Traditionally this is the best time of year to go on holiday if you keep bees. In all honesty you can just leave them alone. Whatever you do, avoid opening the hive. The bees may be clustering to keep warm but we find that if they are well insulated, they carry on as normal rearing small amounts of brood and moving around to access food.
If there’s a problem, there’s not much you can do about it right now.
In the last 2 years I have used the November lull to chat about insulation, there is a link below describing some of Derek Mitchell’s work, which has been endorsed by Tom Seeley.
I am delighted that his message is getting through and we are now embracing the very clear message that in winter your hives do not welcome increased ventilation. They can manage very well with a narrow entrance only and that keeping them well insulated to better reflect how they exist in the wild is to be encouraged.
This year I’ll share some advice about another hot topic, transitioning to Varroa resistance in your colonies. If you can’t stay away, then enjoy watching them bring in yellow ivy pollen on brighter days. You can clean and check your varroa board. Over maybe 2 days, a cleaned board can tell you many things. You can check the mite drop against the NBU mite checker. You can see how many seams your bees are on and where they are. The colour of cappings will tell you if there is still brood hatching out (biscuit coloured debris, rather than white from uncapping honey). If they have varroa and are trying to deal with it, you may see evidence of pupal removal, like white antenna and legs. All this can inform your oxalic acid based treatments next month, both when to treat and how much you will need. Black legs and wings on the board can tell you if the bees are being damaged by a slotted queen excluder or mouse guard for example. You might also see pollen pellets and other debris on the floor.
You can also heft your hives and record the weight, check the entrances are clear (a large feather is useful for this) and check through stored supers to remove wax moth larvae. Queen excluders should be out, empty space minimised and the bee’s food stores checked for winter.
Varroa Resistance
If you have been following articles in the BBKA magazine or have been to the Spring Convention or the National Honey Show you may have noticed a growing number of beekeepers attempting to transition to having varroa resistant bees. If you missed Martin Ziedler’s excellent talk to SBKA last month his slides are on the SBKA website.
The message for those interested in transitioning is:
1) Don’t just stop treating your bees. Your dead out varroa/disease ‘bomb’ can overwhelm others’ colonies even if they are varroa resistant. Colonies will collapse at around 4 years in most apiaries where the beekeeper just stops treating.
2) If you want to transition, start by monitoring. Breed from those with the lowest a) average daily mite drop and/or b) lowest mite drop during treatment.
3) Requeen AND cull drone brood from those with the highest counts.
4) After a year of treating whilst selecting, drop the winter treatment first. Be ready to treat and requeen anything where the mite drop reaches more than say 5 per day? The drop may be higher in August. Keep an eye out for bald brood and white pupal remnants. These are good signs.
5) Insulate all year round, keep slides in all year round. Always use entrance blocks.
6) UBeeO is a pheromone test to see if bees can detect brood that is being parasitised by Varroa. It costs about £15 per dose and you also need the kit to apply it correctly. If you are an SBKA member and interested in testing your bees please contact martin@sheffieldbeekeepers.org.uk.
7) You have to have >5yr survivor colonies, treatment free, to be confident that your bees are surviving, treatment free. We can expect maybe 1 in 10 colonies locally to have varroa resistant traits so if you only have 1 or 2 hives, consider joining forces with neighbouring beekeepers to consider sharing resources. For detailed information read Steve Riley’s book (see below).
Have a great November.
References:
https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-science/news/article/5461/research-challenges-beliefs-on-honeybee-insulation
https://theconversation.com/to-save-honey-bees-we-need-to-design-them-new-hives-121792
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2018.0561
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s001140050382#preview
Tom Seeley. ‘Honey Bee Democracy.’
Steve Riley ‘The honey bee solution to Varroa.