What Do Beekeepers Do In Winter?

After the last honey harvest of the year you might think that beekeepers can just keep warn indoors and put their feet up! While it would be true to say that a beekeeper is much busier during the spring and summer, there is still a lot of preparation to do over the end of autumn and things to stay on top of throughout the winter.

Honeybees do not hibernate during the winter months but they do (usually) stay inside the hive to keep warm, There is also very little for them to go outside for until the first blossoms of spring. While the worker bees do a fantastic job inside the hive to keep it warm, help from beekeepers can still be important to ensure their survival over winter. We want to do everything we can to make sure that when spring comes around our bees are in the best condition, not only to produce honey, but also to do the important work pollinating our gardens, fruit trees and wildflowers.

What are the bees doing if not hibernating?

Once temperatures get down to around 12 degrees centigrade, the bees will begin to cluster around the queen. They will shimmy their bodies and flap their wings to increase the hive temperature to keep the queen (and the hive) warm. The bees will work on a rotational basis so they can all have a chance to stay warm and not get completely worn out. The bees will mostly stay in the hive all winter long keeping it warm and consuming honey. Even though the bees are tucked away inside the hive, they are not just sleeping or lounging around! The bees are still very active all winter.

Preparing for winter.

Much colder weather is now just around the corner and as the bees start to form a 'winter cluster' around the queen a beekeeper will start to prepare the hives. Thankfully our winters in the UK are not usually as harsh as some places around the world, however it's still good practice to do what we can to protect the hives from bad weather.

Some beekeepers will relocate their hives to a more sheltered spot during the winter. Others will use natural or home constructed wind-breakers such as hay bales. If that's not possible then simply turning the hive so the entrance is protected by a wall or fence is very effective and common. The individual beekeeper's approach is usually based on experience and the space available to them. If available some beekeepers will move the hives to an area that will get the most sunlight to help the bees keep the hive warm.

Beekeepers don't add water to the hives for the bees to drink over winter. The difference in temperate between the cold outside and the warmth of the hive inside creates condensation that will appear as droplets on the insides of the hive. Too much condensation can be very harmful though, so the beekeeper has to always allow for a good amount of ventilation through the hive. It's always a balance between insulating and protecting the hive for the winter without sealing it off completely which isn't possible because of both the ventilation needed and the fact that the bees need to be able to come and go if they need to, which isn't uncommon on warmer days. Many beekeepers will add an entrance reducer though to make it a little less draughty! These reducers can also help keep other pests like mice out of the hive, so they have a dual purpose over winter.

Drainage around the hives is also an important consideration during winter. We don't want the hives sat in the middle of a boggy swamp. Making regular checks are important and beekeepers need good access to the hives at all times. When a beekeeper is happy that their hives are in a suitable place and protected from the elements as much as possible, there's still a lot to do though!

Checking the food supply.

Beekeepers have to ensure there is plenty of honey stored in the hive to keep the bees going all winter. Depending on the size of the hive and how long the coldest months are, a beehive will usually consume around 13 kg of honey over the winter and they will need that to survive until spring. This can be problematic during long winters because if a beekeeper adds an additional super (box) to the hive to hold more honey, you are also creating more space that the bees will need to keep warm. If the honey supplies do start to run low then making and adding sugar fondant is usually the best solution. Making fondant is easy but it does not contain everything that the bees really need to stay healthy, so it is only used as a backup It's not an alternative to ensuring the bees have the appropriate amount of honey! Honey is always the best fuel for the bees over winter.

People will sometimes claim that beekeepers steal all the honey and feed their bees syrup and fondant but that really isn't true. Healthy bees make a lot more honey than unhealthy ones so it makes no sense to do this. Any alternative to the bees own honey is only used as a backup food supply in emergencies or special circumstances that will provide a benefit to the colony. The most common time to use fondant is when the weather first starts to warm up and the bees start to leave the hive frequently. If it has been a mild winter this could be too early for most blossoming plants and the availability of nectar could be very low. If a lot of bees are leaving the hive and finding nothing, only to return hungry and tired, supplies can start to run low. In times like these it's important for the beekeeper to step in and provide some backup food or the whole colony may die. This is why towards the end of winter a bee keeper will start to check on the hive a little more often.

Winter Monitoring.

Beekeepers must be careful when periodically checking the hives during winter. Opening the hive is extremely risky when it is cold. If the hive is opened then the warm air that the bees have created will escape and the cold air will rush in, obviously we don't want to cause shock or make the bees work even harder to make the hive cosy for them again. For that reason it's very rare that a beekeeper will actually open the hive, unless it's an emergency. They can usually hear them buzzing away inside, tapping the hive a little can cause the bees to make a little more noise too.

Beekeepers will carry out a general visual inspection occasionally just to make sure everything is looking fine. They will check the entrance isn't blocked by leaves, snow or other debris, and make a check of the stands and the ground they are stood on

To Conclude.

Beekeeping over winter is as much of an ongoing learning experience as it is during the summer. Maybe even more so, as an unusually cold, wet, or warm winter can throw up new and unexpected challenges. While a beekeeper may be far less busy overall, the steps and decisions a beekeeper makes during winter are in a lot of ways even more critical. When to implement emergency feeding, how often to inspect the hives, when it's best not to disturb them. It's a beekeepers duty to monitor the hives and keep them safe over winter, so that they are as healthy as possible and ready to start collecting nectar and pollen when spring finally comes.