Winter preparation hints and tips

[Jon]

I noticed in a recent thread that Gavin reported a comment by Murray McGregor that his winter losses were in the region of 3%-5%.
That is exceptionally good and well below the normal historic winter loss figures which are usually considered to be 10%-15%.

Some people are still losing 30% + of their bees over winter.

So what should we be doing from late summer to autumn to get through the winter with minimal losses?

Here is my list. Feel free to add more.

• Treat for varroa mite. Treat early and use an approved product. You need to get shot of the mites early enough to allow a couple of brood cycles raising mite free, virus free bees.

• Do something about nosema if your bees often have a nosema problem over winter. Fumidil has been withdrawn but Thymolated syrup seems to be a good alternative and thymol is easily added to winter feed.

• Feed if they need it in September and October but don’t feed gallons of syrup at the start of September leaving the queen nowhere to lay. I tend to feed mine 4-6 litres of thick syrup as insurance more than anything. Any extra stores can be removed in spring.

• Replace dodgy queens. If you are finding supersedure cells in late September there is a good chance you will find an unmarked unmated drone laying queen in the spring. Ditto colonies with massive amounts of chalk brood which is linked to queen genetics. These colonies are best combined or requeened with a decent queen if they are strong enough.

• Make sure hives are in good shape, water proof, storm proof, ratchet strap to hold all together, and a brick or two on the roof, not sitting in a site liable to flood. I use top insulation in mine, a 460mm square of 50mm thick polystyrene between roof and crownboard.

• Use Oxalic acid as a follow up varroa treatment in late December when the colony should be broodless.

[madasafish]

Wot, no matchsticks? :-)

[Jon]

Sadly neither matchsticks nor ley lines figure in my apiary management but somehow the bees struggle through!

[Rosie]

Ventilation is important. I leave my mesh floors open and insulate the crown boards to avoid top condensation. I don't mind condensation on the side walls as it does not drip on the cluster and probably gives them a convenient source of moisture.

[gavin]

Murray is predicting higher losses this winter. Poorer queens, fewer young bees, weaker colonies and to that I'd add higher Varroa in general to last year.

Rodent protection is one I'd add to Jon's excellent list. Mouse for sure, unless you habitually use entrance reducers anyway. I have one colony which has plummeted in size recently. It did have a Varroa problem but the heads and legs appearing on the floor insert suggest a shrew may be the main culprit. How do you stop them getting in?!

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[Jon]

I do the same as Steve re. ventilation although I have some on solid floors. i have fitted mesh floor to almost all my correx nucs as well.

Re. the mice, sometimes I put on mouseguards but there are years I haven't bothered.
I do put out some pasta bait at strategic points around the apiary.

I am also expecting higher losses this winter as the clusters are smaller than I would like and there is no pollen in my colonies.
They seem healthy enough though, just a bit smaller than I would like.
I will be reducing some down to 7 or 8 frames with insulated dummy boards in the brood box.
Most of my queens have pretty much shut down already and I remember last year finding a colony with about 6 frames of brood in late October.
The weather in September was poor and October looks no better.

Gavin, if the drones are gone maybe a strip of queen excluder would keep the shrew outside.

[Poly Hive]

Always put on your mouse guards. I have trapped 7 mice so far in my shed and we are "urban". FWIW Nutella is an excellent mouse bait. When I put bags of poison under my hives it was very rare for them to be untouched. Mice kill hives given the chance, prevention is usually the better option.

PH

[nemphlar]

Changed all mine to OMF with 9mm L shaped front doors seems to keep the mice out
All good points from Jon,but the devils in the detail, I think the August thymol treatment I used on most of mine and which stopped the young q's laying means they'll struggle. Next year any treatment will not go past 8 days.

[Jon]

I often have queens stop or reduce laying in August with or without the thymol.
8 days is not really enough to treat varroa as the mites under the cappings will emerge unharmed.
I may be wrong but I think the main problem at the moment is lack of pollen combined with poor weather.
The ivy is only starting here which is at least 2-3 weeks late.
Queens stop laying when they have no pollen to feed brood.

[Bumble]

Rodent protection is one I'd add to Jon's excellent list.

Would it be worth adding woodpecker protection to the list too?

[Neils]

I reckon, if nothing else it gives me an opportunity to tout the low cost, easy applicable, removable and storable woodpecker protection device... Which I can't find a photo of :(

I've seen lots of elaborate wire doodahs and stuff for woodpecker protection. Far too complicated for me. If you can get them (and at the risk of setting Doris off again) Agricultural plastic sacks are perfect, garden centre compost will also suffice. A domestic bin bag is too thin.

You need two per hive and 8 drawing pins.

Cut the sacks in two down the sides and along the bottom. Take off the roof. With said drawing pins, pin a piece of sack to each side of the hive on the crown board, ensure that the entrance is not covered. put the roof back on.

The sacks flap about in the wind scaring them off to begin with, they hang loose and are thick enough to deflect beak impact and they also prevent woody from getting a grip on the side of the hive so it can only sit on the roof.

[Adam]

I did get a few pecks a couple of years' ago - when the ground was covered in snow. otherwise OK. The plastic is cheap.
Jon, you must have Ligustica mice if they eat the pasta??

I think a good apiary site is also beneficial. Light and airy rather than damp and peaty and in the shadow of conifer trees. I have some WBC's which are close to the ground so some are on bricks to give a few more inches of airspace and I make sure the grass is neat underneath to ensure decent ventillation.

Jon highlights differences in weather due to geography - it's been generally dry and sunny in the East with Ivy pollen and nectar coming in well.

Early varroa treatment is a 'must-do' practice. It's easy to wait 'just a few weeks more' for the last honey to be capped and then find that the hive is suffering badly.

I spoke to someone last week who had yet to get some Apiguard. TOO LATE. I told him the same last year.

[Jon]

Ligustica mice
Little yellow things. if they develop resistance to pasta bait I will order some pizza bait.


I spoke to someone last week who had yet to get some Apiguard.
Good luck to him. 7 weeks late and counting. His mite levels have likely tripled since mid August which is the suggested date to start treatment.

I was over at the association apiary yesterday and they were finally starting to bring in yellow pollen, presumably from the ivy.
This needs to be monitored as some colonies will decide to make a good sized brood nest again and deplete stores in the process. It is good to get a stack of young bees produced after the mite treatment has ended, as these should have a low virus load and will consequently live longer.

[Jimbo]

I have had a few reports that some colonies are still a bit light even after feeding as the bees are eating through the stores. Worth checking your colonies have plenty of stores to get them through the winter

[GRIZZLY]

I feed both bees and woodpeckers. Our pair of woodpeckers come and feed on our peanut feeders and so far over 5 years haven't touched the hives. They bring their young as well and have taught them how to use the feeders and to use any bread we put out. It's a case of education chaps. I will continue to feed the bees using the rapid feeders and will do so for as long as the bees will take it down.

[Jon]

Some of mine are definitely light and will need a good few kilos of sugar syrup before the end of October.

[nemphlar]

Jon the 2 hives that had FA, that's formic acid have decent levels of brood, only the 3week thymol treatments seem to have stalled. we have a fair bit of ivy not flowering yet so may have alate flurry if the weathers kind. I'm inclined towards the FA maybe try a seasons worth next year

[Jon]

I looked in a few colonies today and two had no brood at all. The queens were present in each case.
They were light and had no pollen so I need to get some feed on.
I wonder are these queens likely to start up again or is that business over until February.
Both of them had polished cells which implies that the workers are expecting the queen to start laying again.
One has a 2011 queen and the other has a queen mated in June this year.
Mine usually have brood until the end of October or early November but some seem to have shut down early this year.

[Black Comb]

Same here. Had a quick look through yesterday and most have hardly any brood. It's only 2 weeks since I removed the Apiguard (I was later this year) and during treatment they all went off lay. I wonder if the poor weather since has stopped them re-starting laying?
Is this good or bad?
Little brood now means less bees to feed in the winter, but are there enough to survive until spring?
Nothing I can do anyway.
All have sufficient stores.

[Jon]

Is this good or bad?

I think I remember reading somewhere that it makes no difference to winter survival if the queen stops laying in September or November.
the clusters would need to be big enough though.
Parts of Canada must have a winter which lasts for 6 or 7 months whereas our bees are rarely cooped in for more than a couple of weeks.

[gavin]

I suppose that logic would have it that young bees raised earlier and with not a great deal to do would last for longer. However last winter, with the bountiful supply of young bees from a warm autumn, seemed to leave colonies very vigorous for the spring.

Does this lack of brood mean that we could/should be doing the oxalic acid treatment now? I seem to remember that some countries (Denmark?) do their oxalic treatment in October.

[Jon]

I was thinking the same thing about the Oxalic but it seems odd having only finished the Apiguard a couple of weeks ago.

Most of my colonies have a frame or two of brood though and it makes sense to treat all at the same time as a colony could pick up mites again from an untreated neighbour.

[gavin]

Ah well, if some still have brood it ain't the right time. I had a quick look through one of mine and it was broodless but don't fancy disturbing them all. They have been flying again and with the ivy out (and feed still on) a wee spot of brood raising is on the cards.

[Jon]

...a wee spot of brood raising is on the cards.

That's the bit I am curious about. Will the broodless colonies decide to make 3 or 4 frames of brood given the availablility of ivy pollen? Should find out shortly.

[Rosie]

I looked through 7 of mine last weekend and only one had brood and that was a small patch of open larvae. I too considered doing the oxalic treatment but decided to leave them to their winter preparations without more disturbance. I usually do mine late November or early December bur have often thought that a month earlier might be more suitable for mine as they always go broodless early.

[Jon]

We have had the coolest and wettest September for at least 5 years and the ivy has started 3 weeks late so mine have likely taken their cue from the weather.

Steve, some of yours are in an apiary several hundred feet above sea level, aren't they? Do these ones stop making brood earlier?

[Rosie]

My apiaries range in elevation from 450ft to 1000ft. I don't carry out regular inspections at this time of year but I don't notice much difference between them all. In fact the higher ones are on a slope and away from any frost pockets and dampness. This year they have produced better than any of the other sites and although I have not carried out any full inspections recently on them they are currently stronger than any other colony. The 7 I recently inspected properly had just returned from heather at 1300 ft. They had not produced a surplus while on the heather but had managed to pack the brood boxes. They also had plenty of bees and were happy enough for me to inspect without gloves at 9 degrees C.

[Jon]

I was over at the association apiary again this morning and a nuc I had fed a bit at the start of September was right out of stores again. The queen was present and there were a couple of frames with brood.
I will definitely have to keep a close eye on some of these.
Need to find some cheap sugar.
It is hard to keep up with them all as I am running (biking) between 3 apiaries including the association one and colony numbers are up from 17 to 37 since April in this neonicotinoid drenched environment our bees inhabit.
The 12 colonies at the association apiary are all headed by my queens or their daughters.

[Rosie]

Them neonics are turning them into rabbits!

[Jon]

The further west you are the better your bees survive apparently unless you are really really far west and are in the US. Something to do with neonic treated oil seed rape allegedly. It's Armageddon I tell ye. Actually it will be if I don't get cheap sugar.

[Adam]

A question for Rosie and Jon - and others too.

You both appear to have queens that have stopped laying quite early in the run-up to winter. I assume this is a trait of AMM's? And how do they take syrup feed.

The reason why I ask this is due to observations within my own apiary. My one colony of Italian extraction still has a warm crownboard and is busy producing bees. The carnis are less active brooding but still very busy. Both were still taking syrup until I stopped giving it.

The colonies I have that were derived from a dark, slow-spring-build-up queen do still have some brood (very little open now) but what is noticeable is that they have taken very little syrup of late. I wondered if I might have a nosema problem* with some hives and then it dawned on me that all the slow feeders were all from the same queen.


* It has been said that colonies with a heavy nosema infestation are poor at taking syrup. (I do need to check when I have time).

[Black Comb]

I have mainly dark bees but have 2 hives of little orange (but fairly prolific) so and so's, also one from a swarm that has an almost plain orange abdomen (buckfast type?). They have all behaved the same and are hardly laying. I blame the Apiguard followed by the bad weather in September. They all have combs to lay in (i.e. not all the frames are full of stores)
They have all taken down their full amount of feed.

[Jon]

Hi Adam.
Mine do not usually stop so early and often have brood until late October.
This September was very cool and wet.
Some of mine take down syrup very fast and others are reluctant.
I need to go looking for that nosema reference as well as I cannot remember where I read it.

[Rosie]

Usually I expect my heather bees to return from the moor with brood but this year they had next to none. I did not need to feed those but my others are taking food as normal. I find that colonies that are reluctant to take feed struggle through the winter, even with fondant, and emerge very weak. I have always assumed that nosema was the cause but have never treated as I don't want to encourage susceptible strains.

The bees I took to the moor, incidentally, were my least pure and all have yellow in some of their workers.

[nemphlar]

I don't do wing checks, but they're local and dark. I would always expect brood going into October and blame the thymol treatment i tried this year.