Kyle Lewis wrote:
>
> I have a question for you, Mats, and for Tony in Norway.  Do you use wood
> hives or styrofoam insulated hives?  I can hardly believe your bees can
> survive the winter on just 16 kg of sugar.

To answer in reverse order:
The amount of winter stores needed should be seen in relation to the
colony size.
I am often amazed at the size of colonies referred to by american
beekeepers, ours by comparison are very small. We seldom need more than
one brood chamber and rarely use more than one honey super. Why there is
this difference I cannot say (climate + a local strain of bee?). As I
said in my post a typical hive overwinters on 8 frames (in a standard 10
frame box the difference made up with insulated spacers). Mats (?)
referred to the Norwegian method whereby the bees are fed sugar syrup
after being shaken onto frames of foundation, this is I believe is not
uncommon further south, but here it is normal to feed on frames of clean
drawn comb (ie. not old dark comb) with at most a couple of frames of
foundation. Local wisdom is that it is too cold for the production of
large quantities of wax and also that forcing the bees to try to produce
large quantites of wax weakens the hive for overwintering. A proportion
of foundation is normally put in when expanding the hive in the spring.
As I wrote our bees are carniolans, known to be economical with winter
stores and there is often a need to remove food frames in the spring!

The oldest dark combs are relegated for use in the honey super for the
collection of heather honey (the cocoon remains etc. strengthen the
combs so that they can withstand the honey loosening process and the
high extraction forces needed for heather honey). A proportion of these
dark combs are culled every autumn.

My hives all have a wooden floor and roof (telescoping), mostly
homebuilt. For boxes I use styrofoam for overwintering and for all honey
supers (to save weight), however in the spring I add a double walled
(insulation between the walls) wooden box on top of the styrofoam box
and after the queen is established in the top box the boxes are reversed
and a queen excluder put in between them. In september when taking the
heather honey from the (wooden) brood chamber the bees are shaken into
the styrofoam box they will overwinter in and fed immediately. The
reason for this procedure is that we use a hive carrier that is based
upon a scissors action that is somewhat rough on the brood box and I
don't think that styrofoam boxes would take the pressure or the wear and
tear (I could be wrong). We mostly use some form of screen floor (most
are not true OMFs) and top insulation all the year round, a few diehards
still swapping to solid floors just for the winter. I usually staple a
polythene sheet around the sides and along the back of the hive stands
as protection against the North winds but most locals don't bother.
The top insulation is 2 inches of styrofoam on top of a heavyweight
cloth top cover with a cover board on top of that to support the roof
and to take the pressure of the straps we use when migrating to the
coastal heather moors. Those that swap to solid floors for the winter
also swap to permeable top insulation at the same time.
I might add that our boxes are square and of a single standard size (as
are the frames) and are therefore totally interchangeable, the terms
brood box and super merely describe what they are being used for.


Sorry to be so longwinded, I hope it all makes sense!

Tony
--
Anthony N Morgan,
Førsteamanuensis
Institutt for Elektroteknikk
Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag
N-7005 Trondheim, Norway
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Tlf. 73 55 96 04
Fax. 73 55 95 81