Bottom Boards

[Tom Schneider]

Hi All,

I'm hopeful that I can get some advice from you folks that clearly know more than me about being a beekeeper.  I've been keeping bees for about three years now and, unfortunately, haven't been successful in overwintering my bees yet.  I have another package coming in April to give it another shot and I'd like to start out right.  The first year was great, had a very healthy colony, but it seems like each year after I had the first deadout each season gotten worse and worse, in terms of maintaining a healthy population.  I have been using the same brood box frames as the deadout (just scrapped them) as I had seen may folks suggesting that was ok.  The brood box frames were looking rough so I bought all new frames this year (20 frames, 10x/brood box).  Old frames looked terrible (black/dark comb with oozing orange substance as I scraped it off).  I have consistently insulated my hive starting in fall, had a low mite count at the point of closing the hive, had a lot of honey in the upper brood box when closing the hive, and placed a "candy-board" on the top of the hive when closing.  Questions for the team:

1. Thoughts on cause of my deadouts - wondering if my hive got some type of disease and I've been propagating that disease from colony to column each year by using the same frames and boxes?
2. I've got all new frames but would you do anything to the brood boxes themselves to mitigate potential of propagating disease except scrape them out?
3. Would you use a vented or solid bottom board to start the season (one of my concerns was that moisture may have been an issue for me as I was using a solid bottom board previously - except first year).

I know that's a lot of words but I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Tom

[Paul Zelenski]

Sorry that you're having trouble with your bees. 

We don't really have enough info to give you a very good answer, but I'll mention a couple thoughts. 

1. It is possible that you have some type of disease, but it is not common for a disease to propopate from year to year within a hive. It is possible, but you would should see evidence of the disease before winter. 
2. If you think there is a disease and are replacing the frames because of it, you would also need to be sure the boxes aren't carrying the disease. Generally people, 'char' the inside of the boxes with something like a blow torch to kill any disease. 
3. Proper ventilation is important to bees. Solid bottom boards can work great, but they provide way more ventilation than needed. You can have success with either. 

Generally, I think you might need to revisit your overall care. There are a lot of variables and people will give you advice on each of them without knowing what you're doing with the rest. This type of disjointed advice is seldom very helpful. 

If I were to guess, I'm guessing that the way you are insulating your hive is actually a detriment to your bees. I'm guessing that you are trapping too much humidity in the hives and that is leading to poor outcomes. I'mm guessing that the oozing orange stuff is wet, spoiling pollen stores. While an insulated hive can be beneficial, simply wrapping insulation around an existing hive almost never provides a benefit and often is very dangerous to a hive. Especially if you insulate the sides but not the top. That just forces condesation to form on the top of the hive, that drips on the bees. Bees can keep themselves warm well in the the negatives. This winter, the bees absolutely didn't need any insulation. It's a little simplified, but bees don't really heat the hive, they heat the cluster. So, insulating the hive doesn't provide the benefits most people think it does. 

If there is an experienced beekeeper near you that has success overwintering, it would be best to get some general advice from them and to watch how they keep the bees throughout the year. Minor details can be hugely important to how all the pieces fit together. You may also want to look into locally adapted or mite resistant bees instead of the generic packages that are purchased from the large commercial suppliers. Most people have poor success with those bees and do much better as they work more with local bees. 

If you can make the meetingn tonight, we are going to talk about the club supporting local bees. It might be a very helpful discussion for you. 

Sorry if this wasn't super helpful, but the answer to your problem almost certainly isn't as simple as whether you use new frames and what type of bottom board you use. 

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tom Schneider <tschn...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 6:14 AM
To: madbees <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [madbees] Bottom Boards

 

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[Joe Bessetti]

This might come through a second time, as I replied via email two days ago and it may be stuck on Google purgatory.

 

Hi Tom,

I would consider it very unlikely that your first package was the source of any disease that would carry over year-to-year, especially if you did not see any evidence or symptoms of disease during the summer in the bees each of these three years. The main disease to be aware of here is AFB, but it is extremely rare to get this from a package. Transfer of diseased frames, like you might get with a nucleus colony, is usually the source.

I think it is also unlikely that the choice of a vented or solid bottom board is a major factor, as both can be used successfully.  The main consideration here is probably just to make sure that an open screened bottom doesn't cause the cluster to lose heat too fast.  If your hive was full of frames full of dead bees stuffed head-first in the cells then this might be worth revisiting.

The oozing orange stuff when you scrape the frames is probably pollen, but it brings me to the other key questions about your hive that might help provide evidence of why the bees died.  Were they any dead bees left in the hive? If so, how many, and where were they at? Was there any capped brood on any of the frames in the hive? If so, what did it look like? And was there honey stores remaining in the winter when you took the hive apart?

With respect to your mite management, how and when did you monitor for mites? What product(s) did you treat with, and when(s)? And did you check again for mites after the treatment to confirm efficacy of the treatment? 

Regards,

Joe

[Jack Rademacher]

A perfect statement;

“Bees can keep themselves warm well in the negatives. This winter, the bees absolutely didn't need any insulation. It's a little simplified, but bees don't really heat the hive, they heat the cluster. So, insulating the hive doesn't provide the benefits most people think it does.”

I have never insulated my hives other than the top cover and that is only around R6 at tops. Down in the bottom of the holler where I keep my bees (it gets really, really cold in the holler)
I recorded an air temp reading of -27F a few weeks ago and only lost one hive and it was totally because they they wouldn’t move away from the brood they were trying to keep warm to a location with honey. 

Insulating a hive is totally unnecessary. I’ve had 3 different years that I’ve had 100% survival and am otherwise around 70%. 

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[Janelle Hillman]

What is your ventilation system? 

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[Gottlieb Brandli Jr.]

Moisture is my educated guess! I have same problem.

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[Greg V]

Moisture has been my least concern over the years.

One of those things people dwell on - needlessly, IMO.

Bees have done very well even in tight styrofoam coolers with minimal ventilation for me.

As long as the bees are healthy - they do fine in most any configuration (insulation/no insulation; ventilation/no ventilation).

But once the bees are damaged/sick, you can blame it on anything - unproductively.

You can have a perfect setup - but it will not help the damaged bees.

With 80-90% probability the mortality has been about mites/viruses/poor genetics.

Effective mite control and/or good genetics - these are the elephant in the room.

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[Paul Zelenski]

I’ll disagree somewhat. I do think that moisture is a problem in many people’s setups. But your experience illustrates well that it’s not simply the amount of humidity/moisture. Your styrofoam hives have little ventilation but also have little moisture coming in and the insulation is around the whole hive. I’m of the opinion that all insulation or no instillation is good. Trying to do a little tends to cause problems. As is usually the case with bees, It’s more complicated than is usually discussed, not simply too little or too much. 

On Mar 4, 2025, at 5:24 PM, Greg V <voro...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Greg V]

In any case - this winter has been very bad for me.

Moisture?

No, of course not.

And I am not talking 1-2-3 hives lost.

I am talking about serious numbers in the tens of colonies.

It has nothing to do with moisture.

Virus-damaged bees is the most logical explanation.

PS: too bad but stuck at work - skipping the meeting.

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[Jack Rademacher]

I have homasote moisture boards on most of my hives with 6 hives having 3” deep wood tops with wood chips. I’ve only experienced what I considered excess moisture one time that I can remember and then, on a warmer day, I simply switched it out with a spare homasote board. I actually quite often find the bees clinging to the moisture boards above the sugar bricks. I assume they are actually seeking moisture to help with digestion. 

I used to have top entrance/ventilation holes which were supposed to help with moisture removal but I’ve actually plugged those top holes for the past few years after I had read a paper by some university (???) describing their experiments with top ventilation and they had concluded that it was more important for the bees to retain heat by not having the top ventilation opening. 

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[Joseph Bessetti]



Hi Tom,

I would consider it very unlikely that your first package was the source of any disease that would carry over year-to-year, especially if you did not see any evidence or symptoms of disease during the summer in the bees each of these three years. The main disease to be aware of here is AFB, but it is extremely rare to get this from a package. Transfer of diseased frames, like you might get with a nucleus colony, is usually the source.

I think it is also unlikely that the choice of a vented or solid bottom board is a major factor, as both can be used successfully.  The main consideration here is probably just to make sure that an open screened bottom doesn't cause the cluster to lose heat too fast.  If your hive was full of frames full of dead bees stuffed head-first in the cells then this might be worth revisiting.

The oozing orange stuff when you scrape the frames is probably pollen, but it brings me to the other key questions about your hive that might help provide evidence of why the bees died.  Were they any dead bees left in the hive? If so, how many, and where were they at? Was there any capped brood on any of the frames in the hive? If so, what did it look like? And was there honey stores remaining in the winter when you took the hive apart?

With respect to your mite management, how and when did you monitor for mites? What product(s) did you treat with, and when(s)? And did you check again for mites after the treatment to confirm efficacy of the treatment? 

Regards,

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tom Schneider <tschn...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 6:14 AM
To: madbees <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [madbees] Bottom Boards

 

Hi All,

I'm hopeful that I can get some advice from you folks that clearly know more than me about being a beekeeper.  I've been keeping bees for about three years now and, unfortunately, haven't been successful in overwintering my bees yet.  I have another package coming in April to give it another shot and I'd like to start out right.  The first year was great, had a very healthy colony, but it seems like each year after I had the first deadout each season gotten worse and worse, in terms of maintaining a healthy population.  I have been using the same brood box frames as the deadout (just scrapped them) as I had seen may folks suggesting that was ok.  The brood box frames were looking rough so I bought all new frames this year (20 frames, 10x/brood box).  Old frames looked terrible (black/dark comb with oozing orange substance as I scraped it off).  I have consistently insulated my hive starting in fall, had a low mite count at the point of closing the hive, had a lot of honey in the upper brood box when closing the hive, and placed a "candy-board" on the top of the hive when closing.  Questions for the team:

1. Thoughts on cause of my deadouts - wondering if my hive got some type of disease and I've been propagating that disease from colony to column each year by using the same frames and boxes?
2. I've got all new frames but would you do anything to the brood boxes themselves to mitigate potential of propagating disease except scrape them out?
3. Would you use a vented or solid bottom board to start the season (one of my concerns was that moisture may have been an issue for me as I was using a solid bottom board previously - except first year).

I know that's a lot of words but I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Tom

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[Gottlieb Brandli Jr.]

Homisote has wax infused in it so it does not soke up moisture. But a good insulator.

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[Jack Rademacher]

From experience , the homasote does take on moisture. It is widely recommended as a winter cover for just that reason. 

5/8” thickness of anything isn’t going to provide much insulation. 

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[Joseph Bessetti]

Homasote is an interesting product.  Its fibers are wax coated to “prevent moisture absorption” per the product specifications. However, it will absorb water if exposed directly.  This seems to be key to its use as an inner cover - condensation occurring on its surface is absorbed.  It does not have a high capacity to absorb water, only about 7% of its weight, but apparently that is enough.

Joe

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 5, 2025, at 5:34 AM, Jack Rademacher <jrad...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[marvin]

Here's a piece of kinda useless advice from the realty industry:  Location, location, location....  Sometimes the spots you pick to locate your hive are just flat out bad sites.  The sunlight, the wind exposure, the direction, etc., etc., just seem so right to you, but are just flat out wrong for a beehive.  One of my best yards is a gloomy, low area that occasionally is water logged.  For winter its the coldest and darkest land I own.  But it has low winds and sustains hives well.  Other sunnier locations with windbreaks that you'd think are ideal are anything but.  So you may want to consider a different site, or orientation or???  That's the frustrating part:  Picking the right parameters.  But if it's feasible for you, give it some consideration.  

On Monday, March 3, 2025 at 6:14:14 AM UTC-6 Tom Schneider wrote:

[Joseph Bessetti]

This advice fits 

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 5, 2025, at 1:28 PM, marvin <marvin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here's a piece of kinda useless advice from the realty industry:  Location, location, location....  Sometimes the spots you pick to locate your hive are just flat out bad sites.  The sunlight, the wind exposure, the direction, etc., etc., just seem so right to you, but are just flat out wrong for a beehive.  One of my best yards is a gloomy, low area that occasionally is water logged.  For winter its the coldest and darkest land I own.  But it has low winds and sustains hives well.  Other sunnier locations with windbreaks that you'd think are ideal are anything but.  So you may want to consider a different site, or orientation or???  That's the frustrating part:  Picking the right parameters.  But if it's feasible for you, give it some consideration.  

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[Jack Rademacher]

I agree. The holler we live in gets freaking cold but almost no wind and it seems to suite the bees just fine. We also really don’t have much for pesticides being sprayed for a long distance. If you’re living in or near a city, people think more is better and spray way too much. And then of course there are the neonictinoid plants

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[Joseph Bessetti]

While it is true that bees heat the cluster, the conclusion that because of this insulation has not benefit is dead wrong.  I'm not saying bees can't get through winter without insulation: they can and do.   I'm also not going to say that insulation will dramatically improve your winter survival rates: it probably won't.  The most dramatic improvements in winter survival come from making sure colony health isn't compromised by mites and malnutrition.

Bees heat the cluster, but the cluster also loses heat to the air and hive around it.  In an insulated hive, much of that heat is trapped and held inside around the cluster, so the cluster doesn't need to produce as much heat to stay alive.  Producing heat has two costs for the bees:  1. It consumes stores, and 2. It reduces the lifespan of the bees producing the heat. 

In an insulated hive the bees can cluster more loosely and break cluster more frequently, giving them better access to stores. Insulated hives consume less honey, come out of winter stronger, are less at risk of freezing on brood during late winter cold spells.  

That said, whether the cost and hassle of insulating hives is worth it or not is still open for debate for me, since strong healthy colonies with ample stores do reasonably well even without it.  Small colonies, and colonies with limited stores no doubt will see the greatest benefit of insulation.

Regards,

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jack Rademacher <jrad...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 4, 2025 4:23 PM
To: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: Bottom Boards

 

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[Greg V]

Insulation most definitely makes a difference.

On big and healthy colonies the insulation is less critical if needed at all.
But saying the same for wintering small colonies is incorrect.

If not for insulation - this micro-colony should be dead long ago.

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[Jack Rademacher]

What do you think the R value of the micro colony is?

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[Greg V]

Two factors are in place - both are important.

1) R value - to slow down the energy losses from the cavity to the outside - which in turn slows the energy drained from the small cluster

2) Space around the colony - too much space around the small cluster drains too much energy from the small cluster too.

Keep in mind, 1" of foam is about R-5.

Sides of my micro-colonies are about R-5.

Tops are about R-10/R-20.

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[Tom Schneider]

Thanks all.  I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.  As can be seen from the responses there are varying opinions and not one magical way...not too surprising when dealing with living things:)  My take aways are that carryover disease is unlikely but I'll probably still briefly torch the interior of my brood boxes...can't hurt.  I'll probably just go witha solid bottom board, limit my insulation in winter, and implement the use of a moisture board.  I'd take any other advice but those are my takeaways for now.  Great room with very knowledgeable folks.

Tom

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[Jack Rademacher]

Have you been getting your packages of bees from the same supplier every year?  I’ve been reading up on nosema ceranae and nosema apis and a number of sources are leaning toward the large die off of commercial hives maybe being related to NC. While most people think dysentery is a sign of nosema, my research indicates that NC does not cause dysentery but could be a leading cause of hive collapse and they talk about one of the signs being slow or no hive buildup and that’s what you were describing. So especially if you’re getting your bees from the same supplier each year, maybe they are loaded down with NC and there’s no way to visually tell. The only way to confirm nosema is by microscope. NC is more of the warm weather nosema and supposedly will freeze out in Wisconsin after a hive dies but it absolutely flourishes in warmer climates. NA is the northern nosema that actually thrives in cold and causes dysentery. 

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[Paul Zelenski]

Very interesting. Andrew and I were just talking the other day about how nosema used to be a big concern and no one seems to be talking about it anymore. Funny how everything goes in circles. 

On Mar 7, 2025, at 10:37 AM, Jack Rademacher <jrad...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Paul Zelenski]

All good statements and well said. And that’s why I said that it was an oversimplification. 

And as Greg points out, it is much less important for large thriving hives that will already have plenty of mass for very cold patches and heat to move about the hive. Smaller clusters would benefit more. But, as always there are a lot of other considerations like how the cluster matches the size of the colony. 

I would add a third ‘cost’ of creating heat, and that is that it creates moisture as they metabolize the honey. Of course, moisture in itself is not bad. The bees need it to eat more honey, or dry sugar if you use that. In a well designed hive,  moisture isn’t an issue. But, it can be very problematic in some hive configurations. 

The other danger with insulation, is how it is applied. My opinion that poorly installed insulation is detrimental. The classic example is insulating the sides but not the top so that all condensation is above the cluster, with the obvious problems of dripping. People also try to implement insulation and ventilation, which are kind of at odds with each other. 

This is why I say it is a bit more complicated. Matching all of the different hive elements (size, ventilation, insulation, etc.) is the important part and why partial use of advice can be difficult for new beekeepers. 

Anecdotally, I used to keep hives with open screened bottom boards, a hole in every box, and upper entrances. I generally had over 90% overwintering survival. 

Colony strength/health throughout the year are the most important factor for winter survival. 

On Mar 6, 2025, at 10:05 AM, Joseph Bessetti <jbes...@hotmail.com> wrote:



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[Jack Rademacher]

Most of what I read was by Randy Oliver of Scientific Beekeeping but had also read some other info with similar conclusions. 

The package bees especially are under extreme stress and the stressed bees are much more susceptible to NC increasing almost exponentially in their gut but it is mostly invisible to detect. The bees will survive the warm summer in Wisconsin and can spread NC to other hives. If they survive the winter, the bees will carry the NC into the next season. If the hive dies. The best thing is to leave the hive components in the cold but N Apis will survive the cold. N Apis will die from heat scorching or holding at 140F for 6 hrs but I believe the wax melts at 145. 

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