You may need to clear dead bees from the entrance occasionally to make sure it doesn’t get blocked. An entrance reducer or a mouse guard can help to reduce drafts and keep intruders out of the hive.ĭuring winter, it’s not uncommon to see a number of dead bees and the landing board, and sometimes close to the front of the hive. The bees will also need to be able to leave and enter the hive when the weather is warm enough for them to fly. There should be ventilation at the base of the hive for oxygen to enter and CO 2 to be expelled. This can create a draft, causing the heat generated by the cluster to escape. Fred prefers feeding dry sugar in winter, rather than syrup.įred recommends not having any ventilation at the top of the hive (eg: an open-top entrance). Ideally, the emergency feed should be installed before winter so that you don’t need to open the top cover when it’s cold. The box on top will only be for honey.Ī sugar feeder at the top of the hive can help the bees last through winter if they’ve exhausted their honey stores.

The bottom brood box should have brood in the center, followed by pollen, with honey stores at the edges. You can leave the super in an unheated storage shed for the winter.Īfter the super has been removed, you should be left with a deep brood box at the base, and a medium or deep super or brood box on top. Flow Frames should be drained of honey and wrapped in plastic for storage. If you have harvested honey from a super, remove the super and allow the bees to clean off any excess honey. You don’t want to have excess space in the hive, as it will require more energy for the bees to keep warm. Consult with local beekeepers on how much a colony typically requires to get through winter in your area. Set up your hive accordingly during spring. Either one deep box and one medium, or two deeps. In cold climates, it’s usually best to use two brood boxes. Once temperatures increase and they fly out, they will immediately eliminate the waste that they’ve been storing in their bodies. In the depths of winter, the colony’s metabolism slows down and they can go into a state of torpor - a bit like hibernation. The bees will maintain a brood temperature of 94 to 97℉ (34 -36℃ ). The cluster needs to be big enough to generate sufficient heat to keep the brood warm throughout winter. You will need a large cluster of bees in your brood box going into winter, spanning over several frames and about the size of a soccer ball. As the season progresses, they will gradually move upwards, feeding on the honey stores from the bottom up.

The bees will form a cluster, and start at the bottom of the hive. If in doubt, you may need to inspect the hive. If there are at least 10 bees per minute arriving back to the hive with pollen, it’s usually a good sign that your queen is laying. You need to be sure your hive is queened right coming into fall/autumn. These live longer than foragers, and their larger bodies help to generate heat and insulate the brood and the queen throughout the winter months. Towards the end of the summer, the colony will stop producing foraging bees, and instead produce fat winter bees.

Flow honey bee hives