You might not think much is happening this time of year in the hive, but you'd be totally wrong! Lots of stuff still happens in the winter although it doesn't take much care from me.

The queen has started laying eggs again. Yikes, you say - isn't it too cold. The worker bees (the girls who emerged in October and November) are using their body heat to warm up the hive from a nice 60' to 93'F. They aren't warming up the whole hive, just the part around the eggs. And we aren't talking hundreds of eggs yet, more like a handful at a time.

The bees are going out for their cleansing flights. Bees don't pee or poop in the hive so on balmy days like tomorrow is supposed to be in our area, they will go out and do their business. If you look carefully in the picture, all the little yellow spots are ... well bee pee. Expect it again tomorrow!

And what are beekeepers doing in the winter?  We this one is missing her girls and planning the spring split. I am going to take a few frames from my strongest hive and start a new colony. I am also assessing what equipment I need to purchase, repair and build. Being one hive short has given me plenty of equipment, but I need to get better landing board/bottom board combos. Right now they don't fit. The landing board is just where the bees land when they come into the hive. While not strictly necessary, I think it looks good.

I am also going to have to make a pile of new frames. The dying hive got wax worms - {shiver} yeck!  So a number of frames are going to have the wax cut out and new foundation put in its place. I usually replace the foundation in about 1/5 of my frames each year, but this year I plan to do a bigger replacement.

Why you ask?  Well at a conference last summer I learned about all the pesticides that build up in wax and decided that this spring we will be more rigorous about getting rid of wax older than five years.

I have also been reading. A lot. Which is no surprise to any of you who know me well. The librarians all recognize my voice from "hello" when I call. I will share my reading shelf in another post!

And that is what beekeepers do in the winter.

Honey Bottling

We do! We bottled the last of this year's honey and we have about 25 lbs for sale (in 1 lb Papa Bear plastic bottles). If you are interested, just let us know. The honey is a rich red amber color and has a wonderful figgy flavor. This would be perfect for baking, drizzling over goat cheese, or pouring over pancakes.

Snow!

We got snow over the weekend and this post is late because we were without power for three days. The bees seem to have weathered the storm fine and there were no branches down that impacted the girls. We cut down the one tree that touched the hives after the Ice Storm of 2008.

You can see that I started to winterize the hives with insulation around three sides and an extension to the roof. I still need to get hay bales behind them to cut off the wind. Once all the leaves drop, there is a good wind corridor behind them.

Today should be warm enough with temps expected near 60' to go out into the hives to complete winter preparation. Crazy weather.

Honey Tasting

I am so excited to be gathering gorgeous varietal honey and decadent honey sweetened goodies for the Honey Tasting at the library.

What is varietal honey, you ask?

Varietal honey is just like varietal wine - honey made from a single kind of nectar. For example, cranberry honey is made from the nectar from cranberry flowers. Bees will get on a type of flower and work it until it is exhausted (the flower not the bee). A beekeeper will put on a fresh honey super at the beginning of a flower flow and take it off when the flowering ends. That is a varietal honey.

What is so special about it?

Varietal honey has strong notes of a single flower - but it is rarely that simple. The flavors are normally highly complex and will echo the flower, the sun and the season of collection.

If you want to check out some varietal honey, I am leading a honey tasting at the Millbury Public Library on October 25. There are still some spaces available. Here are the details:

October 25, 2011

6:00pm - 7:30pm

Millbury Public Library

Register by calling 508 865 1181.

Goodies will be sent home with participants!

We're famous!

Check out the article in the DailyMillbury.com here.

Steve, the reporter was very brave - tho he never mentioned his own adventures in the story. He didn't blink an eye when I brought out the suit and veil for him. He suited up and dove in to the bees with me.

And thanks Steve, not just for a great story about bees but for your service to our country too! He was Special Forces -so perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise he wasn't concerned about a 80,000 venomous stinging insects.

Drone Chucking Day

As I am slowly cleaning up for the fall so are the bees. I went out this morning to find a few dead bees on the entrance to the hives. What?

Then I chuckled, they were mostly drones.

The drones are chucked out when the weather starts getting really cold. Drones don't over winter as they don't really do a lot for the hive in the cold weather so the workers forcibly remove them.

I am getting ready to remove all the honey supers from the girls this weekend. Sun's hive is just impressively strong. Magenta's hive also looks great. I will do a deep check this weekend. I think Sun has screened bottom board which I usually cover in the winter or just switch out.

Here's to a last summer moment - sweet!

The bee inspector and a loss

When I arrived home today after meeting a client and having lunch, there was a white car in the driveway. As soon as I saw the state tags I knew - the bee inspector had arrived. This has been a challenging year for the state inspector's office. They did not hire the two part time inspectors so the state inspector has had to do all the inspections.

He's actually been to my hives before. A few years ago, he came out with our local inspector.

This inspection he was really pleased with the amount of bees and how I am managing the hives. The queens are doing well, still laying a few eggs and there are gobs, yes GOBS of larvae. Yay!! The more bees there are now that are larvae or newly emerged, the more bees to keep the queen warm over the winter.

While we were poking I got to actually see Magenta! She is soo much lighter than her daughters. I was really surprised to see such a difference. They must take after their dads.

Mind you, I've been helping them out with some extra pollen which can push out the date that the queen stops laying in the fall. What can I say - I am ever optimistic about fall and that there will be plenty of warm days like today.

On a sad note, yesterday when I was in the hives (and got stung!), it was clear that True was gone. Long gone too - her hive has nasty wax moths. Yuck!!! So I took down one box and will put the frames it the freezer to kill the moths. I will take the honey off in a few days and then I will let that hive die out.

In the spring, I will split our remaining hives - so that we can have a new hive and a daughter queen from one of these hives. In the spring we will determine which hive is strongest and if they can remain strong if we take some bees out.