# 5/8 gone



## Whitetail

Not cool. Sorry for your loss. Ive never used them, but Olympic Wilderness Apiaries advertises Northwest survivor stock. Might give them a try.....


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## BeeManiac

Ive lost several of my double deeps. All my double deep nuc boxes are doing well though... I dont usually dont get into the mite treating but maybe i should start.


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## stajerc61

Why didn't you kill the mites bro?


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## Charlie B

I think the coldest I've ever been is in Baker about 6 winters ago. Sorry about your hives.


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## RiodeLobo

Charlie B said:


> I think the coldest I've ever been is in Baker about 6 winters ago. Sorry about your hives.


It has been cold this winter, particularly where I live (15 miles north of Baker City), we run 5-10 degrees colder than the city proper. Last winter we never got below 0, and Thursday we hit -8. I don't think it has been above 40 F in several weeks. 



Whitetail said:


> Not cool. Sorry for your loss. Ive never used them, but Olympic Wilderness Apiaries advertises Northwest survivor stock. Might give them a try.....


I plan on ordering some next week. I am also going to try Old Sol. I was planning on expanding next year with splits and buying some more packages/nucs. I guess I will have to use the ones I already have ordered to rebuild.



stajerc61 said:


> Why didn't you kill the mites bro?


Look at the forum title...


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## Dave Burrup

Rio we have been colder than you this winter. We have been down to -17. We went into the winter with 18 hives, 14 full size and 4 nucs. They all are doing very well with strong populations, but we treat our mites. Old Sol has some very good bees. Good Luck!
Dave


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## Oldtimer

Thought losing bees was accepted as part of the TF plan. Then you have to rebuild from mite tolerant ones, until (hopefully), you end up with bees that will be OK. But you'll still always likely have losses bigger than if you treated.

At least I guess, losing hives through winter like yours, the hives are unlikely to get robbed and therefore not spread mites to the other hives.


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## rwurster

That's too bad but that's the nature of the beast. I think I lost a weak hive to the cold but I'm not going to check it until spring. The drawn comb will work well in swarm traps.


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## Daniel Y

I know we have not had a day warm enough for the bees to fly in 4 weeks now here in Reno. It is much colder here than is normal. Today will barely hit 40 normal for this time of year is 60.


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## RiodeLobo

Oldtimer said:


> Thought losing bees was accepted as part of the TF plan. Then you have to rebuild from mite tolerant ones, until (hopefully), you end up with bees that will be OK. But you'll still always likely have losses bigger than if you treated.


Yes I expect to take losses, it still stinks. I do not think I am going to stumble on mite tolerant bees on my own, starting from standard treated bees, the odds and numbers do not add up for a small time hobbyist. I do think the odds of find a supplier who has done this work and can produce such bees is much better.


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## JBJ

While replacing from local suppliers who "have done the work" is a great suggestion, I would additionally recommend splitting from the best of your survivors. Doing both will help make the apiary more sustainable.


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## JRG13

Ever Forward Rio! Don't let it get you down.


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## Oldtimer

RiodeLobo said:


> Yes I expect to take losses, it still stinks. I do not think I am going to stumble on mite tolerant bees on my own, starting from standard treated bees, the odds and numbers do not add up for a small time hobbyist. I do think the odds of find a supplier who has done this work and can produce such bees is much better.


Yes absolutely, that's what I was getting at although probably didn't express it properly.


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## squarepeg

RiodeLobo said:


> Yes I expect to take losses, it still stinks. I do not think I am going to stumble on mite tolerant bees on my own, starting from standard treated bees, the odds and numbers do not add up for a small time hobbyist. I do think the odds of find a supplier who has done this work and can produce such bees is much better.


just a hunch on my part, but with all of the genetic variation involved with open mating, i don't think i would ever count on getting mite resistant bees.

if queens are grafted from and mated with bees with known resistance, well, that's a start.

but with all of the variability in the gene pool out there, each queen and the colony she produces is going to have to be evaluated on an individual basis.

what is done with those colonies that don't have the right stuff is where the rubber meets the road. jmho.


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## RiodeLobo

squarepeg said:


> what is done with those colonies that don't have the right stuff is where the rubber meets the road. jmho.


Keeping in mind what forum we are in what suggestions would you have. They built up well in the spring, had a good population all summer and went into the winter with plenty of stores without feeding. The population was pretty good when I did my final check in October.


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## JRG13

Some are doing late splits to go into winter as nucs, really seems to help. Doing what you can to prevent the mites reaching an apex in their breeding cycle in Fall is the treatment free strategy I would aim for. Brood breaks or a drone comb frame to help keep mites down.


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## squarepeg

RiodeLobo said:


> Keeping in mind what forum we are in what suggestions would you have. They built up well in the spring, had a good population all summer and went into the winter with plenty of stores without feeding. The population was pretty good when I did my final check in October.


rio, now that you know what mite loads your bees can and cannot tolerate, you are one step in the right direction toward a plan to prevent a repeat of this year.

fall is a tough time to turn one around. better to take action before then if you can tell from your mite loads that you need to take action.

i'm still working on it, but my plan is to have enough strong nucs around to be able to requeen and/or combine any suspicious (high mites) hives before the fall brooding up for winter bees.

if i have to requeen and/or combine a mite infested colony, i would use powdered sugar to dislodge as many mites as i could first.

if it was too late in the season to requeen and/or combine, i would again consider powdered sugar, but i wouldn't rule out some of the other 'organic' options. (would not use synthetic miticides under any circumstance). this colony then, would be requeened in the spring at the first opportunity, or split up into nucs for the next batch of queens.


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## RiodeLobo

My plan is to have nuc made up next summer and try to over winter them. It was the plan this past summer, but life got in the way. I am also going to queen the summer nucs with a variety of "resistant" stock from different breeders. What makes the next winter will be used to expand next year. One of the early losses was combined in with one of the 3 that are still going (I still count it as a loss). As tempting as some of the softer treatment are I am not willing to use them. My goal is to be able to be 100% self sufficient and sustainable and that can only be done if I can produce the treatment. I have planted Thyme and Hops and will work on using extracts, but have not done the research to accomplish refinement needed.


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## squarepeg

good plan rio, very interesting.


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## squarepeg

just curious rio, were you able to get a sense for how many mites were too many, and at what point in the season?


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## RiodeLobo

When I started seeing them on multiple bees during an inspection and then later starting to find deformed wings. This was late summer, the beginning of August for the uptick in mite observation and mid/late August for the DWV to show symptoms. I am sure that the increase happened before, but I did not notice it at the time.


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## squarepeg

understood. thanks rio.


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## Markwell

Losing so many to mite...ouch! What measures did you take?


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## RiodeLobo

I think it was the combo of mites and weather. These hive all made last winter just fine, but it was much milder.
Observe, and make sure they had plenty of stores going into the winter. By the time I knew the situation was dire, it was to late in the year to do something like break the brood cycle (I thought). In the future I would, because there was nothing to lose. In addition after the main flow I plan to break any troubled hive into nucs, for over wintering. But that is hind site. I also may insulate better, but I had them on top entrances reduced to 1 inch, with 2 inches of foam insulating the top of the hive. I may look at strapping foam all around the hive, but that is more work than I wanted to do. They do have a wind break and the hives were sealed up well.


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## beemandan

RiodeLobo said:


> I do not think I am going to stumble on mite tolerant bees on my own, starting from standard treated bees, the odds and numbers do not add up for a small time hobbyist.


I think your thinking is good here. Finding someone who has already waded through the losses will hopefully help.
From a different thread.



beemandan said:


> This is an interesting study….part of the CAPS grant.
> http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/DrummondCAPcolumnDec2012.pdf
> 
> They set up 7 separate beeyards in different states with 30 hives each….started from package bees in the spring of 2009. A total of 210 colonies. They were fed as needed but otherwise untreated.
> The first season losses ranged from around 3% (1 hive) to 40% (12 hives).
> It appears that by the end of season three, 5 colonies out of the initial 210 remained.


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## minz

I would thinking looking east to more continental weather pattern rather than the Olympics. I would go to the peninsula for bees because mine wear rain coats most of the year, yours need parka’s and dog sleds. A lot of talk about robbing of the die outs bringing the vermin back to your remaining hives, I was curious if you were taking action against that or your thoughts?


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## RiodeLobo

minz said:


> I would thinking looking east to more continental weather pattern rather than the Olympics. I would go to the peninsula for bees because mine wear rain coats most of the year, yours need parka’s and dog sleds. A lot of talk about robbing of the die outs bringing the vermin back to your remaining hives, I was curious if you were taking action against that or your thoughts?


Northern queens from the Midwest or Northeast would be a good idea. Any suggestions on TX free queens from that region? As to transmitting diseases to the other hives, they died out late enough in the fall that there is not much flying weather. Now they are lucky to have enough time for cleansing flights, and the mites are long dead.


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## RiodeLobo

*Re: 7/8 gone*

Well this sucks. We finally warmed up and I went out to check on the bees. 2 more down, these were first year hives. So far only the TBH is still going. All had stores left, just out of reach in the cold snap we had. I will go out and a proper postmortem later to see what happened. These did not have DW or visible mites in the fall, built up well and had good stores going into the winter (I thought).


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## westernbeekeeper

*Re: 7/8 gone*

Quick question, Rio: Are they on open screened bottom boards?


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## squarepeg

*Re: 7/8 gone*

dang. at least you'll have lots of drawn comb for this year.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: 7/8 gone*

QUOTE - "These did not have DW or *visible mites* in the fall" UNQUOTE

The lesson here is there can be many more mites than you see. Or in fact, it would be more accurate to say there WILL be many more mites than you see.

Don't know what killed your bees, but sending a hive into winter with just an eyeball check for mites, is taking a great risk.


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## RiodeLobo

*Re: 7/8 gone*



westernbeekeeper said:


> Quick question, Rio: Are they on open screened bottom boards?


They were split. 4 on solid and 3 on screened. 



squarepeg said:


> dang. at least you'll have lots of drawn comb for this year.


Yep there will be no shortage of comb next year.



Oldtimer said:


> The lesson here is there can be many more mites than you see. Or in fact, it would be more accurate to say there WILL be many more mites than you see.
> Don't know what killed your bees, but sending a hive into winter with just an eyeball check for mites, is taking a great risk.


Yep I will have to do sugar rolls next year. I was checking the bottom boards, and they seemed fine.


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## RiodeLobo

*Re: 7/8 gone*

Just ordered some queens from Olympic Wilderness Apiary. Judy was very helpful and pleasant when I spoke to her. It sounds good and hopefully they will work well next late summer for my over winter nucs.


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## EastSideBuzz

*Re: 7/8 gone*

I send mine south for the winter on vacation in the Almonds. Seems to help. Also don't need to keep getting winter jackets for all of them. Ever tried to fit winter jackets on that many girls, all they do is complain about the color. But, seriously sending them to almonds seems to help.


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## lazy shooter

I went into the winter with three mature hives that will be two years old in April and three nucs that were put together last July. All of my hives are doing well as of yesterday. I am totally treatment free, and I am not going to ever do a mite count. I figure if I'm not going to treat, why do I care about counting them. 

We had a good spring last year and my old hives built up well. Then there was a long, dry summer with no growth due to there being very little storage. We had a big September rain and down came the blooms. My bees then prospered in numbers and in honey and pollen storage. I did not feed my bees as they had plenty of stores. It is my dream to raise treatment free bees without feeding them. Time will tell!


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## RiodeLobo

lazy shooter said:


> I am totally treatment free, and I am not going to ever do a mite count. I figure if I'm not going to treat, why do I care about counting them.


That was my thought, however I am reconsidering it. If I know there is a heavy mite load in the summer, after the main flow, I think I will use those hives to create my nucs. If I use my better hives (assuming I have some) to raise queens in the nucs (or bought queens) I will have broken the reproductive cycle of the mites and hopefully knocked down the population. Since I am planning on making up nucs to overwinter anyway, this seems to be a logical approach to meet both needs.


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## JBJ

Being treatment free is no reason not to know what mite levels are. One needs to know if the queen has or is expressing the traits required to keep mite levels down. If she does not have enough VSH or whatever else, then something something will have to bee done or the hive will die every time.

BTW Oldtimers last post is spot on.


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## squarepeg

there have been quite a few accounts of apparently strong hives in the summer dying out in the fall and winter, presumably due to mites that had not been detected.

when i hear about multiple hives dying out, it make me think that the infestation spread from one hive to the others. resistant stock can only handle so much.

if your treatment free approach is to subject your bees to as much stress as possible in order to kill off any that can't make it on their own, then mite counts don't make much sense. losses are expected, perhaps even welcomed, as good riddance of the unworthy genetics.

for me, mite counts will help me stay treatment free be giving me a clue as to which colonies are not handling the mites as well as their cohorts. i like the idea of requeening the troubled colonies or busting them up into nucs with new queens. 

rio, if you make nucs out of the ones that have high mite counts, you may want to consider making them queenless, letting most of the brood hatch, and doing a good sugar dusting before requeening.


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## RiodeLobo

JBJ said:


> Being treatment free is no reason not to know what mite levels are. One needs to know if the queen has or is expressing the traits required to keep mite levels down. If she does not have enough VSH or whatever else, then something something will have to bee done or the hive will die every time.
> 
> BTW Oldtimers last post is spot on.


Yep, lesson learned.



squarepeg said:


> rio, if you make nucs out of the ones that have high mite counts, you may want to consider making them queenless, letting most of the brood hatch, and doing a good sugar dusting before requeening.


That is my plan, but how long would you guys recommend?


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## squarepeg

i'm still trying to figure it out rio, but i'm guessing after a couple of weeks or so, most of the brood should have emerged thereby exposing the mites. i still don't have a good number for how many is too many mites, but those colonies with the highest counts will be the first to get busted up.


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## Oldtimer

Just, if doing that, bees that have been queenless for that amount of time are more likely to reject the new queen (silly of them that may sound).

Their chances of a successful introduction will be greatly increased, if a comb of eggs and young unsealed larvae is given to them a day or two before introducing the queen, this will increase the successful introduction % greatly.

AND, another important thing, if the hive is left queenless 4 weeks, that will be about when laying workers start developing. So timing is everything get it requeened asap after last brood hatched.

And I guess the other obvious thing is after dequeening the hive, if the intention is to requeen with a caged queen, 7 to 9 days maiximum after the queen is removed have a good look through all brood combs which includes shaking off the bees, find and kill all queen cells. Leave it longer than that and some of them could hatch if the bees used older larve. They won't be the greatest queen but they can certainly mess up your attempts to introduce the one you buy.


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## squarepeg

good points ot. what i wanted to try was pinching the queen in the highly infested hive, go back in one week and destroy any emergency cells, go back in another week to sugar dust or apply an organic acid, and then requeen a few days later.

so the requeening would be 2 - 3 weeks after making them queenless, meaning any brood left would be sealed. i was also thinking about introducing virgin queens to these nucs. would the acceptance be any better or worse with virgins?

do you think i should just focus on the requeening and forget about dropping the mites beforehand? or perhaps do the mite drop sooner?


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## Oldtimer

Success with introducing virgins will be around the same, but bear in mind you'll lose some during mating so actual number of resultant laying queens will almost certainly be lower.

If the hive has been queenless 2 - 3 weeks, ie, still has hatching brood, you should get pretty good acceptance of the queens. But the catch 22 is it's not going to have much effect on mite population.

Dropping mites, well that's something I do, don't discuss in this forum though.


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## squarepeg

understood, thanks ot. 

i guess you are about mid summer down under, how is your treatment free yard faring?


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## Oldtimer

A few of them got some concerning mite levels, this coming winter will be make or break time I'm pretty sure.


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## squarepeg

yep. what measure do you use and what level do you consider 'concerning'?


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## Oldtimer

I use the eyeball method. 

I don't look for mites, other than in uncapped drone brood, but I'll look for DWV, PMS, and mite feaces in newly hatched cells

I don't recommend this for nubees though, you'll miss them, until it's too late.


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## squarepeg

understood, and thanks for the feedback.


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## rhaldridge

Rio, if I read you correctly, your only survivor was a top bar hive? Do you have any thoughts about why this would be?


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## RiodeLobo

rhaldridge said:


> Rio, if I read you correctly, your only survivor was a top bar hive? Do you have any thoughts about why this would be?


No idea the only difference is that it is all natural comb instead of small cell plastic. All three of the first year colonies were from packages from the same supplier, with Caucasian queens. 

I finally completely opened up one of the other two hive that died out. The cluster was about volleyball sized, in the upper deep. They starved, and there was over 20lbs of honey left in the bottom deep. It looks like they moved straight up, and would/could not move laterally to get to the honey. They were clustered on a patch of brood about 2.5 inches (6.35 cm, just for you Oldtimer) across. 

I still have not completely opened the final hive, just popped the top and there were quite a few dead bees in the super and no activity.


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## Davidnewbeeboxbuilder

Dont feel bad a usda russian breeder lost 150 hives allready plenty of stores and same story with a friend of mine who lost 18 total loss. I hope it dont go through mine.


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## RiodeLobo

IT ALIVE, ITS ALIVE!!!! (barely). I was doing the PM on the 7th hive and low and behold there was a small cluster in the bottom deep. I quickly tossed some candy board (I was feeding the other surviving hive) on and closed up the hive. I have little hope of its survival, but who knows.


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## minz

We had a sunny day and all the hives were flying but one (#4) on Saturday, pulled it apart to do a ‘post mortem’ and had some bees coming up from between the frames at the back of the hive, top deep. I did the same thing, pushed some sugar close (condensation made it hard) and put her back together with little hope. It does have a SBB and it is by the heat pump. I am wondering if there is too much air through the hive (non laminar air flow)?


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## squarepeg

had the first good warm and sunny day in the past 2 weeks today. 12 out of 12 hives in the home yard were flying like crazy!

11 out of 12 were packing in some unknown pollen and nectar with almost every single bee coming in loaded.

#12 wasn't bringing in anything, and was acting more like it was guarding the entrance, but there was no fighting going on at lunch. at sunset however, and after all of the other hives had gone in for the night, i discovered #2 and #7 were robbing #12!

i closed up #12 and will have to check it out tomorrow. my guess is that it is queenless.


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## RiodeLobo

Very nice. Out of curiosity how much of a problem are SHB for you in Alabama?


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## katring

I'm really in no position to reply to this, as I am such a new beekeeper, but here in California where we live, there is quite a movement towards natural, treatment-free beekeeping. On successful way, I have been told is to let the bees draw their own comb. That way they'll build to suit their needs. They generally build cell to small for the varroa mites. You could check it out at Backwards Beekeeping on YouTube. I'm so sorry about your bees. I hope this will help you in the future.


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## RiodeLobo

katring said:


> They generally build cell to small for the varroa mites.


 My understanding it is quite a lot of work to get bees regressed to small cell natural comb. I know that the foundationless frames I run (50% for brood chambers) are far from the "idea" 4.9mm. That is the reason the other 50% is small cell Man Lake PF-105. My personal feeling is that small cell is likely to be a minor benefit as far as varroa, with acclimatized mite resistant genetics being more important.


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## squarepeg

well it looks like #12 was indeed queenless, and apparantly has been for some time, there was zero brood.

the robbing must have been going on for a while as well, there were no stores at all, and most of the cluster starved.

i saw a few mites and a little frass, so mites could have been a factor, but i think it was mostly queenlessness.

i shook them out and i'm freezing the one deep and two mediums of good comb.


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## RiodeLobo

7/7 so far. I installed 4 packages and 2 nucs today and have one that survived the winter. The dandelions and willows are in bloom, and all the hives have honey from the dead outs to hopefully build fast. When northern queens, from Olympic Wilderness Apiaries, become available they will be re-queened. I have 3 more nucs from old sol coming next month.


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## squarepeg

way to go rio!


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## RiodeLobo

The problem is the weather, it is going to have lows around 30 for the next week at least. Highs in the low 50's. I hope they make it.


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## squarepeg

not ideal rio, but that honey you gave them should help alot.


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## RiodeLobo

Even with the cold weather all 6 colonies are doing well. The 4 packages released the queen and the queens are laying. I did not open them for one week after instillation.


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## squarepeg

awesome man, they'll be foraging more and more as it warms up, that head start you gave should make a big difference. thanks for keeping us posted.


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## RiodeLobo

They are bringing in loads of dandelion pollen and the willows are bloom.


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## Daniel Y

We have had an unusually warm spring. Sounds like what my bees where doing in early March. Colonies are swarming now. I have one that is trying. Will remove the queen and some brood today to prevent loosing them.

I had two 5 frame nucs that went through the winter. They are both 10 frames deeps with a 10 frame med on top and very full. I will be adding two more med boxes to them today. they can build up fast So keep an eye on them and give them room as they need it. For the most part my bees where able to hold their own once the pollen started coming in. I think they needed a little help with keeping water though.

My bees have been going through the high of 50 low of 30 every other week for a month and a half. they do just fine. It got to 75 yesterday by the middle of next week it may be cool again. They have managed to bring a lot of brood through those conditions.

best of luck.


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