# Opposite of feeding. Killing bees for honey production



## RobWok (May 18, 2011)

Yeah, weird title. Last year someone gave me a hygenic Italian queen in a package to compare against my small mongrel bees. It grew about 20% faster than my hives, and went into winter with 2 full deeps. It was also the only hive that starved out that winter. The cluster at death was about the size of a basketball. Not a drop of honey in the hive.

People in the North like Russians for their small winter cluster size. Here's my thought: Why not go into the Italian boxes and vacuum enough bees down to make a cluster the size of a volleyball or smaller. They would eat less during the winter, giving them a better chance of making it through the winter. You wouldn't have to feed as much. I get that feed is cheaper than honey. My guess is that it would be too much work for a commercial producer. You could guess which ones need to be knocked down by bearding size maybe - possibly even vacuum off the beard.

Rob.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I would hardly consider VA to be North for wintering purposes. I want a big cluster as they winter much more efficiently than a small one and come out of the gate fast in the spring. The exceptionally hungry do starve out and are out of the genepool. I don't like catching swarms because I am bringing swarm happy Russian blood into my apiaries. For the most part the Italians I get from frostproof florida or Northern California winter just fine. I wish I could get to the point where I didn't need to bring in even queens.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Why even keep bees over the winter in the north????


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## joens (Apr 24, 2003)

Just take every last bit of honey and get all new 3 pound packages in the spring.


The Honey Householder said:


> Why even keep bees over the winter in the north????


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## joens (Apr 24, 2003)

seriously though, sugar is cheap you can buy a LOT of sugar for the cost of a new package


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## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Italians tend to function better as a whole with that larger cluster, whereas Carniolans can function relatively more efficiently with their smaller clusters. It is how they have adapted... Each have their benefits.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

RobWok said:


> Why not go into the Italian boxes and vacuum enough bees down to make a cluster the size of a volleyball or smaller. Rob.


Why not feed them enough so they'll make it through a Virginia winter?


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> Why not feed them enough so they'll make it through a Virginia winter?


:scratch: X2 G


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The secret is to give them enough feed through out the winter months until
things start to bloom again in the Spring time. Sometimes the Italians will not
stop brooding in the winter months but the hybrid Italians/carnis will respond very
well to scarcity of the food source coming in. Whatever you do make sure they have
enough to overwinter with.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

RobWok said:


> It grew about 20% faster than my hives, and went into winter with 2 full deeps. It was also the only hive that starved out that winter. The cluster at death was about the size of a basketball. Not a drop of honey in the hive.



You say 2 full deeps, but how much honey was in those boxes? To be safe, a big monster (true) Italian colony will need about 70-90 lbs of stores in VA, with last year closer to the 90 mark. Other genetics and sizes need far less, but there's nothing like a big monster Italian colony - keep varroa in check and just stack on the supers. Last year we had a late winter cold blast that really hurt colonies that were low on stores. I suspect that you had far less than 70 lbs of stores.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Why not go into the Italian boxes and vacuum enough bees down to make a cluster the size of a volleyball or smaller.

Russians overwinter WELL in small clusters. Italians overwinter POORLY in small clusters...


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

beepro said:


> The secret is to give them enough feed through out the winter months until
> things start to bloom again in the Spring time.


Maybe so in CA. In the north you feed before winter.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Do you know when did they die? Is it just before Spring or in the middle of winter when they
ran out of stores? Or is this an inspection during the early Spring time.
With that big a cluster do you also put sugar bricks for extra feed when going into the winter?
Over here, I on purpose reduced their cluster size by overfeeding in the Fall to overfilled all the
comb so that they cannot make more bees after the last hatch. Whatever cell space they have remaining the
after the solstice new queen will use to make more winter bees with.


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## Markt (Feb 8, 2012)

We winter hives up here that are so full of bees that you couldn't fit another one in either brood chamber just fine with 5+ months of well below zero weather. Guys out west get them through worse. I really think you need to feed more, get them heavy enough that one guy can't lift a double (Like the weight of two honey supers) and then you'll be good. Singles especially so.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

I've been running mostly Carni's for the most part. I don't know if you'd call the clusters 'small'. at the end of the season they're still 2 full boxes of bees with good stores. I feel that they are thriftier than most bees and know when to shut it down. By february, they're already brooding but that's mostly because of the pollen subs and the cluster is still about 10-11 worth of frames. They build up quickly enough with the right stimulation that they'll bring the 2 frames of brood w/10 frames of bees to 18 frames of bees crying for room with 16 frames of brood by april 7th +/-. But thrifty is the key word here.

You'll be feeding at one time or another either way. Starting with packages would require quite a lot of feed to build up adequatly for your main flow, you kind of want to keep that ball roling right into the flow. So considering the price of packages and feed for build up, it might cost you X amount of dollars to keep them.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

Will, How do you feed when it is Cold like that? bucket or Frame feeder. Always HFCS? or sucrose


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

It's not the cluster size that consumes the vast amount of resource, it's when they start late winter/spring time brooding. Dark bees start smaller and later, yellow bees seem to jump onto those early spring time mild spells


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

We're quite mild here but with lots of moisture/rain. I feed anything in the fall that needs weight, plenty of time to do the in the last half of August through september. they're pretty good at not brooding up through the intire winter (not much if any brood by mid october) and they usually start rearing the first brood (small patch) in mid janurary but by february it can be 2 to 3 frames of brood. 

Like ian siad about brooding but in my case I start to give them patties in mid february and keep them stalk and then, just to be on the safe side from hard lessons learned, I fill up their inner covers with sugar about three times through to march, ends up being about 12 pounds of dry sugar they go through (deep rims on the innercovers I built for that purpose to feed dry sugar). feeding the dry sugar seems to help them conserve the stores they have and even then, by the time we get to the first maple blooms, their weights get scary light knowing how many bees and how much brood is in there, then all of a sudden the blooms come out and I'm running to them with supers or making nucs.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

I think requeening to different stock would be the beekeeping thing to do, but if you want to go Martha Stewart on their asses and clean house....


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