Fall bee hive management tasks prepare the hives for the
bees’ winter survival. When the beekeeper sets up the hives for winter on a
warm fall day, he or she will make a number of observations and hive
adjustments. First, the hives must be queen-right. We don’t need to actually
locate the queen, just see evidence that the hives have a healthy queen.
Finding eggs or larvae tell us that a queen has been laying eggs recently.
Queen bees reduce their egg laying in the fall and usually stop laying eggs
completely as winter approaches. If a colony is weak, we should combine it with
a strong colony. It is best to take our winter losses in the fall and not risk
losing valuable honeycombs to wax moths. It is extremely important for
beekeepers to manage parasitic Varroa mite levels in the hives. We should
sample the bees and measure the mites using an alcohol wash or powdered sugar
roll test. If Varroa levels exceed a three percent threshold, then a mite
treatment of the hives is needed. Bees in colonies with high mite levels have a
shortened life expectancy, and these colonies often perish during cold weather
due to a lack of sufficient bees to provide winter cluster warmth.
To successfully over-wintering bees, the hives must have
sufficient winter stores of honey, properly placed so that the bees can access
it; and the hives must have adequate ventilation, particularly at the top. Arkansas
hives require approximately 60 pounds of honey stores. Frames of honey should
be on the edges of the fall cluster of bees, and the majority of the honey
should be above the bees’ cluster. The beekeeper will likely need to rearrange
hive boxes or frames to place the fall cluster low in the hive. As the winter
progresses, the bee cluster will slowly move upward, eating through the stored
honey. Remove all queen excluders, and reduce hive entrances as in today’s
photo.
--Richard
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