> Pity about:
> 'During the winter, the hives remain sealed and the bees don't leave the
> hive. Bees usually remerge from the hive in April, depending on the region
> and the weather.'

Except now more than half the hives in the U.S. are moved to warmer areas
for the winter.
Texas, California & Florida (with many other southern states seeing snowbird
beekeepers_).

The others:

The hives I am wintering are now given much better care than is usually
given. Day before yesterday will be most likely the last time until February
I will look in those boxes.( not wanting to break the winter seals) .

 We checked weights, added a one inch foam board into the spacer
( as per Michael palmer) , drilled holes as Allen uses in top deeps not a
year old (ouch!) and then closed the bottom entrance down to a small hole.

The three above things I normally do not do in Missouri!

These things are usually not done in Missouri commercial beekeeping except 
for checking winter feed
weight  for survival.

I was glad to see the same numbers of bees when we popped the lids as before
the oxalic treatment.

I offered my helper  ( autistic)  a five dollar bill if he could find me a
bee with a deformed wing in the test group looking at the top of the largest
clusters.( most are bellow the top box and appear dead until you split the
box (which is what we really like to see).  The five dollar bill stayed in
my pocket.

I still see some dead bees in some feeders ( not good but maybe bees which 
were moving syrup when we had a quick drop in temps as the temp can drop 40 
degrees in a few hours at times when wind direction changes.

I fed the fumigillin last ( as per directions) placing the medicated feed in 
the brood
nest to be consumed over the winter.

Will report what I see next spring.

The bees actually had higher numbers of bees going into winter last year but
I think I see more young fuzzy bees this year.

Every year now in the Midwest we cross our fingers and hope for the best for
our bees!

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm