BWHoneybees

Thank you to all of you who follow my page! To say thanks I will be randomly picking one of my followers to receive a free cut comb honey square from my Hogg Halfcomb box that I did this year! Check out betterbee.com to find this system for cut comb! 🐝

Got all the hives but 3 winterized completely today! I did take two stings though.

Sugar boards are another great tool to help your bees during the winter months! I see them as an insurance policy for the colony in case they run out of stores below! My goal with these is to have them hardly used in spring. This means the bees had plenty of honey stores. They are easy to make. Just mix 16 lbs. sugar to 3 cups water. This will make a sand like substance. Then place it in the sugar board and let it dry for 24 hours. Place directly above frames and then I place my quilt box above it. Anybody else use a sugar board of some kind?

Every fall when cold temps hit us I get questions from panicked new beekeepers about dead bees in front of the entrances of there hives. But this should be something you shouldnt worry about! Most of these bees are the last cycle of foragers that finished up the season and died when it got cold. The winter bees take over from this point on and will take over until spring! The average summer bee lives about 4 weeks and the winter bees live 3-5 months or longer in some locations. With the proper mite control throughout the year and sufficient honey stores, this should not alarm you when you see dead bees like this outside your hives. Anyone have info to add to this situation?