recipe HERE <\/a>)<\/p>\nWhen doing this – you can either set the candy directly on top of the frames, or on top of an inner-cover that has a hole in the top of it to allow the bees to come and go at-will.\u00a0 Either way – you may need to set a reduced-size spacer on top of your current setup in order to allow room for the candy.\u00a0 Note, though, that you don’t want too much space, as this adds to the volume of airspace that the bees will have to overcome when generating heat to keep their cluster warm.\u00a0 My suggestion would be to use an inner cover – that way their heat is maintained in a more consistent manner. – and any propolizing that is done to seal up cracks does not have to be broken.\u00a0 Then place a spacer board on top of the inner cover.\u00a0 The spacer can be 1x lumber (which is really 3\/4″ in thickness) – and possibly 2 to 3 inches in height to offer space for the candy.\u00a0 You may want to add soy flour or pollen substitute to the candy.\u00a0 If they don’t\u00a0 want or need it, then they won’t take it.\u00a0 It’s better to have it available for them, though.<\/p>\n
One of my hives has propolized their entrance down to about a 3\/8″ hole.\u00a0 If you don’t already have entrance reducers in place – depending upon your temperatures – it’s probably past time to reduce them down.\u00a0 This is also an effective method of retaining their heat.\u00a0 If you use a screened bottom board, then you can slide in a thin sheet of plywood, or a sheet of appropriately sized (cut) coroplast sign.\u00a0 These are the material that the coroplast signs are made of.\u00a0 Check right after an election with someone who ran for office for extra signs to use.\u00a0 Otherwise, maybe a sign shop has misprints or culls that they could donate for your cause.<\/p>\n
A jar of honey can go a long way in bartering for materials.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
In all – remember these things:<\/p>\n
Bees try to maintain about 95 deg. F inside their hive.\u00a0 If you open up their hive unnecessarily, or when it’s too cold, they may freeze to death.<\/p>\n
Condensation can form inside the hive if there is not a little ventilation to allow it’s exit.\u00a0 This condensation can freeze, and make your winter cluster of bees a frozen clump of bees.<\/p>\n
If you can prepare for the worst, and offer your bees the environment that best suits their needs for survival, then you should have bees in the coming spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As we approach December of 2012, I wanted to remind folks that if temperatures are lower than about 75 degrees outside, then try not to open up your hives at ALL.<\/p>\n
The only exception that I can think of at the moment would be to add fondant for feeding – and then it needs to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[96,98,99,15],"tags":[126,165,177,183,186,203,212,248,255,268,340,373,374,387,435,444,446],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bee-yard","category-beekeeping","category-bohemian-utopia","category-harmony-hollow-apiaries","tag-bee-candy","tag-candy","tag-cluster","tag-condensation","tag-coroplast-sign","tag-draft","tag-entrance-reducer","tag-heat","tag-hives","tag-inner-cover","tag-plywood","tag-sbb","tag-screened-bottom-board","tag-spacer","tag-warmth","tag-winter-projects","tag-winterizing","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ze45-6m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}