Hi !  Rodger, Nice to meet you. Late in August last year, I Being new at the
bee thing,
decided to make an increase in my hives. I didn't have anyone to tell me that
this is not the right time of year to do this sort of thing.  Anyways I
increased
from one very strong hive to seven.  I took my old swam queen away and those
bees raised 17 new queen cells.  On the 10th day I divided the queen cells
equally between the 6 new nuks.  About the 1st of October I checked the
hives and found that the new queens were laying well.  Unfortunitally when I
divided the hives I also divided up the work force and there wasn't enough
workers or season left to gather honey and pollen to keep them over the
winter.  To make matters worse yellow jackets started to steal the only food
stores they did have. I sat with fly swatter killing those jackets, they
made me so mad, and I was mad at myself for doing such a stupid thing.  I
thought I am now going to lose ALL my bees to starvation.  I thought I could
feed them , but then someone said that they would die anyways because the
sugar water would
freeze.  I found an old beekeeper who told me that years ago bees were
always brought into the basement, and as long as they were kept cool and
dark they would stay in their hive.  So I fed them all winter and had a fan
going to move the air around.  They only ate up 14lbs of sugar each and when
I took them out this spring had increased enough to fill the hive. I think
they didn't have to eat as much because they didn't have to generate their
own heat.  Next winter I am Going to bring them in again, but this time they
will have enough of their own honey.
Thats the story in a nut shell.....
Debbie
Ontario, Canada