Beehive Maintenance: How to Keep Bees Alive During Winter
Winter is a tough time for honey bees. As temperatures drop and food becomes harder to find, keeping your bees alive during the winter months becomes one of the most important tasks for a beekeeper. Beehive maintenance during this time is essential to ensure your colony survives the cold and emerges strong in the spring.
Why Beehive Maintenance During Winter Is Crucial
Honey bees are cold-blooded creatures, meaning they cannot generate body heat like mammals. In winter, they cluster together inside the hive to stay warm, but they still need a consistent food supply and protection from extremely cold weather. If they runout of food, suffer from moisture buildup in the hive, or experience extreme temperature fluctuations, they may not survive the winter. Proper beehive maintenance can make the difference between a thriving colony and one that dies before spring. Below are essential steps for keeping your bees alive during the winter months.
1. Ensure Proper Food Stores
Bees rely on honey and pollen to survive the winter. While the colony generally spends winter in a cluster and stops flying, they still need food to survive. For warmer climates that do not stay below 50°F for the winter months, the food requirements increase. Typically, a colony can consume 30-50 pounds of honey during the winter months, depending on the colony’s size and severity of the weather. Expect higher honey intake when weather fluctuations come into play.
Check Food Stores Before Winter
Before winter sets in, make sure your bees have enough honey stores to last until spring. You should inspect your hives in late fall (ideally in October) to ensure the colony has 30-50 pounds of honey or sugar syrup stored in southern states and 50-80pounds in northern regions. If the stores are low, you may need to feed them additional sugar syrup or frames of honey. Regular hive inspections during the winter, checking to see if your hive has enough food stores can provide valuable insight into how much honey remains available for your bees.
Feeding Bees in Winter
If your bees are running low on food, you can feed them Stan’s Soft Sugar Brick (contains both sugar and pollen) or, on warm days, thick 2:1 sugar syrup. Both will need to be fed above the cluster during winter, which gives the bees access without needing to leave their cluster. Winter beehive maintenance should include periodic hive inspections ensuring your bees have easy access to a reliable food source, particularly during periods of extreme cold or unexpected weather. This may require moving stored honey frames closer to the cluster, making it easier for the bees to reach their food when needed.
2. Minimize Hive Moisture
Moisture management is one of the most important aspects of beehive maintenance during the winter. Bees produce moisture through respiration, and without proper ventilation, this moisture can condense inside the hive and create damp conditions that can be fatal to the colony. Therefore, use caution if you choose to wrap a hive with any type of insulating material. See “What Should I Do When a Cold Front Is Coming? Should I Insulate My Hive?” for more beehive maintenance tips.
Proper Ventilation
Because moisture can be fatal to your hive, it is essential to ensure that the hive is ventilated to allow any excess moisture to escape. Proper ventilation helps prevent mold and mildew, which can grow in damp conditions. Installing an upper entrance or putting a spacer under the outer cover will allow moisture to vent out without letting in cold drafts. Ventilation helps maintain a balance, ensuring that moisture escapes but the cold does not enter. Beehive maintenance, therefore, involves monitoring and adjusting ventilation as needed.
3. Keep the Hive Protected from the Elements
In cold climates, it's important to protect the hive from the elements to prevent exposure to extreme cold, wind, and snow. Cold winds can chill the bees and cause them to cluster too tightly, leading to quicker consumption of their honey stores.
Hive Wraps and Windbreaks
Hive wraps are a common tool for maintaining beehives and protecting them in extremely cold climates. However, for most regions, hive wraps are not necessary. Setting up windbreaks around the hive, such as fences or rows of shrubs, can protect the bees from the chilling effects of the wind. In certain cases, stacking hay bales around the base of the hives can help block wind from blowing underneath, which could otherwise chill the brood. The purpose of using hive wraps and windbreaks is to minimize the bees' exposure to the cold. Even with a strong cluster, constant cold winds can speed up their honey consumption and lead to early death. Therefore, helping a hive retain its internal warmth is a crucial aspect of beehive maintenance.
Snow and Ice Protection
If you're in a region that experiences snow, make sure the hive entrance is clear of snow and ice, as bees need to be able to exit the hive during warmer days (even in winter) to take cleansing flights. As part of your beehive maintenance, periodically check the hive throughout the winter to ensure that snow hasn’t blocked the entrance.
4. Check for Hive Entrance Obstructions
During the winter, beekeepers should regularly check the hive entrance for obstructions. Snow, ice, or even dead bees could prevent bees from leaving the hive on warm days. It’s essential to ensure that the entrance is clear so the bees can practice hygiene within the hive.
5. Minimize Disturbance During Winter
During the winter months, minimize hive inspections. Bees are in a relatively dormant state, and excessive disturbance can disrupt their cluster and cause unnecessary stress. Beehive maintenance in winter should focus primarily on ensuring the bees have enough food and are protected from the elements, with minimal disruption. Perform essential inspections only, such as monitoring food stores and checking to ensure the hive is secure from the elements.
Note: Remember, the bees have sealed the hive with propolis. In the winter, propolis is very hard and not pliable enough to be reapplied to cracks and crevasses—just another reason to not open a hive unless you have to!
Keeping disturbance to a minimum is an important aspect of beehive maintenance. Over-managing or checking the hive too often can disturb the bees, use up their energy reserves, and cause stress that can harm the colony.
Conclusion
Beehive maintenance during the winter months is critical for the survival of your bees.By providing enough food stores and proper moisture control, you can ensure that yourhive will survive the harsh winter conditions and emerge healthy and strong in thespring. Although winter can be a challenging time for beekeepers, taking the right precautions and maintaining your hive with care can help your bees weather the cold months and continue to thrive year after year.