If you watch beekeeping on You Tube you’ll see people preparing their colonies for winter. The thing is…in Texas we don’t really have BEE winter. In colder climates where the temps are in the 40s or below for months, bees only go out to do their bees-ness.
Start winter with healthy colonies…
Our biggest prep is to make sure our colonies are healthy going in to winter - roughly December &
January. We make sure our equipment (boxes, lids and feeders) are in good repair, no drafts to let the chill in. We reduce the size of the hive entrance to help keep the cold out.
Just say no to varroa mites…
We treat our colonies in Oct/Nov for varroa mites. They are, in our experience, the biggest threat to colonies in Central Texas. Mites are a problematic parasite that alternates feeding on the larvae (developing bees) and the adult workers. If left unchecked they can result in new bees having deformed wings or other defects that thwart their efficiency and longevity. They can also make a colony unusually irritable or cause them to abscond.
Texas winters are so mild…
Sunny days with highs in the 60s interspersed with a few cold snaps - that most days, our bees are out foraging. There isn’t much pollen and nectar in nature - sort of like driving all the way to the gas station only to find out there is no gas - so we have to watch their food resources carefully.
Honey is the bees food first…
There are fancy digital gadgets that can measure the weight of your colonies which can be an indicator of how much honey they have stored. We prefer to lift the back of each box to get a sense of its weight. If a colony feels significantly lighter than its sisters or than it did on a previous visit - we know they may need some sugar syrup to supplement what they have stored.
We only harvest in July when colonies have overproduced. We leave all the honey they make in the fall on for winter. But warm winter weather flying means colonies usw up their stores faster than colonies in cold climates.
Pollen is the bees protein…
Bees need protein too, especially for raising brood (new bees). And with warm temps, some of our queens continue to lay through the winter. We offer our bees a pollen powder supplement (made from nutritional yeast, whey protein and minerals). We put the powder in a box and if we see bees taking it (rubbing their legs together to create static and walking in the powder) then we know that nature isn’t providing what they need. So we watch their weight even more closely.
Leave them bee…
Bees are amazing engineers…they customize their colony for the season. When the temps drop they get busy filling cracks and holes with propolis (bee duct tape) made from tree sap. We avoid damaging all that hard work by opening the colony and moving their frames around. If we do have to intervene for any reason - we make sure the temps are in the 60s.
98 Degrees year round…
The cluster - or group of bees in a colony - use their bodies to maintain a temperature inside the hive of approximately 98 degrees. In the winter that means huddling together. In the summer it’s spreading out and fanning their wings. So anytime you open a hive you’re causing the bees to rebalance their temperature, expending energy to warm it up (or cool it down) again.
Winter isn’t the most exciting time to be a beekeeper, but it’s a nice break and gives me a chance to catch up on paperwork and John a chance to build and repair equipment for Spring. I say that as I’m listening to the sander run on a new batch of hive lids!
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