October 29th, 2023
Today was our last day of prepping the bees for winter. From what we can tell they are already hunkered down for the long haul.
Last night Mason prepped a candy board, which is about 10lbs of sugar and a little water mixed and then stuffed into a feeder shim. There is a opening in the middle so the bees can crawl up and eat the candy, like a salt lick but with sugar. Between the pollen and honey the bees collected on their own and this candy board they should hopefully have plenty of food for winter.
We also bought pine shavings which we put in a different shim to make a moisture quilt. When the bees breathe they exhale warm moist air. That air rises through the moisture quilt and runs into the underside of the roof. The roof is cold so the air condenses and then drips down, back toward the bees. The pine shavings protect the bees and absorb the water. Keeping the bees dry is important for keeping them warm.
We did see a lot of dead bees at the doorstep today, but this is natural and normal going into winter. drones are male bees and their only purpose in life is to mate with queen bees from other hives and then die. Literally, their genitals break off during mating and they die! All Summer, they just fly out trying to find a virgin queen, and don’t even help forage at all! So once winter rolls around and the drones become useless, the workers kick them all out to die. Girl power!
We also saw a lot of worker bees on the ground. This is because the hive is reducing its size down from 50-60k to 20-30k. Roughly between 200-1000 bees die every day in a hive, depending on the season. These are probably the rest of the summer bees, who have shorter lifespans. The winter bees, who have longer lifespans, have settled in, so the number of deaths per day should go down by quite a bit. In the winter they’re all huddling in the hive instead of flying around so they die in the hive instead of out in the world. The remaining bees push them out of the hive and the bodies collect on the ground. It’s pretty grim and the pile will get bigger before spring. However, we don’t need to be worried unless the bees stop pushing their dead out of the hive. That might mean they’re too sick or weak to do the labor of removing them.
We did see plenty of healthy bees in the winter cluster in the hive, so we’re confident they’re doing okay for the time being. At this point there really is nothing more we can do except prep them and pray! We might stop by just to see them but there isn’t any more work until spring.
Thanks for hanging out with us this summer! We really appreciate all the kind words from everyone and hope we have healthy, happy bees to share with you in the spring.
