John Mesinger wonders what to do with the honey his carniolans have left in
July.  I don't know your area John but I'd suggest for your consideration
that you put it in marked supers in your warehouse and put it back into the
hive in June for use by the bees during the winter.  Leave supers on the
hives after June so the bees will store the remaining nectar flow in honey
supers instead of the brood nest.  I say marked supers because if you are
treating the brood nest with chemicals you shouldn't move this honey into
supers or extract it.  Keep broodnest combs separate from honey super combs.

I also have to ask how many combs are covered with bees in late Feb. or
early Mar. if the top brood boxes (2 Illinois/western supers) are full of
capped honey which was never touched fall or winter?  If these are full of
honey, I must conclude that your wintering cluster of bees is small, maybe
too small.  Maybe you are leaving too much honey in the hive for winter
stores.

Remember that the size of the cluster going into fall is proportional in
shape - height to width.  The bees want to cluster in open comb and cover
some honey above and to the sides of the brood rearing area.  If you shrink
this open comb space by putting two full westerns of honey on for winter (or
letting the bees fill in too much brood rearing area with honey) the height
of the cluster will be reduced thus reducing proportionately the width of
the cluster, thus its overall size.  The other possibility is that your bees
are genetically selected to winter small clusters.  If this is the case you
need to decide if this strain of bees is what you want if you are going to
make splits next spring.

I have been operating bees in three westerns here in Washington State for 20
years.  I leave them the equivalent of 10 deep frames of honey (15 westerns)
and they usually have four to six combs left in March.  If I want to make
splits the next spring, I winter the colonies in four westerns containing 18
western combs of honey.  I orient it in the hive so that the center three or
four combs in the third western is open for bee clustering space.

I have found over 25 years that a larger colony in the fall actually uses
less honey to winter on than a smaller one.  I theorize this is caused by
the more efficient use of stores and conservation of heat  due to the colony
size.  For example:  two deeps full of bees (3 westerns) on Sept. 15 with 10
combs of honey (15 westerns) will have about 2 or 3 deep combs (4.5
westerns) left in the spring.  If I winter colonies in 3 deeps (4 westerns)
I only need 12 combs of honey (18 westerns) in the hive on Sept. 15 to have
2 or 3 deep frames of honey left in the spring.

If you only use two westerns for wintering your colonies, you will have
smaller colonies of bees in the spring.  I'm not sure you want that.  A
colony must be a minimum of 6 deep combs covered with bees in the spring to
be a viable colony.  Wintering in 2 westerns will not allow for the proper
height to width proportion to ensure a good sized colony in the spring.

James C. Bach
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