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Tue, 21 Feb 2017 10:30:08 -0500 |
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Thanks Larry
I look up plants that people mention here to learn about them & see if
they could be found here. My copy of 'Plants for Beekeeping in Canada
and Northern USA' says eranthis hyemalis(eranthis d'hiver) is an
excellent source of early pollen.
Maybe your 2 lost hives were weaker than the others. I count the
seams of bees at packing time when I treat with oxalic drizzle in
early December. I have found that if there are less than 5 seams with
bees clustered, they do not make it through our 'normal' (whatever
that is) winter. I posed the question here on Bee-L about combining
these weak hives that late in the year and got an answer from Alan
Dick formally of this list.
In late Nov early Dec when doing my oxalic acid treatment, I record
the number of seams of bees on which I drizzle oxalic. I have found
that if there are 4 seams of clustered bees or less, they do not
survive our winter. Now if I was smarter I would have combined much
earlier.
Should I:
1- Place one hive brood box directly on top of the other after the
bees have clustered (both are queen right)
2- As in 1 with a queen excluder between the 2 hives
3- Use the newspaper method before they cluster (several warmer days
predicted later this week -5C tonight, +10C Thurs and Fri)
4- Place each weak hive on top of a stronger hive to take advantage of
the heat (no connection between the hives)
5- Kiss the weaker hives goodbye
6- Better ideas?
I do #1 on your list. Place the heavier one on top and rotate the
boxes so the clusters are lined up above and below one another. If
the bees are torpid when combined and no great disturbance is made,
there should be no fighting, and the two clusters should unite over
time when it warms up. You should be able to do this even in cold
weather as long as you are deft, don’t blunder around or drop boxes
and bees.
Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada
44N80W
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