Indiana Beekeepers Association

Bee A Pumpkin (image by Agriculture and Natural Resources - University of California)

October is the month to prepare your bees for just what Mother Nature has waiting for you this upcoming cold weather. You are wondering, what might lead to the demise of my bees during the winter? Most commonly it is either starvation or dampness. And, I have included a third product to this record – conditions from mite infestation.

1) Varroa Mites tend to be a complete subject independently. Mites are basically virus devices. During August, these are typically out-producing the bees in numbers. So, this was the ‘critical’ time to address them and reduce the scatter of viruses to your youthful bees that will be expected to stay all winter-long. These little menaces lack a foolproof way for eradication so build your program and stick to it.

2) Sixty pounds of book honey stores is the minimum suggestion for our area. A deep framework packed with capped shops can consider anywhere from 6 to 10 pounds. Therefore, that’d be 6 to 10 structures of deep basis high in capped stores many say you really need to plan on having just as much as 12 –18 deep frames. In the event that you don’t have this at this point, begin your fall feeding ASAP as time is running-out. Here's extra information on finding your way through wintertime. Today, we switch to 2:1 syrup – that’s 2 parts sugar to at least one component water. The occasions are reduced and cooler so that the bees do not need the excess moisture to greatly help cool the hive. Simply take any late honey off. Remove all queen excluders. Bees could go over the excluder into a feeder or awesome and leave the queen below.

3) As for the dampness, the huddling cluster of overwintering bees creates a water vapour similar to the exhaled air of air we create. The cooler outside environment could cause the dampness particles to condense and fall back on bees as liquid drops. Therefore triggers them to freeze. So be cognizant of excess liquid in hive and supply ventilation all cold weather. (For informative data on moisture boards)

You’ll notice aided by the current cooler conditions, the blooms of goldenrod and aster are rapidly decreasing. Here is the indication to guage hives and combine in which necessary or shake down colonies that have too much empty room. Weak hives go should really be combined into stronger ones – try not to combine poor hives collectively.