# How many bars of honey should I leave for winter survival ?



## DeeAnna (Nov 5, 2010)

My first year, so take my comments with a big grain (or three) of salt. 

I am on the border of Zones 3 and 4 in northeast Iowa, close to the Minnesota border. A commercial Lang beekeeper has an outyard nearby. He winters his bees in 2-3 deeps with an insulated top cover. (He does not insulate the sides of the hives).

I have harvested some honey from my 2 TBHs already, because my hives are full to the brim and the bees are still foraging on the 2nd cutting clover in my hayfield. I am saving most of this honey to feed back if needed. 

My goal is to leave my TBHs as full as possible going into the winter. If there is honey left after the spring gets well under way and nectar is available for the bees, I'll harvest then. 

As I get more experience, I imagine I'll learn what the bees really need for winter stores. Until then, I would rather take a conservative approach.

I hope others with more experience will chime in here -- I am interested in their answers as much as you probably are!


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## Montana Bee (Feb 1, 2011)

DeAnna, My gut feeling is the same as yours. I planned on leaving everything alone and see how they do. Did you build your own TBH's? I used 2x6 rough cut ponderosa pine. The wood is almost 2 inches thick and I'm hoping it will add insulating benefit for winter survival. I also am using 2 inch thick styrophome insulation for my top with a waterproof custom cover with snaps on top of the top. I am a new beek and I am totally blown away at the bees energy and ability to make comb on empty top bars. I have had a great experience this summer and look forward to years of enjoyment.


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## sevenmmm (Mar 5, 2011)

The fellow I bought the Russians from in Cresco Iowa said they should have 50 pounds for the winter.


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## DeeAnna (Nov 5, 2010)

Cresco is about an hour west of me. 50 pounds would be the equivalent of, oh, 8 to 10 bars of full honey comb for a typical TBH.

I think Adam Foster Collins says he figures 5 to 6.5 lbs per honey comb, if I remember right. I got about 5 pounds of honey from one bar I harvested in late July, but the comb was not fully filled out and not capped. I could see getting better part of 6 pounds from that bar, if the comb had been fully filled and ripened. 

I didn't make my TBHs -- they were built by Matt (aka Cacklewack on Beesource). He uses full 1" recycled cedar lumber. I can sure see using lumber as thick as is practical.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

DeeAnna said:


> ...
> I think Adam Foster Collins says he figures 5 to 6.5 lbs per honey comb...


That's right from my house. But that's dependent on the individual hive dimensions and bar lengths. We top bar beeks have to be careful in our discussions and remember that we have no standardization of equipment. I caught myself in another thread talking about interior volumes, and realized we'd been debating length and forgetting that we might all have different heights and widths. 

Maybe if Matt can get his sales up to Dadant levels, we won't have to worry about that anymore...

Adam


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## Beethinking (Jun 2, 2008)

We're working on it, Adam!


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## DeeAnna (Nov 5, 2010)

I get your point, Adam. I did refer in my post to "a typical TBH", since a lot of folks use designs similar to or adapted from Phil Chandler's. But "typical" probably does need to be defined more clearly when talking TBHs. 

I wonder if we should get in the habit of referring to the total potential comb area in our TBH? Or the number of bars and comb area per bar? Or the equivalent in 10-frame Lang deeps? Just some ideas.

Anyway, regardless of the size of one's TBH, leaving as much honey as possible in the hive for the winter is probably a good idea, unless experience shows otherwise. 

On a related note, I think there was another recent thread where we discussed checking where the honey is located in the fall. If the honey is at both ends of the hive, the recommendation was to move the stores to one end of the hive, so the bees have only one direction to go to find food. 

I do notice that my bees tend to have one bar of honey/pollen at the entrance end, followed by brood bars, with honey bars at the end furthest from the entrance. If this is still the case in fall, would it be wise to leave that one honey/pollen bar in place? Or move it into the stores area?

Go for it, Matt!


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## Wm.Mike (May 20, 2011)

DeeAnna where are entrances on the end or side. I have side entrance and my bees started at one end and have built toward the entrance. I check yesterday and they are still putting in brood. No honey near entrance at all. Will have to see if there is any one the back end. Queen is still going strong 14 bars of brood comb. Package was installed May 21.

Mike


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## DeeAnna (Nov 5, 2010)

Each of my 2 hives has 6 entrance holes along one long side -- a pair at each end and a pair in the middle. I left one pair of holes open at one end. The others are plugged with wine corks. I installed my bees as a nuc and started them at the entrance end of their hive, so they have built back away from the entrance -- a little different than your bees. 

Say, if you haven't seen it already, Wm. Mike, you might want to check out this topic: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?207318 It relates to moving the broodnest back in the hive so the bees build toward the entrance. Might give you some ideas!


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## blist (Jun 15, 2010)

I started a couple golden mean hives this year...one did terrible (re-queening it now even though it's late), the other did unreal and has been full for over a month now. The hives are located in different locations.

I actually harvested 2 bars of honey from the full hive today. That really wasn't the plan but things apparently got a little wonky "building wise" since I'm very "hands-off" with the hive. At any rate, I saved most of the honey so I can feed it back to them if they need it. The thing is, I live in South Texas and it probably won't even get cold here until late November...I'm thinking they won't have an issue getting those two bars rebuilt and filled...and hopefully a bit straighter this time.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I suppose "bars of honey per bar of bees" might be useful gauge, but just bars would depend on the cluster size and the width and depth of your hive. But in my climate I would say a bar of honey per bar of bees is marginal. Two bars of honey per bar of bees is generous. Less than a bar of honey per bar of bees is starvation.


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## blist (Jun 15, 2010)

interesting...I'm not sure of my ratio actually, I haven't pulled every bar out to check it in a while...I do think I have a bit of an overcrowding issue...need less bees and more honey...I'm thinking they will slow down bee production and balance out themselves though since all the bars are full (well other than the two I just cut comb off of)


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