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  • What do you do to get your bees ready for winter and did it work?

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More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
 #2302  by Chrisbarlow
 10 Mar 2019, 22:27
This is my eighth winter beekeeping and I am happy that I have actually started to learn from my mistakes in the last few years. This is my most successful winter yet with low colony loss and good strong colonies coming out of winter.
I also suspect that the mild winter has helped considerably but this is what I do to prep my bees for winter.

Treat for varroa, I treat 3 times a year, Autumn, Spring and Mid winter. (in my opinion treating in Spring is the start of prepping your bees for the following winter)

I make sure they have a lot more than the 40lb of stores generally recommended, (50lb at least)

I now feed not only sugar syrup but also pollen supliment. I now believe that most colonies I have suffer from some form of pollen deficiency in Autumn, I then feed pollen supliments in Spring starting in January to help increase numbers as soon as possible and lessen the load off the winter bees from foraging pollen to raiding it from within the hive.

Make sure I have young queens in my colonies with the exception of breeder queens. A very good queen should never be culled if being used for breeding purposes. Never keep swarm queens any more simply because you dont know there age.

Treat any swarms that come in to an apiary for varroa as soon as possible. Then include in any future apiary treatment schedule.

Make sure all kit is in a fit and proper state.

All open mesh floors are sealed up. Mouse guards on, depending on temps, small entrances to discourage late wasp robbing. I have found this year my lowest loss rate (until this winter, last year was my lowest loss rate, which considering the beast from the east, I was very happy with). Lots of the boxes are very strong indeed, great for early splits and equalizing of colonies.

Will I do anything different next year? Yes, I normally treat with a OA dribble in January, however reading up there appears to be a strong suggestion that early December is a better broodless period and I also intend to vape instead of dribble. Again there is a strong suggestion that vaping is more effective, less stressfull on the bees and obviously less invasive, Thanks to the gas-vap its also just become quick and cheap.

I think I've covered everything, what do you guys do and are you happy with the results.
 #2305  by Steve (The Drone)
 11 Mar 2019, 05:07
Hi Chris. It would be interesting to know how many colonies you go into winter with?
I would add to the list lots of insulation between crown board and roof. Also agree that vaping in Spring is effective. My more isolated colonies had minimum drops- zero or max of 3-4 whist colonies closer to other keepers colonys had a drop of 40. These got vaped again the following week.
Also any weak colonies in Autumn are merged. No point in asking for losses. I do agree leaving in the verroa floors.
I think that the mild winter has meant that the Queens have continued laying, albeit at a reduced rate. Not dangerous if the bees have access to a fondant/ pollen substitute mix but deadly if they are short of stores.
 #2308  by Jim Norfolk
 11 Mar 2019, 08:54
I don't think I do much differently.
I do like to leave them as much of their own honey as I can but then I am not into selling honey any more and now just keep a couple of hives as a hobby.
I have found it unnecessary to treat for Varroa in spring except for a couple of occasions when there was evidence of Varroa being brought in from outside. I do however monitor for Varroa all year round.
I would feed a supplement if I thought they were short of pollen but there seems to be enough available where I am. I don't need to create large colonies in spring as there is no OSR nearby and last year there was a definite gap after the hawthorn finished and they ate all the spring honey they had stored and then needed feeding.

Each year is different and we all need to make adjustements to our local conditions. Thats the fun of it.
 #2311  by Chrisbarlow
 11 Mar 2019, 19:22
my losses at the moment are just short of 8%, which I am happy with. I had forgotten about insulation, as per Steve, I have this winter for the first time put insulation (kingspan stuff @ 4cm depth I think) above crown boards on wooden hives. As for equalizing, yes I do, if appropriate. I can quite often find a nuc or colony with a good brood pattern but only with three frames of bees. I have quite a lot of nucs, if any of these are on 6 frames at the start of April, thats too many. so taking a frame out and donating to a small box, this helps with the small box build up and assists with swarm control on the larger box. It depends on what I want to do with the box of bees.

I also drift flying bees out of strong nucs to strong colonies for OSR crops.

Nucs are apiary resources not just to be expanded in to larger boxes but to be raided for brood, house bees, flying bees, frames of honey/nectar, grafting material, cell raising duties, frames of pollen and queens.
 #2313  by MickBBKA
 11 Mar 2019, 23:40
All sounds good. Lots of stores, treat for Varroa, insulate. So far with 23 colonies I have zero loses this winter. I expect to lose 1 as I am 99% sure the queen never mated. We will see. I don't expect to lose any others unless we have a worse March than last year.
 #2316  by NigelP
 12 Mar 2019, 09:16
Yes, we are not out of the woods yet.
Most of mine are still hefting heavy and full of bees. A few are full of bees and very light and gobbling down the fondant.
Poly nucs are taking 1:1 syrup down.....which is what I will be feeding any others as out of fondant now.
 #2322  by Chrisbarlow
 12 Mar 2019, 21:31
NigelP wrote:
12 Mar 2019, 09:16
Poly nucs are taking 1:1 syrup down.....which is what I will be feeding any others as out of fondant now.
I thought it was a bit early and to cool for that Nigel however I feel encouraged now, I might give that a go
 #2326  by MickBBKA
 13 Mar 2019, 00:15
I have been feeding syrup to some for 2 wks now. Trying not to over do it but some colonies are quite large for this time of year. As they use up fondant I am switching to syrup.
Ambient temp is not my concern. I measure the core temp with a probe and most are well into brood temps.