Preparing the Bees for Winter....

OK, so this is really my way of procrastinating, rather than having to go out and work the bees today. The weather is beautiful, it is the perfect day to work the bees, but we have been really, really busy recently, between the MD Renaissance Faire and the PA Renaissance Faire, and I just wanted a slow day for once.

We have observation hives at both of the Renaissance Faires, and people ask us questions all day long about it. (We have someone stationed with the bees at all times, specifically to answer questions!) One of the many, many questions is which are the boys, and which are the girls.

We usually tell people that, by this time of year, the bees are all girls! Worker bees are sterile females, the queen is a fertile female, and the drones are the boys. Thing is, the drones are there to eat, mate, and die, and this is past mating season. Notice - food collection is not on the list of "things to do". If the boys stayed in the hive during the winter, they would eat all the food and the hive would starve. Even if the hive did not starve, the boys would not be productive in those first few weeks when the bees are hunting for food sources, when nothing is blooming yet. Nope, better to get rid of the guys. After all, the queen can make new drones.

How does she do that? She can choose to lay a fertile egg, or an unfertile egg. The fertile eggs turn into workers, and the unfertile eggs turn into drones. The queen just chooses not to lay drones in the fall!

Anyhow, what I really intended to write about is how we go about preparing our hives for the fall. Beekeepers typically treat the bees for disease, and make certain they have enough honey laid in for the winter. If they do not have enough honey, they are often fed either a mixture of sugar and water, or corn syrup.

At our apiary, rather than treat with harsh chemicals, we use essential oil treatments. Might sound rather new age-ish, but the oils we use are found in nature, and seem to be beneficial. For example, it has been noted that bees that are in fields of mint and thyme have lower incidents of mites. It is believed that as the bees fly into the hive, they are brushing against the leaves and stems, thus getting some contact with the plant oils.

Our treatment consists of feeding the bees a sugar-water solution that contains wintergreen (which is a type of mint) and lemongrass in it. (This website from the University of West Virginia, or this website from Wikipedia will give you an idea of what is involved.) We also apply a paper towel that has been soaked in a thyme oil mixture.

These methods apply the oils in three ways: the bees breathe the vapors, have direct contact with the oils, and eat the oils. Breathing the vapors helps control tracheal mites, direct contact helps control varroa mites, and feeding the oils to the larvae helps to disrupt the mite lifecycle.

Our bees usually don't require feeding. However, we often have a warm spell followed by cold weather. In such times, the queen would have started laying eggs, and the hive will starve to death in a hive full of honey trying to keep the broodnest warm - they won't leave the nest to get to the food! When the weather gets really cold, we find it beneficial to fill a paint bucket with sugar syrup and place it directly over the cluster of bees in the hive. This way, the bees have a ready food source without travelling for it, if necessary. If they are able to get to the honey, they won't touch the sugar.

Anyhow, enough I have procrastinated enough for one day. It is dark now, so I have served my purpose - a nice, slow afternoon, writing in my blog!