Get ready for the colder weather in the warmth of late summer

Claire Waring advises on doing the best to make sure your colonies survive until next spring

As a general rule, you should start feeding colonies in mid August and aim to finish by late September. As the nights draw in and the cooler autumn temperatures have us reaching for our woolly jumpers, so bees are preparing for their winter.

Bees don’t hibernate as individuals but in a way, the colony as a whole can be thought to do so. To have the best chance of surviving the winter, the bees need to be healthy, be headed by a properly mated and laying queen, have sufficient accessible food stores and be in a watertight cavity (hive).

As autumn approaches, forage sources disappear, and the colony begins to form its winter cluster. With brood, the bees maintain the centre of the cluster at brood nest temperature; slightly below without brood. The cluster’s packing density is adjusted according to the temperature of the outside layer. The cluster forms around the latest brood nest and then, as the bees consume food, it moves upwards. It is important to ensure that bees have food above their heads for winter. As bees in the centre get hungry, they move to the outside for food, displacing those who have fed, setting up a slow moving convection current.

YOUR COLONY NEEDS TO BE HEALTHY

The main killers in the winter or early spring are Nosema and Varroa. Nosema affects the bee’s gut and shortens its life by preventing proper food digestion. If they survive to the spring, affected colonies can build up slowly, dwindle or even die. The best way of dealing with Nosema is to transfer the colony onto clean comb, ie, fresh foundation or drawn comb that has been fumigated with an 80 per cent solution of acetic acid to kill the spores. Bear this in mind for any affected colonies next spring. There are no authorised treatments for Nosema.

As the brood nest shrinks, so does the number of cells in which varroa mites can breed.