# Can you stimulate bees to make brood in short day length?



## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

I would take a look at Randy Oliver's site and see if he says how he gets his bees stimulated for Almonds and use that on your hives.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Brad Bee said:


> Would feeding protein patties stimulate them to raise brood, or does the day length have to be increasing for them to kick into buildup mode?
> 
> Beekeeping is getting to the point that it's costing me too much money to continue if something doesn't change.


They have carbohydrate stores now, so feeding protein patties is all I can think of that will help, other than lengthening the day light hours in a day.

It's all about timing. Next year you can start worrying about brood rearing for winter bees by mid-September and you'll have them in much better shape than this year.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

Thin syrup and frozen pollen given back to my bees at any stage of winter, with an adequate supply of worker bees and open comb, will get any of my fall-mated queens laying again like crazy. It doesn't seem to depend on uncapped syrup being in the hive, they seem to want the "new supply" to ramp things up. Very mild here, and just had our first frost. Just remember to watch the 20-30 day forecast so the bees are not too spread out.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

mine shut down really early this year so I gave them protein patties I made with honey and protein stuff. they didn't really touch it nor start laying again.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Ruthiesbees mentions a hive warmer (warmbees.com) in this thread: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?332154-Can-ANYTHING-be-done&p=1489365#post1489365

I made a low-powered syrup warmer from an aquarium heater last fall, which did stimulate a weak hive with a late-mated queen to take syrup again, but it was not enough to save them.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

I would try MegaBee with a stimulate like Hive Alive or Honey Bee Healthy.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

talk with some of the almond guys - they have to get there bees brooding early for this job. It can be done


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

I dunno what the "correct" answer is, but I am planning to feed pollen sub ( I think the brand I bought was Mega Bee, would have to go check to be sure) in January & February to try to make some early splits. Spring 2015 had me finding newly minted queens in early/mid March, so I figured that would be a good time.
Mean while, its cold weather prep for me.
I have heard northern commercial guys talk about moving bees to Carolina for blue berries & build up, but they are still north of us in Alabama. CE


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

ruthiesbees said:


> Thin syrup and frozen pollen given back to my bees at any stage of winter, with an adequate supply of worker bees and open comb, will get any of my fall-mated queens laying again like crazy. It doesn't seem to depend on uncapped syrup being in the hive, they seem to want the "new supply" to ramp things up. Very mild here, and just had our first frost. Just remember to watch the 20-30 day forecast so the bees are not too spread out.


So, Ruth, how do you do this, just leave the syrup & pollen in the hive for a day ( or two?) to get some eggs laid, then remove the supplemnts before they get too many eggs laid? I have several late started nucs(?) I have been dinking around with all summer, so if I can get them to build up a little more it would be great.
Thanks, CE


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

tech.35058 said:


> So, Ruth, how do you do this, just leave the syrup & pollen in the hive for a day ( or two?) to get some eggs laid, then remove the supplemnts before they get too many eggs laid? I have several late started nucs(?) I have been dinking around with all summer, so if I can get them to build up a little more it would be great.
> Thanks, CE


Protein, (pollen sub), and carbohydrates, (sugar, sugar syrup, fondant), fed together will boost egg laying in a healthy hive. NOTE: If you start to feed without adequate food reserves for winter, always have some form of carbohydrate available to the bees until a good natural flow comes, (this means until spring). otherwise, they could starve in a matter of days.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

tech.35058 said:


> So, Ruth, how do you do this, just leave the syrup & pollen in the hive for a day ( or two?) to get some eggs laid, then remove the supplemnts before they get too many eggs laid? I have several late started nucs(?) I have been dinking around with all summer, so if I can get them to build up a little more it would be great.
> Thanks, CE


Yes, the syrup feeders are small so I check them daily and refill as needed. Still some natural pollen being brought in so the pile in the hive does not disappear as fast as the syrup does. When I use the bee heaters in the small nucs, it isn't necessarily to encourage brooding, but it does have a High setting to keep it nice and toasty if you decide to do so. Might bump one or two of mine up to the high setting just to experiment since we still have very mild temps.

P.S. mine won't touch a pollen substitute, only the real stuff


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Brad Bee said:


> As the title says, is there any way to stimulate brood rearing this time of year? Looks like the drought has taken a worse toll than I originally thought.
> 
> That ship has already sailed. Best to wait until the days get longer at this point otherwise you are working against nature.
> 
> ...


Such is beekeeping. Experience does not come by cheaply. Bees require inputs, the more you put in the more you can expect to recieve, generally speaking. I see a lot of people talking about getting caught off guard. It happens but, it is essentially not giving the attention required when it was required. It is an avoidable situation. In the case of the drought it would have meant feeding pollen patties or pollen substitute patties in August and September with a matching amount of syrup. It would also mean more brooding with a corresponding amount of mites. Queens would also fatigue sooner than if colonies would not be fed. Then you have to figure are all these costs worth the effort?

Jean-Marc


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Jean-Marc, you're right. Inattention on my part at what I now know was a critical time, has a good start at cutting my bee numbers in half, before cold weather arrives.

I wrong surmised that they were fine since I reacted to the drought by not pulling honey off the hives. Most of the hives are start up hives this year and didn't make enough to have much surplus, but I could have pulled some honey off each hive. In a normal year anyway.

This is my first time facing extreme drought conditions while beekeeping. It has made for some tough and expensive lessons.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Pull the honey as soon as the flow is over and with the 15 hives that you had maybe you could have extracted 1 box of honey each times 15, say 500 pounds. That would have been the best you could have expected. It would be relatively easy to sell it all in 1 lb jars at $8-10/lb... for a groos of 4-5K. There would have been expenses of extraction bottling, jars and labels and cost to sell it, but there would have been enough money to purchase sugar to replace the honey you removed two times over. Your bees would have been better off for it. Feeding also forces you to look at the colonies even if it is only every second weekend. This way if things are heading in the wrong direction, they are hopefully not too far gone and you can make the required adjustments. Beekeeping is relatively easy. Keep the queens young, keep the colonie well fed, keep disease under control, extract in a timely fashion. It's just 4 things to keep in mind and the timing of when to do all these things. There are times to do these jobs and other times when it is near impossible or just not worth trying to do. With experience, that comes usually at a fairly hefty price, you figure out a system to work your bees and enjoy doing it, so that at the end you feel the rewards are worth it. I am pretty sure you can figure it out.

Jean-Marc


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I have finally figure out the various bee phases going through my 4th years in
beekeeping. In certain phases you have to do the right thing. If you neglect or not
experienced enough to recognized then the bees will suffer. In order to make a good return on investment you
have to do the correct things at the right bee time through out the year. If you don't have a check
list for the 4 seasons according to your bee environment then you have to make one up to follow. I
don't have a check list anymore because everything is already inside my head from making too many
mistakes already. I just learned that marking my queen with a testor paint will caused her to be balled. I blamed it
all on myself. Maybe I should have waited until next season's queen rearing time to do so. Everything is to be use freely!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

brad, were the losses and dwindled colonies starters or established, and what did you find in them? was it starvation with bees stuck headfirst in the cells?

i also observed much less brooding than normal this fall here, but very little of the honey i left after the spring flow was consumed, and after a little redistributing of stores all hives are at winter weight.

most my hives appear strong with bees right now but i am uncertain as to how long lived those bees will be. juhani has suggested that the bees will live longer if they haven't had to rear brood, and that makes sense from the vitellogenin standpoint.

another drought related issue that concerns me is queen failure as we haven't seen any drones here since about the 4th of july.

in recent personal communication with randy oliver he cautioned me against feeding dry sub, citing a recent study he was involved in showing that it can adversely afftect the gut bacterium. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.13862/full

i didn't pay to read the whole paper, but the jest of it is that dry fed sub can 'spoil' after a while and cause problems for the bees.

i'm thinking about providing patties in early to mid january depending on the weather, colony strength, and how much or how little tree pollen i see coming in.


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## Nugget Shooter (Mar 28, 2016)

As mentioned each area it different and here in Arizona we are in a dearth/drought right now and we are feeding all 6 hives with both syrup and pollen patties and all are first year colonies. Normally we have seen some rain by now, but this year nothing yet and the bees are very active yet with temps in the 80s during the day. In my area I am advised to feed this way until our first yearly flow starts in January to have continued brood rearing and strong healthy colonies at that time. No real winter here with bees active almost every day November to February.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

sp, the two empty hives I checked the other day were just empty. I think they ran out of food and left. I greatly underestimated how fast they would go through the honey that they had on the hive. They could have been robbed to death for all I know. Thanks for the heads up about dry pollen sub. I wonder what effect mixing it with syrup has? After all, it's still the same thing, just mixed with syrup. Maybe that effects the uptake of it by the gut. I'll read the link you supplied. It may address those issues.

I do suspect that I have a queen less hive now. There was about a half dollar sized patch of capped brood, no eggs or larvae and the hive is loud. There are however, a lot of bees in the hive. I'm going to heck them again in a few days. I'll combine them if necessary.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Don't wait a few more days. Need to address this issue now to see
if they are indeed queen less. Either give them a frame of eggs/larvae or a
mated queen inside a cage to test them. They may not make any QC because winter
survival is their first priority now. Combining with that many restless bees is rather risky.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i don't understand the nuances of what is presented in the abstract of the article, randy just advised me to use patties instead of the dry sub i was contemplating using to compensate for the effects of the drought.

i'm guessing that it has something to do with the mixing of fresh pollen with incoming nectar to make bee bread which somehow gets 'preserved' from becoming spoiled. similarly the bees will 'bury' unused bee bread with honey and cap it presumably for protection against spoiling and for future use.

i believe randy's concern about using dry sub, and especially if it wasn't fresh, is that it may not necessarily get preserved and protected in the same way that fresh pollen would be during a flow. feeding 'stale' pollen or dry sub led to the displacement of the good bugs in the bees' gut with bad ones.

dwindling followed by robbing makes more sense to me than running out of food. colonies don't go through stores fast at all unless they are brooding. queen failure most likely, followed by attrition and drifting to neighboring queenright colonies. jmho.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

It's November here, and with November comes extremely short days. It also has been an unusually warm fall, volunteer canola scattering the fields. We have just had record breaking warmth last week, the bees were bringing in more pollen than they did back In August. A neighbour opened one of his hives to find 3 frames both sides solid eggs...

Do the answer to the OP's question is yes


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

I put out dry sub in buckets lying on their sides to keep rain out and feed syrup.It keeps my queens from shutting down.I then have an abundance of bees come early spring and lots of nucs to sell early.


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

If you put pollen patties in week hives the shb will finish them off. I use Ultra bee dry pollen sub in home made bucket feeders in early spring with good results. If I were you I would combine the weak hives feed.them syrup. Save the extra equipment and build numbers back in the spring.


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

Bkwoodsbees said:


> If you put pollen patties in week hives the shb will finish them off. I use Ultra bee dry pollen sub in home made bucket feeders in early spring with good results. If I were you I would combine the weak hives feed.them syrup. Save the extra equipment and build numbers back in the spring.


You are right. Beetles here will take over the patties and then the hives.


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

Something else to consider. Yes you can stimulate brood rearing this late by feeding syrup and a pollen sub dry or wet. We know that pollen sub lacks nutrition compared to natural pollen. I believe spring time pollen to be superior to late fall pollen. So by feeding your bees to stimulate brood rearing at a time when they sbould.be prepared.for winter, are you setting them up to fail? Will the newly hatched bees be healthy and strong enough to survive the winter and be strong enough with sufficient numbers for colony build up this spring? If I were faced with your conditions (severe drought) I would have made dry pollen sub available a lot earlier. You could combine some and experiment with a couple. Then you will truly know come next spring. Good luck


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## Nugget Shooter (Mar 28, 2016)

Sure glad we do not have SHB here in the AZ central deserts..... No feeding worries here.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

mike bush cited a study some time back which found that bees live longer on a natural pollen diet compared to pollen sub, (perhaps you can supply the reference if you happen to be following here michael).

another factor i have considered is if a queen is near failure it's conceivable that stimulating brooding might result in a colony going queenless sooner, perhaps before drones are available again in early spring.

the drought has wiped out what is normally a reliable fall flow during which the wintering bees are reared and decent stores are put up. what to do if anything has created a real dilemma for us beekeepers affected by it.

other than providing a small amount of 1:1 syrup in yard feeders last month, i think i'm just going to let it play out and see what happens, and perhaps provide patties when late winter brooding starts up. i won't be too surprised if we have a few more losses this winter compared to usual.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

It's getting late to really try to push them this time of year even for the South. Make sure they have plenty of capped honey if not feed a lot of 2 to 1. You still have some time to get some thick syrup in the hives before our weather turns too cold. Combine any weak hives or queenless hives. Then once we get into January you can start feeding syrup and pollen patties again. You can feed it both dry and patties, its fun to watch them roll around in the dry substitute. Once the Maples start blooming they will probably stop taking the dry but, will still take the patties in the hives. If you do that you should have plenty of bees to do whatever you want with come spring. 

To answer your question though. Yes, you can stimulate the queens to lay more this time of year with patties and syrup. But, not like they will once we get closer to spring. If you start feeding as much pollen sub and syrup as they will take on our nice days in January and February you will have a lot of full hives and swarmy bees by early spring. Then you can make up early nucs to make up for your losses and still make a honey crop. 

I've kept brood builder patties and syrup on my hives the past month and a half. And it defiantly made the queens lay a couple frames of brood. But, if I do the same thing in January the queens will lay 4-5 frames of brood or as many frames as the bees can cover. Hope this helps


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for all the replies. Gives me plenty of food for thought. 

To address the life span of the bees raised with pollen sub... My thoughts are bees raised from eggs laid today would probably be alive longer than adult bees already in the hive, but that may not be correct.

Regardless, I have figured out that keeping bees when you get 20" of rain in 11 months, in an area that averages 52" of rain annually will throw you for a loop if you aren't careful.

sp, have you heard any news out of Mentone tonight? At church someone said that the fires had jumped a fire break outside of town. They had made another fire break right at town but if the fire jumped that one too that the whole town was in dire straights.

I never in my life thought we'd be dealing with wildfires in our area.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

So what is your decision to this issue?
Yes, a queen will lay when stimulated with syrup, dry sugar and pollen subs.
Now all hives are in their contraction phase. So supplement feeding can only
take you so far when the night time temp. is in the 40s. The queen will not lay like she's in the Spring time.
Since the winter bees do not fly that much of course their lifespan will be extended, hopefully pass this winter. 
My only concern is that do you have a good laying queen in there ready for the stimulant and whether or not the broods can be covered by
the workers? Give it a go and see what result you will get.


Dry sugar bottom board feeding:


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Brad Bee said:


> My thoughts are bees raised from eggs laid today would probably be alive longer than adult bees already in the hive, but that may not be correct.


that's the dilemma i mentioned. i honestly don't know. i have been seeing small orientation flights issuing from the hives over the past month or so and the populations look pretty decent for this time of year. 

as some have already mentioned the hope is that the colonies are capable of making the necessary adjustments to ensure survival.

one up side is that we've had a heck of a brood break so perhaps it was a terrible season for the mites as well.

i've learned these past two seasons that even microclusters with a viable queen coming out of winter can become decent honey producers, so long as every colony in the apiary doesn't end up that way. 



Brad Bee said:


> I never in my life thought we'd be dealing with wildfires in our area.


http://whnt.com/2016/11/16/lookout-mountain-fire-rekindles/


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I overwinter very small colonies in mini mating nucs in my climate, But they are small because they are limited on space and did not have much time to build up after the last August queen was mated and started laying. 
They are NOT small because they had a problem and dwindled.
You don't mention anything other than the drought so if the lack of feed is actually the problem, here is what I would use.


A couple feeding methods for cool/ cold weather they will take up.

Open feeding is hard for greedy bees or persistent foragers to resist and effective when they will not take up syrup offered inside the hive. I usually feed light syrup like this, but this time of year I'd make 2:1. It takes them nuch longer to empty the bucket with heavy syrup, so poke more holes to make access easier. ALso a couple holes just above the rim when inverted to form a shallow 'trough'

Fortified sugar block with dry bee pro topping. The first block is usually taken up fairly quickly, the second block will last the majority of the winter. They are perfect for situations like yours where you want to support brood rearing, or like mine where I want to try to get more feed into mini mating nucs after most of the fall brood has emerged for overwintering



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It doesn't do them any good if they won't take up the feed. You have to offer in an a form they are _willing_ to use. If I put wet patties or syrup in the hives now, they would just be ignored.
With these two methods, if your temps and weather turns harsh suddenly, there is nothing you have to do other than leave them alone and know you did all you can do. In a couple months you know if your efforts made any difference.

If you have Carniolan types, stimulating brood rearing now would not be likely I would say. If you have Italian types it could be possible. I'd also insulate the hive to make any brood rearing they do more likely to be successful during cold temps.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

With newly mated carnis or Italians queens, they will lay fine with stimulated feeding inside. Other than
feeding them dry sugar, Lauri's sugar bricks and patty subs that they will take in the late blooming plants will
give them a small boost too. When they are resourceful they will reserved the cap honey and pollen for the
Spring hive expansion so will take in the artificial feeds first. With a newly mated queen she's thinking it is still
time to lay in smaller batches of course. This is what's keeping my hives alive today. Since it is colder now in the
night time they will eat the loose sugar poured on the bottom board without disposing them like last month when it was warmer. A strong hive will take the loose sugar but a weak one will not.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Brad Bee said:


> My thoughts are bees raised from eggs laid today would probably be alive longer than adult bees already in the hive...





squarepeg said:


> that's the dilemma i mentioned. i honestly don't know.





Juhani Lunden said:


> Winterbees are the last bees, which have no brood rearing duties. No matter when they emerge. One year there was a very hot summer in Finland, all flowers were gone in early July. Many hives stopped brood rearing then, two months earlier than normal. Wintering went just fine.


i've been thinking about this, and went back and reread randy oliver's article in which he discusses worker longevity:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/understanding-colony-buildup-and-decline-part-9a/

the question is that given the exceptional drought which killed off our normal fall flow, are we doing the colonies any favors stimulating brood rearing by offering syrup and patties, or are they better off being left to their own devices?

from the article:

"...the last generation of brood before the food runs out. That generation will become long-lived (diutinus) bees that “hold the fort” and protect the queen until pollen again becomes available. This typically occurs in fall after the first killing frost, but can also occur in arid regions during summer pollen dearth–in other words, at any time that no broodrearing (recruitment) is taking place."

"The diutinus (“winter”) bees; extremely high Vg, projected longevity up to 2 years."

"But it appears (though not yet fully tested) that the transition to nursing is irreversible–once a nurse, a worker can no longer revert to being a long-lived diutinus bee."

"To my mind, this question was largely answered by a well-designed study by the Amdam group, in which the rearing of brood alone caused workers to become short-lived bees."

"The science behind this model is yet to be settled. It’s still unclear as to whether workers that have undertaken nursing can later transition [back] to the diutinus state."

if it turns out that brooding does indeed result in decreased longevity, and if a pollen dearth and/or a less than optimal supplement doesn't allow for the last rounds of bees to bulk up on vitellogenin, it may well be that the best thing for us to do in response to the drought is to do nothing.

i'm working with the assumption that protein is marginal in my hives. i'll be watching carefully for a decent flow of tree pollen after the solstice. if it appears the drought is having a residual impact on the tree pollens, or if the weather is such that flying opportunities are rare, i'll likely consider placing protein patties mid to late winter.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

But even if that last round of bees, went back to work brooding, that late brooding will result in "those last bees" , but younger. 
Many factors like disease and weather come into play with hive longevity. Mine go from October to April, March is the toughest month


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Ian said:


> But even if that last round of bees, went back to work brooding, that late brooding will result in "those last bees" , but younger.


agreed ian. 

i'm just thinking that simulating a 'flow' has the potential to interfere with the up and down regulating of brooding in an somewhat unpredictable way, possibly upsetting the proportions of long lived to short lived bees.

i'm resting easier after learning that the diutinus bees can live so long. it will be interesting to see what the cluster sizes are like by the end of january or so.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I see it exactly the opposite way. (Aside from mite reproduction factors) a long, consistent and predictable diet creates a healthier hive, better to fend on out side stresses such as disease and pesticide exposure. 

A healthy fall nest will result in a healthy winter nest. 
I would not count on a 2 year old lived bee.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Ian said:


> Aside from mite reproduction factors..


yes, and in the context of treatment free, definitely a consideration in terms of promoting brood rearing above and beyond what the natural flows support here. 

our summer dearth offers a couple of months of brood break. the drought this year extended that break into fall. i normally see a few devitalized pupae and dwv removed from the hives during the fall brooding, but this year not a single one. 

i'm also hoping the extended break will make it more likely i'll have less queen failure through the winter.

there's plenty of honey in the hives, pollen not so much. the last few hives i peeked into had almost a deep's worth of bees in them. they don't need 2 years, more like 6 to 7 months from the last decent flows to the next ones. 

as of today, there is strong cluster roar in 22 out of 22 hives. i'm actually leaning optimistic at this point ian.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>natural flow<<

What exactly does that mean? What it naturally was 50 years ago, or what we are naturally finding now.? 
Or maybe everything about this is un natural, which means leaning on their natural habits will not prove effective.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

you've got me there ian. for my location there has not been a year like this one since record keeping began. of course the bees have been around a bit longer than that, and undoubtedly those that are still around to pass the torch had to deal with such at some point or another.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

My goal is to exploit ,(poor choice of words) but fitting, the bees natural habits and manage these bees up here in a very lucrative environment but deadly. What's natural in an environment no longer natural. 
Feed them in dearth, push the boundaries and brood right up to the point where they need to stop and backfill. Disease control priority.
The only seasonal broodlessness here is winter. 
But certainly further south in an extended season I can see how shutting them down for a period in time could prove to be an extremely useful strategy. Probably one I would employ aswell. 
But I think I've digressed from the OP topic


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it's all good ian, maybe brad won't mind too much. 

if i lived down the road from you i'd be picking your brain about the wintering barn. 

your method of coaxing the broodnest down into an empty bottom deep is proving pretty useful here as well.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

My strategy is branching one step further, smaller multiple queen units sharing the same overhead space


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

makes good sense. the common denominator among my least productive (and non swarmed) hives is some problem with the queen just prior to or during the main nectar flow.

i've maxed out on how productive i can make my hives for now because i refuse to stack the supers any higher and i can only extract so much in a weekend.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

randy puts puts perspective on the science regarding feeding dry pollen sub in the fall here:

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=bee-l;12d016d.1612


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

He's speaking of the supplement being stored away. Not about stimulating fall brooding with supplement


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Ian said:


> He's speaking of the supplement being stored away. Not about stimulating fall brooding with supplement


yes ian, it was the dry supplement (and even dry natural pollen) that was stored away and used later that caused the tummy ache. 

the issue is how to be sure the dry sub gets used right away vs. getting stored. using patties instead of dry sub was the recommendation to avoid the potential problem.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

The only time I can use dry supplement feeding is early spring. For whatever reason they don't take dry here late season 
But they will eat patties


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Ian said:


> My strategy is branching one step further, smaller multiple queen units sharing the same overhead space


I have a little experiment going on now, as a matter of fact. Not shared space above tho. 

Fall combined quads- 4 half sized deeps over 4 with sugar block for support.

I was going to top it with an excluder and sugar block on top of that, but didn't do it. I have several like this and may still top a couple with excluder and let them mingle if weather allows.

(Summer photo)








Last round of queens remained, graft date 8-10-16, date of emergence 8-22-16









They were not receptive to October 2:1 syrup, no room for storage. Cells were all filled with one thing or another.
These blocks were added 10-28-16 and are nearly gone if they are like the others I checked. Ready for a second block that will last the next couple months.









I was going to overwinter them as doubles, not quads but thought " what the heck. Why not try it?"
Snow in the forecast in a couple days.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Are they taking the dry sugar and storing it or using it?


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Hard to tell, I'd guess in late fall when temps are still mild they consume a fair amount. Later on, a bit of both.

In winter, I've seen the last of the blocks get stores in cells though. Looks creamy. Kind of like a granulated royal jelly with a side of protein. 

I had checked this nuc and found it to be very low on stores. I gave them a sugar block with dry bee pro topping and checked about 2 days later. This frame was empty except for the smidgen of capped honey in the top corners. This lower multicolored feed in cells, lower left, is all newly added from the block. 

This is 1-24-16

















Now compare that with naturally collected feed:


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> My strategy is branching one step further, smaller multiple queen units sharing the same overhead space


 I believe this is the way beekeeping will move forward. It is a major reason for converting to square Dadant hives, so I can run them with 2 queens.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Lauri I'm puzzled why they would not of done the same with fed syrup


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

squarepeg said:


> in recent personal communication with randy oliver he cautioned me against feeding dry sub, citing a recent study he was involved in showing that it can adversely afftect the gut bacterium.


in a recent post Randy Oliver has reported more information on this.

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1612&L=bee-l&F=&S=&P=76



> I hate it when findings are over extrapolated.
> 
> Firstly, this has nothing to do with sub fed as patties, which is not
> stored in the combs.
> ...


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Is he saying bees won't store pollen sub in patty form, because I know I've seen it packed in cells.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

ive always understood it as the bees use the patties as needed, hand to mouth straight into food. Dry foraged pollen, yes I've seen that stored.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

quoting randy:

"I noticed a benefit to those colonies that immediately consumed the sub
immediately, but not so much later in the season (when they'd be consuming
the *stored sub*)."

(bold and italics mine)

not sure if by 'stored sub' if he means non consumed patty vs. patty placed in cells for storage. 

lauri reports seeing her 'bricks' getting moved into cells.

i haven't used enough of either to have seen what they do with it.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

His recount of stored sub is from foraged dry form. Listening to his lectures , as I understood it, he specifically suggested that the bees only consume patty as needed and straight into jelly or consumed by emerging bees. 
I've never seen stored patty and if it were the case, you'd see it move down continuously even if not using it. But when bees don't need it, they ignore it.

Do bees re-organize and move around pollen stores as they do with honey? I'd say no, they consume the stored pollen in the way and reach when needed.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

that makes more sense ian, thanks for the clarification.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Ian, here's what I had with the fall mating nucs.

These photos were taken about October 1.
Cells in queenright nucs were all full. My attempt to feed October syrup was largely ignored except a bit taken up through consumption because there was no where to store it. After just a couple days of inverted mason jars being ignored, I removed them to keep them from fermenting. Gave them a sugar block in November so they could backfill some of the empty cells after the last brood emerged. Once the brood emerged, they take up the first block pretty quickly. Second block, when added around December usually lasts all winter.I sometimes have to give one more early March if they've started to brood up and cold wet weather moves in so they can't fly.

















What I found with my last attempt at feeding with mason jars was, the nucs that were not queen right sucked up the syrup overnight. Queenright nuc had no room and did not take up much if any syrup. Made it easy to tell which nucs I need to go through once I figured that out without having to go through all the nucs and disturb them late fall when they're all settled in and glued together.
Queenless nucs had frames with plenty of empty cells to store the late syrup. (As shown below) I only had a hand full of queenless nucs and have those frames set aside for spring growth. 









I could have tried to feed syrup again later, but temps were pretty cool. Easier to give a sugar block and forget it.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Different places different practices. Very interesting


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

See....beekeeping is all local! And different location has different mite fighting 
ability too. Some mites are more aggressive than at the other location. Some bees are
more tolerant than others. Treated bees are not as strong compare to the natural raised bees.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

beepro said:


> See....s.


Ah, ... no
I said different places different practices, the basics of biology are all the same.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Ian said:


> Different places different practices. Very interesting


Maybe, but don't take what I do as normal regional practices. I have just learned by dealing with what I have to work with in front of me, not so much the practices /theories / advise of others. If I had listened to much of that, I would have failed & given up or not even tried a long time ago. There are always extenuating circumstances that make the advise of others obsolete in specific situations. I take the experiences of others who state definitive, set in stone results with a grain of salt. People who read my post should do the same.

What I do could be very good or could be only partially effective. 

Give me a few more years and I'll let you know.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, the basic biology is all the same. We need to factor in the
bee behaviors too like AHB management, the difference between wintering Italians and carnis, etc.
Different bee behaviors we have to manage them differently. Factor in the different location we live
in as well as the outside food source also. That's what make beekeeping fun and not a boring chore like
growing mushrooms a very slow process.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>>and the claim that treated bees are not as strong as "so called" natural raised bees is BS



I make a living raising plants and animals, i have ties to organic farmers in the area. Non of which argue that fact


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I cannot argue on the treatment fact alone as there are many other
factors contributing to a hive's health such as nutrition, environment and
genetics. I'm simply comparing last year's oav treated bees at this time to what I have now tf bees.
I've read that oav treatment will burn small holes on to the bee's exoskeleton shortening the bee's lifespan.
I got more resilient bees this year that did not crashed under the mites. There are 2 links on the video gallery forum as of
yesterday.


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