Saturday, December 3, 2016

Tucking the bees in


My winter preparations in my house are well underway with the snowblower and the lawn mower trading places in the barn, pulling out the snowshoes and storing the kayak paddles, and buying pellets for the stove.

The bees have been preparing for winter too. Well, their beekeeper has been anyway. For the winter, I install mouse guards. As soon as the weather gets chilly at night, mice look for warm places to snug in and a bee hive is usually quite toasty. The mice do really do anything to the bees, but they can chew up the inside of a hive. I put metal gates across the front of the hive to keep them out and mice can't chew through the metal barrier.

I also add insulation around three sides of the hive and put an extension on their roof to keep the snow off the entrance.