Its finally time to put the girls (bees) to bed for the winter .. this week their hives will be wrapped, a wind break will be erected and Ill leave them with some home made bee candy/fondant ... just in case they eat all their own honey too quickly. Many bee hives actually starve in late winter/early spring if it suddenly goes cold again .. during the winter they have slowly moved up thru their two brood chambers accessing food (honey) and by early spring they have reached the top of those brood chamber and may find themselves short of food. By leaving some bee candy/fondant for them, it just might be that add insurance to get them thru that period. I usually peek in on them one the first nice day in February and slip them something nice to eat. Its generally not the cold that will kill a hive of bees, its usually a combination of factors - low on food stores, heavy mite load going into winter, or excessive condensation dripping back onto the cluster chilling the girls. Btw, did you know that out of 30000-50000 bees in a normal hive are all girls and only about 10% are males! The Queen rules the hives, its all about her and meeting her needs and that goes for the males (drones). Their only purpose is to mate with a virgin queen! Come the fall, when the Queen stops laying , the drones are booted out the hives, they have served their purpose. Quite alittle society these bees have!
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 15:02:59 +0000