Winter bees

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jeanne hansen

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Oct 29, 2020, 7:50:17 PM10/29/20
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Randy Oliver has a good technique to see how healthy his bees are just before winter.  He catches some and mashes them.  If the body fluids are yellow, meaning the gut was filled with pollen, it shows the bees are well-enough nourished to survive winter.  It is an easy test to perform.  Let add it to our repertoire.

Jeanne Hansen
824 Jacobson Ave
Madison, WI 53714

marvin

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Oct 29, 2020, 8:25:36 PM10/29/20
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Kind of a meaningless test, don't you think?  What would you do different one way or another?  It's not like ragweed and aster pollen (among others) is in short supply in WIsconsin.  


Joseph Bessetti

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Oct 29, 2020, 8:57:52 PM10/29/20
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I agree.  If there is stored pollen left in the hive, then you can be sure they were not starved for it.  No point in killing bees.  

Also keep in mind, Randy Oliver doesn't keep bees in Wisconsin, or anywhere like it.  Everything in beekeeping is local.

Joe



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trex raptor

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Oct 29, 2020, 10:19:33 PM10/29/20
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I think it's a fun test. I have read about it before but never tried it enough to get a good reading. I'm still packing up colonies for winter and it would be easy to grab 5-10 bees per colony and crush them on a piece of paper. If they come up clear, i'll know I should have fed more pollen sub for next season. The data is always valuable. I don't like having colonies that die in vain without me gaining some kind of knowledge out of them at least.


On Thursday, October 29, 2020 at 7:57:52 PM UTC-5, Joe wrote:
I agree.  If there is stored pollen left in the hive, then you can be sure they were not starved for it.  No point in killing bees.  

Also keep in mind, Randy Oliver doesn't keep bees in Wisconsin, or anywhere like it.  Everything in beekeeping is local.

Joe



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-------- Original message --------
From: marvin <marvin...@gmail.com>
Date: 10/29/20 19:25 (GMT-06:00)
Subject: [madbees] Re: Winter bees

Kind of a meaningless test, don't you think?  What would you do different one way or another?  It's not like ragweed and aster pollen (among others) is in short supply in WIsconsin.  


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Paul Zelenski

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Oct 29, 2020, 10:27:00 PM10/29/20
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So, this would be a test of pollen in their gut, right? So, if your queens have already shut down, your bees wouldn’t be eating much pollen whether it was available or not, right? So this test would only be ‘useful’ if done while there is still brood being fed, right?

I really wish we had had another week or two of warm weather for feeding, but at this point, I think that ship has sailed.  Anyone disagree?
Looks like we’ll have one day of 60 degree next week for any last minute inspections. I won’t be doing anything more to my hives other than checking the top box for stores and possibly adding frames/boxes of honey to hives that I feel are still a bit light. Then adding ‘dry’ sugar in December. 
What are other people still doing to their hives?
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reeniev...@sbcglobal.net

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Oct 30, 2020, 6:56:08 AM10/30/20
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Why would you wait until December to put the sugar on the hives.  Wouldn't you be having to open the top of the hive when the outside temp is below 50.  Just curious?

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Thursday, 29 October 2020, 09:27PM -05:00 from Paul Zelenski paulze...@gmail.com:

Joseph Bessetti

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Oct 30, 2020, 8:43:08 AM10/30/20
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It's not pollen in their gut at all.  They eat pollen and convert it to fat and storage protein that fills the fat bodies in the abdomen.

The longest lived winter bees are mainly the ones that don't feed brood, which is what allows them to fatten up for winter.  The later into fall your bees raise brood, the later the winter bees fatten up.  In spring, when they start raising brood, they use up the lipid and protein in their fat bodies.  Incidently, this includes vitellogenin, which is involved in extending their lifespan.

If your bees are still raising brood, then it's too early to smash them up.  After they are done raising brood would be the right time.

trex raptor

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Oct 30, 2020, 9:16:17 AM10/30/20
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I thought it might be useful if everyone read the article, enjoy:


To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/MW4PR01MB61774FB9C786B81EC4B98016AE150%40MW4PR01MB6177.prod.exchangelabs.com.

marvin

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Oct 30, 2020, 9:38:14 AM10/30/20
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Why wait until December to put sugar on?  You could put sugar on at anytime until spring, or not at all.  Feeding sugar is emergency feed if your hive doesn't have adequate honey stores.  The hard part is estimating just how much honey you need, and if the bees have located it to an accessible part of the hive.  So some folks just put some on no matter what as a hedge.  You're right about not wanting to open the hive when its cold, so you look for those sunny, windless days when the temp is 40 or above to put it on.  Usually I look for those few days when the bees are flying.  Personally, I use fondant cakes that I can slip in  the hive in a matter of seconds.  So a speedy delivery is something to plan out.


MARY FLANAGAN

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Oct 30, 2020, 9:42:53 AM10/30/20
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I have read about vitellogenin studies in regard to queen bee lifespan vs nurse/forager lifespan. It would seem that it plays a big part in winter bees being able to live the full season.
How does one spark the increase of vitellogenin production? Is pollen consumption the primary basis? Is it temperature or sunlight?
I do supplement with HBH, B vitamins, and a couple of probiotics. Should I be supplementing with anything else?
Thank you.

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:25:53 AM10/30/20
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I understand the biology of winter bees and vitellogenin. I didn’t think it was yellow, though. Also, this email chain was talking about pollen, and indeed when reading the article, he is talking about pollen in their hindgut. So, it’s less a test of whether your bees have fat stores (which would be a good test) but an actual test for levels of pollen in their gut. 

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:32:33 AM10/30/20
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I use the ‘mountain camp method’ where I put around 10# of sugar that is moistened enough to clump not the tops of my hives. It’s basically a lazy way to make a sugar board. I do this for all hives whether they are likely to run out of stores or not. I do it because it will be emergency feed already in place so I don’t need to provide it during cold weather, but more importantly it absorbs moisture and allows and condensation drops to fall onto the sugar rather than the bees. 
I wait until the weather is cold so that the bees are clustered and not likely to break cluster, because I don’t want them cleaning out the sugar as debris before it  has a chance to harden. I basically want it to be there after the bees are clustered below and they won’t it react with it u til the cluster moves up through the honey and ends up at the top of the hive.  Personally, i also put half a pollen patty in the middle of this sugar. The thinking there is that it will be late winter or early spring by the time they are eating the sugar, which is when they will begin brood rearing and the pollen will help support the protein requirements for that. 

On Oct 30, 2020, at 8:42 AM, MARY FLANAGAN <mary.f...@comcast.net> wrote:

Joseph Bessetti

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:41:25 AM10/30/20
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I haven't read up on the molecular details of vitellogenin regulation recently.   I just know that this is one key to winter lifespan and that fall protein consumption is key.  

If pollen is short in supply during this critical timeframe, protein supplements are better than nothing. Most studies on nutrition conclude that natural pollen is better than substitutes as long as the pollen is coming from quality plant sources.  Also, the nutrition of stored pollen and fresh pollen has been shown to be identical, so the bees don't need to be actively foraging it in the fall.  Most of us find frames full of pollen in our bottom brood boxes late in the season.  When you do, just smile and be confident that they have what they need to fatten up for winter.

Of course, the amount of foraged pollen coming into the hive is one of the strongest stimulators of brood rearing any time of year.   Just having pollen stores in the hive is one piece of the puzzle.  Another critical piece is that the bees need to be rearing brood, and the later they rear brood into the fall the better off they usually are to start winter with a nice large cluster.   This is something we can have a bit more control over by strategically feeding our bees to stimulate brood rearing.    Having young queens in our hives has been shown to significantly extend brood rearing in fall as well.  

When it comes to winter survival a lot of people get focused on mites and ignore everything else.   Sometimes that works because the bees are getting everything they need from the environment and mites really are the key.  Recognizing when they aren't getting the nutrition that they need from the environment is just as important.   I have not noticed as much pollen in my hives this year as in the past two, and I believe that dry late-summer and fall conditions may be the reason behind it in my area.  I probably should have been doing more to compensate for this, and I expect that I might have higher losses this winter.  

Joe



From: MARY FLANAGAN <mary.f...@comcast.net>
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 8:42 AM
To: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com>; Joseph Bessetti <jbes...@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [madbees] Re: Winter bees
 

Joseph Bessetti

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:47:25 AM10/30/20
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Pollen in the gut is digested; it doesn't stay there all winter.  That makes the timing of this observation critical.

Frankly, the whole thing is silly.  Mashing up your bees this time of year is pointless.  They are either going to live or they are going to die.  

One thing I know for certain is that dead hives don't make honey.   Beekeepers being as opinionated and argumentative as they can be, I could probably find someone to disagree with me on that too.

Joe

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Paul Zelenski <paulze...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 10:25 AM
To: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com>

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:48:55 AM10/30/20
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It did seem that late summer and fall were not as productive this year and the populations of my hives suffered a bit because of it. I saw some significant slowing of brood production in early fall compared to what i usually see. I wish I had begun feeding a bit sooner than i did to counteract this. Things still look fine, but could be better. 

I agree that mites are a huge factor for hives, but there are a number of other very important health indicators that often get overlooked. The health of a honey bee colony is very complicated and hard to monitor. Usually we’re lucky and the bees take care of everything and we just need to monitor and provide the basics. I think this is why we often see people with such differing opinions on technique. I suspect the things of core importance are handled by the bees and were only observing and manipulating the things of marginal importance and don’t fully understand. 

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 11:56:54 AM10/30/20
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Yeah, he is making an observation about pollen in their gut and making some speculations as to why it might be there. Seems very tenuous to me. 


And Joe, obviously the dead hives produce honey because you can extract the frames that you left them for winter instead of them just eating it all ;)


Pollen Consumption

Farrar made a huge point of the requirement for serious pollen stores (in the form of beebread) in the hive in order for a colony to be able to maintain broodrearing in late winter. But let me share something that I observed when I was crushing worker bee samples to track the fate of consumed pollen sub (labeled with fluorescent pigment) [13]. During the summer, only a fraction of the workers—the nurse bees—had any pollen in their guts. But to my surprise, when I took samples in November every danged worker was chock full of pollen (Fig. 3).

Anyway, as pointed out by Dr. Kirk Anderson, the most secure place for bees to store pollen may be within their bodies. Interestingly, the pollen in the guts of the bees above was mostly in their hindguts (rectums), and consisted largely of pollen exines from which the innards had already been digested in the midgut. My question then is whether what I observed was simply the result of all the bees in the hive consisting of “winter bees” that were temporarily gorging on whatever pollen they could consume, or whether there is nutritional benefit to the bees from holding digested pollen in their hindguts for an extended period of time.

trex raptor

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Oct 30, 2020, 12:25:43 PM10/30/20
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The way I understood it was that if the winter bees have pollen in the gut, then they are consuming resources for themselves or rearing brood. If the pollen waste is in the rectum then they consumed lots of pollen and are well fed. If you crush them and you get nothing then there would be concern that resources are slim in the colony which could cause issues. I look at the pollen consumption as increasing the protein levels in their bodies so that they can rear brood in winter when they can't leave the cluster to gather resources. Pretty much sacrificing their bodies to create the next generation of spring bees. Whats interesting is that newly emerged bees contained no vitellogenin or arylphorin (both proteins) but that they gained massive amounts of this going into winter. One other key point to consider is that spring pollen is a rich blend of fat and protein compared to fall pollen. So, this seems to point that it's more important to get the pollen sub into the colony in late summer/early fall than trying to give it to them in winter in candy or tucked away.

Please read the article in the link below to learn more about protein storing of winter bees.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/0696A0D2-23B1-4D7D-A308-EFE3E65F5185%40gmail.com.

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 12:30:43 PM10/30/20
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Yeah, all makes sense. It’s more an indication that they’re eating well. Although, he does have one speculation about storing pollen in the bodies of the bees, which seems unlikely if he’s finding it in the hindgut. 

Also, of note is that he tested in Nov after 2 days of the bees being confined due to rain. This is obviously a different climate to what we have, as rain is not likely the only reason for confinement in WI in Nov. So, the timing of this would need to be adjusted. 

Ps, thanks for the links to the actual articles. Makes it much more informative. 

Joseph Bessetti

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Oct 30, 2020, 1:00:52 PM10/30/20
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I think it may be really simple:  The digested pollen remains in the hindgut because they simply haven't had an opportunity to go poop yet.  Even if they do get out to go poop, they may just gorge themselves again.  

Bees don't even go outside the hive and start to orient until they reach a certain age.   Many of your winter bees probably gorge themselves on pollen for up to two weeks before they ever go outside the hive.  Naturally, the digested pollen will remain in their hindgut until then.  Some of the latest brood to emerge may even have to wait until a winter cleansing flight.  

The conclusion that they are "storing" it is probably incorrect;  they just haven't had a chance to excrete it yet.

Joe





Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 11:30 AM

Paul Zelenski

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Oct 30, 2020, 2:01:01 PM10/30/20
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Yeah, that’s the way I would interpret his observations. So, it would be an indication they they are eating well so well nourished. But the idea they are storing it in their hindgut seems far fetched to me. 
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