Getting your hive prepared for winter can be a daunting task but with this fall beekeeping guide you’ll have the tips you need to have a successful winter.
This Fall beekeeping guide and podcast installment is all about how to prepare your bees for evenfall and what to keep an eye on for as you do . In this episode you ’ll find :
Fall Beekeeping Guide
The first thing to keep in mind is that you want to have your tasks thoroughgoing before the first rime . This is usually October here in Kansas , so it ’s emphatically something to start preparing for now . As fall approaches you ’re go to notice that the hive will start to slow up down and eventually stop laying orchis altogether . You also may see your hive number decrease . As winter approach the distaff bee will sound off the drones ( manful bee ) out of the hive since they do n’t impart anything to the hive and they ’re extra mouths to fertilise . Most will probably conk . Another thing you ’ll notice is a sticky substance on the outside and in the creases of your hive . This is called propolis and it is a centre that need lend in to prep their hive for wintertime . You’ll need to use your beehive tool to get into your hive in September and you ’re in spades going to want your smoking compartment . As wintertime approaches bees lean to get more aggressive to protect their honey stores . Which is something else you ’re going to postulate to catch for , other bee will attempt and come into the beehive and steal the honey . I ’ll be doing an sequence on that and what that means for your urtication soon . There are four main tasks to prep your bee and hives for declension so let ’s dive into those .
Fall Beekeeping Guide to Keep Bees Alive in Winter
You desire to be sure you have your queen going into capitulation and wintertime . If you have a lot of bees and you ’re not sure then you could control for eggs , if you see testis then you get it on she laid them within the last three days .
Your number one concern needs to be parasite control condition . you may read this spot which lead into particular on the different parasites , what to look for , how to plow , etc .
The easy way to verify if there ’s enough love for your bees to make it off of for winter is to snarf your beehive . There should be 60 to 70 pounds of honey at least and you do n’t require a fortune of space . If there ’s too much distance in the beehive it make way for parasite and small hive beetles .
I like to habituate a 2 - to-1 loot water proportion in extraneous feeders . You ’re go to desire to suss out those feeders 2 - 3 times a hebdomad to be certain that they have enough for winter .
Late downfall , or 40 - 50 degrees is the last time you want to be in the hive . You really want to have all this work pure before the lower temps start setting in . I make a surd lolly candy control panel that I put on top of my brood box . Then I put the outer cover on top and that serve keep them fed all winter . They ’ll eat their dearest stores first . The candy board is a lifeguard should they run out before it ’s warm enough for them to go outside again .
The thing about bees is that they cluster in the winter when it ’s cold in their beehive . Their clump is 90 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit , which is fairly lovesome . When that warmth rises and hits that frigid inside cover , then condensing fall out . This causes cold wet to fall into the beehive and onto the bees . That ’s when your bees will freeze to death . That ’s when bad things happen to the bee . They get wet and dusty and they just ca n’t get warm back up . So I ’m go to tinge on ventilation in a later sequence . But one tip that I ’ve seen a lot of is to turn your privileged cover over and just play some wood chip or some wood shavings on the interior . That helps with ventilation . You could also do a beehive detachment wrapper with black tar paper . This will help oneself regulate the temporary worker and act as a shelterbelt . I have not personally done this because I do n’t finger like the temperatures here in Kansas have gotten cold enough . The coolest that we get is about 10 or 15 below zero and my bees have always made it through the winter .
So we just grabbed the supers off the hives and we take them in and then extract the dear into jar to enjoy for ourselves . That is another job that you ’ll have to pay attention to if you ’re hive is a minuscule onetime .
Conclusion
This mail has have a fall beekeeping guide to prepare your beehives for winter during the fall to ensure the health of your beehive . Check out the resources below for more tip and tricks for managing your hive year bout . Also check out my Facebook Group : outlive the First Year of Beekeeping .
Resources:
begin Beekeeping with trivial Money
Control Wax Moths in Bee Hives
How to Make Candy Boards for Bee Hives
Fall Beekeeping Task leaning
Beekeeping Hive Inspection Printable Sheets
