Setting up your hive for overwintering
Apimaye insulated beehives are one of the best assets for successful overwintering of your colonies. The cold will take longer to penetrate through the insulation and your bees will be consuming less food, helping them survive longer, harsher, or more erratic winters. However just the beehives are not enough for successful overwintering. Please see our guide on how to get your colonies ready for winter.
Both 7 frame and 10 frame Apimaye hives have the same insulation and similar feeder mechanism. Both of these hives and their supers have grooves for division boards. Each Ergo 10 frame hive come with 2 division boards, and the 7 frame hives come with a single division board. If you need a division board for a deep super, check out this link.
The common theme in arranging the frames is to always have the honey frames on the sides, and have the brood in the center.
Overwintering in 7 Frame NUC Hives
If you have 1 colony with less than 8 frames of bees
Make sure at least 3 frames of brood is in the center, and the honey frames are on each end.
Overwintering 2 very small colonies
- Place the brood division board in the center.
- Brood division board comes standard with 7 frame hives and is taller than the super division board
- Make sure to close the dials to have it in division setting
- Place the brood frames closest to the division board, and have the honey frames on each end
- Shake and dump the extra bees to the hive
- Make sure the other side is closed with the feeder
- Make sure to feed both colonies
- PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS ONLY FOR WARMER CLIMATES. IT IS VERY HARD TO OVERWINTER A SINGLE OR TWO FRAME COLONY
Overwintering 2 small colonies
If you have 2 small colonies with 6 or 7 frames of bees on each:
- Place the brood division board in the center.
- Brood division board comes standard with 7 frame hives and is taller than the super division board
- Make sure to close the dials to have it in division setting
- Place the brood frames as shown in the picture.
- Put the super division board in the center of the deep super
- Super division board is not included with the 7 frame hives and needs to be purchased separately. It is shorter than the brood division board.
- Make sure to close the dials to have it in division setting
- Shake and dump the extra bees to the hive
- Make sure the other side is closed with the feeder
- Make sure to feed both colonies
Overwintering in 10 Frame Ergo Hives
If you have 1 colony with 8 to 10 frames of bees
Make sure to have the brood in the center, and the honey frames are on each end.
Overwintering 2 small colonies in Ergo hives
If you have 2 colonies with 4 to 5 frames of bees, it is advisable to have them in a single hive side by side so they can benefit from each other's warmth.
- Place the brood division board in the center.
- Your Ergo hive comes with both brood division board, and a super division board. Make sure to use the taller brood division board.
- Make sure to close the dials to have it in division setting
- Place the brood frames closest to the division board, and have the honey frames on each end
- Shake and dump the extra bees to the hive
- Make sure the other side is closed with the feeder
- Make sure to feed both colonies
- You can use the new reversible entrance reducers if you would like to have the entrances to each colony on the edges of the hive vs in the center.
If you have 2 colonies with 6 to 10 frames of bees, with 3 frames of brood each, use the following setup
If you have 2 colonies with 6 to 10 frames of bees, with 4-5 frames of brood each, use either of the 2 following setups
