Winter inspections: Checking on your bees in winter

In a single deep, the winter cluster is right under the cover.

Right now, the temperature here, in NW Ohio, is 16F (-8.8C) and Ohio, much like the rest of the northern USA is encased in snow and ice. Even if I wanted to, today is not a good day to be checking on the bees in winter.

This is our second winter storm for the season. The first one brought us almost 2 weeks of below-freezing temperatures and even some snow flurries. However, right before this second winter storm hit, we had a couple of days where the daytime high was 50F (10C). I took the opportunity to pop open a couple of lids and take a peek at the bees. I wanted to see how the insulation is holding out and whether I had any moisture collecting on the inner lids. Moisture is a big killer of bees in winter.

As expected, when I cracked the lid on one of my hives in 2 deep brood boxes, there was nothing to see. The cluster was still in the lower brood box. All you could see from the top were their honey stores - frame after frame of beautifully capped honey, a perfectly dry inner cover (the insulation on top is working!) and not a bee in sight. Even though the temperature was close to 50F, I know better than to start digging into a honey bee hive in the winter. I closed them up and went to check on the bees in single deep brood boxes.

I am going to take a few minutes and explain how I do inspections of my bees in winter. First, of course is: Always wear protection. You have probably heard that bees don't fly when the temperatures are below 50F (10C). This, of course is true. However, they will fly to protect their hive. A determined guard bee can usually make it from the entrance of the hive to your face and sting you before she succumbs to the cold. It bear repeating: Always wear protection, even if the temperature is 32F (0C). I also learned (through bitter first hand experience) that you should not use smoke when you are inspecting a beehive and the temperature is below 50F (10C). Even a puff of smoke can cause the bees to come pouring out of the hive entrance - quite the opposite to what one is accustomed to when doing inspections in the summer.

Bees in winter. The cluster forms off-center in a single deep box.

Now, let's get back to what I found under the cover of my single deep hive. The interesting thing to note in a single deep (or a nuc for that matter) is that the cluster forms off-center in the brood box. In a double deep, the cluster forms in the center of the bottom brood box and then slowly eats its way to the inner cover all through winter. In the singles and nucs, the cluster formed at the back (accross from the entrance). Through winter, the cluster will be making its way toward the entrance.

Finally, the inner covers on the singles were as dry as the inner covers on the double deep beehives.

A well propolized and most importantly dry inner cover

The insulation between the telescoping cover and the inner cover is doing its job - reducing the temperature differential between the bees warm breath and the wood of the inner cover.

To the left is a picture of the inner cover - well propolized and most importantly - dry! The circular pattern on the cover is from a bucket feeder that I used in the early fall. This inner cover is one of the first covers I made almost 5 years ago and is showing its age.

Have you been tempted to peek into your hives? What did you find? Leave me a note in the comments or drop me an e-mail from the links below this blog post!

Video Post: Making Bee Candy Boards | Bee Fondant Boards

Maria's Bees YouTube channel is officially opened!

My first two videos are a family effort :D !

The first one shows you how I make the frames. You can find it here.

The second one shows you how to pour the fondant. You can find it here.

You can find my printable recipe here.

Enjoy!

Fall Inspections: Bee candy boards and upper entrances

Honey bee candy boards in the making. The facility is under tight security.

I make my own boxes (deep) from 1 x 12 pine boards. I use half-blind dovetail joints. The rims that you see on the pictures are the extras left over once I cut the box down to proper depth. They are 1 3/4" deep.

I actually like having them since they make tight-fitting inner covers (crown boards) and bottom boards. Today, they are going to make tight-fitting bee candy boards or bee fondant boards.

I cut a 1/4" thick plywood to act as the lid on my fondant board. The kids helped me decorate them with bee pictures :D. I used 3/4" narrow crown staples to fasten the lids to the rims. Finally, I routed a 3/8 x 1/2" upper entrance in the fondant board.



The bee candy boards are ready to be filled with fondant.

The upper entrance is important as we often have drifting snow that can completely block off the bottom entrance. The upper entrance also serves as extra insurance in case the bottom entrance becomes clogged with dead bees as winter progresses. Finally, the entrance allows me to gauge the depth of the fondant/bee candy and allows me to leave the 3/8 bee space above the top bars. I have a YouTube video showing the process here

Now it is time to make the bee candy board | bee fondant boards. I've made a printable copy of my bee candy board | bee fondant recipe here. You can see the video here.

Equipment needed:

• Pot (I use a 21.5 quarts canning pot)
• Drill with metal plaster stirrer attachment (optional UNLESS you use the quick-set method)
• Cooking or candy thermometer
• Scale
• Gloves
• Bee candy board forms | bee fondant forms
• A wooden spoon | spatula to fill the forms and pat the mixture into shape

Ingredients needed:

• 4 parts by weight sugar (I start with 15 lbs.)
• 1 part by weight water (3 lbs. and 12 oz.)
• 1/4 tsp. vinegar for each pound of sugar (1 Tbsp. and 3/4 tsp.)
• Pollen or dry pollen substitute (optional, I use about a handful for each form)

Additional ingredients for the quick-set method:

• 4 parts by weight sugar (I use 15 lbs.)

 

Preparation

1. Mix together 4 parts sugar, 1 part water and the vinegar into the pot and set it on high.
2. Once the mixture starts boiling, start checking the temperature. We are aiming for the soft-ball candy stage or 242F.
3. You are done once the mixture reaches 242F. Turn off the heat. The mixture is ready to pour when it cools down to about 180F.
4. If you don't want to wait, you can proceed with the quick-set method:
5. This sets very quickly! Make sure you have your power stirrer, your spoon | spatula, your forms, the pollen, your gloves and the extra sugar set out.
6. Put the gloves on and carefully take the pot next to your forms.
7. Make sure you have your spoon | spatula, your mixer and the pollen | pollen substitute ready.
8. Dump the extra sugar into the mixture, mix it thoroughly and spread it into the forms. Add the pollen | pollen substitute and tap it in.

The final product: bee candy boards | fondant boards ready to be put on the hives. Those took 90 lbs. of sugar.

I want to say a few final words on using bee candy | bee fondant boards. The boards that I just made weight roughly 7.5 lbs. for a nuc-sized board and 15 lbs. for a standard-sized board.

• Adding a candy board on a nuc will increase the honey bee colony's resources by 54%.
• Adding a candy board on a colony in a single deep will increase its resources by 27% (a bit more than 1/4).
• Adding a candy board on a colony in a double deep will increase its resources by 21% (a bit more than 1/5).

Adding a bee candy board cannot make up for failing to feed a light colony earlier in the fall. It can, however, add extra insurance for smaller colonies going into winter.

One final note on the timing of installing a bee candy board. The bee candy board recipe includes pollen and pollen stimulates brood rearing. As a result, you do not want to add this candy board before the colony starts clustering consistently. Otherwise, your colony may end up trying to cover too much brood once the weather gets cold and result in a split cluster. You want the candy board to be a last resort of sorts and you really want the bees to find it and start using it in late winter, when they start rearing the brood for the new season.

Fall Inspections: Wrapping hives and installing mouse guards

The home apiary before wrapping (with foam between the inner cover and the telescoping cover)	The home apiary after wrapping (The nuc on the left is wrapped by itself. All the other nucs are wrapped in pairs. I am curious to see how this nuc does in the spring.)

 I spent this weekend wrapping my hives.

Couple years ago, I made two home-made hive cozies. They slip right over the hive on the stand. You can also remove the "roof" and get into the hive without having to pull the entire "cozy" off. They are perfect if you only have a couple of hives. However, they are way too bulky to store in the summer. You can see them on the "after" picture.

All the other hives got 1 piece of foam between the inner cover and the telescoping cover. I used 1" thick rigid pink insulation foam. I also put 4 pieces of that foam so that they completely enclose the hive, except for the bottom board and 3/8" right above it. As you can see on the picture, I used some pieces of duct tape to hold the pieces of foam in place until I was able to tighten the strap. I will remove those pieces of tape later, when I install the candy boards. I also wrapped duct tape completely around the top and bottom of the hive in case the strap fails:


Double deep hives, fully insulated

The duct tape goes completely around and ends up on itself, since sometimes when it is cold (as it was yesterday) it does not stick on the foam.

For a strap, I used a 1" x 6' cam buckle strap. I prefer those instead of ratchet straps as they don't seize after being exposed to the cold and rain all winter. Of course, of you have more hives, either one of those straps may not be practical. A simple spool of 1" webbing and a trucker's knot will accomplish the same at a fraction of the cost.

So, what is the purpose of wrapping hives? After all, bees have made it without wrapping for millions of years.

I wrap because it stabilizes the brood nest temperature and reduces condensation.

If you ever had a strong hive and not-so-strong hive side by side, you probably noticed that the stronger colony starts to forage earlier and finishes foraging later than the weaker colony. This is because the stronger colony has more foragers to spare. Adding insulation to a colony also allows it to send out more bees as foragers. It reduces the temperature swings between the daytime high and the nighttime low. With insulation, a honey bee colony needs less nurse bees to maintain the brood nest temperature. In this way, an insulated honey bee colony can resume brood rearing earlier in the spring than a non-insulated one. It can also make the most of the first pollen flows (maple and willow here in NW Ohio) that usually happen during marginal flight weather. An insulated colony will usually be 2 weeks ahead as far as population and brood rearing are concerned compared to a non-insulated colony.

An added benefit of insulating your colonies is that the insulation dramatically reduces condensation on the roof and sides of the honey bee hive. As you probably know, moisture in the winter kills bees. Sometimes, moisture in the hive is introduced by uncured syrup, especially if you had to feed late in the fall and the bees did not have time to cure and cap the syrup.

Moisture is also introduced through the metabolic processes of the cluster itself and the conversion of honey into heat by the honey bees. If the top of the hive is not insulated, the warm and moist bee breath forms condensation droplets right above the cluster. The resulting water droplets can drip on the clustered bees and quickly chill and kill them. Adding insulation overhead as well as gently tilting the hive towards the entrance alleviates that.

Of course, once the bee hive gets cozier due to the added insulation, a slew of other critters want to make it their home, too. The most destructive are the field mice.

A single deep hive box with mouse guard and 3 3/8" holes on the left

You probably haven't seen any traces of mice in your apiary. Mice are tricky. They usually invade the hives once the bees start clustering consistently. Then they can make their nests at leisure, often destroying the entire bottom box by chewing through the frames and foundation. If the weather warms up unexpectedly for the mouse, the bees will kill it and completely propolise the body.

I always recommend putting mouse guards on. They are quick and easy to install and can save the beekeeper a lot of grief in the spring. You can make them from 1/4" pet fencing. This year, I used drywall corner (available in all home improvement type stores) that I cut to size and drilled 3/8" access holes. If you use a wood block while you are drilling, your holes will be clean and won't have burrs and sharp edges that can damage the honey bees wings.

This blog post is getting quite long. I will finish it next week with pictures and recipe for my candy board. I will also talk about upper entrances for winter. Meanwhile you can tell me in the comments how you insulate your hives. Did you insulate already and if not when do you plan to do it?

Fall Inspections: How to downsize your hive without inciting robbing and get your bees ready for wintering

Getting ready for wintering bees: 5 nucs and 2 singles have pink insulation put over their inner covers.

Fall is the perfect time to check your beehives and make sure your honey bees are ready for wintering. Ideally, you would do this right after the last fall flow (goldenrod and asters in mid-August through the beginning of September here in NW Ohio) as this will give you a good read on the strength and stores of the honey bee colony going in the winter. Unfortunately, while the timing is great for assessing stores, it is bad for performing thorough inspections. We all know the reason: robber bees.

Here are a few facts about robber honey bees:

• They are opportunistic.
• They engage in explorative foraging.
• If they find a source of nectar or pollen, they will return to the same spot until the source is exhausted. They will also check the vicinity of the source to see if there is something else available.
• They will stop robbing if it gets dark, if it starts raining, if it gets too cold or if there is a lot of smoke. They will resume the robbing once flying conditions improve.
• Feeding sugar syrup, especially syrup with stimulants such as HoneyBHealthy attracts robber honey bees.
• Weak hives and nucs are especially prone to being robbed out very quickly in the fall (or in a dearth).
• Robbing in the fall (or in a dearth) is really easy to start and very difficult to stop.

Now, let’s go back to getting your bees ready for wintering. Unfortunately, the honey bee colonies that need the most help are the ones the robber bees are more likely to target:  nucs, weak colonies or colonies that are getting fed.

When evaluating your honey bee colonies for winter stores, you need to keep the following honey bee facts in mind:

• It takes about 3-4 days for a small nuc to take about a quart of 5:3 sugar syrup or about 1.25 lbs. of extra stores
• It takes about 1 week for a colony in a single deep to take about 1 gallon of 5:3 sugar syrup or about 5 lbs. of extra stores.
• It takes about 1 week for a full sized colony in a double deep configuration to take about 5 gallons of 5:3 sugar syrup or about 25 lbs. of extra stores

 

Keep in mind that those time frames are for hives that are properly sized for their box as far as brood frames and cluster size are concerned (even though they might be light on stores). For more on appropriate sizes see my post Fall inspections: Finding the right size box for your bees. 

In addition to the above mentioned time frames, the bees need some extra time to cure the syrup to proper moisture content before cold weather sets in so that there is not a bunch of extra moisture added to the hive. Allow at least couple of weeks after you are done feeding for the bees to cure the syrup.

 

Depending on the time frame available until the end of the beekeeping season, downsizing may be the better choice for getting your colony through the winter.  Keep in mind that downsizing takes approximately 15 minutes while feeding can take anywhere from a week to several weeks in a row. Chances to start robbing are bigger with feeding as compared to downsizing.

After all this, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of downsizing a hive without starting a robbing frenzy.

 

First, start with a plan. From weighing the hive, you should have a pretty good idea about what the target size should be.  Let’s pretend that we have a colony in a double deep hive that weighed at 75 – 80 lbs. Even without opening the hive, you know that this colony will be better off in a single deep and that there is pretty much at least one box worth of empty comb. You will still need to feed this colony after downsizing it, but not as much as you will need to feed if it was still in a double deep configuration.

 

Once you decide on the size that you need, make a note of what frames you need. For a single deep you will need 2 brood frames, 2 pollen frames and at least 5 full honey frames.  Next, let’s talk about where you’re most likely to find those.  In an established hive, the honey frames would be in the top deep, while the pollen and the brood frames most likely are going to be in the middle of the bottom deep. In an established hive that weighs 75-80 lbs. chances are that the top deep is going to be full of empty frames and you could possibly have the 2 outside frames in the bottom deep full of capped honey. In a newly installed hive with the same weight, the top might even contain undrawn frames. You might find some honey stores in the middle of the top deep. The bottom deep is likely to have a couple of undrawn or partially drawn frames towards the outside of the box.

 

A robber cloth made from a receiving blanket with 2 boards on the wide side. Since the temperature outside is 40F, I am using a box with foundation for my demo picture. Note how the robber cloth allows you to expose only one or 2 frames at a time.

As a final step, get your tools and equipment together. You will need an extra hive body to sort the frames into and an inner cover. If you don’t have an extra inner cover, you can use a scrap piece of plywood of the appropriate size or make a robber cloth. You can make a robber cloth out of any piece of cloth that is big enough to cover a hive body with some overhang over the sides. Attach something to weigh the sides, so it does not get blown away while you are working. On the picture you can see a robber cloth made out of a baby receiving blanket.

 

Finally, get your smoker going good and don’t forget your hive tool. Remember, the goal is to get in and out as quickly as possible.

 

Smoke the entrance and through the inner cover, wait a bit and then separate the 2 boxes. Put the top box off to the side on the top of the outer cover and cover the bottom brood box with the inner cover. If you have a lot of bees in the top box, you will need to shake the frames into the bottom box as you go. If you pick a cooler morning to work, the majority of the bees will be clustered on the brood nest and this will allow you to work faster. Keep your smoker hanging on the box you are working on, so the smoke blows over the top of the frames. This will also minimize the chances of starting a robbing frenzy.

 

Pick the 5 heaviest frames from the top brood box and set them aside in the extra box.  Cover the box with the extra inner cover and open the lower brood box. Use the inner cover to cover the top box. Start working from the outside frames. Pull an outer frame. If it is heavier than the heaviest frame in the spare box, put it back in. If not, replace it with one of the frames from the spare box. Evaluate the 3 outside frames on each side in this way. At this point you will have the 5 heaviest frames of honey plus whatever they have/had in the brood nest. This is it. You're done.

 

Shake the bees from the extra box and the top brood box into the lower brood box and put the covers back on. If there is syrup/nectar on the frames that did not make the cut, put them in one of the boxes and place the box upside down over the inner cover and put the telescoping/migratory cover on top. This will allow the bees to consolidate the syrup/nectar back into the brood nest. Feed to get them to proper weight and don’t forget to reduce the entrances.

 

Fall inspections: Do I need to feed and how much?

In my previous posts, I have often mentioned or advocated feeding in the fall. Reading those posts, one may come to the conclusion that I am feeding sugar syrup to my bees quite often, which of course is quite different from the reality. I would like to take the time to explain how I determine if the bees need feeding, how much and how often.

Determining whether I need to feed

I will definitely feed:

• New packages
• Nucs babysitting a queen cell
• Cell starters and cell finishers
• Colonies that are going into winter and are weighing in under the recommended weight by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA). Those are:
• 135 lbs. for a standard 10 frame double deep with stores taking up 70 lbs. Alternative configurations for this setup are the 10 frame 3 medium or the 10 frame 4 shallow configuration. This is approximately 10 deep honey frames, 15 medium honey frames or 18 shallow honey frames.
• 95 lbs. for singles with stores taking up 55 lbs. Alternative configurations for this setup are 2 medium boxes or a shallow and a medium. This is approximately 5 and a half deep honey frames, almost 12 medium frames in an all-medium setup, or 10 full shallow frames and 3 and a half mediums.
• Nucs that are going into winter (mine are 4 frame deeps) that have less than 14 lbs or 2 deep frames of stores

I don't have any personal experience with the following, but I have seen it recommended from several reliable sources, including Brother Adam in Beekeeping At Buckfast Abbey. You can find the book on Amazon: Beekeeping At Buckfast Abbey with a section on mead making

• Feed immediately after the bees have been working a quickly crystallizing honey crop such as canola, oilseed rape or heather. Here is a link for a more comprehensive list of quickly crystallizing honeys.

In those cases, Brother Adam cautions against trying to overwinter on such stores as he believes they cause dysentery. He recommends extracting all available honey and feeding the bees thin syrup to replace their stores.

Determining when to feed

Start feeding new packages, nucs, cell starters and cell finishers as soon as you establish them. Check the weight on your hives going into winter when your fall flow is done. In this way the bees will have the chance to make the most of the naturally available pollen and nectar and you will still have the time to replenish their reserves before the cold weather hits. Please note that the majority of the hives should not need feeding at this point. The bees should have their brood nest and stores organized for winter. Having light hives going into winter should be the exception, not the rule.

Determining how much or how long to feed

Usually, the bees are pretty good at letting us know when to stop feeding. In the spring, newly established packages will stop taking syrup altogether or significantly reduce their syrup consumption when they find a good alternative source of nectar. If you are first year beekeeper when this happens and you are not sure when your local flow is, take note! Your flow is on. Sometimes, the bees will keep taking syrup all along, especially if it is mixed with feeding stimulants such as HoneyBeeHealthy, essential oils or certain herbal teas such as mint or peppermint. In such cases, they will still give you additional indication that they have plenty of nectar available. For example:

• Your new package has drawn out the brood nest boxes. They have plenty of brood and at least 28 lbs of stores. It's time to let them go and see how they do (keep an eye on their stores in case they get caught in a dearth). Incidentally, this is the same amount of stores G. M. Doolittle likes to see in his book: A year's work in an out-apiary; or, An average of 114 1/2 pounds of honey per colony in a poor season, and how it was done
• All the frames are wet looking or have nectar in them. The bees have stored nectar in all of the frames and did not leave any space for the queen to lay in. Give them some space and lay off the syrup.
• The bees are building new wax on top of the frames and storing syrup/nectar there. This is one of the signs of a strong flow. Give them some space and lay off the syrup.
• When fall feeding, your hives have reached your desired target hive weight or the bees have filled and capped the recommended amount of honey frames.

Before you start feeding, it is good to figure out a clear goal and how you are going to accomplish it. This is especially important when you are feeding during the fall, as overfeeding can cause a late swarm (a most unfortunate event in late fall).

Start by estimating your hive weight. A word of caution: most beekeepers overestimate their hives weights when lifting the back of the hive. If this is your first time weighing a hive, here are some tips to help you get an accurate measure:

• Use a scale. You don't need to use a fancy hive scale and you don't need to lift the whole hive. Any hanging scale similar to this deer hanging scale will suffice ($13). Make sure your hive is level. Attach the scale to the back of the hive and lift, then repeat at the front. The front and the back weights, when added together will approximate closely the total weight of your hive.
• Try to do a frame count. You can see the approximate frame counts in the section called "Determining whether I need to feed" above. Ideally, when doing a frame count, you should also keep an eye on the amount of brood and pollen stores in the hive.
• If you don't have a scale, and you are not able to do a frame count, try to "calibrate" yourself. Stack weight similar to your hive's target weight to a spare telescoping cover or bottom board and try to lift it. Dog food bags work good for this. You want your hive to be heavier than that. Try to do the "calibration" as close as possible to the actual hive weigh-in.

If your bee hive weighs more than your target, then congratulations! You don't need to feed. This should be the case in the majority of bee hives. Otherwise, determine the difference between you bee hive's current weight and target weight. This is the amount of sugar, not syrup, that you need to feed. Please note that if you need to add more than half a box weight worth of sugar, you might want to rethink your bee hive's current configuration. Check out my post "Fall inspections: Finding the right size box for your bees" for more details on how to possibly downsize your hive.

For fall feeding, due to the short time period, I prefer feeding 5:3 sugar syrup. Since the concentration of the sugar syrup is close to that of 2:1 sugar syrup, the bees tend to store it rather than to raise brood on it. In addition, I don't have as much trouble getting sugar to dissolve completely in the 5:3 syrup as I have when making 2:1 syrup.

Some handy tips and tricks that I've learned through the years:

• In the fall, it's easier to get bees to fill out a frame than to draw out a frame. If my nucs are not making good progress on drawing out their frames, I will replace the undrawn frames with extracted "super" frames to help them out. I use the same size -- deeps -- everywhere.
• If I need to feed a bunch of smaller colonies, I sometimes add a drawn super to a stronger colony and feed. The stronger colony will fill it and cap it faster than the smaller ones. Then I redistribute the capped combs among the smaller colonies as needed. In this way, you can save some effort and reduce the robbing pressure on the smaller colonies.
• When feeding, especially in the fall, always reduce the entrances and install robbing screens to reduce the chance of starting robbing. Keep in mind that it is very easy to start robbing and very difficult to stop it.

I welcome all questions and comments, so please don't hesitate to leave me a note in the comments section below!

Fall inspections: Finding the right size box for your bees

You just finished your fall inspections and everything looks great except that one hive that looks like this:

(This image has been graciously provided by Beesource.com member dputt88, but I had a hive looking exactly like this at the end of August. I transferred this hive into a 4 frame nuc)

The bees have filled only approximately half of the box with brood and stores. September is almost over. In my latitude that means that the bees have at most one brood cycle left (a worker brood cycle is approximately 20 days) and the bees are heading into winter with a box that is way too big for their population. What can we, the beekeepers do to help them out?


First things first, we need to determine what happened. Take a peek at the frames with brood and stores in your hive.

• Do they look normal or is there a cause of concern? Check out my post Fall Inspection for my nucs and singles for pictures of what brood and stores look like this time of the year.
• Do you suspect that high varroa mite levels are making it hard for your bees to maintain a healthy population? The ScientificBeekeeping site has a lot of resources on varroa and testing for varroa levels. You can find the info here.
• Maybe your hive has a dwindling population due to laying workers. You can find out what laying workers hive looks like here.
• Maybe you have a poorly mated queen or a drone layer. Examples and treatment options can be found here.
• Maybe the flow stopped unexpectedly and you are seeing the last super that the bees could not complete. In this case, the boxes under this one should be full of brood and stores.
• Maybe you were throwing supers on a bit too fast for them and the bees created a tall and narrow "chimney" of brood and stores right in the middle of the boxes and left the outside frames bare.
• Maybe you got a little bit too enthusiastic stealing brood for your nucs in late summer and your hive did not have enough time to rebuild. This is my mistake that caused my hive to look like the picture above.
• Maybe a myriad of other things happened that prevented your colony from building up. 

Once you figure out what happened, you need to take action in order to make sure that your colony heading into winter is:

1. Queenright
2. Pest and disease free or those are within manageable limits
3. Provisioned with enough brood and stores for the size of the cluster/bee population
4. Housed in an appropriately sized box/boxes for the size of the cluster

After making sure that #1 and #2 from the above list are covered, you need to make sure you have enough stores and provisions. The Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA) has published a lot of research on wintering bees on their website. Their recommend minimum wintering weight is 95 lbs. for singles and 135 lbs. for doubles with stores taking up 55 lbs. and 70 lbs. respectively. In particular, that translates roughly to 5 heavy honey frames, 2 frames of pollen and 2 frames of mostly capped brood for singles and 10 heavy honey frames, 4 frames of pollen and 4 frames of mostly capped brood for doubles. Their recommendations have worked well for me in the past 4 years.

As you go through your hive, take inventory of their resources. Is the bee population along with the existing brood and stores better suited for a single, a double or even a nuc (1 frame of brood, 1 frame of pollen and 2 heavy honey frames)?
By the time you are done with your inspection, you should have a pretty good idea what size box would be optimal for the current cluster size. If you have an appropriate box handy, you could just transfer the frames into the new box, put it on the stand, close it up and call it a day. Make sure you keep the brood frames in the middle, with the youngest brood (eggs and open brood) in the center of the brood nest, the capped brood towards the periphery of the nest and the honey frames on the outside.

Reducing the space available to the cluster of bees is not always straightforward, especially if you utilized different sized boxes for your brood boxes and supers and the bees created a "chimney" through all the boxes.

Now, allow me to take the time to explain the difference between a "chimney" and an unfinished super. A "chimney" is when the bees have utilized the middle frames on several boxes while leaving the outside frames undrawn. Your boxes will look like the picture above and the bees will have drawn out approximately half of the frames in each box while ignoring the rest. An unfinished supper, on the other hand, will also look like the picture above, but the boxes underneath it will be completely drawn out and, even more importantly, they will be full of brood and stores. You will definitely want to reduce the amount of boxes the bees occupy if you see a chimney (and that will involve re-arranging the frames into a more compact broodnest). However, if you are just dealing with an unfinished super, you have couple of options:

1. You could just take off the super and let them overwinter on the boxes below. A modification of this approach would be to raise the super above the inner cover (you may even scratch some of the cappings) and let the bees rob it out and store the honey in the broodnest.
2. Alternatively, you could try feeding your hive 2:1 sugar syrup (or 5:3) in an effort to help the bees finish out the super and leave it for them to overwinter in.

So, back to the worst case scenario - how to reduce the height of your stack if you have multiple sized boxes. If you have multiples of the same sized box plus an odd size, for example a deep plus couple of shallow supers or a deep plus couple of mediums, try to consolidate the multiples into one and feed to fill out the odd size. In the example above, you would consolidate the half-drawn mediums into one and feed to fill out the deep. If you have just one of each, then your best bet is to feed and let them sort it out.

In conclusion, in order to give your colony the best chance of overwintering, you want to make sure your colony is queenright, pest and disease free (or those are within manageable limits), provisioned with enough stores to last it until the first available pollen in your locality, and the colony is housed in a box/boxes that are appropriately sized for the available population.

Fall inspections: My nucs and singles

This past week, I had many questions from first year beekeepers concerning their hives. Although the questions were worded in many different ways, they all boiled down to the same:
 
Is my hive ready for winter?
 
This is a very simple question, but the answer is long and complicated. I have prepared a small checklist that can help you evaluate your hives.
 

1. Stores. You should be able to determine this without needing to open the hive. Just lift the back side of the hive. The rule of thumb is at least 150 pounds for a double deep or 70 pounds for a single.
2. Good population. Here are pictures of one of my August nucs and one of my singles.
   
    
   
   
   I took those earlier today, Sept 21, 2013 at 5 pm. It was sunny, but cool, 61F. You should be able to see "seams" of 2 rows of bees between the majority of your frames with possible exception of the 2 outer ones. My camera does not do very nice close-up pictures, but you should be able to see the "seams" in the nuc picture and in the middle of the single picture. The "seams" of bees are not very visible between the rest of the frames in my single picture, but they are there. At this point, if I am happy with the weight of the hive and the population, I'll close it up and call it good. Why?
1. I don't want to disturb the propolis seals that the bees have created between the boxes to help them insulate the hive
2. I don't want to break any bridge or cross comb that is filled with honey and I don't want to start a robbing session.
3. Most importantly, I don't want to chance damaging the queen.
3. If I decide that either the weight or the population are not satisfactory, I will inspect the hive further. For the following pictures, I opened 1 of my weakest nucs. Here is how it looked under the inner cover:
   

As you can see, the bees are covering about 2.5 frames. Here is what it looks like inside. The original frame that started it all:

 
The queen is on this frame - here is a close-up. Can you spot her?

 
She is a little bit above the center of the picture. This round of brood is just starting to emerge and the empty slots are already filled with eggs. Here is the second frame - just a little spot of brood emerging and the bees are quickly filling the empties with stores and capping.

The third frame is also stores, although they are not capped:

The last frame was just empty comb. This nuc is almost there as far as winter prep goes. We still have between 4 and 6 weeks of nice weather with daily temperature above 50F. They could raise at least another round of brood. Of course, they will need feeding.





Are your bees ready for winter?

On my walk earlier this week, I noticed that the locust trees are getting tipped with yellow.

Yes, fall is here already, so are your bees ready for winter?

Do they have enough pollen/honey to last them through the winter?

How do the bees themselves look?

Are they queenright? How does the brood look?

 
So, how exactly do I determine if my bees have enough stores to last them through the winter? The answer, of course, is that it depends. Bees in the southern parts of the USA need fewer resources than those in the northern parts. Beekeepers in Alabama, California, Florida and Texas usually overwinter their bees in a single deep or a single with a shallow super. Beekeepers further north or in higher altitudes usually recommend a double deep configuration. You need to make sure that the size of the colony is right for the size of the box they are in!



In this location, NW Ohio, I have overwintered bees in singles, in doubles, and this winter, I am attempting to overwinter some in 4 frame double nucs.

My honey producing colonies, 4 of them, are in a standard double deep configuration. I could not lift the back corner on 3 of them, which means they are way over their minimum 150 pounds of stores for winter. The last one was surprisingly light and, you guessed it, it got fed.

My singles are the packages that I used this spring and summer for queen rearing and to make my nucs. For those, I aim for 70-80 pounds. Lifting wise, if all the frames have their comb built and they make me go "hmmmmpf", then they are good to go.

My nucs were all made in late July/August. For those, I want to make sure they have at least 2 combs of honey/syrup.

While checking the honey/pollen stores, I also looked at the bees themselves and the brood.

It takes about 20 days for a worker bee to emerge after the egg is laid. So, right now, in September and October, my bees are raising the winter bees, or the bees that will carry the queen through winter and raise the first few brood cycles in the spring. So, if you are treating, or need to (I am not), now is the time to do it as you want those winter bees on the top of their game.

Finally, make sure the hive is queenright. Do you see worker brood and eggs? If not, I like to use this hive's resources to boost my other hives. Beekeepers take their losses in the fall!