# How many hives going into winter?



## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Because of the CCD crisis and Varoa menace, I am curious how many healthy hives people are going to take into winter and how many they started the season with. Was this a good or bad season for increase? For me I started the season with seven hives and am going into winter with 12 and one nuke. This was my best season yet for increase, but my honey crop was small. I had some Varoa, which I believe is under control via oxalic acid, and no CCD. Thanks for any comments!


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Going into the winter with 30 hives which is a combination of two deeps colonies, nucs, and mini 8 frame mating nucs. 

Ok honey year. Caught a lot of swarms, made some splits but should have made them earlier in the summer. Rough time with bought queens. One of my biggest production hiives just disapeared and absconded. Had some trouble in one yard with pesticide spraying. Took a toll on the mating nucs and 5 framers. 

Went up to the fireweeds, which was a mistake. No harvest.... heavy hives going up and light hives coming down. But the fun was in hanging out with two other beekeepers... Jason and Josh and eating at the little restaurant at the bottom on the mountain. Great food by the way. 

Had a little trouble with AFB in a couple hives.


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## Brandy (Dec 3, 2005)

Started the season with 8, 4 double deeps and 4 overwintered nuc's. Between split's, collected swarms, and queen rearing, going into winter with 24. 11 nuc's on top of some production hives. Good year for honey and queens. No treatments.


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## IndianaHoney (Jun 5, 2006)

Started the season with seven hives. Going into winter with 36 hives, about 30 are full and healthy. I may feed, or just let the bad genetics die off. All Carni queens, and Buckfast turned out good. Got some Mn Hygenics, all of them have either died, or are short on stores, did not build comb, etc. Last time I use them. 

I did split aggressively this year. Making 2 hives from one weak one, and four hives from one strong one. All in all, about 80% of my splits did well. The only honey crop I got was from six hives that I purchased, and a few of the splits produced well. If I come out of winter with 20 healthy hives I should be able to end up with fifty to sixty next year.


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

I started with 11 and going into winter with 15. Because of the late freeze this spring we did not have much of a swarm season. I split to create 3 new ones and caught 1 swarm from my hives. Only 2 hives tried to raised swarm cells this year. Then in late summer I cause a good hive to split itself into 2 hives in the same stack. Lost one to a bear also.

Anyway going into winter with 15.


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## Buzzboy (Jun 3, 2007)

Bad, bad year for me. I started off with 7 hives and am going into winter with 2. I tried to get a jump on the season and lost 4 of the new hived packages in the march freeze. Did okay with a split from my strongest hive but ended up joining a remaining hive with it to save the weak one.Bad queen...so I guess I am back to last years hive count of two(this is my second year).
I'm not discouraged though, so I'll split my strong hive next spring and hopefully be able to afford a few more packages and get mine and the little girls' butts in high gear!


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

going into winter with 3 hives.started this spring with 4 packages.was up to 5 hives for a while.the girls seemed really healthy last week when i was winterizing.today one of my hives seemed a little weak.the temp has been down in the low teens the last few nights and the daytime temps seem a little to cold for the bees to be flying but it must be just right for yellowjackets.they were terrorizing today.3 yellowjackets trying to squeeze in a single bee entrance.and there is a dead deer hanging up 30 feet away.i thought they would be on that instead of the hives.i have dry sugar on the top bars,as well as frame feeders,in one hive there were alot of drowned bees in the frame feeder,i dont know if i should pull it out of there or not.i really expect warm days for a few more weeks.thats me rambling.going in with three hives,hoping to do spring splits.hoping all 3 make it.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Buzz: You install packages in march??? Here, it is too cold for that so we have to wait until April which I still think it is too cold but that is when they arrive.


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Brandy, when you say 'no Treatments', do you mean you never had to treat for Varoa, trachael mites or nosema? Do you monitor varoa levels? How do you deter them? Congratulations on a great season!


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

IndianaHoney, thats a huge jump in numbers! Congrats. Did you buy queens for all your splits? Will you continue with both buckfast and carniolans or stay with one strain? Are you aiming to keep bees full time? 36 must must be taking a fair amount of time to look after! How many hives before its full time!


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Isaac, Did the fireweed get rained out? Come accross any bears in the mountains? Where were they spraying pesticides? Have you wintered nucs in the past? (Ive never tried it, but it seems like our mild winters would be suitable for it.) How have they fared? 30 hives is a lot, are you planning to increase? I want to keep between 10 and 20 hives until I develop a working system. If I can manage that number successfully( which I havent really done yet) then I will consider serious increase.


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Sorry to hear that Buzz! That must have been some freeze! Good plan to keep plowing forward. It seems to me that in beekeeping there are many dissappointments. The bees are very fragile, their environment is often toxic and dangerous, there are no gaurantees and losses have to be expected. To me the great surprise is when they remain healthy, produce a good crop, and then winter well. There are good years and bad years. (Most of my years have have been bad so far, due to varoa and my own silly mistakes.) I doubt there is a beekeeper out there who can say he has only had good years for production and increase. If there is, I think he would have to be almost a genious, he must work his ass off, he must of had one hell of a teacher, he must have great contacts and a superb location, he must be practically fearless and very intuitive, and he must be blessed by some awfully good fortune. He(or She) would be worthy of the terms 'Lord', 'The King', 'Your Excellency' and even 'The Messiah!') Best of luck to you next year! Paul.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Paul:

You should really get grants book on 25 hives. It is a great book. 

It was too wet of a summer for the fireweeds. We did not have problems with the bears in the mountains but we do have bear fences which was good. I go up with the club and they have a site that is pretty high up in elavation. I would like to get my own site so me a some buddies can use it exclusively. There were a lot of hives up there this year. 

The pesticide spray was a farm next door to another farm that I have my bees at. I really weakened some of my colonies at that location. 

I have wintered nucs and they do great. I use a deep that is split into two nucs. The theory is that as it gets colder in temps, the bees will move toward the divider and share the heat. Seems to work nicely. The hard thing is to find out what works for a method of feeding them. I used entrance feeders last year on them and some this year. Works ok with minimual robbing but I would like to move away from that method next year. The come out of the winter strong but you need to monitor them a little as they can starve come spring. And they do have the abability to build up REALLY quick. 

I do plan in increase hopefully double by this time next year. I am thinking of forgoing my crop next year so I can split heavy. We will see. It will depend on how much equipment I have to use. I would like not to have to buy packages next year as they are expensive and takes a lot of time to build up and you need to baby them. I am thinking of going to Oregon to pick up some nucs next year... we will see. 

Are are definitly different managment styles when you increase your hive numbers. I have my bees on 5 different locations, Aburun being the one further away. I like that areas as there are tons of lavender and wild flowers out there but the owners will only allow me to run 4 hives out there. I might use a double queen method for next year on them so we will see. 

Are all your hives in one location? 

When you coming back?


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Paul:

You need any equipment? I have some awesome hive top feeders for nucs and also some frame feeders. Both are very nice and never used.


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## Brandy (Dec 3, 2005)

This will be the second year of no treatments. I've used SBB's and have done some powdered sugar dustings but I'm not even doing that anymore. With a 24 hour count I've seen that some of the hives have more varroa than other's but they seem to be dealing with them. They all made a good honey crop.
I've been breeding from my most productive and strongest overwintered hives. The goal is strong hives with no treatments. However, I have decided to give 1/2 the nuc's with '07 queen's some Fumagilin-B in their syrup these last couple weeks. Curious if I will be able to see the difference in these hives this spring. 
Last winter I had an 80% survival rate with no treatment. Hope to do as well again.


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

Brandy said:


> However, I have decided to give 1/2 the nuc's with '07 queen's some Fumagilin-B in their syrup these last couple weeks. Curious if I will be able to see the difference in these hives this spring.


Brandy
I have had good success with feeding Honeybee Healthy for stronger hives.


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## Yuleluder (Mar 2, 2005)

I went into the 2006 winter with 7 hives came out with 5. I purchased 10 nucs this Spring giving me a total of 15. I currently have 47 hives that I am taking into winter. Most are in 2 deeps, some are single deeps, and the rest are in 2 deep nucs. I am on my 3rd round of feeding, using deep frame feeders. 90% of my increases came from queens I reared using my overwintered stock. I will know more in February. Keeping my fingers crossed!


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## berkshire bee (Jan 28, 2007)

came out of winter with 4. Got 4 packages, did a split, and nursed a bear-hit hive back to health. going in with 10, 9 of which seem very strong. The 10th I gave a medium super of honey I saved from a dead out in the spring. I hope it proves to be a worthwhile investment.


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

started out with six, lost one to a bear. did some splits and got up to twenty, combined two, gave one away, and sold two. going into winter with sixteen.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

although the spring started out with a bit of a rough start (wet, wet, wet) the summer was most excellent. after several years of extend drough this season was a nice change. Took off a modest crop and left a bit more than I have in the past couple of years.

I began the season with approximately 70 hives and will begin the winter with approximately 130. I should (if past winters are a good measure) kick the bottoms on about 10% of this number.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

I have 444 total of various hives. This will be the 5th. year with no treatments.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Currently 53 hives and 11 nucs. (Subject to change without notice)

Didn't treat one yard. Seeing most hives with low mite drops but a couple of hives there with HEAVY HEAVY natural drop. I expect to lose those hives. Spring will tell the ultimate story.

_Disclaimer: Past performance is no guarantee of future results! _


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

I'm at just about 1% of Bjorn's numbers. Going into winter with four really strong hives. After this year's extraction, I've decided to not go over 4 or 5 hives anymore. If I can split in the spring, I'll sell some bees.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Nine hives....two colonies in walls and 1 in a tree.....


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## queenking (Oct 24, 2007)

i have 20 ten frame hives and 8 nuc boxs going into 2007-2008 winter.


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## Luke (Sep 8, 2003)

Started with two hives and bought a nuc in the spring. Removed queen from an aggressive hive. It produced many queen cells and swarmed but settled down and is in good shape. The second overwintered hive superceded it's queen and failed to thrive. I am expecting it to die. The location is a little more shady than the other two hives. It didn't do well last year either. The nuc did very well and is the heaviest of the three hives. For the first time ever I got no honey at all this year. Next year I will only keep one hive at home and am looking for new locations for my bees.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

We brought 1800 back from almonds last April and bumped it up to about 2500. Spring was a little cold for splits but we had good mating weather later when we needed it so overall a good year for increases. Good spring flow but basically no fall flow for the third straight year. No sign of CCD (knock on wood) and no varroa to speak of. We are hoping to take somewhere between 2200 and 2400 into almonds in February.
Sheri


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

I will go into winter with 74 hives and 150 five frame 2 story nucs. They all look very good since I started winter preps in August. I have large clusters under plenty of honey. I have been keeping them topped off for the last couple of weeks waiting for the temps to drop and the hives to cluster. Finally we have had some "fall" weather.
I normally run approx. 120 hives and 100 nucs.
Normal losses are in the 10-20% but increased last winter to 40%- Makes it tough to recover, but I am looking forward to increasing back to my full numbers of 120 next spring.
120 is about all I can handle with my current job responsiblities.
Frank Wyatt
Eden, NC


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## riverrat (Jun 3, 2006)

went from 6 producing hives last year to 46 in double deeps and 5 nucs this year I do no chemicals on the hives going into winter with heavy hives hope they winter fine we will see


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Isaac, thanks for the heads up about Grant's book . I am definitely going to purchase it. I need to get more organized and efficient. I was planning to be in southwest Arizona till April 1st, but Now I reallize that to do it right I really need to start feeding and supplementing in February, and maybe do some nosema and varoa treatment and swarm prevention in March. I can allways use more equipment, thanks for the offer. My bees are in 3 locations. Next year I will have 4 locations. One will be a Nuc Yard. They are all within a few miles of home. When I move hives they dont drift back too bad. They compete probably, but having yards further out means a lot of travel time. You are really building up! How many hives before it becomes full-time? How do you transport?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Bjarn thats Amazing, no treatments! What kind of queens do you have? What kind of mite populations do you have? Why dont they grow to critical levels?


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Paul:

dont worry about swarm prevention in March. It is too cold to pull frames. Wait until April... usually end of April. I am hoping to continue to build up... at least until the wife says to stop. 

What really works is to write down your goals in October/November for the next year. These goals should be reachable, attainable, and measurable. This really helps out as the next season approaches. 

I transport my hives with my truck. I try not to move the bees too much as it is stressful, regardless of what other beekeepers say. I used to move hives in my VW bug. Could get three 2 story hives in there or about 6 nucs. It was kinda funny. Almost rolled once which would have sucked. 

Are you buying bees next year?


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

bjorn has really worked on his stock. I hear he has great queens. Havent tried them yet as shipping from his place to our place is soo costly. He raises his own queens.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

bjorn: by the way... are you going to get back to me on the pm?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Sheri that is alot of Bees! Are they all the same strain? Any theories on how you've avoided CCD? Where do you winter?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

A VW? Three hives! I dont reccommend that. I just use a small pickup, but I never move them more that a few miles.A big flatbed would be nice when youre up to 47. I wasnt planning to buy bees, but If someone like Bjorn has queens that are almost mite-proof, I may reconsider. My problem is that my purchased queens have often swarmed on me in the past and if they mate with my old drones, I lose most of thier good traits, and I'll have to buy new ones the next year. The trick is to keep those queens till all my old drones die out, and I'm not real confident I can manage that at this point. There are other keepers around too, so artificial insemination would be ideal, but thats something I'm clueless about. All I would do for swarm prevention would be to reverse boxes or add supers if the weather was good and a hive seemed real strong. We could get some warm days toward the end of march. My lower boxes are usually empty in late winter.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Paul:

Most queens produced are open mated so in my opinion, they are just muts anyway unless the breeder has isolated mating yards. I wouldnt just go with one queen breeder as the queens might be good in one area and not so good in another area. Our area is tough with the rain we get and the tempratures so you need a queen that has specific traits like being able to fly at lower tempratures. All queens are a gamble. They might or might not have the traits you are looking for. That is why it is good to breed your own queens and find mothers that you like as far as traits go. 

If you bees asre swarming, you are not on top of the swarm prevention. Once you past the swarm prevention point and enter into swarm control, it is often too late. You have to open up the brood nest or split to prevent swarms. How often are you visiting all our hives? For me, during the swarm seeason (may through july), I visit all my yards once a week. 

No queen is mite proof. Queens can be mite resistant and have the traits to be hygenic but thats a whole other topic. 

Now, reversing boxes is not alway nessasary. The great thing about beekeeping is the there is no one rule for all the hives. Reversing boxes might be something that applies to some colonies and not to others. Plus you need to be careful no to break up the brood cluster too early or brood mite die do to chilled temps.


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## Kevin M (Aug 11, 2006)

Started this past spring with one overwintered hive.Going into this winter with four hives, all from original hive.
Lost a huge swarm this spring, caught two small after swarms, which i combined into one.Then did a split from original hive and did one nuc with a queen cell and a couple frames of honey,pollen and capped brood. 
I know i'm small potatoes, but happy with my four hives going into winter and my 37lbs of honey.I've only treated with FGMO/wintergreen and sugar dusting...Who knows how they will fare this winter..?They have plenty of stores, we'll see...


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## DennisB (May 30, 2007)

We started out with 2 packages which were promptly lost with the heavy freeze in April. I was able to get 2 nucs of Russians in mid June which are doing OK and should be ready for Winter. Got 4 full hives of Italians from a fellow that was turning 80 and had to give it up, they are several years old and unbelievably full of bees, pollen, honey and brood. We took almost 200 # of honey and they still weigh 170-200 # a piece for 2 deeps. They should be ok for the winter. I am really looking forward to the spring.

Dennis B


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

allrawpaul said:


> Sheri that is alot of Bees! Are they all the same strain? Any theories on how you've avoided CCD? Where do you winter?


Yeah, lots of bees, _too_ many. They are basically mutts of the Italian persuasion. We have been raising our own queens for the past couple years only, before that we bought where and when we needed them. Now we breed off our good colonies in a not very scientific manner, but still need some purchased queens for our early spring needs. 
Last year we wintered them on honey (as opposed to HFCS), not by our choice. We gave them patties in early November and again in December, once they hit the ground in California. We had virtually no mites in the fall. I think good nutrition and no pests might have helped stave off troubles others had but really your guess is as good as mine. I think we would all sleep better if the researchers would find a definitive cause and cure for CCD. This year doing the same thing but more so. This year we have put maybe 5# patties on them here in Wisconsin, putting more on in California. They are looking good now, but time will tell. Going into winter with all those young bees can't hurt.
We "winter" in California, in holding yards where we work them prior to putting them into almonds. They come back late March/early April. Hardly can call it a winter at all compared to here in Wisconsin. 
Sheri


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

sheri writes:
Last year we wintered them on honey (as opposed to HFCS), not by our choice.

tecumseh wonders out loud:
well I have never been a very big proponent of pushing a product that is in direct competition with honey and am now quite convinced that the only reason to feed hfcs is the convience.

curious as a cat sheri, what does the 'not by our choice' mean?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Nutrition does seems to be one important factor. Supplementing in fall and early spring seems very wise. The effort and cost must be considerable, but I suppose you have to give each hive the best possible treatment to ensure that its strong and ready to rent for pollination. It must be a relief to winter in CA. Wrapping over 2000 hives in Wisconsin would be exhausting, and there would have to be a potential for big losses to the extreme cold. How long does it take to put pollen patties in 2000 hives?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Sheri, the previous post was addressed to you, sorry I forgot to mention that, thanks, Paul.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Tecumseh, when I say "not by choice" I, of course, mean we would rather take the $.90 honey off and feed them back HFCS at $.20. That $.70 spread will help keep the lights on. They winter well on HFCS and although suddenly there is all this talk about how terrible HFCS is, we and most other commercial operators have been doing this forever with no problems. 
Last year the bees plugged up the brood nests with honey early on, they got WAY ahead of us, our fault. Comes back to "too many bees" again, lol. But the numbers is what you need for California. Anything they put in the brood nest is theirs to keep.
Who knows, there are so many variables. Wintering them on honey (and they were _heavy_ ), might have been a help last year. This year they are fairly light (good thing or we wouldn't have gotten them all on the trucks) and we will be feeding them big time in CA. 
Sheri


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

allrawpaul said:


> Nutrition does seems to be one important factor. Supplementing in fall and early spring seems very wise. The effort and cost must be considerable, but I suppose you have to give each hive the best possible treatment to ensure that its strong and ready to rent for pollination. It must be a relief to winter in CA. Wrapping over 2000 hives in Wisconsin would be exhausting, and there would have to be a potential for big losses to the extreme cold. How long does it take to put pollen patties in 2000 hives?


Paul, I can't imagine wrapping 2000 colonies, that would be a job all right. For several years before going to California we took a good portion of colonies to winter in TX. I think the most we ever wrapped in WI was probably in the 4-500 range. And when it comes to unwrapping we were usually up to the ankles (and definitely the axles) in mud.
As for patties costing a lot.... they don't cost, they pay. Every colony that makes the grade in California pays many times over the patties' cost.
It takes a lot to put patties on 2500 colonies, but they went around filling division feeders and putting patties on then did it all again a couple times. Whew. It is tricky getting them heavy enough to last til we can get out to feed them, but not so heavy as to plug up the brood nest. The whole point of all the patties is to promote brood rearing, so it sorta defeats the purpose if they fill up with syrup. But to answer your question on how long it takes, we were finished extracting the last of September and they worked fairly steadily from last week of Sept until now on this. Of course, they were consolidating and moving them into our home holding yard loading trucks etc too. But the work pays off. Our broker just reported back after receiving the first two trucks and was expecting the bees to look a little haggard due to such a poor nectar year. He says they look great!
Sheri


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## spunky (Nov 14, 2006)

*bees*

Stared with one package from kelly's and one fatbeeman nuc



split the kelley hive and added a Old Sol queen, in June 

did one sugar powdered trt, sticky board and been adding spearmint oil to my syrup since september. Drought here this year post May. 

Got 88lbs of honey so far from the hives, mostly from the mutt Italians ( replaced their queen in may from April 1st package ) 


The 3 hives look ok going into winter. I am not sure about the one split. I am still feeding, will do another isnspection/ frame rearranging next week

I am sticking to my 200$ and 1 package budget for 2008 . I swear I am


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## Hobie (Jun 1, 2006)

I started the year with one hive. I'm heading into winter with 2 hives and a new colony in my barn wall, both, I believe, swarms from my first. Their stores are everything they could make since June. I'm hoping for the best...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Back in March I had 199 colonies. By the end of April I had 400 plus. In June I had another 50, I got some queens from a Beesource connection. Since then I've lost a few. After I get them all gathered back home I'll have a better idea how many I have to put on the semi. So far I'm predicting more than 400.

Some friends of mine, a couple of different beekeepers, have figured about 20% loss already. That's down from their peak number of colonies from this summer.


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## applebwoi (Jun 20, 2006)

Started the spring with a single deep overwintered swarm caught in late May 2006. Going into 2007 winter with six 3-4 story medium hives and a single nuc. Five of the six are stong and healthy but one seemed to crash this fall after a very productive harvest. Mites were bad in the weak one but I treated and will try to nurse it through the winter, along with the nuc that started off as a softball size swarm captured in late September. It is an experiment to see if I can get it through. Hoping for a mildish winter. I'll feed granulated sugar as needed to keep everyone fed.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

thanks sheri... when I first read you comment I thought perhaps the honey was tainted or of poor quality. 

with heavy hives do you have problems (weight) in transporting the hives via semi's? sounds like that could be tricky.

some of us have suspected there is a signicant downside to hfcs for quite some time.... in regards to feeding I suspect a lot of commercial bee keepers don't really have many viable choices. I have seen test on how long the bee lives using honey, sugar and hfcs as an energy source but I suspect it would be quite insightful to see how the bee's body composition might vary between the three alternative feeds.

and good luck in california...


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Hi Tecumseh
yeah, that honey was so "tainted'" the girls wanted it all to themselves, lol.
We considered sugar syrup this year. Mann Lake is stressing "HFCS for weight, sugar for brood" but the fact that it spoils so quickly is the defining factor. When you buy it by the semi it is hard to gauge exactly how much you need. And then we need some early for package cans, and then again for mating nucs ect ect. We just can't bother with something that isn't viable in storage on our site. However, we are surely paying attention to news on syrup research. Our bees are on good multi source forage all summer and with our supplemental feeding I don't think they are malnourished.

Yes, the heavier they are the less can go on the semi. And of course, the more on, the cheaper the freight per colony, so it is a balancing act. If you send them out too light some will starve before you get out to feed them. Throw into the equation that feed is more expensive out there plus we need to drive farther to get it in our small feeder tank..... 
We are sending 5 semis out but the last semi is not quite full, only 108 pallets, which gives us a little leeway in getting them home, if they get heavier, which they are almost sure to do. If they gain much we won't be able to bring them home on the same 5 loads. Luckily there are a ton of other beeks out there and maybe a few pallets can hitch a ride with someone else heading this direction, especially if the same thing happens to them. 
Gotta run, our last semi is just pulling in the driveway. Looks like the final answer to the original thread Q of how many colonies going into winter (in California) is 2392. Only a dozen or so nucs staying home in Wisconsin for the winter.
Sheri


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## Gregg (Dec 22, 2003)

I can chime in on the weight issue & semis; was hoping to send 512 to CA but only wound up with 480 going, and the driver thought he might be a little over on weight with just those. So now also have 61 still here that will try to get to make it through the Winter.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Hey Gregg
I thought you'd be on the road by now. We are getting a late start too, seems like things just don't want to get done.
Are you putting the left over colonies inside or gonna winter outside?
Sheri


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## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

Went into last winter with 20 hives came out with 7, all my dead-outs didn’t show any signs of CCD. Started ten new hives this spring with packages and did some splits. Captured a few swarms and dug two hives out of buildings and captured one from a tree, all were late season so I combined all three. My final count for hives going into winter is 23. I have been getting them ready for winter, we had a very good fall flow of goldenrod with abundant rainfall and warm temps. We had our first killing frost last night which is late for this area. All hives are robust and heavy I don’t expect the massive losses I had last winter, they all seem ready for even a harsh winter.


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