Day light saving has finished, the sun's coming up later and going down earlier, although still warm, nature is making preparations for winter and so should we. Wintering down is very important, good preparation now provides the foundation for the next season honey crop.

Requirements:

• Disease free,
• Adequate stores of honey and pollen,
• A young queen,
• Plenty of bees, (enough to cover at least a super of frames)

Then there are environmental aspects to look at:

Position hives out of the wind. They must have full sun for at least a few hours in the morning. A good foundation and sloping towards the front. Sound woodware and in some areas, top ventilation.

Stores - How many supers and how much honey do I leave on the hives, are the questions most asked. Basically it all depends on when your honey flow starts and whether you wish to feed hives in the spring.

A number of commercial beekeepers reduce their hives to a single full depth super once brood rearing has finished. They leave approximately six frames of honey in the hives and commence supplementary feeding of sugar syrup (and pollen substitute) from August, until the flow starts. This way they control the build up of their hives right up to the main flow at Christmas.

Others winter two high, leaving a full super of honey (22 - 24 kg) and start their rounds a little later, only feeding those hives that are light. I prefer to winter my hives three high with a large population of bees as we get very early spring honey flows and unless the bees have room to expand, they swarm.

The bees don't always sort things out nicely for you. I don't use queen excluders and will in the autumn, sometimes I find brood in the third super. This is put down into the second super and replaced with honey. Sometimes hives get "honeyed out" - the bees fill up every frame apart from a small patch of brood in the two centre frames. Generally this happen with an old queen. Add a super to the bottom of the hive, restrict the entrance to 25 mm and replace the queen as soon as possible. Another sign of a failing queen is abnormally large amount of pollen in a hive.

Some hives don't gather enough honey to support themselves and require immediate supplementary feeding to increase the stores. Use an internal feeder and continue feeding thick syrup (1 part water -1 part sugar until stores are adequate. I do not usually do this, preferring to unite a good colony "on top" of the weak on, (using two sheets of newspaper to allow slow uniting).

Queen - The queen is the heart of the colony. Her egg laying ability is directly proportional to the honey crop you receive next season (provided you control swarming). Ideally, she should be less than a year old but unless you mark them, their age is hard to gauge. Look at a patch of 4 - 7 day old larvae and note whether the larvae are all the same size. Larvae of different sizes can be an indication of a failing queen.

If you have an old queen in the hive, order a new queen now for the spring. Unfortunately due to the fickle weather conditions in the spring, queen breeders can only supply when they have mated, laying queens. Quite often, cells are put out into nucs but the weather conditions do not permit mating, so while you are sitting there saying where's my queen, so are the breeders. That's why it’s a good idea to replace queens between Jan and March. It's easier for queen breeders and while there's a flow on, you get a better acceptance.

Enough bees - For wintering, we require a lot of young bees to carry the hive through, (enough to cover a full depth super). Older field bees gradually die off during the winter, the younger autumn bees have to raise the next generation. Brood rearing in the spring is very hard on bees and unless there are plenty of bees, pollen and honey, stress disorders start to show up, (chalk brood, sac brood, and nosema).

Environmental Conditions - It's not until winter that you find out just how good your site is. It should be sunny, sheltered and away from neighbours, etc. Those with out apiaries may need to protect them from stock. I tie mine with a nylon rope through the pallets they sit on. That way, it they are knocked over, the supers stay together and the hive survives. A tip when looking for a hive site on farmland is to ask the farmer where's the warmest spot on the farm. If not sure, look for where the cattle congregate at night.

As you are preparing the hive for winter, check the hives foundations for rot. Make sure the bottom board is off the ground so there is airflow under the hive, (spray or cut away grass) and it has a slight slope towards the front. Landing boards are always of interest. How big really depends upon how much sun the hive gets. Bees returning early in the spring are chilled and often land short of the entrance. A sloping board in front allows them to walk in. If however, the hives get plenty of sun, they soon warm up and make their way in.

Replace any woodware that needs attention and remove, or move any dark, broken frames to the outer edges of the supers.

I restrict my hive entrance to 75 X 9 mm to prevent rats and mice wintering over in my hives, (my hives are close to the bush so these are a problem and they can cause a considerable amount of damage). Others nail 75mm pieces of tin on the bottom boards so it forms a tunnel at the entrance. This gives protection against the wind and stops rats enlarging the entrance. Yet other lucky beekeepers don't have these problems and leave them wide open all year round.

If you restrict the entrance, you may have to provide a little top ventilation. This really depends on your location and climate. Some areas are very dry and the moisture given off by the bees during winter dissipates, but where I am its quite wet and condensation builds up on the top bars causing them to rot within a few years. Hence I provide a 25 mm slot in the crown boards (I use them as split boards in the spring) which allows a slight airflow all year round unless the bees block it up. (Research indicates that bees require a change of air every hour during the winter). Others put drawing pins or matches under each corner to raise the roof a little. The idea is to get a balance where hives are dry but not draughty. (If you overdo the ventilation, the bees quickly chew through their stores just to keep warm).

Unfortunately not all hives make it through the winter even though you set them up correctly. This is the reason why most hobbyists have two hives and commercial beekeepers winter over nucs. A number of extra frames of honey are required to over-winter a nuc but they can be worth while to make up dead-outs, sell or use in the spring to make two queen hives.

STORAGE OF SUPERS

One of your most valuable assets you have is your drawn honey frames and these should be protected from the ravages of wax moth. Again there are several methods for this.

Some store their dry honey supers in windy sheds (covered by queen excluders) where it's too cold for the wax moth larvae to survive. Others freeze them for 24 hours to kill eggs and larvae and then store them covered. Others store them "Wet", (ie stored immediately after extraction and covered to prevent robbing) but this is not recommended as it can also spread AFB if you miss a hive during your inspection.

Smaller beekeepers can use PDB (Para Dichlorobenzene) crystals - DO NOT USE MOTH BALLS.

Place a newspaper on the floor and stack up to eight supers on top. Seal any cracks with tape or paper. Place a heaped tablespoon of PDB crystals on a sheet of paper or in a saucer on the top supers and cover. The crystals convert to a gas and expel the air thus killing all the larvae. Repeat again in a month, as this treatment will not kill wax moth eggs.

Note: Frames and supers must be aired for a few days before they are put on the hives in the spring.

Summary of Activities: Winter down, close down entrances, replace rotten woodware, control grass and protect your honey supers from wax moth. Clean and put away your extraction gear.

Had E-mail from a happy Levin Hobbyist. He has had his best year yet, 154 kg from his best hive, something to aim at.