How preparation gets our honey bees thru winter.
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- How we prepare our honey bees for winter. This is what works for us. We show added ventilation, insurance feed, an attempt at a fast growing wind break, entrance reducer setting and our verroa destructor mite treatment schedule.
Great video. Do you leave the feeder on all winter?
We do leave dry sugar on all winter
@@honyokhoneybees8116 thanks bud.
you treat every month with oxalic? lot's of holes in your boxes. seems like the cold would get in and no foam board on top?
Yes we treat with OA.
The added ventilation is key to keep moisture out of the hives during the winter. We add more vent holes at the top sugar shim for winter. Never used a foam board. The Styrofoam outgasses when it gets hot. Ever taste a drink that has been sitting in a foam cup inside your car after even a couple hours in the sun? The foam outgasses. This could cause your bees to abscond. Our hives are not protected from the north wind during the winter. Sounds crazy but we still overwinter at a very high percentage. Thanks for watching and commenting! Have fun beekeeping!
Ok Ill build a few top sugar boxs with screen hole and give it a try. Last year was terrible here in North Carolina. We had some really cold days. Im also going to build a few double screen boards and stack all the smaller hives with screened sugar boards
If you make sure you kill the mites and make sure they have plenty of food and keep the moisture out of the box you should be good!
Where I'm at it, it seems to be getting harder to get carnis. But before now everyone had carni muts. I've been wondering if its suicide to try straight italian genetics through a long winter climate area? So i wanted to ask you about this.
There are lots of videos on overwintering. But almost none of them go into italian genetics versus long winter.
We have mutts. Once you have open bred queens the offspring are the result of 15-20 matings with drones in your area. So the bees most likely are not purebred. Only artificially inseminated queens have guaranteed genetics. Those queens are $1000 or more. So most bees are mutts. We have queens that look Italian but when we graft larva from them the result produces Italian, striped carniolan and dark carniolan queens. We have lots of Italian looking queens that survive the winter here. I personally believe the beekeeper must prepare the hive for winter. Kill the mites, provide venting, make sure they have enough food and insurance feed are all important. Thanks for watching!
@@honyokhoneybees8116 Thanks.
When I go to buy queens people always are trying to give me the lighter colored queens only, when you ask for carniolan genetics. But you and another guy say that even if you have lighter colored queens they should be able to produce all types of colors, etc. But I'm not getting the darker stuff.
So then is it more likely that people are just basically lying and keeping the darker stuff for themselves? Or passing off italians as carnis?
We have dark bees in our boxes. We have dark carniolan Queens as well not sure if you are interested in a carniolan queen at least she will have half of the genetics dark for sure
Www.honyokbees.com
@@honyokhoneybees8116 So you're a queen producer? Very cool.
Thanks. I agree that some of them should be dark. I don't think all will be. But you know this country I see so many people cutting corners on stuff. Every industry. I'll take a look at your website.