I've reached the 40 year mark with beekeeping and I'm still learning and experimenting. And I'd never leave on the queen excluder during winter. The cluster and brood area always migrates during winter to the upper box in a two box setup. You not only risk losing the queen but an excluder will also hamper the queen's ability to expand the brood nest in late winter and early spring.
two Boxes only make sense when you need it to split or to Distanzen the Brood for Swarmcontrol. The Queen don't need the Space of to Boxes. I'm using only one Box since 1989 and I'm very succesfull with it. Greetings from Germany!
I'm in Virginia not far from Kentucky and overwinter singles on a weaker colony. I run DD because the flow starts in April for buildup and drys up through May. Bees load the boxes in June and the top box is their winter stores. The bees can run out of food in August if you don't build them up with sugar/pollen before the goldenrod.. I did not feed this summer and it was a mistake as a DD turned into a nuc size cluster. I watched the robbing from one hive to the next, nuc boxes absconded from no food and my summer loss was extreme.. Yes, feeding some sugar & pollen patty has a great benefit even if it costs money. *Swarming in May is a problem if you only have a single brood box.
Thank you! It is hard to publish such a silly mistake, but hoped it would be helpful to someone (beyond myself). A very wise beekeeper once told me the difference between a newbee and a master beekeeper is about 1,000 mistakes, so I am counting them down :) Happy Beekeeping!
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I've reached the 40 year mark with beekeeping and I'm still learning and experimenting. And I'd never leave on the queen excluder during winter. The cluster and brood area always migrates during winter to the upper box in a two box setup. You not only risk losing the queen but an excluder will also hamper the queen's ability to expand the brood nest in late winter and early spring.
two Boxes only make sense when you need it to split or to Distanzen the Brood for Swarmcontrol. The Queen don't need the Space of to Boxes. I'm using only one Box since 1989 and I'm very succesfull with it. Greetings from Germany!
I'm in Virginia not far from Kentucky and overwinter singles on a weaker colony. I run DD because the flow starts in April for buildup and drys up through May. Bees load the boxes in June and the top box is their winter stores. The bees can run out of food in August if you don't build them up with sugar/pollen before the goldenrod.. I did not feed this summer and it was a mistake as a DD turned into a nuc size cluster. I watched the robbing from one hive to the next, nuc boxes absconded from no food and my summer loss was extreme.. Yes, feeding some sugar & pollen patty has a great benefit even if it costs money. *Swarming in May is a problem if you only have a single brood box.
Honest analysis will take you a long way. Thank you for sharing
Single deep during flow, build up to double deeps for winter. Then early spring splits back down to single deeps and run single deep for honey
Awesome video! Thank you so much for the candor so we can learn from your experience. Sorry you went through that loss.
Thank you! It is hard to publish such a silly mistake, but hoped it would be helpful to someone (beyond myself). A very wise beekeeper once told me the difference between a newbee and a master beekeeper is about 1,000 mistakes, so I am counting them down :) Happy Beekeeping!
First video of your's that I've seen. Leaving a queen excluder on over winter is an odd choice given your channel name.
Please sir... question for you...
Bee hive frem how much wire size ....?
If you were relying on your fall flow to feed over winter why did you not leave some of the spring honey just in case the Goldenrod did not do well
I need a package of Italian bees
Package bees