workers decide how many eggs the queen will lay. I say were did the workers come from. The genetics of the queen control 99% of what happens in the hive, whether it be good or bad. I might be wrong, but I believe that if you have a good queen, plenty of food and a dry hive it is hard for a beekeeper to kill a hive in the winter. Just my 2 cents.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

scdw43 said:


> I believe that if you have a good queen, plenty of food and a dry hive it is hard for a beekeeper to kill a hive in the winter. Just my 2 cents.



In a nutshell. 

All I would add to that (probably an oversight), is healthy.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Location Location Location - Have I said this before? I don't run ULBC because in my location it would just be unsold honey sitting in a hive absorbing moisture, and half filled combs getting moldy. If SHB becomes a bigger problem here it would also be a buffet for them. I pull my crop in fall, a trickle flow starts to feed the bees in October. I run some as double Langs with some empty combs to give strong hives room to expand and store surplus over winter, and some as Langstroth Jumbos, occasionally with an empty honey super over a queen QE. The last few years the die off has been so bad, even the survivors have almost no winter population. Management has really changed.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

odfrank said:


> I don't run ULBC because in my location it would just be unsold honey sitting in a hive absorbing moisture, and half filled combs getting moldy.


One doesn't need to leave the hive full of honey at the end of the season to do ULBN. I don't harvest the bottom three just as a matter of practice, not out of necessity of the philosophy. With ULBN, I let the brood nest next move up into the fourth deep if necessary. It gets pushed back down some time before June as the honey fills up in the top.

The only comb that I have getting moldy is that which is not in the hive.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

WiredForStereo said:


> One doesn't need to leave the hive full of honey at the end of the season to do ULBN.


What reason is there to do it if it is not for stores? Few climates or colonies require a lot of brood space in winter.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Not limiting the queen's laying in the brooding season.


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## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

I give my bees all the room they can stand during the active season. I think one would have to go through every box and count brood frames to see if the bees were using all of their boxes for brood. I have had queens that would lay in three deeps, but would two have been enough. How many frames of brood did she have. Four in each box or maybe five. Seven frames in two boxes is 14 frames. Five in three boxes is 15 frames. After swarm season and the flow what is the difference. I make up lots of nucs so the more the better. I think that it is a personal preference as to how many boxes one runs. Location is very important, as is population and timing the flow.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

jmgi said:


> Mark, would this fall under the definition of semantics? Yes, the bees in the box are our responsibility because they are our bees. I am doing everything to keep my bees alive, including NOT withholding what I feel is sufficient food for them to survive the winter and make spring. But, sometimes it just doesn't work out the way we planned. Is is our fault all the time when the plan falls short of what we intended? When we have losses due to cold/starvation we could surely leave our bees more food the next winter to try to prevent it from happening again, but there are no guarantees it would work then either. The beekeeper has to battle many variables every season out of their control, I just don't feel that it is always our fault when they die of starvation due to severe prolonged cold snaps. I think you know what I mean. John


I have no desire to asign blame. But if there is any fault, which each must figurenout for themselves, it certainly isn't in the bees themselves.

When you say you are doing all you can, I believe you believe that. But, a beekeeper could provide food to their bees by adding that food to where the bees could get to it. Above them. One can always lay a frame of honey on top of a cluster. Since sugar is not what some here don't want to use. Which is fine and up to each.

When my plans fail, when my bees die, I blame myself. I look to see what they died of and try to address that failing in the future. But, if there is something I can do, I certainly do. I don't consider the bees at fault and let them die.

Yes John, I believe I do know what you mean. I hope I have expressed myself mopre clearly here.

Perhaps I should have said, "With ample food, redely available, cold does not kill bees."

We need to know all we can know and then we need to be imaginitive. Beekeeping is an art as well as a science. There are other things which may have been in play which caused the wintertime death of a colony. Was the colony of suffiecient size to begin w/ to be able to maintain cluster temp? Was the colony under stress due to varroa mites and/or nosema? Were other diseases or viruses present?

There is much to know. Often answers/reasons aren't apparent.


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