[thedoc (OP)]

Not the bees! Where do they disappear to during the colder months?

Read the article then tell us what you think...

[nicephotog]

---- UPDATE MONTHS AFTER THIS POST HERE BELOW WITH A SHORT STORY mid October 2015 ----
Many years in Sydney NSW Australia, in a suburb called mascot industrial district, i found some feral bees, but had never got around to catching and keeping them.
Around a year and a half back i decided i would catch them and bought the pieces for a 10-full-deep Langstrough hive system, built it and set it, but had the difficulty they were in a wall, too again i found an underground wild beehive(Feral European honeybees) around 500 meters away.
So i tried in vain to tempt them into the wooden hive by leaving it beside their entrance. The problem, A. I wasn't generous enough on substances for them to feed internally, but also B. The single 10-full-deep section is under 40 Liters in size. 40 liters is a size scientists have determined is the basic minimum for Feral bees to move into (a full deep "section" is only around 22 liters).
This year 2015, i decided to use a chopped method of catching the bees in the wall while they were swarming by scraping them into a box and taping it shut until i opened it and poured them into the ready hive open top with four frames out of the way, and basically with only 10 stings and running away each time the patrol near the dropped box was sitting for an hour or two, i eventually got it to the hive and poured them in with their queen.
They were absolutely hopping mad for hours until the sun went down, i could see them in the twilight whirling around up to 10 meters above the hive and they attacked people 100 yards from the hive on the footpath as they past bye.
The Monday of the Queens birthday long weekend in October i scraped them from the wall, it's now twelve days since and they are settling in well.

This is the industrial building wall they came from and the four bolt holes is their entrance.

This is twelve days later, i'm handling them without protective clothing.

...reply to OP post
They hibernate in their hive i presume, well if they are European or Asian honey bees. I've seen European keepers encase them(domesticated ones) with insulation around the hive.
Feral European and Asian bees i presume simply regulate the hive temperature by blocking the entrance hole alike European wasps, and uncork the hive from inside when the temperature warms up in Spring.
Cambodian giant bees i don't know? they don't have a winter.
Australian micro NATIVE honey bees(...do produce honey) , i don't know much of those (see video list below), but Australia for most "has a winter" until you get into the tropics toward the equator (However at points on days can be similar to North European summer).

Choice Videos (most 720p)!!!

Italian & Australian native bee hives in the same tree

Microchips trail dwindling Australian bees

Stingless Australian native bees
---------------------------------

Part 1: Design of an Australian Native Beehive

Part 4: Extracting Honey from an Australian Native Beehive

Australian Native Bee Hive

Australian Native Bee Hive in Fallen Tree Branch

Native Stingless Bees

Australian stingless bee nests

Bee Off Topic
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Honeybee Queen Grafting from Larvae into DIY Queen Cups

Grafting Queen Honey Bees (Queen Rearing)

How we make and sale our package bees

One thing, Brood disorder foul-brood, It may be caused by re-queening from the same hives alike splitting. It's a continual practice to use the same bees to split into new "Nucs" and alike the opposite effect of "Africanisation" domesticated bee hive are smaller and in some terms by "wild creature" psychology health check are superior by aggressive characteristics.
http://beeaware.org.au/archive-pest/africanised-honey-bee/#ad-image-0   ...."The Africanised honey bees have a much greater aggressive and defensive behaviour than European honey bees and because of this rapid hybridisation, they were quickly able to out-compete the European honey bee. "....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

In terms of survival, alike wolves and Canis Familiaris, What's the point of instinctive aggression loss for survival, it makes them in requirement of prosthesis of care!
Moreover, inbreeds are typified usually by size as much condition by being runts(smaller than normal).

The final underlying point of whether a species is a psychopath or sane is whether the aggression has any sensible meaning and it's fears can be allayed such being with "Africanised" bees being able to be kept, they're just a little extra nervous and bitey.
If i were to grab some little bleeder and talk to them with Asperger, they would bleed to death(inbred response), if i did that with someone healthy it would be minutes before the kicked the stink out of me(healthy response)!
It simply shows there is nothing wrong about the Africanised bees in their "wolf template".

So, in effect, to graft bees to queens from your own hives (rather than swapping queens with other keepers 50 - 100Km away that obtained from different bee farms around the country) is a serious mistake in terms of inbreeding genetics[/b].
What is probably needed in each country is a free open forum site with a name such as beelineregistry.org to allow the users profile to show where the bees were acquired and which hives, and help them trade grafted queens in a healthy pattern across the country.
Wild bees do group up in numbers when small breakaway bees leave a colony. The smallest breakaway(European bees) i saw, was in Sydney NSW Australia a few years back contained only 100 or less on a branch in the city, busy making a hive and queen on it.

Any breeder can tell you it's one thing to hold a genetic line but its another to inbreed it!

Another probable bee killer is thermal shock from use of hive heaters. A hive heater should simply be used in massive cold climates to prevent critical levels of temperature drop being reached, not as device to manipulate seasonal climate.
If i remember , during winter in natural European hives, the bees block the hole to a tiny size.
"Beekeeping: How To Wrap Your Bee Hive For Winter" (entrance reducer)

Almost forgot...
One of the biggest killers of species that have aggression are governments!!!
In Australia Africanised bees (simply for point cross bred) are not allowed to be kept.
Many breeds of dog are not allowed to be kept.
All this because they cannot understand aggression in it's correct context for a kept species.
It's also a smart arse about people keeping them, they then totally ban them so they never need face them!!!

You can understand from this following video how endemic by governments , the idea of destroying survival instinct in a species is, "because of the species aggression" !!! Really it cannot be done because it "defies" gravity metaphorically.
(time:   7:06)
"Selection of honey bees for yield and behaviour"

[/b]

[nicephotog]

....DEPENDS IF THEY REACH WINTER...

About Foulbrood bacteria....  All i've known of bacteria is it can live and reproduce well over a variety of high temperature well unless maximum threshold is reached.
Inversely on the otherhand, higher more complex delicate and simple organisms such as insects (bees) have as described below a threshold maximum much lower than any bacteria.
The majority of commercial hives are kept in the sun and may not have heat shielded lids.
Most lids and hives in the recreational license and by price have only a single tin lid, commercial hives probably have these by economics, which raises temperature within inches of the lid when in strong sunlight in summer to no different than the back of a solar panel such as 50 Celsius - 60 - 70 Celsius and does the fact a "heater bee" itself appears to have the optimum laboratory temperature of 45 Celsius the problem. The larvae themselves are probably suffering cannot have "entrance fanning bees"(coolers) successful at lowering the heat.
Bacteria has the tendancy to increase and accelerate its'growth and breeding in sync with rises of temperature.
The attacking bacteria problem combination environment is there with some types of lids and location together.


http://www.arnia.co.uk/temperature-and-thermoregulation-in-the-beehive/
.....Honey bees maintain the temperature of the brood nest between 32°C and optimally 35°C
.... a heater bee can hold this position for up to 30 minutes while its thorax is at around 43°C


http://www.oie.int/fileadmin/Home/eng/Health_standards/tahm/2.02.03_EUROPEAN_FOULB.pdf
...........This organism is isolated most efficiently by inoculating decimal dilutions of the aqueous suspension into agar that has been maintained molten at 45°C and which is then poured into plates. The plates must be incubated anaerobically, such as in McIntosh and Fildes jars in an atmosphere of approximately 5–10% carbon dioxide (CO2) at 35°C. Small white opaque colonies of M. plutonius usually appear within 4 days..............

There is a lid design called a migratory lid that comprises a "flat masonite sheet cover" over the hive super "topmost section", then four edge blocks 1 1/2 inches high to sit under the tin cover with four holes with vent covers to allow slow but able air flow through between the tin (as a multi section lid).
This is what i have over my hive because "nothing in Australia would survive the tin lid temperature" when it were suddenly either or be exposed within two inches of the tin lid on some days !

[chris]

Nice story!

[nicephotog]

The bacterial care sheet for the laboratory does seem to show "it can be done" by a poorly heat shielded hive.
Too when more supers are put over the top the collective density of substance below will absorb and hold heat above the higher brood incubation threshold.
The tin lid in direct radiation can only lose by radiating infra red for most so it can reach to the bottom of the stack through the gaps and queen excluder.
Some of my bees were fanning this midday in their single Nuc full deep(has a double layered cover) and it was under 30 degrees Celsius.