Winter Beekeeping
Should I Leave Supers on For the Winter?
Should I leave supers on for the winter?
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Preparing Honey Bees for Winter
it’s important to understand what winterizing beehives look like for a backyard beekeeper.
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Can I Feed Frames of Honey Back to My Colony?
I live in the NC Piedmont. I prepared my hives for winter last Sunday by removing the top supers and adding a quilt frame and a candy board. These are two first-year hives. The honey was not capped last month. This month it’s all capped including eight full frames in the supers and four that are about half full.
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How Do I Combine Two Double-Deep Hives?
Before you begin to combine the two double-deep hives, try to consolidate the brood nests in each hive. For example, If one hive has five frames of brood in one box, and two in the other box, try to put all seven of them in one box. Repeat this process in the other hive.
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How Do I Save a Late-Season Swarm?
Deciding how to handle a late swarm can be difficult, even for an experienced beekeeper. Although late swarms have a very low survival rate, they can be helped along with additional resources.
Read MoreIs Moisture Killing My Bees?
As long as they are dry, honey bees are wizards at staying warm. But a moist hive can be a death sentence because evaporation is a cooling process that steals the heat from a bee’s body. Living in a damp hive is like standing in a cold room while dripping wet from a shower.
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How Do I Keep the Hive Ventilated in Winter?
In the past few years, the number of electronic devices for beekeepers has mushroomed. I’ve frequently been asked to test these new devices, so I have quite a bit of experience with them.
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The Secret of Winter Bees vs Summer Bees
We all know that female honey bees are divided into two castes: workers and queens. Although they both arise from normal fertilized eggs, the larvae that hatch from those eggs are nurtured differently.
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When is it Too Late to do an OAV Treatment?
When bees washboard, they space themselves on the surface of their hive then they plant their four rear legs in place and use their two front legs to step forward and back in a rocking motion while they lick the surface. Sometimes a colony will washboard for a day or two, but at other times it may continue for weeks.
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Should My Supers Be Below the Inner Cover for Winter?
Having the inner cover in the way can block the bees’ pathway and funnel the heat to a small area instead of generally throughout the super. In addition, the retriever bees may have to travel further—first to the opening, then away from it to the food, and then back to the hole, and then back to the cluster.
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