Winter update on my bees.

[New York Hillbilly]

I checked on my bee colonies a couple days ago. The winter weather has been brutal this year, and it’s my first winter keeping bees. My fingers have remained crossed every day since I started this adventure. There is a tremendous amount of information to learn,  and then try to apply to be successful. One colony I obtained in October as a cut out from a barn with my mentor, despite my best efforts, did not make it all the way through winter. The other four hives, when I knock on the sides with my ear to the walls, have a lot of buzzing. I’ll be extremely happy if my four colonies get through the year. Spring can’t come soon enough for me and my bees! 

Edited Monday at 08:20 PM by New York Hillbilly
Grammar

[Doc]

The only experience that I have had with bees, other than being stung, was the bee-tree that I found a few decades back at the top of the hill behind the house. It has long since been empty. It was a short stunted red-oak tree that had a split in the side with honey globbed around the hole, and bees flying in and out. I never found another wild bee-tree before or since. I guess there is a shortage of wild honey bees, so I am glad there are some bee-keeping enthusiasts like you around. I see hives around all over the place around here. Apparently bee-keeping is a pretty popular hobby.

Ha-ha-ha.....I have been known to steer around honey bees when I am mowing.

[landtracdeerhunter]

A colder winter can actually be more benifital than a warmer one, provided a nice sunny day with temps about 30 or better is thrown in the mix, now and again. 

Activity is not as great with colder temps, which makes food reserves last longer. A sunny day give the bees a chance to fly out to remove waste from their systems. Mine were out the last sunny day doing their duty. They also were cleaning house of the bees that died inside. 

Have they moved up into the upper chamber yet?

[New York Hillbilly]

On 2/18/2025 at 7:33 AM, landtracdeerhunter said:

A colder winter can actually be more benifital than a warmer one, provided a nice sunny day with temps about 30 or better is thrown in the mix, now and again. 

Activity is not as great with colder temps, which makes food reserves last longer. A sunny day give the bees a chance to fly out to remove waste from their systems. Mine were out the last sunny day doing their duty. They also were cleaning house of the bees that died inside. 

Have they moved up into the upper chamber yet?

Being new to all of this, I put a ton of thought into how I wanted to prepare my hives for the their first winter. And, what I came up with, I then found out some others were also already doing and had a name for it.  They were calling them "condensation hives".

I insulated my tops to an R30+ factor, and the sides R10 +or-, and with no upper entrance, only bottom entrance for  ventilation.   My thinking was to create an environment for my bees that would allow the heat to be trapped at the top, moisture to move and form on the side walls rather than around them in the upper chamber or rain down over them. This would allow water to be available for their needs, but not causing them to get wet. Also, with the hive much easier to keep and stay warm, I figured their energy expenditure would be far less, so their food demand would also be less, and if eating less hopefully less need to do cleansing flights in the middle of the winter. Less eating = less pooping!  Finally, I thought if it stayed warmer in the hive, the need to cluster just to survive the cold might be less, and if they were able to more freely move about it would allow more bees to be reached when I vaporize oxalic acid for varroa mites. 

As much as I hated to do it in December, with everyone talking about how bees can starve over the winter if you don’t check on them, I caved to the pressure and braved it one afternoon for very quick peeks into my hives. Other than my obviously lost October colony from a cutout, my other hives all had lots of bees. And while I couldn’t see how much their honey stores were touched, the supplemental bee fondant patties I had placed in my feeder shims were barely touched. I snapped a couple quick pictures of each hive when I opened them in December so I could remember better what was going on once I got back to the house. Even though they had plenty of food, not knowing when I would be able to open them again, I added an extra fondant patty to each hive for good measure. 

Three hives had moderate numbers of bees in the top. The fourth hive had only a couple bees at first, but when they saw something going on, more started walking up to check things out. My one hive that is routinely the most aggressive really reacted, and as soon as I cracked the hive open a bunch flew out at me and attacked, and I had to quickly shut it and back up and fight them off for a minute. lol  I was doing this December check without any bee suit or gloves, or smoke. I was really more worried too many bees would fly out and freeze, than what they were going to do to me. 

There were very few bees dead in front of my hives each time I checked on them. 

I’m really hoping for a break in this weather where it gets in the mid 40’s at least, so I can peek and check on them again.

  

[NYBowhunter]

Why not build a small insulated shed and place the hives in there to winter?  Not that I know anything about bee keeping, just a thought.