--- On Mon, 7/30/12, Ghislain De Roeck <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 What are the needs of a colony to overwinter? I never could find a figure on this. Are there figures available elsewhere?

reply:
This was always told to do by calculating critical mass of bees and then how many you wish to end up with come spring with first major broodturn. For was always told to keep bees more stable and strong to hold back calculating that it takes one cell of water to one cell of pollen to one cell of honey to make one new bee......therefore replacing over winter the adult bees, while keeping new nurse bees for firing up in spring means what stores you leave them on hand, for restarting coming year. Then besides calculating what needed for producing one new worker bee, you also need to sustain the living of the adult bees overwinter, which means two sets of calculations for needs.....one for maintaining adults, and one for making new bees for replacement of old bees as new year comes on......

So two frames of pollen to two frames of honey with equivalent in water would make about 2 frames of bees...........more frames would make more and less would make less..........it's just how strong do you wish your bees to come out/restart come spring? With stronger colonies having more with periodic brooding initiated by warm spells, with lesser colonies having less, of which the honey also coincides with thermodynamics for warmth in winter..........with less needed then come spring with new bloom coming on.......which is new pollen and honey coming in.....(each frame honey is about R-17 value fwiw.

Dee A. Lusby

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