Over winter hives

Hi Deerman, welcome to the forums. The northern states are harder due to cold snow and ice but there's no reason your bees shouldn't survive the winter with a little prep. How many hives do you have?

Deerman, even most of the beeks in Canada now overwinter their hives.

Ohio has a very healthy number of beekeepers, of which virtually none practice cull-and-replace. With the current bee shortage, most have now come to understand the importance of not killing bees, and the ease of overwintering (especially in your area) if the proper steps are followed. There is a lot of info out there on winter setups, but your area should be a pretty easy one for overwintering hives in.

I hope this helps.

I have 3 hives, my Dads from years past. Have had them for a few years.
Talk to a Guy that had over a thousand and he replaced them every year??? Thats was over 3 years ago. He was in Northern Ohio.
Just wonder if thats was normal.

Know a little about bees, but alot more to learn. These were my Dads he kelp them here on my place. Didnt even remove any honey this year.
Did catch one swarm from them this year.

Thanks for the welcome

As for replacing that many hives each year, it's not the normal practice these days. To be honest I'm pretty sure that most would tell you that in this day and age, it'd be pretty severely frowned upon. You won't find folks on these internet forums that do it either.

I hear you on the lack of honey this year. This was a bad year for folks in many areas. Some folks here in our area didn't really get a crop either.

1of6 thanks. I didnt think it was right to kill the bees just to get the max of honey. He told me that 3 years ago when I ask how many hives he lost in the winter. He was another deer breeder.

Oh I didnt even try to remove any honey.

Yup, have to agree with 1of6. Here's a pretty good link to the ohio ag dept apiary page, not very updated but there's some good info there:

http://www.agri.ohio.gov/divs/plant/apiary/apiary.aspx