As autumn comes to an end, winter hive preparation takes place.  Hives have been put into winter mode, ready for the harsh conditions here in rural Northumberland.  The aim of this post is show my strategy for winter hive preparation to get my colonies through the winter.  My aim is for them to “thrive” not just “survive”.

Click here to see the guidance provided by the national bee unit in their leaflet “Preparing Colonies for Winter”.

What winter hive preparation has already been done?

Feeding

Feeding is a key part of winter hive preparation.  Winter Feeding took place during the autumn, after the hives were treated for varroa using Apiguard.  I like to use sugar syrup and feed it to the bees through rapid feeders.  Strong sugar syrup is used for winter feeding and 60:40 sugar to water solution can be achieved without heating the mixture.

I prefer to use sugar syrup for winter feeding because its cheap and simple to make up, the bees add their natural enzymes to break it down and I can add a small amount of Thymol to it.  There is an article on the national bee unit’s website, which suggests that Thymol can prevent mould growth in the syrup and Kirsty Stainton’s article in BBKA News in November 2018 suggests that it can reduce Nosema spores and their effect on the colony.

The aim of the feeding was to attempt to fill the brood body with enough stores for the colony to thrive all the way through to March the following year, without disturbing the cluster but still allowing the crown board to be removed for oxalic acid trickling between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Single Brood Body

My aim is for winter hive preparation is for the colonies to go into winter on a single brood body, full of capped stores.  The conditions are harsh in rural Northumberland and the focus of my bee breeding programme is to develop healthy, calm bees, productive bees which over winter well and are efficient with their stores.

Through wing morphology and DNA testing I’ve established that my bees are near native to the area.  Although they are not the most prolific of bees, they can still fill double brood bodies in the summer.   We know that a “National” brood body is not large enough for a colony during the summer, but I only really appreciated recently that it is only not big enough for about 4 months of the year!  So when the colony is growing in the spring I add a second brood body.  I then have options for using this to “split” the colony as part of swarm control or to implement a comb change when the colony starts to reduce in size towards the end of the summer.

I try to avoid having a double brooded colony going into winter and never use brood and a half.  The graph below shows the logic of this and can be found in Yates’ Beekeeping Study Notes and Ted Hooper’s Bees & Honey.

How are the hives set up for winter?

Ventilation – Open Mesh Floors & Solid Roofs

The configuration that I use is based on a suggestion by Clive de Bruyn in his book Practical beekeeping.  The idea is that the open mesh floor provides adequate ventilation to the colony during the winter.  Clearly as part of the winter hive preparation, hives needs to be sheltered from direct wind and drafts.  With this amount of ventilation there is no need to have a flow of air through the crown board or roof.  The aim is to prevent an upward vertical flow of air through the hive and actually “trap” the warmth in the top of the hive.

Condensation is avoided because the water vapour does not have anything in the top of the hive cold enough for it to condense on and the ventilation proved by the mesh floor provides a movement of air.  Carbon Dioxide, produced by the cluster “breathing” is heavier than air and will “fall” out of the mesh floor, which prevents a build up of this gas.

Insulation – warm and dry

The cluster requires an incredibly small amount of stores to keep them alive.  Most of the stores are used maintaining the temperature of the cluster and this is directly related to the rate of heat loss from the hive and the surface area of the cluster.  Smaller clusters take less energy to keep at temperature and insulated hives lose less heat, especially if the heat is “trapped” in, as it rises.

To insulate the hive during the winter I place a 32mm Eke above the crown board and put one or two layers of foam underlay in the eke.  This reduces the heat loss in the top of the hive and keeps the crown board near to cluster temperature, avoiding condensation.

I also “bubble wrap” each hive.  This does have a slight insulation effect, but the main benefit is to keep the top part of the hive dry during the winter.  Even surface water on the woodwork can create a refrigeration effect when it evaporates in the sun on a cold winter’s day.  The bees use this evaporation cooling effect in summer to cool the brood comb!

Perspex Crown Boards – Seeing what is going on

Perspex crown boards are great!  During the winter months, when you don’t want to disturb the colonies by lifting the crown boards, but do want to see what is going on:-

• has the cluster formed or has dispersed ?
• has the colony used up all the capped stores and need supplementary feeding ?
• is the cluster isolated from its stores ?
• has condensation formed ?
• are there signs of nosema on the top bars ?
• are they still alive!?

Entrance Blocks – Two bees wide

The entrance blocks I make for my hives have two openings.  The winter side of the block has an opening which is 20mm x 7mm.  This is large enough for a worker to drag a dead bee through but small enough to prevent a mouse getting into the hive.   I’ve never had a mouse get through one and never had one blocked with dead bees.

Summary

In this blog I have tried to show my strategy for winter hive preparation to get my colonies through the winter.  My aim is for them to “thrive” not just “survive”.  Winters can be harsh here in rural Northumberland but there are carpets of snowdrops in February, for colonies ready to take advantage of them.

The approach is based on ensuring ventilation, insulation and keeping the colony dry.  Winter hive preparation started much earlier in the season, with the aim of going into winter with healthy, Calm, productive bees in single brood bodies, on clean comb and with large quantities of capped stores.

Now is a good time to make the final preparations to make sure your hives are “beast ready” and to think about the equipment you want to make or buy over the winter to have a great season next year.

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Temperature was up to 12 Degree C today, with light winds and sunshine.  All colonies were very busy in the apiary, with lots of spring like behaviour, including actively foraging.  Still too cold to open up the hives but a peak through the perspex crown boards shows that the clusters are dispersed and bees are busy around the brood nest.  There are still capped stores they have not consumed and they have taken very little of the fondant I gave them in February.

There is more cold weather on its way next week, with snow forecast for the weekend.  So, I have decided to leave them in winter mode for a bit longer, with small entrances, insulation and fondant in place.  I won’t be stimulating them with weak sugar syrup as I planned, when I was expecting a “normal” spring.  The oil seed rape will also be feeling the cold start to spring, so the bees may be about to get the timing right all by themselves!

What pollen are the bees actively foraging ?

So far the bees have been foraging on snowdrops, with the characteristic bright orange pollen load visible on many of the returning foragers.  This was also the case today but there are also a number of foragers coming back with their pollen baskets full of an off-white, grey, cream colour pollen.  I have had a good look around the area and looked up white pollen in Rex Sawyers Pollen Identification guide but so far have not been able to identify what it is.

I have highlighted two returning foragers, with blue arrows on the photograph, showing the two different colours of pollen coming in today.

What behaviour did I see at the entrances, today ?

The bees were very busy today and were starting to queue up around the small 25mm x 7mm winter entrances, which only just coped with the traffic.  There was lots of orientation flights going on, especially early on in the day.  Bees would emerge and fly facing the hive in a circular and zig-zag path, at increasing distances, before heading off.

One of the other behaviours I saw for the first time this season was bees standing in a characteristic fanning posture, standing on all six legs with rear legs at full height, with abdomens raised and their nasanov glands open.   This behaviour tries to establish a plume of phermones, from the hive which act as a homing beacon for returning foragers.

I have highlighted two foragers, with blue arrows, that were fanning at the entrance in this way today.

Next steps with more cold weather on its way

I’m planning to leave the bees in winter mode with snow planned for next weekend.  They have done a great job of surviving this far and are well supplied with fondant, are dry and well insulated.  I look forward to seeing how they do after the next cold spell and I’m getting ready for weather that will allow me to do my spring inspections and cleans.

If you have any suggestions on what the mystery white pollen is please let me know and if you like this post please comment or like and/or share on facebook.

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Great to see all colonies survived the “beast from the east” and were out foraging again on the snowdrops.  It was 8 Degree C, with sunny spells in the apiary today, here in rural Northumberland.  The winter bees are collecting pollen again after breaking their tight cluster of last week.

Snowdrop Pollen Collection

The weather was perfect for some nice photographs of the foraging bees collecting pollen.  The snowdrops, despite being covered in deep snow last week, have also survived.  The snowdrops come out in carpets nearby and it did not take long for workers to visit the flowers.  It was interesting to see the heads of the snowdrops hang down and the foraging bees fly under the flower and flip themselves up to collect the pollen and press it into their pollen baskets on their rear legs.

Bees could be seen with bright orange beads of pollen on their rear legs, back at the hive entrances.  Many of the beads of pollen were much larger than they were collecting before the cold spell.

Making up a snowdrop pollen microscope slide

The last stage was to take one of the flower heads home to make up a pollen slide.  I used the approach I learnt on the NDB Microscopy short Course.  This involved cutting a small piece of fuchsin stained glycerin gel, picking it up on a needle tool and dabbing it onto the anthers of the flower.  The piece of gel was put on a microscope slide and a cover slip was placed on top of it.  The slide was then put on a warming plate until the gel melted.  Some clear nail varnish was then run around the end of the cover slip.

Under my compound microscope, I could see the pollen grains were all around 28 micros from end to end of the oval/boat shape grain.  Each of them showed a furrow type pore on the top surface, which was smooth.  The photograph above was taken on my small camera that fits into the eye piece of my microscope.  The fatty oily substance that shows on the photo as yellow is familiar from looking a dandelion pollen.  I also did a quick check in Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification guide to check against his reference information, which is always reassuring and a great place to find out the botanical names, which for snowdrops is Galanthus nivalis.

Ready for the Spring build up

The next steps will be to keep on standby with emergency feeding, as the colony starts to grow and consume stores.  I will also be looking to stimulate them with weak sugar syrup during the month, to try and get them ready for the autumn sown oil seed rape nearby.

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The current cold spell is hitting the winter bees with a perfect storm of hardship.  There are three major reasons this is bad timing for them.

• They have survived the winter so far by clustering and using up their stores of honey. This includes their internal stores of nutrients, called fat bodies.  At this stage all these stores are getting low.
• They have started taking in pollen in the last week or so.  The means the queen has started laying again.  The colony will have been raising the brood nest temperature by 15 degree C and will be feeding the young larvae.  This is quickly using up their remaining stores of honey and consume precious internal resources.
• The number of larvae in the colony may well exceed the number of workers trying to keep them warm.  This is normal at this time of year.  It is a calculated risk the colony takes to produce the first brood of the season as early as it can.

Then they hit a cold snap of minus 4 degree C, with snow.  This might have been dealt with by the bees in the middle of winter by clustering tightly and sitting it out.  Once resources are committed to brood rearing the consequences are more severe.

How might the winter bees react to this spell of cold weather ?

In response the winter bee colony may form a smaller cluster to keep warm.  As a result some brood may be become “chilled brood” and the cluster may become out of contact with its stores, creating “isolation starvation”.  The colony will have put a great deal of resources into this first batch of brood.  If this fails they can not get these resources back.  There may be more dead bees to deal with and entrances may become blocked.

What can I do to help the winter bee colony survive ?

It is a bad time to disturb them while the snow is on the hives and they are trying to keep as warm as possible.  My priority is to be ready to make sure they are not starving as soon as I can safely check on their stores.  There is not a great deal more I can do for my colonies, at this stage, to get through natures toughest of survival tests. They will be dependent on their own resilience to these conditions and my preparations for them going into the winter.  My key aims for winter preparation were to ensure the colony.

• Had enough stores to last the winter and early spring.
• Would be kept dry.
• Was insulated to keep heat in.
• Had adequate ventilation.
• To be free of pests and disease.

The preparations I carried out in the autumn were.

• Feeding with strong sugar syrup (60:40) solution, including the addition of Thymol.  This was added to prevent mould growth in the syrup.  Beebase has a useful guide on feeding which includes using Thymol addition.
• Hives were fitted with perspex crown boards, bubble wrapped and two layers of 12mm foam underlay. The foam underlay was fitted under the roofs in a 25mm eke.  Entrances were reduced to 25mm x 6mm.
• Oxalic dripping treatment at the turn of the year, on a day that reached 10 Degree C.
• Fondant was added, directly above the cluster, in each hive during February.

What can I feed my winter bees to stimulate them in spring ?

As the bad weather clears I will be making up some 50:50 sugar syrup solution to give them at the earliest opportunity.  The thinking behind this is to stimulate the surviving winter bees into the spring of 2018 by giving them a source of energy to do the work of raising the temperature of the brood nest and foraging for pollen.  Snow drops and gorse are a good source of pollen in rural Northumberland at this time of year.

Many beekeepers, particularly in areas with little forage for the bees at this time of year, advocate the use of a pollen supplement or substitute.  This is commercially available under a few different brand names from people like Thornes and Paynes Bee Supplies.  Again, beebase has some guidance on a recipe for this for making your own.  In Yates’ revision notes for BBKA module 5,6,7,8 book, they describe a recipe.

• three parts fat free soya flour.
• one part brewers yeast.
• mixed with 2:1 sugar syrup.
• made into a patties and put into plastic bags.

I have not tried this out, mainly due to difficulty finding fat free soya flour in less than industrial quantities but also feedback from two different commercial bee farmers, at different ends of the UK, that their experience is that the bees do not appear interested in it.

Keeping warm and well fed

All the best for your winter bees, I hope they do OK in these harsh conditions and standby with the feed.  As for winter beekeepers, its time for hot chocolate and big coats.

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First Pollen of the season going in.  9 Degree C with sunny intervals.  Looks like they are foraging pollen from the snowdrops, that there are carpets of nearby.  Not much activity outside the hives.  A few hardy foragers are out but a look through the perspex crown board shows that the cluster is dispersing.  The workers also look very busy inside the hive.

With the breakdown of the cluster and pollen going there is a strong indication that the queen is starting lay again.  The brood nest temperature will be increasing from the winter level of 20 Degree C up to the brood rearing temperature of 35 Degree C.  This will require a lot of stores to be consumed.  So I’ll be keeping a check on stores and looking out for cold spells.

Looking through the perspex crown board, I can see that the cluster has started to spread out across the full width of the first five frames.  Capped stores can be seen on the next three frames.  A small amount of wax has been drawn between the top of the frames and the under side of the perspex crown board, which will be tidied up when I start my spring clean inspections, as the season starts and the weather warms up.

This is a good start to the season, as I’m trying to get them ready for the autumn sown oil seed rape.  In previous years the autumn sown oil seed rape has flowered in March to April.  Here in rural Northumberland, this has been a little early for the bees.

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