# Splitting new Nucs for overwintering - No Feeding.



## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

First problem is not feeding. Second problem is not feeding during a dearth. Third is getting comb built without feeding. That's just three problems right off the bat which in the long run will result in a fourth problem.


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## Matt903 (Apr 8, 2013)

I don't know about your flows, but would be a fail down here.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Man what is with us Tennessee boys answering this.... haha. 

Bomo, you have an extremely short season. Your bees need comb. Even when you have a light flow going small hives cannot take advantage of it. Especially if they have a limited number of combs. Then you have a heck of a winter. You need a large cluster and decent stores to survive and thrive to produce bees and or honey. I am not knowledgeable about what you can or can't do in your area. Palmer is the northern guru and is in the same state.

You get what you pay for. Good luck


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

BomoseenVT said:


> Now....what's wrong with this plan except that I have nowhere near enough experience to try this and there will probably be large potential error rates due to user error.


Don't wait getting started on your plan immediately. Your plan needs to, and will, change. First, call Kirk Webster. Bring a picnic lunch and go meet and talk to him if you can. I live in north Louisiana, and I did that. He's practically your neighbor. Tell him your plan and ask for his suggestions. Take them.

Second, don't push the bees by moving their frames around. You are making more work for them. If you must move a frame of brood up to the upper box at some point in order to get the queen up there, okay. But they know more about how to arrange the hive resources than you do. Let the bees be bees. 

Third, your plan over exploits the bees and does not let them get firmly established before aggressively splitting them. By not feeding you are choosing not to be able to aggressively exploit the bees. You simply aren't going to be able to get the bees to do what you are planning on them doing. You will, however, build a more healthy and solid base from which you will ultimately be able to expand more successfully than if you feed and split the hive aggressively. 

Fourth, know that you may be actively discouraged by some for what you are doing. Feeders gonna feed. I don't remember the last time that I fed syrup. I would certainly put a frame of nectar or honey in an emergency with a new hive to keep them from starving. But I can't actually remember the last time I did that either. And I work with a lot of cutouts and swarms. But not feeding is an important part of a fairly large algorithm for me for keeping 40+ hives very successfully without ever having treated for varroa mites.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

@Tennessee, So the winter shouldn't make any difference as these will be proven winter survivors in boxes with other nucs for shared warmth. 

@Riverderwent, thanks for the advice and recommendations. I have thought about the comb production and I don't want to use as any outside wax. That said I have some natural comb but not enough for all of them. So like I said it will probably yield pretty dismal results the first year. But second year if I give them combs maybe that will give a good extra boost.

@others, I appreciate your responses but the purpose of doing thisis not to feed and to see if there is a path back to self sustaining bees.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

ok the path to self sustaining bees is not to kill until you figure it out. if you don't split them they might build up enough reserves to make it through the winter. if you split them and don't feed them I gaurentee they will all starve. so your actions will kill 30 thousand animals for your experiment. 
So take a step back and decide if numbers of hives or not feeding is your goal this year. cause you can't have both.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I think you should do whatever you want to do... they're your bees. So long as you own up to the consequences... have at it. There are certainly some years where you never "have" to feed. But are you supposed to let your bees starve to death because the fall flow fails? I think there's the impression that some people are pouring syrup to their bees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 7 or 8 months a year... this just isn't the case. Getting a colony established isn't the right time to put all of the chips down on Mother Nature being kind to your bees... Even a gallon of syrup can make a huge difference to the growing colony and all the bees that ate the evil syrup will be dead in a month or so more or less... so pretty much all the sin will have been purged from the hive by then.



BomoseenVT said:


> I think that feeding is not good for the long term success of bees!


Can you cite reasons for this?


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

I understand your concern and number of hives is not my goal. I obviously won't split of course , if they aren't built up to do so. Just curious have you ever split a strong hive in July in NH and not fed? Curious if others have tried and failed. I'd be open to swapping a honey frame in from a super of another strong hive but in a good year I think it's possible to not feed.


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## Duncan151 (Aug 3, 2013)

I am in Wisconsin, just north of the 45th parallel. The nucs that I make up in June do not need to be fed, the ones that I make up in July and August, do need to be fed. All other things being equal.


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## Hillbillybees (Mar 3, 2016)

Your getting your bees from somewhere. Ask to also purchase some drawn comb from those hives. Money shouldn't be an issue because you are willing to throw money at your experiment again next year if you kill them all. I am totally treatment free and feed free. Until they need it. NOBODY wants to feed their bees. Nobody wants to treat their bees. Some feed as a plan because the honey to them is worth the hassle of feeding and is cost effective. Feeding is what we do when we need to. Starving bees is just wrong. Plenty of swarms are going to starve out all over the US this year without you adding to the death toll.
So feed the ones that must be fed to survive. Be precise in how much you had to feed them and keep accurate records. Some will need more than others and possibly one will be your shining star. Sell the ones that needed feed to someone else next year and raise your next bees off of your successful hive. Or better yet if you have to feed them just let me know and I'll send you the feed and I'll be by to pick up my live bees in the spring and you can pretend they didn't make it and go buy new ones. This no treat, no feed, no nothing crap is getting out of hand. Probably feed the heck out of their dog or cat.Why?


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Would love to hear more. How late into June do you split? Do you replace Queens. How established are the hives and have you taken honey that year before splitting? Also how do you split? 2 frame queen hotel then 4 frame 2 over 2's for winter? And what are your survival rates and how many do you do?


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

You might also want to develop a plan to address the issue of varroa in the big picture.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

BomoseenVT said:


> I understand your concern and number of hives is not my goal. I obviously won't split of course , if they aren't built up to do so. Just curious have you ever split a strong hive in July in NH and not fed? Curious if others have tried and failed. I'd be open to swapping a honey frame in from a super of another strong hive but in a good year I think it's possible to not feed.


If only every year was cookie cutter and perfect... One year it might work out for you in spades. The next year you might lose everything. Beekeeping is adapting to what the bees are telling you. If you want to listen it works well. If you're deaf to it just be prepared to reap the consequences.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

BomoseenVT said:


> I understand your concern and number of hives is not my goal. I obviously won't split of course , if they aren't built up to do so. Just curious have you ever split a strong hive in July in NH and not fed? Curious if others have tried and failed. I'd be open to swapping a honey frame in from a super of another strong hive but in a good year I think it's possible to not feed.


No. If split that late AND they don't have drawn comb then they have to be fed. As said if you buy them as five frame nucs, add a second box and don't split they might store enough to make it. Imo far better for you to split and feed this year and play with the splits next year if they make it.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

You've got preconceived notions from the poll questions alone. Don't know what you've got against feeding but if you hold steadfast to this notion you'll eventually loose you bees to starvation. More importantly, what are you planning to do for varroa? If you've got the same preconceived notions against treating there you'll have an even tougher row to hoe. As a newbee it's best to learn from the mistakes of others.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

kaizen said:


> No. If split that late AND they don't have drawn comb then they have to be fed. As said if you buy them as five frame nucs, add a second box and don't split they might store enough to make it. Imo far better for you to split and feed this year and play with the splits next year if they make it.


Right, well I'd rather not feed and maybe just try splitting one strong one and then try the same course of action next year in June. Doing it with new Nuc's might be the initial flaw in the plan. (not saying the plan is flawless beyond that but that could kill the purpose)


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Riskybizz said:


> You might also want to develop a plan to address the issue of varroa in the big picture.


Well that's part of the purpose of splitting. When you split it pauses laying so pauses mite reproduction and cuts off exponential growth of mite population and gives the bees a chance to fight them off naturally. The resulting nucs have become profitable but it's my understanding that the original reason to split was to fight mites/other diseases. I could be wrong in the origin but according to what I've read splitting is purpose driven.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Hillbillybees said:


> Your getting your bees from somewhere. Ask to also purchase some drawn comb from those hives. Money shouldn't be an issue because you are willing to throw money at your experiment again next year if you kill them all. I am totally treatment free and feed free. Until they need it. NOBODY wants to feed their bees. Nobody wants to treat their bees. Some feed as a plan because the honey to them is worth the hassle of feeding and is cost effective. Feeding is what we do when we need to. Starving bees is just wrong. Plenty of swarms are going to starve out all over the US this year without you adding to the death toll.
> So feed the ones that must be fed to survive. Be precise in how much you had to feed them and keep accurate records. Some will need more than others and possibly one will be your shining star. Sell the ones that needed feed to someone else next year and raise your next bees off of your successful hive. Or better yet if you have to feed them just let me know and I'll send you the feed and I'll be by to pick up my live bees in the spring and you can pretend they didn't make it and go buy new ones. This no treat, no feed, no nothing crap is getting out of hand. Probably feed the heck out of their dog or cat.Why?


Cat/dog are different, I don't send them out each morning to fend for themselves and get their own food for half of the year and then feed them the other half. I also in full effort of disclosure, feed my dog more meat based food and less grain/filler so there is a common theme, though your metaphor is flawed.

That said I feel your pain, I'm not looking to purposely kill bees for the sake of killing bees. See below someone from Wisconsin is doing this successfully and has suggested augmentation to the timing of my plan. So grateful for his feedback. Also the fact that swarms go out and starve should be your warning sign that there might be a long term problem with feeding sugar syrup/candy/fake pollen. That said, I'm not looking to condemn others or tell other people what to do. I'm not militant, and I don't necessarily plan to restrict feeding relentlessly until I kill every last bee if it's not working. I do however want to try, experiment, learn, ...wash, rinse, repeat. That's the only way progress is made or dead ends are found.


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## Hillbillybees (Mar 3, 2016)

Did you truly get an overwintered Nuc? Queen as well. Most advertise overwintered but they have a new queen. Is that the same thing? Were your overwintered bees fed the winter before you bought them? I wish you well. With all the challenges of getting started I dont know why you would want to add one more. What about Varroa? Whats your plan for that?


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Duncan151 said:


> I am in Wisconsin, just north of the 45th parallel. The nucs that I make up in June do not need to be fed, the ones that I make up in July and August, do need to be fed. All other things being equal.


Would love to hear more. How late into June do you split? Do you replace Queens. How established are the hives and have you taken honey that year before splitting? Also how do you split? 2 frame queen hotel then 4 frame 2 over 2's for winter? And what are your survival rates and how many do you do?


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Hillbillybees said:


> Did you truly get an overwintered Nuc? Queen as well. Most advertise overwintered but they have a new queen. Is that the same thing? Were your overwintered bees fed the winter before you bought them? I wish you well. With all the challenges of getting started I dont know why you would want to add one more. What about Varroa? Whats your plan for that?


see above for varroa.

Yes, they are overwintered queens with nuc from a local farm maybe 10 miles away that has a reputation for varroa resistance and overwinter survival. So hopefully starting with a good base.

Agreed on the stupidity of over-complicated in early years of beekeeping, but though curiosity killed the cat, it also can find new and interesting methods.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

i have made splits and got them built up for winter without syrup Not for a VT winter though but could I suppose ......... How did I do this?........ I fed them honey frames from my stronger hives......but you don't have stronger hives. You say you think feeding does not provide good long term effects on a colony, many won't argue with that.....but not feeding has detrimental short term effects on small ill prepared colonies, so in your case worrying about long term effects is putting the cart before the horse because if you do what you plan to do and not feed they won't live long enough for long term effects.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

BomoseenVT said:


> Yes, they are overwintered queens with nuc from a local farm maybe 10 miles away that has a reputation for varroa resistance and overwinter survival. .



This is the guy you need to be asking since you are getting bees from him, he will know them better than anyone. Ask him if he could do what you are doing, but I bet you won't like the answer because if he could he probably would be doing it already.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Harley Craig said:


> i have made splits and got them built up for winter without syrup Not for a VT winter though but could I suppose ......... How did I do this?........ I fed them honey frames from my stronger hives......but you don't have stronger hives. You say you think feeding does not provide good long term effects on a colony, many won't argue with that.....but not feeding has detrimental short term effects on small ill prepared colonies, so in your case worrying about long term effects is putting the cart before the horse because if you do what you plan to do and not feed they won't live long enough for long term effects.


I do have stronger hives. I will have some honey frames to feed if necessary.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

"Here is my plan and would love advice and holes poked in the strategy."

Well if that is true the best part of your plan is to modify your plan to suit the advice.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

BomoseenVT said:


> I do have stronger hives. I will have some honey frames to feed if necessary.


If you have stronger hives to rob comb and resources from...............this is a whole new ball game. You could make a split get a mated queen and then drop capped brood and capped honey on them from stronger colonies ( don't take too much from any one colony) and put a split together strong enough to overwinter pretty late in the yr. How late will depend on how many strong colonies you have and how much extra resources you can take. I have more than once put supers back on after the flow and allow then to slowing get filled and wait for the fall flow, then once the fall flow hits. Remove them and instead of extracting place them on late splits.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

Harley Craig said:


> If you have stronger hives to rob comb and resources from...............this is a whole new ball game. You could make a split get a mated queen and then drop capped brood and capped honey on them from stronger colonies ( don't take too much from any one colony) and put a split together strong enough to overwinter pretty late in the yr. How late will depend on how many strong colonies you have and how much extra resources you can take. I have more than once put supers back on after the flow and allow then to slowing get filled and wait for the fall flow, then once the fall flow hits. Remove them and instead of extracting place them on late splits.



Interesting, thanks for the advice. I will keep that in mind. My plan was to not take any honey but was thinking of leaving the supers on and take and stuff in nucs if needed. I didn't think about taking the honey and not extracting so the strong hive can't use it. That's a good idea.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

So you're still planning on feeding them, just not feeding them syrup. That's a horse of a different color.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

jwcarlson said:


> So you're still planning on feeding them, just not feeding them syrup. That's a horse of a different color.


We will see. I like the idea of a backup plan to drop frames of sealed undisturbed honey in. In my mind that's better than sugar, syrup, candy etc. That said the goal is to get a strain/community of bees that theoretically could swarm off in the summer and live on their own OR be split and live in my hives and yield honey.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

BomoseenVT said:


> We will see. I like the idea of a backup plan to drop frames of sealed undisturbed honey in. In my mind that's better than sugar, syrup, candy etc.


Cracks me up. "Fail" has been voted on 11 out of 11 times, yet is still sticking with the plan. Ignoring varroa with queens with a "reputation for varroa resistance" as the solution. I.e., I'm not treating. Ask for input then ignore it. Good Luck, come spring any posts on not understanding why your bees died or blaming anyone but the beekeeper for their failures will be futile. The teacher of this class cares not.


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## BomoseenVT (May 24, 2016)

D Coates said:


> Cracks me up. "Fail" has been voted on 11 out of 11 times, yet is still sticking with the plan. Ignoring varroa with queens with a "reputation for varroa resistance" as the solution. I.e., I'm not treating. Ask for input then ignore it. Good Luck, come spring any posts on not understanding why your bees died or blaming anyone but the beekeeper for their failures will be futile. The teacher of this class cares not.


I said I'll accept failure. And am taking some of the advice. Of course convention will vote on conventional knowledge. Also, I don't currently have a varroa problem right now....why would I treat?


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

BomoseenVT said:


> Of course convention will vote on conventional knowledge.



Ha ha I voted it was a bad idea and I'm far from conventional, I'll tinker with smaller hives to get them going, but once established for the most part they are "Ronco" bees......set and forget.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

BomoseenVT said:


> I said I'll accept failure. And am taking some of the advice. Of course convention will vote on conventional knowledge. Also, I don't currently have a varroa problem right now....why would I treat?


Seriously? 13 posts and you're assuming I'm conventional? I am far from conventional. Most beekeepers are. I vote out of experience and the teacher who's smacked me around more than once. 



BomoseenVT said:


> ...reputation for varroa resistance and overwinter survival. So hopefully starting with a good base?


 Hopefully? Are you doing mite drops? Do you really have a clue if you've got a varroa problem? Are you waiting for signs to show up? Like termites, by the time signs show up you're already done. Who told you they've got a "reputation for varroa resistance" the person who sold them to you? Those claims have been made for years, by those selling them. ...If it was true varroa would be a thing of the past. Thinking/hoping there's no problem is whistling past the graveyard. If you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. 

So often newbees put their biases/agendas into their beekeeping style at the start. They poo-pooing the proven conventional, sometimes with a bit of distain before they've even successfully kept them for a season or two. Almost always there's some "new interesting methods" belief. What you're proposing is not new. It's been tried and 11 out of 11 of us are letting you know it will fail in the long term. You asked for advice, you've been given it from others with experience. Do as you wish but you've been given feedback as requested and your path will have no impact on me.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

My first year of beekeeping I did not have a problem with mites. Until they all died that winter. My second year of beekeeping I did not have a problem with mites either. Until they also all died that winter. My third year I realized I had a problem with mites. As far as the experiment this thread is about, nobody wants to feed sugar water if they can avoid it. I do not see what the dilemma about sugar is. Nectar from flowers contains sucrose. Bees can easily convert and digest it. Feed if you need to. Starvation in the winter is really ugly, and mostly avoidable. If you are going to take guardianship of a hive of bees, please be responsible about it.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

There really is a lot of promotion for this approach. Commonly it is skillfully loaded with open and covert appeal, including touching analogies that are not even close to reality based. Perhaps some of the ideas put forth "for the love of bees", is actually life threatening in the big picture.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

BomoseenVT said:


> Now....what's wrong with this plan except that I have nowhere near enough experience to try this and there will probably be large potential error rates due to user error.
> 
> Thanks!


The primary thing wrong with it is a closed mind.

IE, on no evidence other than what you "think", you have decided a path to take and will not deviate from it regardless of what the bees are going to tell you at the time.

Bees spend the harvesting season storing away food to get them through the coming winter when there will be none to be collected. Even "proven winter survivors" will die if you split and rearrange their hives before winter, not leaving each one enough food for the lean time ahead and do not replace it.

Other than that though some of the ideas you have expressed are good at least in theory, and show you have thought a lot about it plus researched. I think what you need is more hard experience with actual bees, new beekeepers often try to push their bees beyond what they can do. Me, I'm a bee breeder and the fastest way to get where I want to go, is to go as fast as what suits the bees, and no faster. But I think you will eventually make a great beekeeper but will first spend several years learning some harsh lessons.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

BomoseenVT said:


> Hi, Castleton, VT zone 4b
> 
> Newish to beekeeping


How newish?

I use to feel the same way about feeding. I made 12 splits last summer, on all drawn comb, in mid June. That was about the time our flow was over. I fed the bees for about a month and figured they were fine until the fall flow. All were queenright, and I didn't check them again from mid July until early September. I lost 10 out of 12. Dead, and wax moths ate the drawn comb. I wasted bees, comb, and time doing something that I now consider to be utterly foolish. Piss poor beekeeper that got too busy with other stuff. 

I have decided in an area like ours with an extended summer dearth and a marginal fall flow that if I intend to "make" bees in the summer, I'm going to have to feed bees. 

I finally came to the realization that bees are no different than my other livestock. I dang sure wouldn't let my cows starve to death during a drought and I'm not going to let my bees starve during a dearth. A split that dies during a dearth is a beekeeper problem. The fall flow isn't a given so I will likely have to feed all my hives during the fall at some point in time.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Your idea of making 4 over 4 splits is viable if you do it in mid June. Don't be married to the idea of getting all the brood from one colony. Put 2 frames of sealed brood and 1 frame of open brood and one frame of honey in each split. Only split the strongest colonies, weak colonies won't have the resources needed.

Here is the important part. Move the splits at least 2 miles from where they started. This will keep the bees in the split you put them in which will give relatively equal colonies. Leave the queen in her half at the old location.

If you want this to be highly successful, you will need some queen cells to make up the splits. Start one good colony rearing queens with a Cloake board and get the bees on the cycle at least 10 days before making splits. Note, this presumes your main flow will be in progress in mid June!

Don't put a ripe queen cell in a freshly made up split. Wait overnight and give the queen cell the next day.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

BomoseenVT said:


> @Tennessee, So the winter shouldn't make any difference as these will be proven winter survivors in boxes with other nucs for shared warmth.
> 
> @Riverderwent, thanks for the advice and recommendations. I have thought about the comb production and I don't want to use as any outside wax. That said I have some natural comb but not enough for all of them. So like I said it will probably yield pretty dismal results the first year. But second year if I give them combs maybe that will give a good extra boost.
> 
> @others, I appreciate your responses but the purpose of doing thisis not to feed and to see if there is a path back to self sustaining bees.


You better have more than just a couple hives if you want sustainability. Not all hives are created equal even from the same genetics and bees die. Nature is not always your friend. Good luck


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

All bees are proven winter survivors. They are still here that's how it's proven.


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

I am a new bee keeper, third year, I am north of the 49 parallel. I did splits my first year off 2.2 lb packages that came in April, split in June they were 10 frame double deep for winter, I feed them in September, probably didn't need to, But I still feed in the fall, every spring my hives have left over capped stores, I save it for the fall. One year we will get a hard winter and they will need it.
My belief is its all very local. We get long days and intense but short flows, others seem to get long and moderate flows and less day length. 
I am doing three frame splits today with swarm cells, one frame of swarm cells and capped brood, one frame of honey and pollen and one frame of comb for them to grow onto. No idea what they will do for sure but locals tell me they over winter them fine.
Oh and winter here is a little longer and a bit colder than some areas in the south.
No one I have met locally has more than two years treatment free success, but some are trying . 
Best of luck on your plan


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

My experience is that there were extremely well put together websites and information sources available that advocated treatment free beekeeping. I bought local nucs and tried treatment free. With only 2-4 hives I could fund dead outs and loss no problem. I simply couldn't keep the bees alive for more than one winter. Second winter dead. Absconding during summer due to high mite loads. Also didn't feed and left plenty of stores. I have since began to pay attention to people with many years experience and hive numbers around where I want to be. Its seems the treatment free people are in minority and a reliable source for bees you can just keep off treatments isn't available. My oa vaporizer helped my mite problem and feeding when necessary has kept my bees alive. I can assure you I feel much better opening my hives that are healthy instead of watching k wing, crawlers, beetles, efb, starved bees. I don't feed more than necessary. I'm grateful for my first years of failure bc it helped me get to know all the bad things to look for, so they weren't total failures. Maybe your luck without treatments will be better. Also I have a strong faith in God and I prayed over my bees. They still died from my lack of knowledge and experience


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Charlestonbee said:


> Also didn't feed and left plenty of stores.


How long did you continue to not feed? I read sincere posts like yours, CB, and I wonder, "Why is my experience so different?" One obvious difference is location. Maybe here we have the wrong (or I should say, "Right") types of viruses. Or maybe the extensive hardwood river bottoms have preserved and spun off special wild, resistant, bees. That has become the central basis of my stock. Maybe the location, being on the margin off AFB country has just the right blend of resistance and docility to work. Maybe, it's our oppressive humidity and long summer dearth. Maybe our brief, intense early flows with hard breaks between. Or our long, slow fall flow. Perhaps it's all the rain in spring and fall that cause their own sort of mini dearths and flying breaks. Or maybe my neighboring beekeepers choose very good queens and other stock bees.

Or maybe it's something I do differently. Almost every box I have is made by me from old cedar wood. Do varroa not do quite so well in cedar so that, in the right circumstances, the bees out breed them? Maybe it's because I don't paint the boxes. But how would that make a difference? Maybe it's because I use all eight frame boxes. That causes very tall, skinny production hives. I use only mediums, but how would that matter? Maybe it's the hotchpotch of 4.9, 5.4, and foundationless frames in the brood chamber and 5.4 in the supers.

I don't feed bees anymore. Not that I wouldn't; I just don't. Not even new hives. Haven't had to. Maybe that causes brood breaks, particularly during our long, hot summer dearth. The bees get the bottom three or four boxes, period. They keep them in the spring. I don't take them in the summer; they keep them in the winter. They're only eight frame mediums, but they are theirs. 

Maybe it's all the swarms that I get from swarm calls. Or the swarms from cedar traps along our river bottoms. Maybe it's all the old gnarly cutouts I get from barns, and sheds, and houses, and trees.

Maybe it's that I have never bought a package. I've only ever bought or been given four nucs. Two of those were survivor stock like I use. Maybe I've had just the right blend of a few commercial hygienic queens with my otherwise feral swarm stock.

Maybe by selling and raising bees and expanding, I've had dead outs that I don't notice or more than I realize in total. I don't think so. My friend and business partner keeps good records, has a good memory, and notices things. We've lost some brand new cutouts to absconding or drifting, probably from injuring the queen in the bee vac or me being clumsy with thick gloves and a queen clip. We've also lost some little splits in climbing the queen rearing learning curve. But I remember the loss of a production hive. Or the loss of a hive coming out of winter. 

Maybe I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But maybe, as the old joke goes, the horse will sing. And maybe the bees or the scientists will figure this out before the shoe drops. Or maybe it already has dropped and I just didn't notice. But I guess if that happened, then it wasn't so bad. I realize that this post will genuinely irritate some folks, and it certainly won't make me popular, but it may help a couple of folks, so there you have it. Cheers, anyway,


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Honeyflow and/or feed = lots of Brood, pulled foundation, strong hives for winter, winter stores for the bees to make it, mites/SHB populations being down due to strong hives, shall I continue?????
No feed/honeyflow = dead outs/dink hives
This is fact


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

Don't wanna hijack thread riverdwent. I wonder the same things. I've never had a swarm or feral colony. My bees have always been in suburban area. Now that I'm increasing I'll be moving bees to two locations that are extremely rural with a bunch of Tupelo and wild bees. I'll bee catching some swarms and looking for survivors that I can keep treatment free. Not giving up yet just gonna keep some treated hives makin honey til I strike treatment free gold lol


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Charlestonbee said:


> Don't wanna hijack thread riverdwent. I wonder the same things. I've never had a swarm or feral colony. My bees have always been in suburban area. Now that I'm increasing I'll be moving bees to two locations that are extremely rural with a bunch of Tupelo and wild bees. I'll bee catching some swarms and looking for survivors that I can keep treatment free. Not giving up yet just gonna keep some treated hives makin honey til I strike treatment free gold lol


CB, it sounds like you have a solid system now that works for you in your current conditions, and a good plan for the future. I wish you the best regardless of your approach.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Learn standard beekeeping first, then treatment-free / feed-free after you know what you are doing. It might go a bit easier that way.

I would not try to learn mountain climbing on K-2, I'd start with a top rope on a practice climbing wall. 

True that the stakes are a bit higher for the man in the parallel example, but in beekeeping its the bees who might fall down and go boom.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Hmm, not sure how a person would learn feed free.

If he is in a location with unpredictable flows, or he makes splits without enough resources, no amount of unlearning how to feed will save those bees.

I guess it could be said that learning feed free beekeeping would entail using a management style that means bees never had to be fed. Probably could be done in the majority of locations but would sometimes entail severe restrictions on what a person could do. For example I make nucs all through the season. The last round before fall go into winter but get fed heavily to ensure they will come through in good shape in spring. If I wanted to be feed free I could, just would mean I couldn't make that last round of nucs, or do a lot of other things I do, or make much money, for that matter. But I could be feed free.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Exactly. 

I don't try rope-free rapelling, either. I could, but I don't. It's not that -16T squared acceleration, its the sudden stop at the bottom that hurts. Feels about like dead-out bees after trying something stupid. Darn, I hate when that hapens!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes, could add to that there are feed free beekeepers who when they lose hives just shrug and say they are getting rid of the weak. Some of these guys are even happy about it. 

But more likely, the bees being lost to starvation is more about how much feed the bees had, because of what the beekeeper had previously done to them.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> But more likely, the bees being lost to starvation is more about how much feed the bees had, because of what the beekeeper had previously done to them.


Simple truth.


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## leadchunker (May 23, 2014)

BUMP

Your regional resources will dictate the need to feed or not feed. Bottom line is the queen will reduce egg laying and bees don’t make wax without resources. It’s impossible. If there isn’t any food the bees will cannibalizes the eggs and eventually the colony will starve. It’s a fact in the real world of bee keeping. Bees can’t survive without resources of some kind.
I have been accused of having welfare bees because I feed them sugar syrup. These same folks keep coming back and buying live bees from me because their bees died.
They tell me the wax moths killed their bees. The varroa mites killed their bees. The small hive beetles killed their bees. Everything killed their bees except them. Actively doing nothing is actively killing the bees.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

BomoseenVT said:


> Hi, Castleton, VT zone 4b
> Newish to beekeeping and I, though under-informed, think that feeding is not good for the long term success of bees and want to try to take over-wintering nucs to the next level and see if I can get them to survive without any feeding. I'll admit I'm way in over my head, and way to new to beekeeping to be trying fancy stuff like this but, I'm ok with the consequences if I have to try several times different ways with total losses until it works.
> Thanks!


You feed yourself. You feed your wife. You feed your kids. You feed your pets and livestock. You feed your truck.
But you don't want to feed your nucs?


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## Tigger19687 (Dec 27, 2014)

OP has not been here since 2016


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

odfrank said:


> You feed yourself. You feed your wife. You feed your kids. You feed your pets and livestock. You feed your truck.
> But you don't want to feed your nucs?


This was a good one to bump up. There are some things that no amount of positive thinking and perseverance by themselves will overcome.

_Learn from other peoples mistakes, we don't live long enough to make them all ourselves!_


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## leadchunker (May 23, 2014)

Tigger19687 said:


> OP has not been here since 2016


Oops I didn’t look at the time stamp, sorry.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

crofter said:


> This was a good one to bump up. There are some things that no amount of positive thinking and perseverance by themselves will overcome.
> 
> _Learn from other peoples mistakes, we don't live long enough to make them all ourselves!_


I've been a bit put off by a lot of the old old thread suddenly re-surfacing as of late, but in this case, there is a lesson for folks just reading this thread now for the first time. The lesson is, the one promoting this 'alternative' way of thinking has been gone from the site for some number of years, most likely because the bees all died so they found other interests.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

BomoseenVT said:


> Hi, Newish to beekeeping and I, though under-informed, think that feeding is not good for the long term success of bees and want to try to take over-wintering nucs to the next level and see if I can get them to survive without any feeding.





Tigger19687 said:


> OP has not been here since 2016


Yup, kinda tells you something right there.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

grozzie2 said:


> I've been a bit put off by a lot of the old old thread suddenly re-surfacing as of late


 I blame it on the recommended reading. Thanks but no thanks.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I put a "bump" on leadchunkers first post to this thread so subsequent readers will know. Deliberately starving your bees is both cruel and stupid. I personally feel terrible when I find a dead out with no stores and dead brood in the Spring.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I think it is one of the reasons the crop of treatment free beekeepers from a few years ago have mostly died out. Along with not treating the bees there was a doctrine of not feeding them.

Didn't seem to occur that taking the bees honey and not leaving them enough for winter or feeding them, was not natural selection, it was the beekeeper killing the bees. Then they would justify, saying Oh I didn't want those weak bees anyway. Like, it's the bees fault.

Anyhow, the natural selection was among the beekeepers. Selected out, on the basis of stupidity.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> I think it is one of the reasons the crop of treatment free beekeepers from a few years ago have mostly died out. Along with not treating the bees there was a doctrine of not feeding them.
> 
> Didn't seem to occur that taking the bees honey and not leaving them enough for winter or feeding them, was not natural selection, it was the beekeeper killing the bees. Then they would justify, saying Oh I didn't want those weak bees anyway. Like, it's the bees fault.
> 
> Anyhow, the natural selection was among the beekeepers. Selected out, on the basis of stupidity.


Myopic Ideology! Pointing out weak spots in their theory very often seems only to strengthen their resolve. Their posts are looking for confirmation, not advice. Somebody that is searching the forums with an open mind can take away a lot from watching such threads play out. 

_The usefulness of serving as a bad example!_


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Delete Dupicate.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

grozzie2 said:


> I've been a bit put off by a lot of the old old thread suddenly re-surfacing as of late


Not a huge fan either but it creates traffic/content, something this site needs to matin its viability... I would prefer it was done by maintaining the involvement of skilled/experienced beekeeper and informed converstion... but that doesn't seem to be the case (Stopping sending out alerts with a thread is replied to or when you get a PM dosen't help retention either)
the brain drain in the last few years has been harsh..... Lauri, Ian, Little John, Iharder, Joe Latshaw, and sqkcrk just to name a few
even Square peg AND JW Chestnut have gotten quite as of late ..

On the subject at hand I don't see how someone can make a beekeeper induced reproduction at a time of year when natural reproduction isn't happening and expect it to do well because of "nature" given when made by nature at the natural time of year survival is 25%



Oldtimer said:


> Anyhow, the natural selection was among the beekeepers. Selected out, on the basis of stupidity.


If you go run the BIP numbers we see TF survival got worse, not better as things went along, and the pool of TF beekeepers was culled by natural selection

2010 (the 1st year they tracked TF) 70% of backyard beekeepers were TF and taking 28.5% higher losses then treating keepers 
in 2019 its 17% TF and taking they are taking 38.7% higher losses then treating keepers 

Darwin at work


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

msl said:


> Not a huge fan either but it creates traffic/content, something this site needs to matin its viability... I would prefer it was done by maintaining the involvement of skilled/experienced beekeeper and informed converstion... but that doesn't seem to be the case (Stopping sending out alerts with a thread is replied to or when you get a PM dosen't help retention either)
> the brain drain in the last few years has been harsh..... Lauri, Ian, Little John, Iharder, Joe Latshaw, and sqkcrk just to name a few
> even Square peg AND JW Chestnut have gotten quite as of late ..
> 
> On the subject at hand I don't see how someone can make a beekeeper induced reproduction at a time of year when natural reproduction isn't happening and expect it to do well because of "nature" given when made by nature at the natural time of year survival is 25%


IMO the suggested reading should have a different color for the old threads. print the same color as the Queen year paint or something.

BTW the "old" threads are similar to some of the new ones.

too bad we do not have threads from the late 1800s and early 1900s "My log gum was dead out this spring" Lost my last tooth today as well.

GG


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I am thinking that this thread is a perfect read for a new beekeeper that comes in thinking they have all the answers and that the conventional way of keeping bees is somehow not in line with nature. It is noteworthy that the OP was last seen just a few months after his original post. My guess is that that is close in time to when his bees died. After all, had he been successful, he would have let us know. I am not saying that everything he did was wrong, I am saying that one should learn to keep bees alive before they decide that they are going to be feed free AND treatment free. Heck, some years it is hard to keep the bees alive when you do both of these things.


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