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Date: | Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:28:17 -0500 |
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>Our big problem in Maine and other cold winter regions is bee poop and no
>January or Feb that to let the bees fly out to poop. Otherwise- dysentery.
Bill, that's an excellent point that no one has brought up yet.
I'm in central Ohio. I've been keeping bees for about 17 years. Winter usually sits in by mid-late December, and can last well into March. Some years, the longest we have between flying days is 3 weeks, but I have seen winters that we had 7 or 8 weeks without a flight day.
On winter days warm enough for bees to fly, I'm usually going out to look at bee hives to see if any have died or if they are all doing good. When I started in beekeeping, I bought some hives and equipment from a retiring beekeeper who had had a stroke and couldn't keep bees anymore. I have bought other used equipment, and some new equipment. My hives are a hodge-podge. I usually run singles for honey production, but overwinter by placing another deep box or a couple shallow supers under the brood box for clustering space. The bees normally stay the whole winter in the top box. (If we have a really good fall flow, I have seen them fill the top box and go into winter in a lower box.
One of the first things I noticed on those days warm enough for bees to fly was that hives with a top entrance would be out crapping everywhere. If it was late winter, sometimes I would see a few bees finding a little pollen. On hives with no top entrance, very often there would be zero bee activity. When I pop the inner cover, I would see a quiet winter cluster, totally oblivious to the fact that the outside weather was good enough for them to take a dump and be out flying.
Which hives would you want? A hive that will take opportunities to take a dump on warm days during winter, or a hive that is clueless to the weather outside and will go longer periods without a dump?
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