[cloddopper]

Like the title says .. don't forget the bees . take a trip to the apiaries , check everything is Ok.
Be prepared to put some  1/4 square mesh around the hives to keep the wood peckers from holing the hives and eating the bees.

 If you haven't had to put bricks on the hive lids to hold the lids on it might be a sensible thing to do fairly soon for it looks like we could be in for a long period of sustained cold wet windy weather .

[HesterF]

I tucked mine in for winter about a month ago but I included carpet squares on the top - inside the roof - for insulation but then they seemed to be getting damp so I've taken it out again. Do you think it'll be OK without extra insulation? They have all the other stuff - mouse guard, chicken wire surround & rocks on top. Only other problem is the varroa drop in one continues despite a second treatment so I'm keeping a count and might have to use oxalic acid in Jan.

H

[cloddopper]

Damp bees & uncapped honey go mouldy PDQ, They die very quickly  they can survive intensely cold dry but not much damp , keep the hive dry at all costs.

If you do a bit of internet research you should be able to find the relative humidity figures for inside the brood chamber of successful hives throughout the year .
For some reason  I seem to think that the " BBKA " might have such information readily to hand. 

 You can buy a cheap external grade  (£7 ish ) digital hygrometer  on eBay that indicates temp and humidity to + or - 1%.

 I've purchased one tonight for £6.99 to check that our bungalow is drying / dried  out , but not too dry because I get chest infections fairly easily if things swing too much one way or the other..)

[JulieWall]

I tucked ours up for the winter about a month ago too. We leave the varroa floor in all year round so they get lots of ventilation but they do have a 'duvet' made from 2" polyester wadding inside a very thin synthetic pillow protector. It is breathable but keeps the heat from rising and escaping. They were just a small colony last winter but came through with flying colours. The Dark European bee is a bit hardier than other strains and this method seems to suit ours. The Apivar treatment we gave them last year also seems to have been 100% effective, they have been varroa-free all year 

[HesterF]

Well they've got the same ventilation they've had all year except for the mouseguard so I don't think they'll get damp now. I don't know what I could do about it anyway really. Their humidity now must be the same as the external humidity, pretty much.

The varroa is weird - one hive is pretty free of it, the other (a whole metre away!) has been treated twice with the new strips (MAQs?) but is still dropping. All very puzzling.

H

[cloddopper]

in dry cold the bees vibrate to keep the queen and cluster warm as they move around the stored honey . When the humidity is high they buzz a bit more to try and dry the air off to prevent the moulds from forming in a well ventilated hive that warm moist air will escape through the top vent . Blocking or restricting the flow with carpet folded blankets paper will see the moist air condense and make it wet  , this will be out of the heat influence of the cluster and as a result the natural moulds form and give off more spores .
Soon the hive gets cool & damp and as we all know a damp air takes much more heat to warm it , this drains heat from the cluster they can't produce it fast enough  ..  the damp outer bees then take mould spores into the cluster as they circulate into the cluster to get their feed of honey , then the hive dies off very quickly from a form of hypothermia  or succumbs to disease and or Varroa effects.

[HesterF]

Interesting - I just noticed the corners seemed damp when I went in to put the varroa treatment in so I took the carpet out again. Strange that it seems fairly commonly recommended to use carpet squares in winter. We're not that cold here anyway and they're well protected in the corner of two high hedges (although they're on the North side so they won't get any direct sunlight until spring now) so I hope they'll stay warm enough.

[cloddopper]

Putting insulatiing " quilts " in the hives is very very old witchcraft type bee keeping.
In 1994  I burnt forty or more of hand made cushions with a central vent hole ( they looked like 18 inch grey square polo's made from old army hairy blankets and stuffed with hay .
The old boy who had them had died , I was tasked with clearing out all th bees and four sheds of unused gear in readiness for his wife to go into a care home.  His wife said he'd had them in the green shed unused since 1960 and had kept them just incase it was found that they didn't harm the bees .


 The hedges sound a good place to put the hives .

If you have them a simple one bale of straw on its edge high wall around the hive about four feet from the hives is fairly good as well for it will help keep any weak sunlight warmth around the hives & it will help take some rain off the hives.

[JulieWall]

To be honest, the polyester wadding is so thin and light I wondered just how much insulation it would really give, you can breathe through it yourself without noticing it is over your face, if you know what I mean. As there is a block of candy on top of the frames and a super to accommodate it, it would have left a massive space between them and the crown board if there was nothing there.
We are newbies at this, last year was our second year so as you might expect, still taking lots of advice but realising how much variation of opinion is out there too. I tend to adopt a common sense approach and use the advice that makes the most sense to me ..... can't really do better than that.
From what I read about black bees they are found as far north as Russia so I can't see cold killing them off but damp surely will. The first bit of sun on the front of the hive and they are out, last seen two weeks ago in fact, they don't seem to care as much about a bit of wind or rain as long as the sun warms the hive a bit, out they come.

Have any of you left them their own honey to eat? That's what we do, augmented with whatever ambrosia feed they will take down.