Prepping bees for winter
The bees made it through the fall (yay!) and so we are getting them set for their first winter.
It’s a tricky business trying to help bees survive through our long, cold Ontario winters. Roughly 25% of colonies in Ontario won’t make it through the winter. The temperature is one thing, but there are also issues with condensation, food shortages if the winter goes too long, and varroa mites.
Varroa Mites
We are lucky that our bees have had very low mite counts (low enough that treatment isn’t technically required), but after discussing with other beekeepers in the area, and the breeder, we decided to do an oxalic acid drip to try to keep the mites in check.
I had never done this before, so I mixed up a 1:1 sugar solution, added the oxalic acid (while wearing protective gloves and a mask) and dribbled 5 ccs of it into the space between each frame.
Low Temperatures
We are overwintering our colonies in single brood boxes, so the bees are really packed in there right now. We don’t leave all the other boxes (the supers) on as that would leave them too much space to try to heat and defend.
Over the winter they will form a cluster inside the hive. They’re a bit like penguins, clustering and shuffling around to keep warm. They can keep the inside of their cluster at 35 degrees C – even in the dead cold of an Eastern Ontario winter (!!!) They move around the hive in the cluster to access their honey stores (which will flow just like in summer when they surround it due to their warmth).
Yesterday, I wrapped the hives in bee cozies to help keep the hives just a little bit warmer so the bees don’t have to do quite as much work.
Condensation
There’s a balance between keeping things warm enough and also not having too much condensation in there. The drips of condensation can kill the bees. So the last time I was out, I drilled holes in the top of the hives to help with air flow. It’s really something else drilling a hole into a box filled with bees (!) As soon as the drill makes it through, bees start pouring out the new hole; I imagine they are exploring and trying to figure out what has attacked their home.
Fingers are crossed. We will keep an eye on things, but ideally we won’t open things up now until spring! We may go in a bit early to give them some extra food if it’s needed.
It really depends on what sort of a winter we have.
Wish us luck!
Good luck. A lot depends on weather. How many colonies do you have?
Here on P.E.I. we used to kill our bees in the fall and buy a new colony and queen each spring. I suspect that costs have put an end to that way of keeping bees.
Wow. That’s a different approach! Where would those new colonies/queens come in from?
We have 2 colonies that we are trying to help survive the winter. Around here they say that roughly 25% will not make it, so it’s possible one or both will survive, but also very possible that they won’t.
Given that it’s our first time we may have taken off too much honey, not fed enough sugar syrup or not fed it early enough for them to get the moisture under control. I had split to 3 colonies as an artificial swarming method because I was having issues with queen cells, but then in late September decided neither of the splits was going to make it, so re-combined them. That could have been the wrong call.
On top of all of that – the winter may last 7 months like last year or have 30 days of continuous deep cold like last year – both of which made it hard for the bees in the area to survive.
There seem to be a lot of variables!
In any case, we have ordered 2 early nucs for the springtime. So we should have between 2 and 4 colonies to start off next summer.
I remember you saying you had 5 – what did you do with all the honey???
Also, how did you kill them off?