# Hello from Northern California



## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Hi all,

I am a new beekeeper...first hive this summer from just brood and bees (given to me). I've since done a lot of research and asked a lot of annoying questions and am excited to expand. I've join the local bee keepers group but cannot make the monthly meetings because of work and distance. This list looks like it has a lot of good information and friendly folks so decided to join. I've already bought more frames and boxes to put together over the winter and next spring have some wild hives lined up for swarm catching.... 

First annoying question...

Just what are the habits of the hive during winter? Do they just stop eating when it gets cold?

My situation is the hive is small but hardy...one deep and a top feeder, cover and telescoping cover. I still have lots of flowers in the gardens but it is getting high 30s, upper 40s at night. Days are 50s to 60s and now some rain is coming in. I started feeding 2:1 sugar syrup last week and have a protein/pollen bar to put on top of the brood frame when it is warm enough. Just wondering what I can expect when it gets really cold and wet...will they stop taking the syrup? If so, what if they have 'no' stores?

Thank you all and I look forward to reading more of the good information already posted on this forum.
Kimberly
Novato, CA


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Kimberly,

I'm not far from you so you shouldn't worry too much about the cold. It's the moisture build up in the hive that matters so make sure you have some ventilation out the top cover. You can put dry sugar on top of the inner cover with a 2" rim (spacer) if you're worried about them taking the syrup. There are also lot's of fondant and sugar patty receipts on line if you don't want to use sugar. Bees will do some foraging above 50 degrees. Below that the pretty much cluster and rely on stores. Keep on feeding them 2:1 as much as they will take.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Hi Charlie and thank you for your reply. I see from your website you are in SF (I work at UCSF) and have many hives on your roof. How cool is that???

More dumb questions...My top feeder is the kind with the screen in the middle...suppose to be safer for the bees. But it also seems I cannot put anything 'but' liquid in it. So would I put dry sugar (dryvert sugar) on the inner cover below it? I am not sure what a 2" rim spacer is. I am just having trouble picturing your description in my brain.... 

thank you, Kimberly


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

You would remove your top liquid feeder and put it in storage. The two inch spacer is just a "shim". Picture an empty hive box but only two inches tall. You place that on your inner cover then you pour the sugar on. The shim keeps the sugar from flowing out. Then you put your top cover on. The bees access the sugar through the inner cover hole. You can do it without the shim but you can't put as much sugar on.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

So the shim is just a piece of wood to keep the telescoping cover up and off the inner cover? Would I do this soon or when it gets cold and rainy and the top feeder is no longer being used? thanks again, K


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

I would wait until it gets colder and just continue to feed 2:1 for now. You may not have to feed regular sugar at all. I have some late swarm and cut out colonies so I'm in the same situation you're in. I've been feeding throughout the fall and they're doing fine. I'm not going to feed dry unless they really need it. Does your hive have at least a couple of frames of honey?


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

I don't know but will next weekend after it warms up. Long story short I need to move them into a deep box, the lady who gave them to me put them in two medium boxes because she forgot I did not have a deep and she brought over deep frames. Now I feel there is too much space in there and I want to move them when it is warm. It promises to be warming up after this weekend. I'll take a quick look then. They are a small hive, they fended off robbers a couple weeks ago, I really don't know if they will survive to spring but they are trying! They have definately done their job and gotten me hooked.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Looking at the average temps for Novato it would seem you could leave syrup on all winter. Sure you will get a few cold nights where they don't go near it but for the most part they will be able to access it during the day. I lived in Los Gatos for a few years and it seemed like perfect bee country with all the year round gardens and such.

Have fun with it!

Historical weather for Novato. . . 

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/94948


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

You're on the right track. Take a look and see how much honey they have when you place the frames in a deep box. You don't want all that empty space in the bottom, otherwise you'll have a mess come spring with all the unwanted comb. Regardless I would still continue to feed 2:1 as long as they take it.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Thank you both, I will let you know how it goes! Charlie, when do the swarms start around here? Also do you feed pollen to your bees? K


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Swarms start around March/April. They're so much fun to catch in a bait hive. We also rescue swarms from buildings and place them on farms. I don't feed pollen patties because they store so much pollen here across from GGP that it's not necessary.


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## stoffel64 (Sep 23, 2010)

Welcome to BeeSource.com.

I just live a little bit south of you in Pacifica and I am in my first year, too.
I started in April with two packages. I also caught several swarms.

I second Charlie, swarm season starts around March/April. As you know we have very distinctive micro climates here in the
Bay Area. I live at the coast and in Spring and summer and it is always on the cooler side. However, in winter the ocean 
is heading us and frost is very light and very short in time.
The major problem is wet conditions in winter and a hive vented correctly can help a lot. Be careful don't do to much.

I feed my bees but only a little depending about there stores. Do not over feed. If you over feed the bees, they can fill the brood 
array with sugar syrup and the queen can not lay any eggs anymore. At the coast here the bees maintain brood all year around.
This is what I saw at my mentors hives here in Pacifica.

Cheers
Stefan


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

If you're really ambitious and worried you could wrap the hive in black building paper. The sun really warms the hive up each day. Some 15 degrees F more and would allow sugar syrup feeding all winter. ????Maybe quite warm and bees consume more ssupplies but will have a strong hiove come spring


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Thanks all, Stefan I can't believe you already caught 2 swarms on your first year! Wow! How do you not feed too much except by feeding small amounts often? (guess I just answered my own question, huh?). I can only check the bees on weekends since I work in the city so last week made enough to presumably last all week. We'll see if it did....

As far as venting the hive sits on one of those screen platforms and then the top board has a small vent...typical store bought. Right now the entrance is limited as we had an attack of robbing bees a couple weeks ago and I put wood over most of the entrance including the back. I probably need to open it up some.

mgolden I don't think I would do that here for fear of it heating up too much and intuitively I want them to follow nature's intentions, that they scale back in the winter and become robust in the spring. I want my girls to work for a living! Those newly hatched youngsters need to go fend for themselves and be strong!  Not sure that makes sense but I don't need lots of brood hatching all winter just to be fed...let them hatch when they can also forage. If this hive does not survive so be it; if it does I know it is a very strong hive genetically.

But I could see doing that where you live, just so they survive! thank you again all...Kimberly


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## Stephen Stryd (Feb 13, 2011)

Welcome from Central California.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome! Pollen/protein pattiy in the Winter is not usually a good idea. Protein supplements stimulate brood rearing. The bees will expend extra resources keeping the brood at 95 and feeding them. Bees convert honey/nectar into heat energy in the winter. Your bees need more food to survive the Winter.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

AmericasBeekeeper: so are you saying I should just feed the sugar and not the protein/pollin bar? If they just had the sugar they would store that instead of raising brood? Would it perhaps be beneficial to raise brood for the next month to get their numbers up and then take it away?

Thank you for your thoughts on this. We could very well have a warm 6 more weeks in this area...I've spent many an Xmas on the beach sharing a bottle of wine with friends out here. Oh, and in St. Petersburg too! My family still lives there.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Charlie B said:


> Regardless I would still continue to feed 2:1 as long as they take it.


It is advice like this that keeps my bait hives filling up. Very few bee in the bay area need much feeding.


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Oh don't listen to Odfrank, he's just looking to brag about catching all the local beekeepers swarms!!!


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

stoffel64 said:


> Welcome to BeeSource.com.
> 
> I feed my bees but only a little depending about there stores. Do not over feed. If you over feed the bees, they can fill the brood
> array with sugar syrup and the queen can not lay any eggs anymore. At the coast here the bees maintain brood all year around.
> ...


Good point Stefan, I should have qualified my feeding comment based on existing stores.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Welcome,

It's all about location, location, location !!! Without a good idea of your location and it's conditions, I would not provide any advice. Novato can be urban residential or rural farmland with nothing but dry grass for miles. 

If necessary, take a sick day or a vacation day and make one of those meetings. You need to be talking with beekeepers that have bees in your area. There were one or two on this forum but I don't recall the names. 

One general comment would be that 'for reference' a deep frame of capped honey weighs around 8lbs. A strong hive with 40-45 degree days, will consume around 1/4 lb of honey due to poor weather. So, you are safe for a few days.


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## volker (Dec 7, 2010)

Welcome from San Rafael; I staple #30 roofing paper around small hives and nucs, if they are in a windy / unprotected location; Or any hive that gets very little sun around the December 21st, winter solstice.

Feed them, keep them dry, let them bee and RELAX


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Welcome to the site!


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Charlie B said:


> Oh don't listen to Odfrank, he's just looking to brag about catching all the local beekeepers swarms!!!


He's got to find bees to make up increase somehow. lol 

Sorry frank, couldn't let that one pass by.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Hi From Concord,
Are you're bees on 10 frames or 20 frames? Our 10 frame hives have 2 deep boxes, so 20 frames.
The top deep is mostly capped honey, & we won't feed these bees. Not sure how much honey you have in the hive for the bees.

There are some eucalyptus starting to bloom in my area right now, CA poppies are starting to bloom in small patches. If the day is warm bees will forage. Our bees forage around 45F


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Keith Jarrett said:


> He's got to find bees to make up increase somehow. lol Sorry frank, couldn't let that one pass by.


I got to catch bees to replace massive die offs. Some of the earlier ones produce a crop even. I'm too cheap to buy packages. Rather have Charlie and other neighbors overfeed their bees in a climate where it is unnecessary, stimulating them to swarm into my traps. The happiest day of the next spring will be when I find one of Charlies over fed marked queens in my bait hive on the other side of Golden Gate park. Now I need a bait hive site in Novato and Pacifica also, I hope they all look like this:


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Or like this:


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Or this:


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Thank you San Mateo Bee Club for importing hundreds of packages each year AND THEN OVERFEEDING THEM!!!

Or this:


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Hey, I recognize that last colony because their bellies are so full.  Bring'em back old fart!!!


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Ha, ha, ha...sorry, just catching up on these posts. Funny and I'm not telling you where in Novato I live as I have 3 wild hives I know about that I want to catch swarms from next spring!

Unfortunately, I have a late hive given to me and opening it up yesterday reveals it has NO Stores so no chance of Overfeeding. I am a new beekeeper so also wondering if it gets too cold for them to take the sugar (just read under 50 degrees won't eat it) and they have no stores; well are these bees doomed?

thanks! K


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

As opposed to the general consensus, my personal experience is that they take feed all year round in our area. I hived a swarm a week before Thanksgiving into a brand new box with undrawn foundation. Not knowing any better ( no classes, no book learning, just a box of bees) I put an entrance feeder on with 1:1 sugar water. Had to keep refilling the quart every day or two. We drop down to 25F during late Dec almost every night for a week or so. But the days are between 45-55F. That hive swarmed on March 1st !!!

What do you have to lose -- just some free bees -- Fuzzy


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Thanks Fuzzy. I would not be surprised. Even now the coyote bush and manzanita are in full bloom where I'm at, the poppies are reappearing and my garden is still full of flowers. But once that freeze comes..who knows? It will be an interesting experiment and you are right, I have nothing to lose but sugar and effort! thank you. K


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