What constitutes an emergency? Any situation where your bees are going to starve unless you intervene, dearth, new package, lack of stores for one reason or another. The decision to intervene is yours, not intervening and letting the strong survive does not make you a bad beekeeper, nor does intervening and saving a colony.
What constitutes an insurance policy? Any feed you put in the hive prior to closing it up for the winter. I use a 1 kilo (2.25 LBS) chunk of fondant placed on the bottom of the hive as close to the last comb as I can get it! I figured if it got warm enough to break cluster maybe they would use it, they did! Use your imagination, later you can even store whole bars and give them to the colony that needs them.
Here is a mixing ratio table using regular sugar:
1:2 -1 pound of sugar dissolved in 2 pints of water is primarily used as a egg laying stimulant for the queen in late winter and early spring.
1:1 -1 pound of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water is primarily used as artificial nectar to get bees to build comb and feed brood larvae in spring and summer.
2:1 - 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water is a winter feed substituting for honey in the fall or early winter.
It is not smart to put syrup in the hive right before or during winter you are just adding moisture to the hive, use bakers fondant!!!!!
If you were smart you took nothing from the hive the first time you over wintered and checked how much was left when they started flying. If this is your first season make it your plan!
Pest Treatment
If your hives show any of the signs of PMS it may be a necessary evil to treat them. Evil yes, because any treatment is detrimental to either the health of your bees or the purity of your hive products. IPM measures may have to be used during the first one or maybe two seasons. Luckily there are non-contaminating options such as powdered sugar dusting and FGMO. Anything I can eat and put in the hive at the same time is not contaminating in my book. In case you did not know FGMO is exactly the same mineral oil sold everywhere as a laxative, YES you can drink it! Anything that is natural or organic that requires a nuclear, chemical and biological suit and respirator to handle, has warning labels that say “Death may occur” is contaminating and anyone that calls it natural is an IDIOT!
You may be saying great it is non-contaminating so what’s the problem? The problem is the dependency the bees have on you providing a crutch. Survival of the fittest would dictate no interference. I suggest a happy medium. Treat them with the above mentioned measures and wean them off as soon as possible. Treat a first year colony in the spring to give them a good start, twice two weeks apart and again as fall starts. Evaluate your colony in its second year and remember a PMS stressed colony usually fails in its second winter. Third year you should not be treating at all unless something else stressed them so much they will not be able to handle the additional stress of mites.
A word of caution, If you have unusually warm temps in the winter and brood rearing does not stop treat again before the winter cluster forms. The late brood rearing will allow the mites to get a good foot hold again.
Other precautions
I have said that no one person can tell you what is the right or wrong way for you to manage your TBH. I do not have a ventilation problem and I seal my hives with silicone caulk top and bottom! The only hole I try to leave is a one bee width entrance. I also do not install follower boards. Moisture in the hive works well with fondant. I have also (when I actually believed moisture dripped on the cluster) tilted the hive a bit to one side. The idea was the moisture would run to the side and not drip on the cluster.
There may be several factors working in my favor but none of them have any proof what so ever. This is just speculation. First the fact that I do not use a follower board may allow the heat to dissipate enough to not have a moisture “problem”. Could be that moisture was never the real problem the first beekeeper to start that rumor had. It was just the most convenient explanation that could be reached.
Position of the cluster
In a TBH there are traditionally two positions for the entrance, side and end. The entrance dictates where the brood nest is and thus where the winter cluster will form. With an end entrance the first brood frame will be on bar 2 or 3. This is the ideal situation because the cluster will store all the honey in the brood nest and to the rear or in one direction. This allows them to form and move one way. NOTE once the cluster starts to move they will not go back the other way! This is why I prefer an end entrance. With the entrance on the side the nest will form with half the honey combs on either side. If the bars are not rearranged to put the cluster at one end and the honey on one side they will move one way and starve with the full bars on the other side! With an entrance on the end you save the headache of making this manipulation.
SO, the one thing I will advocate for ALL TBH users is the end entrance! Work smarter not harder!
Once you have decided how you want to proceed, execute your plan and keep notes. Make adjustments to your plan accordingly. I can only tell you what worked for me!
Copyright © 2002-2007 Gary Piantanida- Free for Private Use. - All Other Rights Are Reserved.