Hi Dick,

> In fact most who don't
> overwinter try their damndest to give their bees away to anyone who wants to overwinter at
> season's end.
>

Unless this give away comes with frames and the brood nest sanctuary is left intact, where especially pollen frames have been left in place, the colonies will more or less be doomed. I teach that planning to overwintering starts in the spring as the bees begin to build up, this in fact is what the bees are actually doing. You can not plan on wintering after their chances of surviving has been destroyed by carelessness and mismanagement. A colony needs several things to winter, a race of bee that is well suited for local conditions, plenty of young bees (so the queen can never be caged like some beekeepers up here do during our one and only honey flow), Pollen stores (placed and arranged as the bees would have arranged them), honey stores above and beside the brood nest with cluster space dead center of the center of top box of empty cells (I weigh the hives and try to bring each hive up to 50 lbs. average net weight per deep box), Top insulation to keep condensation from forming above the cluster, More ventilation than one would think needed (Above or below but lots of it), Protection from pest, Varroa control (I am using small cells and breeding for tolerance), If you think you need protection from wind give it (I have learned that this is not as critical as some think), A location where the bees will not be disturbed and preferable with absolutely no beekeepers until Cleansing flights (up hear that is sometime in March usually. you know when cleansing flights have started by the staining in the snow in front of hives). The last one also is a good indication as to whether they are dead or alive but not always a dead give away. Some colonies wait longer to take cleansing flights and it is those colonies that wait that I like to see because it is those that wait that end up being my strongest colonies.

There is not a whole lot to wintering colonies but one can not expect someone to take your bees in the fall up here and give the bees a fair chance of wintering in Alaska. Timing and coordination is very critical up here in our short season, even I would not invest in a doomed colony that someone else may have instigated doom to.

> Who knows, maybe economics and the
> shortage of bees will force beekeepers up here to struggle more against the winter as the
> Canadians did who, as I understand, began with new packages every season too before the border
> closing.
>

Our boarders probably will not close from the lower 48 states, so beekeepers need to make a conscious decision to do the right thing before it is to late and we continue to bring in pest and diseases. It would not be as much of a struggle to winter if we were all working together up here, teaching good sound wintering methods, breeding a local strain of bee, and our leaders in beekeeping would encourage wintering as the only option. I am doing all these parts just mentioned and in addition I will not sell package bees to anyone not working bees to keep them, I will not waste my efforts, my hard work, and genetic breeding on anyone killing bees in the fall. I say let them buy bees somewhere else if they want to not keep them, I am not out to make any big bucks selling package bees. I just want the bees I handle to have a fair chance of surviving. If beekeepers up here want to keep bees then they need to do what it takes to do it. Many things need to be done and breeding a bee is one of them and we all need to take part in it. We need to come together up here to do it and not expect a hand full of us to do it for everyone else. The Canadians were forced to become better beekeepers but we Alaskans have a chance to do it consciously, Like you and I are doing Dick.

What is beekeeping if it is not keeping bees alive?

 . ..   Keith Malone, Chugiak, Alaska USA, http://www.cer.org/,
c(((([ , Apiarian, http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney/,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akbeekeepers/ ,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norlandbeekeepers/ ,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ApiarianBreedersGuild/

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