The theme for the meeting was ‘Preparing for Winter – and Next Year’ and it generated a lot of discussion.
But to start the evening the 20 or so Shipston members present were treated to a ‘Show and Tell’.
Judy and John Critchfield had brought along a couple of crown boards that they had left on top of their colonies – with a bit (!) of a gap underneath the crown boards. Their girls had obligingly built some lovely comb on the underside of the crown boards and you can see the outcome. The crown boards were surprisingly heavy as the bees had started to store honey (or perhaps syrup) in the comb. We had some discussion on what to do with the wax and honey; one suggestion was to cut it into pieces and put it into a large feeder such as a Miller feeder and the bees would recycle the wax and honey (syrup).
Thank-you Judy and John.
Over the next 90 minutes or so we then discussed ‘preparing for winter’ and getting ready for next year. It’s a bit difficult to summarise the discussions as sometimes the advice is related to a specific set of circumstances but some of the main points discussed were:
Preparing for Winter
- Most of us were still feeding syrup but the quantities being taken down varied quite a lot. It was mentioned that it is possible to ‘over feed’ i.e. there can be so much stores in the colony that there are still frames with stores in them come next spring, restricting the space there is for the queen to lay. This in turn can result in early swarms!
- One way to check for the amount of stores is of course by hefting. Graham Franklin uses a spring scale to weigh his colonies so he can accurately track their weight increase and loss and had brought along some interesting graphs of the weight data.
- It will soon be too cold for the bees to be able to process syrup so we are all advised to have some fondant available for winter feeding. It is available with various additives but basic bakers fondant is all that’s needed.
- Mouse guards will soon need to go on. And that led to a more general discussion around ‘animal’ damage from woodpeckers (put chicken wire round the hive) to deer, badgers, horses, cows that can all knock over a hive if they can get up to it. If this is a risk then the hive should be firmly strapped together and ideally behind a stout fence.
- Insulating hive roofs led to an interesting discussion. It’s not cold that can kill bees in winter but damp so it’s vital to have conditions where damp cannot appear. Some members use wood chippings as their insulation material.
- I’ve not done this myself but the gist, as I understand it, is you have an eke (or similar) that you fill with wood chippings. These provide both insulation and absorb any moisture from the hive. There is an example of how to make one (for a Langstroth) on the Honey Bee Suite website
- We also had a discussion regarding leaving varroa boards in (to reduce airflow / drafts into the hive) or leave them out. It was probably 50/50 in/out!
- However you do it, it’s important to have some insulation at the top of the hive to prevent damp.
- And of course an oxalic acid treatment, by sublimation or the trickle method, should be done when the colony is broodless – generally around late December.
That’s the gist of the discussions around preparing the bees for winter. We next discussed……
Preparing the beekeeper for the coming year
We will be running our Winter Bee School again. This is to prepare members to take the Basic Assessment next year so is intended for beekeepers who have been keeping bees for at least a year.
We also plan to run the Bee Health course to prepare members to take the Bee Health Certificate. We ran this course for the first time last winter (2021-22) and we had three members who successfully passed the practical and gained their certificate this summer.
There are also a number of courses being run by Warwickshire Beekeepers Association (which Shipston, and hence all members, is a part of). A microscopy course is planned for February 2023 and there is also going to be a weekend course for beekeepers who are considering taking General Husbandry. Look out for the emails from WBKA.
100 Club
The 2nd Monday meetings are of course when we do the 100 club draw. Carolyn Kramer, who runs the 100 Club for Shipston Beekeepers, asked two members present to pull out the winning numbers which were for Rod Oates and Mike Clarke. Your winnings will be on their way to you shortly.
And finally…..strange but true
One member foxed us all with what had happened to one of his colonies. On one inspection it was all OK, 2 weeks later and there were hardly any bees in the colony. The queen was there (so the bees hadn’t swarmed or absconded??) and there was some brood. A number of the brood frames had black wax and black pollen (poppy?) in them. Very few dead bees were outside the hive. Answers on a postcard……
And another member, whom shall remain nameless but does like his mead, was somewhat distraught when he went to extract from 7 supers he had been storing for a number of weeks; they were full of wax moth and none of the frames were suitable for extraction. The lesson is to try to extract honey as soon as you can but this did lead to a discussion on storing supers (wet or dry), freezing frames to kill wax moth, putting them into clear containers (apparently the wax moth doesn’t like the light), not storing frames with pollen on them (as it’s the pollen the wax moth need) or using acetic acid. None of which made the member feel any better, of course.
