As we ease into the fall equinox, some producers are putting their gardens to bed or reducing their herds in preparation for the winter months. Beekeepers must also prepare their hives for cooler weather and that process starts now.
When winterizing hives, beekeepers have four main tasks to ensure bee health, says Julie Matthews in Black Creek on Vancouver Island. She has been beekeeping for six years and currently manages 23 hives, including tiny mini-mating nucs, where she rears local queens.
“At this time of the year, the most crucially important thing to know is the mite count or mite load inside your hives,” Matthews says. “You have to get those under control. You can't go into winter with high mites or your hive will not survive.”
Bee health is paramount when overwintering. Generally, Varroa mite counts skyrocket in the late summer. So, beekeepers must be aware to ensure their hives are healthy and not inundated with viruses and diseases heading into winter.
“In mid- to late-August, the queen bee starts laying what we call winter bee eggs,” Matthews says. “There's a protein called vitellogenin and the queen lays these eggs and those bees can last six months instead of six weeks, so it's really crucial that you have a healthy queen who's laying lots of winter eggs as you go into winter.”
To put Varroa mites into perspective, they are akin to the size of a dinner plate burrowing into a human. Some treatment options include such active ingredients as formic acid, oxalic acid and thymol.
Yellow jackets can also pose problems in the fall season. Beekeepers can protect their hives by reducing the size of entrances. Honeybees need to guard their hives when the yellow jackets are trying to fight their way in and a smaller entrance is easier to guard.
Another important task is hive consolidation to reduce the amount of energy bees need to spend on keeping their space warm throughout the winter.
“Consolidating your hives means getting all the bees into the smallest space they can fit into,” Matthews says. “If you have a hive that's three boxes high, you can probably get them into two boxes. If you have a hive that is two boxes high, they might fit into one box. If you have a tiny hive in one box, they might actually fit into half a box, and you can use rigid foam to insulate around them.”
Another crucial step in winterizing is feeding the hives.
“As it starts getting cool, you generally feed a thicker syrup, which is often a ratio of two parts sugar to one part water,” Matthews says. “I'm still feeding a really light syrup because I want the queen to think a nectar flow is still happening, so she will continue laying winter bee eggs. I want the bees to be eating the sugar water right now, not storing it. I’ll make my sugar syrup thicker in a week or two. If you don’t feed, you run the risk of the queen stopping laying eggs, thinking her hive is starving.”
The feed to water ratio can be tricky to determine and often must be formulated on a hive-by-hive basis. Beekeepers must also consider the weather and temperature.
“There's no perfect way to do it and everyone has a different way they like to do it,” Matthews says. “You want to be feeding the bees right now, but you need to be extremely careful that they do not become ‘nectar-bound,” which means they fill all the available cells with sugar water, and the queen has nowhere to lay.”
It takes time and experience to figure out optimal ratios and feeding frequencies.
“Some people will feed once a week, some people feed constantly, some people feed two to one, and some people feed one to one,” Matthews says. “There are so many different trains of thought, but I personally am feeding every 48 hours right now. I'm just trying to keep that queen laying as many winter eggs as she can.”
Also, Matthews insulates her hives with rigid foam and keeps them winterized until mid-May.
“I love having a warm house, so I'm just going to assume that my bees do, too,” she says. “As long as it's chilly at night, I let my bees stay warm.”
For more tips and information for farmers, market gardeners, homesteaders and property owners, subscribe here and get Small Farm Canada delivered straight to your door!