Dear Members,

Normally, once we have ensured our bees are healthy and have plenty of stores for the winter months, we can rest on our laurels and hopefully sell our honey.

This year, with protracted warm weather well into November, it is important to check hives regularly by weighing or hefting over the next few weeks and months to make sure bees have sufficient food to take them through to March/April, when Spring flowers again begin to provide forage.

The warm weather means the bees have not clustered until late November and as a result, the queen may have continued to lay, the brood needs feeding and the bees have been active in and outside the hive, using up valuable resources, but with very little, or no, available forage around to collect. This would mean that they are using up stores at a faster rate than anticipated and we need to keep abreast with their needs.

I was interested to read recently that Tom Seeley, the American beekeeper and researcher who has done so much to further our understanding of bees, their behaviour and needs, was stressing the need that bees have for water throughout the year.

He described seeing bees leave the hive on a sunny day while there was heavy snow on the ground around the hive and visiting a melting puddle of snow, returning to the hive and feeding water to sisters in the hive waiting to receive it.

While it is important that hives have some ventilation in winter so that combs do not become mouldy, using poly or glass, crown boards mean that condensation collects under the board. Some of this can be used by the bees, so is valuable, but if it is too much, it can lead to mould forming on the frames. One of the ways of reducing condensation on the glass or poly crown board is to provide some insulation above the crown board.

If you do this, however, make sure you cover the feed hole with a piece of slate or wood or you will find the bees will nibble away at the insulation.

Bees will form their winter cluster when outside temperatures are around 10 degrees C. If you plan to do an oxalic acid varroa treatment, it is important to do this during a broodless period as the treatment does not pass through the cell cappings to kill varroa breeding in the capped brood.

To determine whether the bees have no brood present you can use your varroa inspection board to determine if there are no cappings present, and this is then the time to do your oxalic treatment. There are only 3 approved oxalic treatments in the UK - Varroa Med, Oxybee and Api-bioxal. I have never used oxalic acid but I believe that Api-bioxal is the most commonly used and easiest to administer. Do however ensure that you follow the instructions on the pack to the letter and don’t inhale the fumes which could be harmful.

Regards, and stay safe and well. Margaret Holdsworth