Getting Bees Winter Ready
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Homemade sugar cakes ready to place inside at the hive tops. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Getting Bees Winter Ready
Even though the temperatures are a bit warm for fall in USDA Hardiness zone 5, it’s time to get my honey bees ready for winter.
Bees don’t hibernate; they cluster inside the hive keeping the queen bee, and stored honey, warm. They maintain the 90F temperature by shivering or moving their flight muscles, to generate the heat. The warmth makes it easier for them to work through the wax cappings on the stored honey. Honey itself is their version of canning so they have winter food.
The first step in getting my hives ready for winter is closing down the hive front. The entrance reducer offers two options, a half opening and a two bee width. Winter is a good time to turn the reducer to the smallest size to cut down on incoming cold wind.
Hive entrances are closed down to a two-bee width. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Same thing with the top of the hive. I change the screened inner covers for solid ones. The screened inner cover help bees to ventilate the hive during hot weather.
The inner cover of the hive is changed from a screen one to a solid one. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Underneath the now solid inner cover, I keep a feeding shim or an addition where I can place the homemade sugar cakes over where the bees are clustering. The feeding shim also has holes so bees can use it as an alternate entrance in case the bottom one gets covered in snow and ice.
Since the weather is still warm, I am also feeding the bees a thick sugar syrup they can store in the wax foundation as well as consume for flight fuel.
Thick sugar syrup and sugar cakes keep bees fed through fall. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Finally I wrap the hives with an insulated wrap to help keep wind out.
Insulated black wrap helps to keep wind out of the hive. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
This is the back of a wrapped hive. I make sure the wrap doesn’t cover the front of the hive.
Supplemental sugar cakes are back up winter food. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Bees use the homemade sugar cakes for backup food when they run out of honey.
It’s easy to think a mild winter is better for bees but it’s not. During mild winters, bees need more honey to fuel their flights and moving around. More on keeping honey bees here.
Let’s hope these girls make it through this winter!
