More Winterizing Questions

[Julie Servantez]

Another "newbie" question:

I did attend the last meeting, which by the way was great. Going over my notes and making me winterizations plans I have a couple of questions.

I posted in an earlier forum conversation that my (new) hive has no surplus honey stores. My supers had grapefruit (diameter) sized comb being built in the center of 3/4 of the frames, but no honey. The consensus from the comments was to take off "empty" supers. 

Now I have a hive that consists of only 2 deeps and I have been feeding 2:1 syrup for 3+ weeks going through a gallon-ish per week.

My winter plan is:

Mouse guard

Dry sugar method in an empty super 50ish pounds Mountain Camp Method (from the meeting)

Wintering inner cover with moisture board

Cardboard cover (Mann Lake)

Here are my questions/concerns:

1) With all the sugar syrup feeding combined with our rainy fall is my hive going to be really humid? Will it be a condensation problem?

2) With only 2 deeps (all drawn) will the bees have room to cluster?

Thanks in advance for your wisdom!

Julie

[James]

1.  Moisture may be a problem, but as long as you have lower and upper entrances, or some other form of ventilation near the top of the cluster, you should be OK.  I go with a 3/4 inch hole and each box and a lower opening and that's seems to be more than adequate.

I question putting 50lbs of sugar on "Mountain Camp" style in one fell swoop (if that's your intention).  Loose sugar and frames full of uncapped syrup can turn into a fermented mess.  I usually put home made fondant cakes on top of the upper brood frames in a 2 inch shim (made from and old super) and they can draw on that as needed.  You can then quick peak at it on warmer winter days and replace as needed.  The bees seem to like to congregate in the dead space as well.  Its cleaner than loose sugar, without the risk of ending up with a dead hive an a pile of wasted sugar.  

2. Two drawn brood boxes is plenty of room.

[Jimmy Buff]

50 pounds is a bit more than you'll need. 20ish pounds should be enough. You can add more in march if needed. The mountain camp method works. No need to go through the trouble of making cakes unless you want to. Don't put it on for at least another month or so or they'll start hauling it out. Do it on a "warm" winter day.

Other than that it sounds like you have a good plan. If your hives are in a breezy area you might want to consider putting up some wind breaks (t post + 2-3 layers of plastic snow fence is one option)

[James]

Ya, I don't want to give the impression that the Mountain camp method is bad.  It does work.  The only problem is that if you have to reload during the winter, it's a bit more time consuming, and if its really cold, you don't want the hive open that long.  Most years, you can find that perfect sunny day with no wind when you can do it.  But we've had few years when those days never seemed to come.  With fondant cakes, you spend more time indoors cooking.  But adding it to a hive takes seconds with minimal heat loss.  Some folks will argue that fondant is better because its inverted sugar, and others will tell you that the heating process leads to undesireable side products.  In reality, both work.

I actually think that the dead space above the frames is as important as the sugar.  The bees really like hanging out there and they move more freely between frames.  I've always had better foraging of all frames when I've used shims on top.  UM bee lab also suggests removing one frame to give better movement.  Sometimes things are so tight its hard to see how the bees can cluster or move adequately.