The end is near? Lord that sounds pretty fatal! It’s ok… I’m talking about the “Beekeeping Season” not the world… well actually… no stop it! Let’s stick to honeybees.

It’s October, I have harvested the honey and now I’m preparing the bees for winter and the bees themselves are preparing for winter! Believe it or not there’s still quite a lot to be done and taken into consideration so here is what myself and the bees have been up to during late September and early October.

HOW THE COLONY PREPARES FOR WINTER

First of all, during September the drones start to disappear. Disappear? Where do they go? Well, the simple answer is, the workers oust them from their hives and so they die. They really do. You can watch it happening - it’s harsh - but then nature can be. As you know, well at least I hope you know, if not I’m about to tell you…the sole job of a drone is to mate with a virgin queen. Once the mating is over I’m afraid to tell you, (gentlemen cross your legs before you read this), his endophallus is torn off and remains inside the queen until the next drone comes along, (you’d think alarm bells would ring), and removes it and then loses his. I know… I did warn you. Those that haven’t mated with the queen return to the hive, until the next Drone Congregation gathering, poddling around consuming vast amounts of stores. The mating season isn’t long so really they are just taking up valuable stores and space. Hence, come the end of summer and beginning of autumn the girls push them out.

As the weather cools down the queen slowly begins to stop laying and won’t begin again until early spring. The hive will eventually reduce from 50 - 60,000 bees to 5,000 and the winter bees take over.

The correct name for the winter bee is “diutinus” which is the Latin word for “long lasting.” (Note to self… when I retire I want to study Latin).

The winter bees are different from the summer bees and live longer. For me to explain their difference, (incase you hadn’t noticed I’m no scientist), is going to be difficult. So I’m going to hand you over to Ann Chilcott, The excellent BEELISTENER, for this explanation. Here is the link… beelistener.co.uk/beekeeping/winter-bees-and-what-makes-them-live-longer/

Have you read it? Good… now you know!

So, the colony has now prepared itself for the winter and the job of the winter bee is to maintain the temperature in the hive and look after the queen until the spring. A few of them can be seen out flying on a mild day doing their housework, other than that they remain in the hive.

HOW I PREPARE MY COLONIES FOR THE WINTER.

My preparation begins with varroa treatment, which I told you about in last months blog and feeding the bees.. Although I harvest the honey mid August - leaving the bees with plenty still to collect from the late summer flowers and autumn hedgerows - the hives are still full and they are eating as fast as they are collecting so as they start to reduce in number they do need help.

For the past couple of years I haven’t fed the girls sugar syrup, (a 2:1 solution of sugar to water that you have to make up), I now feed them fondant. Not the fondant icing you buy in the super market, a special fondant for bees. Bee fondant is made specifically to be a pure source of sugar - i.e., it consists of only sugar, water and sometimes a small amount of vinegar to help break it down to make it easier for the bees to digest. Supermarket fondant often includes additional ingredients like gelatin, glycerin, glucose syrup or corn syrup which gives it its pliable texture which makes it unsuitable for the bees.

The reasons I decided to change from feeding sugar syrup to fondant are…firstly, making up the sugar syrup is a chore, and secondly, when you start feeding them sugar syrup you have to check on the bees everyday as they guzzle it down so quickly! Fondant, on the other hand, comes in ready made packs that you simply put on top of the brood box and they take it down more slowly, thus you don’t have to go up every day to check them. (SEE VIDEO)

As I said, I’ve done this for two years now and for me it has made life easier and to date the bees have not complained… i.e., they have thrived.

Some beekeepers leave the bees with a full super of honey, that the bees have collected, normally underneath the brood box and that, combined with the stores they have in the brood box already, should see them through the late autumn and winter. Either way, before you feel comfortable about your bees making it through the winter a hive needs to way about 40 - 501b’s, (18 - 22kg) to get them through the coming months.

I have now turned around the entrances to the hives. The “doors” have two entrances, (see image), a summer one and winter one, the winter one being much smaller. Less cold air coming in and, when covered with a mouse guard, (see image), less chance of a mouse getting in, scuttling under the cluster of bees and stealing all the honey, resulting in, dead bees happy mouse.

I have two doors that are old so, as you can see from the picture, I’ve covered the summer entrance with the mouse guard, (with double sided gaffer tape, so the bees don’t stick to it on the inside), and left them a small gap. I’ll reduce the number of holes more when the cold weather sets in.

Other Autumn winter jobs are:

Normally to remove any varroa treatment, i.e., the apiguard trays or apivar strips. I used Verromed this year so no equipment needs to be taken away. I am keeping a close check on the varroa count as this is the first time I’ve used this method.

Note to new beekeepers: Remove the feeders that have been used as they will go mouldy.

With regard to cleaning any equipment needed to be stored, I’m ahead of the game on that one as I’ve been cleaning and labelling as I have been going along. Feeling a tad smug about that!

Something I haven’t done yet is, although the weather isn’t great, it’s still warm, I haven’t put the thermal cases over them. I’ll leave that for a bit, i.e., for when it gets colder, and when I does I’ll strap them down.

The most important message, to any new beekeeper is… just because you’ve fed them, turned around the entrances, insulated the hives and strapped them down DON’T think that’s it until the spring. You really do have to keep an eye on the hives. Heft them to make sure they have enough feed. Make sure the hives haven’t been knocked over by a badger or a deer or even by extreme weather conditions. Check the entrances to ensure they’re not blocked up by dead bees or snow.

ATTENTION ALL GARDNERS AND BEEKEEPERS

I have been asked by the company drugwatch.com/ if I would help to spread awareness about pesticides and their health impact on humans and the environment.

Of course, as beekeepers, we are very aware of the problems relating to honeybees and pesticides, which can have a disastrous effects on the honeybees. So of course, research into pesticides that impacts human life and the environment is of enormous interest too.

Here is an excerpt from their email to me followed by a link for further information about their research:

“Roundup is a widely used herbicide that contains the active ingredient glyphosate, which is a non-selective herbicide, meaning it can harm both unwanted weeds and desirable plants alike. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate its potential health effects, particularly its link to cancer and other health problems.”

This chemical also represents an issue for ecosystems and pollinators such as bees, monarch butterflies, and other beneficial insects. Our goal is to shed light on the topic of glyphosate and its potential health and environmental implications and with that in mind we have created a couple of free educational guides.

https://www.drugwatch.com/roundup/glyphosate/
https://www.drugwatch.com/roundup/alternatives/

If you type into google ‘glysophate’ you will see that this is a product used in many weedkillers and easily available in the UK and scroll further and you can see that it is a carcinogenic substance which means… a substance, organism or agent capable of causing cancer.

In this regard I am happy to help spread awareness.

Well that’s it for this month. Here in England the beautiful autumn leaves are falling to the ground and we are bouncing from glorious autumn walks in amongst the copper leaves to sodden rain and floods… Hey ho… only to be expected. Gives us something to complain about and there’s nothing an english-man likes more than complaining about the weather!

This picture is probably one of my favourite ones that I took this year. It never ceases to make me smile. It screams of hot sunny summer days. And, as you know I always like to leave you with a lovely quote about the honeybees and I thought this one sits rather nicely along side the picture…

"Keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams."
-Henry David Thoreau