Bob Harison wrote: > Without a trip to Serbia and seeing and testing for myself I can not say >the hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Do bees feed winter bees different? I do not know. Hello Bob and All Bob, you are welcome in Serbia. I've heard that bees might feed bee larvae in a cell next to each other with different food - one bees will survive winter, the other will not. I can't give a reference now, many of that was presenting to Serbian beekeepers by professor dr Jovan Kulincevic. He is quite well informed about German researches - I think German and Swiss researchers were very interested in that, especially dr Liebig from Hohenheim university. > For myself its simple. After over forty years among the bees I have >noticed in areas of hard winters like my area the old bees with tatered wings and > shiny backs will not be around in early spring. Not rocket science. Yes, it seems very clear, but not every young bee will be around in early spring - the old bees are not disscused now, only young ones. > What race of bees do you use in Serbia and how do you prepare for severe > winter? Do you top vent? How does your friend know for sure his bees feed > winter bees different than summer bees? Our bees are Carniolan only. For our conditions, colonies with 5-6 frames of bees winter successfully and can be good next spring. Colonies winter in one or two brood chambers. When wintering in two chambers, I sometimes remove few frames and make bees winter, for example, 7 under 7 frames. It is used especially if bees haven't got enough natural food and are not too much strong. Good honey combs and brood combs with good rims of honey and with pollen stay up and those that are without honey should be down. I feed bees to make winter stores as early as possible - usually early in August but I will try to have as much as possible natural honey supplies in hives. One or two year old queen is recommended. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, Kulincevic's words about different food are not about his own bees but about researches, counting bees and food analyzing. Sometimes colonies with less bees in autumn have less losses during winter and have more bees after that then colonies that were stronger in autumn. Except varroa, latent nosema can be a problem for wintering here, then old and non-winter bees, exhausted bees... Personally, I use upper entrances and the hives are without vents on inner covers. Beekeepers that have vents, cover those with papers or someting similar. Best regards Predrag Cvetkovic -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---