# Is winter-hardiness, a genetic trait?



## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

A Wisconsin beekeeper starts the spring with 8 nucleus colonies and two packages. Through the spring and into summer between splits, they become 7 full size colonies and 17 nucleus colonies. Through summer some full colonies fail, some nucleus colonies fail and one swarms but is caught.....some failing hives are combined with nucs with good queens. Heading into fall the beekeeper has 14 colonies consisting of 7 double deep 10 frame colonies and 7 nuclues colonies..... 

January rolls around and all but 4 nucleus colonies have run through their stores. One full size hive and 4 nucs have starved out and died. All remaining hives are given supplemental candy to survive winter.
The beekeeper notices that out of the 11 remaining colonies, 7 are very active even in cold (15°F) conditions feeding on the candy at the top of the hive...seen coming into and out of the hive. The 4 nucleus colonies that seem to have plenty of stores are not active at all, but alive.
The beekeeper is thinking the 4 nucleus colonies that appear to be slow playing their stores are more adapted to the cold Wisconsin environment than the other 7 remaining colonies that appear to have to be "nursed" to make it through harsh winter climates. Three of the 4 queens of the quiet hives were locally mated in the apiary with the fourth being a California Italian.

Question: If you were wanting to "start" your own queen rearing program, is this a "trait" that can actually be passed along?


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Sounds to me more of case of expanding too far beyond the resources (bees, drawn comb, nectar, time, and beekeeper's attention) available. Just because you can split/make nucs, etc. doesn't mean it's always a good idea. I am wondering about the colonies that failed in warm weather. (How come?)

The fact that one full sized colony and four nucs have starved out - without being observed to be low on stores beforehand - by the middle of January sounds like operator error more than them not being fully, or relatively less, winter-hardy. (Also early season deaths are more often from PMS/varroa/viral loads than from starvation. You didn't mention your treatment program. And I am just assuming you are correct that the dead outs were primarily out of stores???)

I would go back to basics of making sure you have sufficient resources in place at each step, first, before assuming you have bees of more (or less) winter-hardiness. Making splits and getting queens out and mated is the _easy_ part.

I laugh when I hear the sad predictions of the honey bees imminently dying out and vanishing from this Earth. They are too absurdly fecund for that to happen. Making increase is not really the problem. What requires close attention is making sure that the number of hives in any yard don't exceed the productivity of the site, the weather, the amount of honey taken and the willingness and ability of the beekeeper to apply syrup in the fall.

Small colonies (nucs) without a lot of bees cannot afford to go out flying in really marginal weather - they need a certain amount of cluster mass to survive. So they may not be more thrifty, or better adapted, just too small to afford the luxury of cleansing flight. They may also be too small to migrate upwards towards more food, as well. So they can starve in a hive with plenty.

These aren't toys or widgets, these are live animals. 

Nancy


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Kevin, there are so many variables here that it's difficult to answer. 

You didn't say how much feed they all had. Did you weigh them? Do you know for sure how many pounds of feed they burned through?

Why would you expect the colonies to be quiet when they have sugar on the cluster. Of course they will be more active. If they had been fed to target weight, in the autumn, the sugar wouldn't have been there. The bees would have been quiet...like the 4 nucleus colonies that have sufficient stores. 

But, of course winter hardiness is a genetic trait. something that can be selected for...but it takes time. Years.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Did you have colony gross weights or some method of assessing whether you indeed had viable levels of stores? Were you depending heavily on "candy" as a large part of winter stores? Was robbing an issue? How did you assess mite levels? What was the winter hive setup re. insulation? 

Unless you have records of these variables on each of the hives and know they started with a level playing field it would be difficult to sort out the effects of genetic variation.

Edit; I see Michael posted while I was typing!


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

KevinWI said:


> Question: If you were wanting to "start" your own queen rearing program, is this a "trait" that can actually be passed along?


Most definitely it is, but whether the case of your 3 nucs is a proof, that is more uncertain.

When I imported stock from Central Europe back in the early 1990´s, these bees were overwintering much more "hot" than my localized old stock, they almost had run out of food, and some did, when spring came. Usually they had a lot of dead bees on the hive bottom, sometimes several cm high pile. But even that they were full of bees! So they probably had been making more brood during winter.

This phenomena disappeared/eased enough in couple matings with my original stock.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I hear what Mr Palmer is saying about bees being more active with sugar on top. It sounds logical but it is not anything Universal. I indeed select colonies who who have not used much of their supplemental feed as breeders and the hogs who dip heavily into the stores get their queen pinched. But as always, variability of winter conditions make food consumption not uniform year to year. For several years, I weighed colonies once a month, I didn't have very many, and found that November, December and January they all consumed between 8 and 9 pounds a month. At least the hives were that much lighter. The heavy usage of stores started In late February. In a normal year, very few of my colonies are into the MC sugar until then. A $4.70 bag of sugar is cheap insurance for me. It might be prohibitive for others.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Vance G said:


> For several years, I weighed colonies once a month, I didn't have very many, and found that November, December and January they all consumed between 8 and 9 pounds a month.


From 
http://koti.tnnet.fi/web144/vaakapesa/selaa2.php

These results are pretty consistent what i have been saying, that consumption during the winter months (no brood rearing) should not exceed 1,5 kg/month if the winter hardiness of the bees is at good level.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Sometimes I wonder when a question is asked if you give too much information for people to speculate on things that are not really a part of the question at hand....and then make it quick to criticize. (operator error? really? given that little of information you went there?)

In my current local bee clubs, many, many have reported their bees running out of stores and dying....some in December which shocked the hell out of me. I thought something else was going on...until I checked my own.





Michael Palmer said:


> Kevin, there are so many variables here that it's difficult to answer.
> 
> You didn't say how much feed they all had. Did you weigh them? Do you know for sure how many pounds of feed they burned through?
> 
> ...


Michael,
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. It is appreciated.

For the record: each full colony was given 5 gallons of 2:1 in October. One August swarm was given 8. Each nuc was given 4 gallons. We had a cold fall, so they were not able to get onto the goldenrod as I hoped, so they needed that much feed.
Plus open feeders in the yards.
The hives were not weighed. I have no scale. Yet. I could not lift the double deeps at the end of October.

I found the colonies active that were running out of stores. They had no sugar on them at that time. I put the candy on them after...these are 13 lb candy boards inverted over the colony, not on the frames. One colony, from January 4th to the 17th has gone through all 13lbs and I put another 5lb on the 18th. 
The four nucs that were inactive had more than a full deep of stores above them. Sugar was added to them as well...they are not active on top in those hives even with the candy on top...thus my question.
Years is what I guessed. Thank you.



Vance G said:


> I hear what Mr Palmer is saying about bees being more active with sugar on top. It sounds logical but it is not anything Universal. I indeed select colonies who who have not used much of their supplemental feed as breeders and the hogs who dip heavily into the stores get their queen pinched. But as always, variability of winter conditions make food consumption not uniform year to year. For several years, I weighed colonies once a month, I didn't have very many, and found that November, December and January they all consumed between 8 and 9 pounds a month. At least the hives were that much lighter. The heavy usage of stores started In late February. In a normal year, very few of my colonies are into the MC sugar until then. A $4.70 bag of sugar is cheap insurance for me. It might be prohibitive for others.


Like most that live in the North, I would prefer not to have to feed my bees in the winter....in late Feb/March I might expect it...but January??, so a stock of slow play bees on winter stores is preferable. I am just curious if I am on the right track in thinking which bees I would most prefer as stock to select. I am also hoping to bring in new genetics from some Northern bred queens in the coming years. 
My days of bringing in queens from Georgia are over. 

It's a decent number that 9-10lbs per month usage. Given that the "recommendation" is 50lbs of honey is recommended for a moderate winter, I'd guess around 90lbs is needed further North. I know Stepplar targets 90lbs on his single box hives....and you have to account for 30+lbs of woodenware and bees, but his bees are dark for 6 months in a shed which may make a difference. 
As I wrote to Michael above, my bees went through 13lbs of candy (this is sugar/water and some pollen sub (not much) melted on the stove and poured into a board which turns to hard candy when cooled. 





Juhani Lunden said:


> Most definitely it is, but whether the case of your 3 nucs is a proof, that is more uncertain.
> .


I can honestly understand that. I was pondering that this might be a better starting point. I guess we have to start somewhere with some criteria even if it is uncertain. 


Appreciate everyone taking the time to reply.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Kevin if you read up the difference between Carniolan and Italian type of bees you will find the answer to your question, Starting of with Georgia's packages of Italians years ago had me re queening them with Carniolan queens in the first year and I have never looked back. As the years go on I find I have to continually bring in more Carniolan queens as I suspect there are beekeepers around my area still bringing in packages or other southern bees and with open mating my bees slowly start to get more yellow.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

KevinWI said:


> Given that the "recommendation" is 50lbs of honey is recommended for a moderate winter, I'd guess around 90lbs is needed further North.


Russian/Ukrainian keepers routinely winter on 20kg/45lb using well localized bees.
This 80-90lb needed is just saying one thing - unfit bees (and some wintering methods/equipment too).
People around me keep talking 80 pounds too - side-affects of the package bee economy.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

Kevin, yes consumption of winter stores is a genetic trait but the consumption rate is also tied into other factors. Italian bees over winter with larger colonies than Carni's. Russian colonies are often very small colonies going through the winter. Smaller colonies consume way less honey. I got tired of constantly feeding Italian bees over the winter to keep them alive and will not use them in my apiary. A few years back I got some queens from the Olympic Wilderness Apiaries (OWA) here in WA state. The colonies ate so little honey in the winter I could have sworn that they moved to Arizona for the winter and came back in the spring. All of my current hives are descendants of those queens. My open mated queens are different from their parent queens showing the traits of the other hives around the area. They now consume more then the OWA hives did but not nearly as much as the Italian hives I had years ago. I had 2 hives that started out as caught swarms last May. Neither took off and refused to store any honey/sugar water. There is no way they would survive the winter without starving. Knowing the traits of the OWA queens, I got 2 delivered to me in August. Re-queening the two hives with the OWA queens seemed like a good idea. They might be able to live off of the minimal stores in those hives. I added sugar blocks and prayed for their survival. As of this weekend, they are doing well. They still have minimal stores and are living off of sugar blocks with a bit of Ultrabee added in. I fully expect them to become powerhouses in April.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

johno said:


> Kevin if you read up the difference between Carniolan and Italian type of bees you will find the answer to your question, Starting of with Georgia's packages of Italians years ago had me re queening them with Carniolan queens in the first year and I have never looked back. As the years go on I find I have to continually bring in more Carniolan queens as I suspect there are beekeepers around my area still bringing in packages or other southern bees and with open mating my bees slowly start to get more yellow.


Oh I have...I'm aware of the differences b/t Carni/Italian/Russian, etc in wintering....my one colony of Cariolans is going through the most stores and is the most active...(they are the colony that went through 13lbs of candy in 17 days. I'm a big fan of Carniolans based on my reading...but not so much on what I'm seeing them do this winter so far....but she came from California, so for all I know she is mated with italian drones from warmer climates. 

I just got back from checking on the italian colony (swarm)....since it got colder, they have slowed down...have used half of their candy board which is a relief.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

GregV said:


> Russian/Ukrainian keepers routinely winter on 20kg/45lb using well localized bees.
> This 80-90lb needed is just saying one thing - unfit bees (and some wintering methods/equipment too).
> People around me keep talking 80 pounds too - side-affects of the package bee economy.


I have shied away from Russians for one simple reason...temperament....not a fan of getting stung. Also I've talked to some keepers in my bee club who have kept russians and none have come away impressed even though they wintered well. 

I know Michael Palmer targets 150lbs in his hives for wintering (I'd guess that weight is with equipment)...2 deeps and a medium. My hives are wintered similarly with foam board on top, except I use reflectix insulation rather than black tar paper to wrap. Reflectix tends to reflect the bees own heat back to them where black paper absorbs sun energy......."sun" being a key word here....more prone to significant temperature fluctuations vs the reflectix when there is sun or it's cloudy. ... or night vs day.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

KevinWI said:


> I have shied away from Russians for one simple reason....


This is not about the Russians, Kevin.
This is about "well localized local bees".
In short - your local mutts. 
They ALL will become mutts if you let them, rather quickly.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

dudelt said:


> Kevin, yes consumption of winter stores is a genetic trait but the consumption rate is also tied into other factors. Italian bees over winter with larger colonies than Carni's. Russian colonies are often very small colonies going through the winter. Smaller colonies consume way less honey. I got tired of constantly feeding Italian bees over the winter to keep them alive and will not use them in my apiary. A few years back I got some queens from the Olympic Wilderness Apiaries (OWA) here in WA state. The colonies ate so little honey in the winter I could have sworn that they moved to Arizona for the winter and came back in the spring. All of my current hives are descendants of those queens. My open mated queens are different from their parent queens showing the traits of the other hives around the area. They now consume more then the OWA hives did but not nearly as much as the Italian hives I had years ago. I had 2 hives that started out as caught swarms last May. Neither took off and refused to store any honey/sugar water. There is no way they would survive the winter without starving. Knowing the traits of the OWA queens, I got 2 delivered to me in August. Re-queening the two hives with the OWA queens seemed like a good idea. They might be able to live off of the minimal stores in those hives. I added sugar blocks and prayed for their survival. As of this weekend, they are doing well. They still have minimal stores and are living off of sugar blocks with a bit of Ultrabee added in. I fully expect them to become powerhouses in April.


I have been doing some reading on New World Carniolans for Northern climates...I am intrigued. I believe they originate in your neck of the woods. (btw...I lived in Renton for awhile in late 80's and worked in Bellvue, awesome area....wish I could have afforded to stay).


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

GregV said:


> This is not about the Russians, Kevin.
> This is about "well localized local bees".
> In short - local mutts.
> They ALL will become mutts, given the time and rather quickly.


You have a point....bringing in some queens for drone population might not be a bad suggestion.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

KevinWI said:


> You have a point....bringing in some queens for drone population might not be a bad suggestion.


As well as offering queens of your favorite lines to your neighbors - for free.
This is all about the sustainable population management - if you got some bees you really like - you want to spread them around for your own good - give them away all around you (once you have them).
This is to have some fighting chance against the "almond bee" package flood.

This is my exact situation.


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## logicallycompromised (Apr 15, 2018)

does this person have any added holes in the upper part of the hive or top entrance? if they do, it will be part of the explanation for the increased consumption of stores.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Lots of commercial bees are good at raising brood, bringing in honey, but not much else. We went through a drought last year and then a long but mild winter. Lots of reports of bees burning through their stores before winter even. I suspect these were packages from outside for the most part. But my production hives (queens raised from survivors) were frugal through the fall and winter and didn't have to be fed. Most of my nucs have lots of food left in spring.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

lharder said:


> Lots of commercial bees are good at raising brood, bringing in honey, but not much else. We went through a drought last year and then a long but mild winter. Lots of reports of bees burning through their stores before winter even. I suspect these were packages from outside for the most part. But my production hives (queens raised from survivors) were frugal through the fall and winter and didn't have to be fed. Most of my nucs have lots of food left in spring.


yes, I would agree...thus the need to breed and raise winter bees that do not need to be coddled through winter. ..... I have 4 such colonies as I stated above, 3 of which are locally bred queens...the queens themselves are a product of whence they came, obviously (california)...but I would like to start breeding for traits....overwintering being #1.....the rest I will figure out later. Getting bees that are frugal is most important.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

logicallycompromised said:


> does this person have any added holes in the upper part of the hive or top entrance? if they do, it will be part of the explanation for the increased consumption of stores.



The hives all have a notched inner cover.....the ones active and the ones inactive, so that's not an issue.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Is winter-hardiness, a genetic trait?

Brother Adam certainly thought so. And I think so.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

KevinWI:

I am uncertain if this will be of any help to you, but I was recently reading research published in the December 2018 _Journal of Economic Entomology_ entitled, _“Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States”_:

https://academic.oup.com/jee/advance...toy377/5251959

From the Abstract:

_"We found that stock or region of origin was not correlated with weight, population size, or overwintering success. However, overwintering success was influenced by the weight and population size the colonies reached prior to winter where higher colony weight is a strong predictor of overwintering survival. Although the number of locations used in this study was limited, the difference in average colony sizes from different locations may be attributable to the abundance and diversity of floral resources near the honey bee colonies. Our results suggest that 1) honey bees may use similar strategies to cope with environmental conditions in both southern and northern regions, 2) colonies must reach a population size threshold to survive adverse conditions (an example of the Allee effect), and 3) landscape nutrition is a key component to colony survival."_

Their research utilized two (2) package suppliers from the Northeast and the Southeast respectively and made some interesting genetic observations in addition to the primary overwintering question.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Litsinger said:


> KevinWI:
> 
> I am uncertain if this will be of any help to you, but I was recently reading research published in the December 2018 _Journal of Economic Entomology_ entitled, _“Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States”_:
> 
> ...


Thank you.

I have little doubt that a large, healthy colony can be coddled through winter on enough stores...or even supplemental feeding.

I was just curious if a large healthy colony that stays inactive and slow plays its stores for the winter is a selectable genetic trait as compared to the large healthy colony that runs through their stores with little left over or has to be coddled with supplemental feed later in the winter.


In one regard we have to recognize that the bees may be quite capable of overwintering, but we intervene taking off the majority of their honey stores each late summer and feeding them supplement to what WE feel is what they will need for the winter.... and since most of hobbyists "guess" to what they need in terms of weight by hefting a colony, we lose many to starvation unnecessarily.....but that is getting off topic.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

KevinWI said:


> I was just curious if a large healthy colony that stays inactive and slow plays its stores for the winter is a selectable genetic trait as compared to the large healthy colony that runs through their stores with little left over or has to be coddled with supplemental feed later in the winter.


KevinWI:

You pose a great question and I for one will be keenly interested in what you learn. While I will readily acknowledge that it is way outside of my depth, it seems plausible to me that adaptation occurring at a regional level would seek to maximize the survival profile relative to winter length, forage availability and intensity (i.e. spring build-up), sustained dearth presence or absence, disease vectors, etc.

Thanks for posing the question, and best of success to you this year.

Russ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

KevinWI said:


> Thank you.
> 
> I was just curious if a large healthy colony that stays inactive and slow plays its stores for the winter is a selectable genetic trait as compared to the large healthy colony that runs through their stores with little left over or has to be coddled with supplemental feed later in the winter.
> 
> .


This is well known fact - the classic Russian AMMs just shut down the brooding October through March/April.
No matter the large cluster - they consume very little stores in this no-brood mode.

A compatible Italian cluster will eat everything by February or before then - they just do not understand the "no-brood" mode too well.

For some beekeepers in the US, however, the Russian traits are not good - they do not fit the US migratory commercial models too well (you know, have to have all bees built-up and ready to go in February/March to the almonds). 

So... To be considered for your particular beekeeping needs.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Litsinger “I am uncertain if this will be of any help to you, but I was recently reading research published in the December 2018 Journal of Economic Entomology entitled, “Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States”:

For anyone interested in reading this article, there isn’t a free access to this article, need to pay for it. Deb


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Cloverdale said:


> For anyone interested in reading this article, there isn’t a free access to this article, need to pay for it. Deb


Deb:

Thank you for making me aware of this- let's see if this link does any better:

https://academic.oup.com/jee/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jee/toy377/5251959

Here's also an _Entomology Today_ article that goes along with the research:

https://entomologytoday.org/2019/01/09/colony-size-drives-honey-bees-overwinter-survival/


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>“Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States”

Yet the Carniolans, Russians and Caucasians winter in smaller clusters and winter better in my experience.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

There is definitely a genetic component to wintering. That component varies, but I think mostly involves being quiet on the combs and not too active over the winter. The small colonies some strains exibit obviously results in less consumption of stores. My mostly Italian mutts winter very well with fairly large colonies. But the bottom line for me is, even non thrifty stock will winter and really make a gang buster honey crop if given enough to eat! Sugar is just so much cheaper than bees in the spring. During my couple visits to by colonies in the dead of winter, I observe temperament, activity and consumption of stores. Colonies that lay there quietly when I open and are not hogging stores are annotated as keepers. The few hogs that have eaten themselves out of luck receive five bucks more sugar and are marked as volunteering to be made into nucs or requeened early May. They always have lots of bees and brood for that purpose. Active and defensive colonies are requeened as well. 


This style of management may not be possible for those with thousands of hives butt deep in snow but work fine for an old man trying to stay busy and feel useful.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Right now as we speak I have an Italian colony (one of mine that swarmed and I caught)...nice cluster of bees but it is very active and mowing thru it's stores....it was -32°F this morning and I just went out and there are a hundred bees on the ground littered around dropping after taking flight and they are active at the front entrance....this is not a trait I would like.

In another respect, I have a Carniolan colony 3' away that is almost just as active, has gone thru it's stores and mowed thru 13lbs of fondant in 17 days...but today they seem inactive.....
Conversely speaking, I have a 5/5/5 nuc from a daughter of the Queen from that Carniolan colony queen mentioned in the last sentence....this colony is completely inactive and I only see them on 40+ degree days doing cleansing flights and clearing out the dead from the bottom....the colony built up mass stores early and is still in the lower brood chamber.....*THIS* is a trait I would like to pass along.
Odd that she is the daughter of queen from a colony that is using stores quickly, but then again, she mated with drones, some of which could have been from local established colonies (not my own)....


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Vance G said:


> There is definitely a genetic component to wintering. That component varies, but I think mostly involves being quiet on the combs and not too active over the winter. The small colonies some strains exibit obviously results in less consumption of stores. My mostly Italian mutts winter very well with fairly large colonies. But the bottom line for me is, even non thrifty stock will winter and really make a gang buster honey crop if given enough to eat! Sugar is just so much cheaper than bees in the spring. During my couple visits to by colonies in the dead of winter, I observe temperament, activity and consumption of stores. Colonies that lay there quietly when I open and are not hogging stores are annotated as keepers. The few hogs that have eaten themselves out of luck receive five bucks more sugar and are marked as volunteering to be made into nucs or requeened early May. They always have lots of bees and brood for that purpose. Active and defensive colonies are requeened as well.
> 
> 
> This style of management may not be possible for those with thousands of hives butt deep in snow but work fine for an old man trying to stay busy and feel useful.


A very respectable management philosophy. No argument here.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Michael Bush said:


> >“Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States”
> 
> Yet the Carniolans, Russians and Caucasians winter in smaller clusters and winter better in my experience.


yes...and within that subset, like with humans, there has to be differing traits that can be selected. ( In humans, two very large parents rarely produce pipsqueaks...but they are still human) I can only imagine there is something similar that happens with Apis Melifera. 

For the backyard keeper looking to produce local bred stock with overwintering traits, that Carniolan gene will become watered down over time with the resulting progeny being mutts for lack of a better term...and that mutt, over time will become it's own strain of honey bee....not sure if that is ever possible with open mating...but in enough years and handing out queens locally to as many beeks as you can, I would imagine anything is possible.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

KevinWI said:


> ...not sure if that is ever possible with open mating...but in enough years and handing out queens locally to as many beeks as you can, I would imagine anything is possible.


I think it is possible - as long as you do not keep to your own backyard beekeeping.
Think - local population. 
Do not think - my backyard.

You must actively participate in the local population and try to alter the local population traits into your own favor.
You manage 1)several dispersed yards with overlapping flight ranges so to setup better cross-pollination of your own bees, 2)deploy as many queens as you can into the population (give them away free) and 3)deploy as many drones as you can into the population (run drone-generating units). 

Also, send swarms away if want; but I just as well set out managed splits - I'd like to hold onto them still.

One will say - well your neighbors will undo what you are trying to do.
I will counter - most of your neighbors more than likely 1)try hard to minimize their drone population, 2)do NOT give free queens away, and 3)keep their bees down to a single location convenience and 4)like fewer and bigger units (to make more honey, you know).
They also keep buying bees non-stop; at least what I observe here.

Just do the opposite to what they do and see what happens.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Yay, it works! Thank you! Deb



Litsinger said:


> Deb:
> 
> Thank you for making me aware of this- let's see if this link does any better:
> 
> ...


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

I’m going to chime in here referencing GregV and KevinWI andthe original thread; we know Brother Adam did it, and I believe Mike Palmer has produced a strain of honeybees that is equal to Brother Adams. His bees winter exceptionally well. I don’t know enough about genetics to be accurate in my assumptions, but DO know that Buckfast are a different strain to be labeled as so, and someday maybe Michaels will be also. He can work on that in his retirement.


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

good overwintering is going to result from multiple behaviors, not all of which happen during winter.  

1. When forager bees deliver nectar, the receiver bees have choices about what to do with it: store it somewhere in the brood nest, or feed immediately to baby bees and trigger population growth. At some point a hive that is going to successfully overwinter should not be raising lots of brood up until the weather turns poorly - there should be a decline in bee population earlier than that. Right? I have seen a colony with no stores in early Dec, but lots of bees, despite the beekeeper feeding with a hive-top feeder when it was warm enough to take in syrup. So this "decision" by the colony, to store not grow their population, must vary, and must become "store" in time to turn nectar into stores rather than baby bees. I don't know how you measure this tendency, how much nectar is stored vs turned into bees? So differences in egg laying in the fall? 

2. When the weather is marginal for successful foraging, like 45 and recently rained and windy, some colonies are more likely than others to send out foragers. I am of the opinion the likelihood to send out forays during marginal weather will vary on a spectrum, and you could make an argument that northern colonies should or should not send out foragers during marginal weather. Theoretically you should be able to select for this...and measure/detect/keep track of it...

3. When the weather is marginal for breaking cluster and doing housekeeping, there is likely a range of what "threshold" a colony needs to pass in temperature to begin breaking cluster. Some hives may be more likely to try to carry out dead if it is non-returnable weather...or to be spread out in the hive when the cold hits quickly...

BUT! the comparisons between colonies could be meaningless if some are low on stores and can detect it - different behavior patterns will likely emerge then. Assuming the bees could sense their stores level - I would wager they know the pollen state quite well, because that leads to full fat bodies inside the bees, but they probably can't assess how much honey is stored...unless low pollen storage is used as a behavioral trigger since it can mean low stores... I just think I've seen colonies with less be more risky in their behavior, though maybe that's why they have less...

And the comparisons between colonies may be meaningless if they differ in their varroa load. I have seen the rate of bees flying out in a self-sacrificing way be much higher for colonies that later died and were autopsied to have had a high varroa load (over 10% for us up north). So there could be a colony which normally would not send out bees or have broken cluster, but their fat bodies are low due to poor foraging despite needing to feed larvae, or they are low because of varroa predation.

So those are the 3 things I will be thinking about tracking...at some point... systematically....


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

trishbookworm said:


> good overwintering is going to result from multiple behaviors, .....


Good wintering is SO much depends on the location that it is almost meaning-less to generalize.
Wintering in TX and wintering in AK are radically different projects.
Wintering in Southern Siberia will be a somewhat a different project from Southern Germany.

Also, wintering priories of a commercial almond pollinator are significantly different from backyard wintering hobbyist.
The desired timelines and brooding dynamics are very different (hence the desired traits are different).

I suppose we are talking of wintering in WI at the moment.
With that in mind, we describe several valuable traits in WI for a non-commercial beek.
(Kevin did a very good job at that and I like it as is).

Going too general becomes less useful in this context (like you know - the summer foraging traits - it is just getting way too general).


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

trishbookworm said:


> So those are the 3 things I will be thinking about tracking...at some point... systematically....


Trish: FWIW, it seems to me that your approach could certainly yield good actionable information- particularly in a local/regional context. I'd be interested in finding out what you learn from this study. While my opinion counts for little, I know that Mr. Walt Wright was convinced that a colony could "read" stores and would make build-up decisions based at least in part on the stores available. I certainly do not want to side-track KevinWI's good thread here, but it seems that the winter hardiness question is dynamic and might be based both on genetics and management approach (i.e. quantity and nature of stores, hive construction/configuration, etc.).


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

GregV said:


> Good wintering is SO much depends on the location that it is almost meaning-less to generalize.


Even with that said, there are still many factors even when you keep location constant. The biggest overriding factor is late summer and fall weather. I have had years where we check colonies in late September and they are plugged with honey in a double deep. Same colony, same spot the next season when checking in the first week of September the combs are dry and the bees are already on the verge of starving. Then comes the little detail, not all winters are created equal. Examples again, 2 years ago we went thru 6 weeks of -15C overnight temps with upwards of 3 feet of snow on the ground. This year we haven't seen any snow and have only had overnight frost a few times, but rains and high winds have been incessant. Vastly different conditions than a couple years ago.

I tend to see wintering different than many here. Our goal is consistent wintering, and in order to get that, we need a consistent set of hive conditions at the onset of winter. If the hives are light, we feed before winter arrives. If population is down in early August, I'll give them a fresh new queen. We try give our colonies all a consistent starting set of conditions at the onset of winter, and by doing so, mother nature will show us in the spring which colonies are not up to snuff with regards to wintering ability. We wont have to worry about propagating from them, they will already be dead.

What defines 'good wintering' will be different things to different people, and it does make sense to propagate from those that meet your own definition of good wintering ability. BUT, my opinion is, altho genetics are indeed a factor, that factor is minor compared to the issues of conditions and how they change from year to year. You can have the best genetics on the planet, but if they dont have the correct start conditions in terms of resources, they wont survive a winter, doesn't matter if it's a mild or harsh winter, they just wont make it. OTOH, with proper care by the beekeeper, even the worst genetics will struggle thru and survive. Somewhere between the extremes lies a happy median. It is my opinion that without proper fall management to ensure the bees have what's necessary to survive the winter, the genetics become an irrelevant factor, made irrelevant by fall weather and availability of forage in the late season. OTOH, properly prepared colonies will show you where the differences lie when you open them up in the spring.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

GregV said:


> Good wintering is SO much depends on the location that it is almost meaning-less to generalize.


We could discuss good wintering practices, as grossie2 points out they make a huge impact, but the thread subject is about genetic wintering ability. 
What is good wintering ability in France, is not good wintering ability in Sweden.



grozzie2 said:


> OTOH, with proper care by the beekeeper, even the worst genetics will struggle thru and survive.


I know of personal experience that in our extreme conditions this is not true. 

The ultimate wintering ability can only be bred in winters like we have, 6 months or even more no flying. In these conditions, and this woke up Brother Adams curiosity for the Finnish black bee, wintering ability is naturally bred. The result is a bee with the ability to overwinter with small or large cluster and with minimum of stores. Anything above 1,5kg /month is excessive. The bees gut fills up too much.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

A good wintering bee will not use up the stores in fall because of mild weather. In our drought a 2 summers ago, I left my production colonies with wintering food at the end of August and overall they still had it at the beginning of winter. No feeding. Bees take their cues from a mix of light conditions and temperature. A good bee knows not to use its winter stores just because it is mild out in the fall because it uses the right information. Same with build up in the spring. A good localized bee times build up to take advantage of available forage.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Anything above 1,5kg /month is excessive. The bees gut fills up too much.


That too depends entirely on location, and the local version of 'winter'. I'll grant, for you in an area that gets what I would call a 'real winter', the above trait is likely very important. Our location here on the coast is different, there are no months in the year where we dont get at least a few nice days for relief flights, so the issue of guts filling is not such a big deal here, and as one goes farther south it becomes less and less an issue. And this brings me back to one of my original premises, wintering success is more about preparation than genetics. A more precise description, start conditions must be set up appropriate for the bees in question. If they tend to consume a lot of stores, then just ensure they have a lot of stores.

In our area, it's actually less about stores, and more about other things. Make sure entrances are situated such that the many days of high wind with rain dont end up blowing directly into a wide open entrance. Also ensure the hive itself has good drainage. If the hive is slightly tipped back, then the bottom board will be pooling with water all winter, whereas a slight tilt forward and that water will run out. Another BIG issue for us, do NOT break those propolis seals until the first round or two of brood are emerged and the population is growing, if you do, you will end up with chilled brood as the 70 km/h winds blow thru the cracks you have created. It may be a very small crack, but, it's an opening none the less.

General consensus in our area is that a colony needs 80lb of honey to consume over the winter. My measurements using a hive sitting on a scale for 5 years dispute the general knowledge in a way. A hive on the scale tends to burn thru a small amount of stores over the months of November thru February, on the order of 20 lb. That changes starting about mid to late February when they start brooding. From mid February to mid April the burn rate runs 20 lb every 30 days on average. On an average year, the winter needs 20lb of stores, but, they need an inventory of another 40lb on top of that to get thru the spring build to the time when nectar is abundant. We normally see colony weights start to increase again by mid April. So going back to the 80lb number that is local 'common knowledge', it's not really that far off, 60lb is what they really need, and the extra 20 is the insurance for a really bad spring.


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