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As you get more experienced and the more you talk to other beekeepers in the Society you will realise that the start of the beekeeping year begins at very different times according to your local microclimate. So whatever I tell you my advice must be adapted to your local conditions.

March is usually the first respite we get from the cold spells we endure in February. Of course, just when we think the weather has broken we suffer a late frost. If you have been feeding your bees last month, your colonies may still need some extra food.

My advice is always think about what you are going to do. Ask yourself why are you doing it. There are different reasons for feeding your bees. If the Queen is laying and the workers cannot find much pollen then you will need a fondant pollen replacement feed. If your aim is to feed the worker bees to enable them to fly then a proprietary feed like Ambrosia can be fed or a 1:1 sugar feed made up for them.

If the weather is approaching 15ºC on a sunny day then you may take a a Quick Look in the hive. Again why are you doing this? You may want to check whether the Queen is laying and that there are still sufficient stores available.

APIARY JOBS:

• Tidy up apiary.
• Clip hedging.
• Repair fencing.
• Check stands are still secure

FURTHER ADVICE:

• Spring checks

OCTOBER 24, 2024

During the Spring and summer I consider that all the boxes above the Queen Excluder are mine but everything below belongs to the bees. I have to pay attention to all of the colony and monitor the health of the bees.

In the winter the whole hive belongs to the winter bees and they need to be able to range across all the frames including the super you have left on top of the brood, full of honey or sugar syrup. Most of the time the winter bees remain in a tight cluster which moves its position to where there is food. The movement of individual bees is kept to a minimum – they will make journeys to the super and will take down syrup or fondant. If the cluster should move above the queen excluder then the queen will be left behind and starve. REMOVE the queen excluder now before you forget to. It also gives you the opportunity to give the queen excluder its annual clean (and if it is in a wooden frame – a quick repair).

This summer I found a sweet little field mouse had made its nest in some old supers with frames. It had made a bundle of leaves right in the centre of the frames ruining them for future use. Lesson learnt, I have already removed the entrance blocks I had inserted to help prevent robbing whist I fed the bees and inserted the mouse guards fixing them in place with map pins – they are much easier to remove in the Spring, especially when wearing gloves..

I am still feeding three of my colonies – the two splits which were slow to make increase and the swarm which is still only on 6 frames. It is not too late to unite them.

Next time: WAX MOTH

WINTER BEES Between August and November the queen will start to lay eggs that will develop into winter bees. By the end of November all the bees in the hive will be winter bees. These will take the colony through to spring and are sometimes called diutinus bees from the Latin for ‘long lived’. They will live for up to six months. The winter worker bees are physically distinct becauseof their enlarged fat bodies. This has a special function of producing large amounts of a protein called vitellogenin. This egg-yolk like protein is added to brood food which enables bees to live longer.

These bees will only develop into healthy long-lived bees if there is enough feed available during their development and that they have not been weakened by Varroa.

Treating for Varroa There is much written about treating bees for Varroa and different methods come into favour and then dismissed. Some beekeepers completely disparage the use of chemical treatments in their hives, relying on the natural ‘hygienic behaviour’ of their particular breed of honey bees.

The management of varroa is aa all-year activity. The aim of treatment is to keep the level of mite infestation to a low level where harm to the health of the colony is kept to a minimum. It is arguable that treatment at this time of year is the most effective time since the size of brood is reduced. 

The first thing to be done is assess the level of varroa infestation you have in each colony. Only then can you decide what needs to be done. Put the varroa board into the slot at the back of the hive floor and leave for a few days – no more than a week. It can then be inspected to see the level of varroa infestation. You can then decide on whether treatment is needed. If you can count 10-30 mites then action is needed – now.

More on Varroa and its treatment – Lynfa’s podcast

Also read Kirsty Stanton article – Varroa management in honey bee colonies, page 32 Welsh Beekeeper, Summer 2024.

Next time: DOC discusses Queen excluders and mouse guards