Brrr It's Cold Out There!

Most bee keepers estimate that one hive of bees needs at least 20-30 pounds of honey for the winter. This amount is even higher in colder regions. The past couple years in our area of the San Joaquin Valley, that has been no problem, but for our hives it was a little different year.

This past weekend I went out to do a quick check on our hives to make sure they have everything they need for the winter, especially honey! Bees cluster together when temperatures drop into the 50's or below, surviving on the honey they have collected as their food source through the winter. Not a bad diet, huh?

Video- One of our hives in November that was booming with bees with all the wildflowers nearby.

With the early fall rains we got, late season wildflowers starting sprouting up in November with temperature highs still in the low to mid 60's. Around our hives just outside of Clovis, we saw tons of Mustard wildflowers (actually they are still there). This is a great source of pollen and nectar - bees mostly use pollen to feed the baby bees in the hive, and nectar to make honey. It was crazy, most of our hives were booming this fall, almost as if were spring.

So I thought we were good on honey stores for the winter, assuming the bees would be making lots of honey in the hive this fall using the wildflower nectar. However, I think this may have caused a couple problems. 1) The hives kept producing lots of new baby bees (eggs/brood), which can be a magnet for Varrao mites 2) While they were producing honey, they were also using a lot of it to feed the newly "hatched" bees.

As a result, a lot of my time prepping the hives for winter has gone into battling Varroa mites, trying to keep the numbers down before the temperatures dropped in early December. And, while I assumed the hives were good on honey stores, when I went to check the hives this weekend I realized that most the hives are short on honey, a couple hives actually had almost no honey stores. Thankfully I went out and checked!

To fix the problem, I moved around "frames" of honey between the hives to make sure each hive has enough. So at the moment, I think we're good to go for the winter. I plan to go back out in 2-3 weeks to make sure each hive still has enough honey.

With our short winters in the valley, we just need to get them to mid or late January, when I plan to start feeding them syrup (sugar water), which is a honey substitute, to help stimulate the hives in preparation for moving them into almond orchards when almond bloom begins in early to mid February.

Praying all goes well in the hives over the next few weeks.

Blessings,

Jeff