Allen Dick <[log in to unmask]> posted:
 
> I made an interesting observation today that tends to confirm to me,
> my belief in unwrapping hives earlier, rather than later.
> ...
> That yard was the *only* one of the yards that I visited today that
> was unwrapped - the rest of today's sample were still wrapped.  Some
> of the hives in this one unwrapped yard had actually *finished* a one
> pound patty.  Every hive in the yard - even weak ones - had eaten *at
> least* half a patty.  Other yards had almost totally ignored the
> soy/yeast/pollen mixture so far.
> ...
> I have long advocated early unwrapping to encourage the bees to cluster
> rather than to fly around bothering the neighbours and wasting energy,
> but this is the first time I have seeen this particular effect because
> we have not used patties for 15 years or so.
>
> Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?  What does it mean?
>
> Allen
 
Last August at a workshop where perparation for the upcomming winter was
being discussed, a gentleman who made dirt look young got up and
admonished us young uns for coddling our bees.  "You don't need no
stinkin' wraps!  You don't have to nurse your bees through the winter!
In fact, you should get out to your hives in February, open 'em up and
knock on the hives just to shake 'em up a bit!"  He ranted for quite a
while, but I was impressed by the wisdom of his years and listened to
his advice figuring that if his advice was folly he would have ranted
himself out of business a long time ago.  His point was that this late
winter shake up was what the bees needed to get them going in
preparation for spring, which in spite of record low temperatures last
night will surely arrive here and will surely arrive, even in Alberta.
 
In my "just startin' out years" I had a hive that was the mother of all
nasty hives.  Must've been related to them TexMex bees Andy likes so
much.  Anyway, as a rookie I wanted nothin' to do with this hive in
spite of it's superior production and I was hopin' it would die during
the winter.  In fact I even helped out those wishes by leaving the
outter cover off the hive for most of February and March in a Zone 4
region.  Well, the hive made it through with no problems!  Go figure.
 
My current winterizing mode consists of entrance reducers and an empty
super packed with straw on top of 2 deeps.  I try to get pollen/pollen
substitute patties into the hives early in March and have been
experimenting with leaving the straw packed super on some, removing it
from others.  I can't say that I can draw significant conclusions
between the two but I will say that I have not noticed any detrimental
effect of removing the straw packed super earlier than I have in
previous years and some of the strawless hives are doing quite well,
consuming two patties!  I have stopped with supplements as the maples
have finally started producing on the occasional warm days.
 
I think back to the ranting old timer who said don't coddle your bees,
shake 'em up.  I wonder if the shock treatment might be akin to the
theories of why apitherapy works - shock the system into working how
it's s'posed to in the first place.  I suspect there's something to
that recommendation.  I don't know what I would do with a poor hive and
fortunately I don't have any candidates this spring!  Perhaps it's the
shock, I suspect some would claim it's the improved ventillation, and
frankly, I don't know.  But I won't argue with results.
 
What does this all mean?  Beats me.  No matter how long I do this, no
matter how much I read and network and conference, I realize that the
more I listen and pay CLOSE attention to my bees the more they teach me
about THEIR world!
 
As always, results may vary based on location and yearly fluctuations
in seasonal norms.
 
Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!