top 5 suggestions for fall management

[shawnwri]

I've got a talk to give this week and wanted to hit the top 5 suggestions for Fall Management (mid-Atlantic states).  Fire away

[specialkayme]

1. Get an early understanding of stores, and start feeding if necessary.

I'll leave the other 4 up to the rest . . .  :-D

[Finski]

.
There in now 5 top doing. You must do what the hive needs.

First look into your hive how big it is, how many brood frames, pollen,honey empty frames.

[Michael Bush]

1)Mouse Guards/entrance reducers

Mouse guards.  Typical questions are what to use and when to use them. I have only upper entrances so mouse guards are not an issue. Back when I had lower entrances I used 1/4" hardware cloth for mouse guards, but I might consider, if I were still using lower entrances, a popular device here in Southeast Nebraska. The device is a 3" to 4" wide piece of 3/8" plywood cut to fit the width of the entrance and three 3/8" laths cut to the 3" or 4" width of the plywood. This slides into the entrance reducing it to 3/8" and forming a baffle so that the wind doesn't blow in. People who use it say there is no problem with mice as the 3/8" gap being several inches long seems to deter the mice. As far as when, I'd try to get them on by or shortly after the first frost. Here we get some warm weather after the first frost, so the mice usually don't move in until it stays cold for several days. You want them on before then or the mice may already be in the hive. The other nice thing about the "baffle" type of entrance reducer/mouse guard is you can leave it in all year around and you don't have to worry about remembering to get the mouse guards on.

Reducers.  I do like them on all the hives. On the strong hives they create a traffic jam in the case of a robbing frenzy which will slow things down, and on a weak hive they create a smaller space to guard. On all the hives they create less of a draft than a wide open entrance. In fact when I have forgotten to open up the reducers in the spring, even the strong hives with the traffic jams because of it seem to do better than the ones that are wide open. I do try to remember to open them up on the strong hives for the main flow.

2)Queen Excluders

I don't use excluders, but when I did, I would remove them before winter as they can cause the queen to get stuck below the excluder when the bees move up. The excluder will not stop the bees from moving up, but will keep the queen from joining them. You can store it on top of the inner cover or at the top of the hive I you like, but don't leave it between any boxes.

3)Feeding Bees

Contrary to popular belief, winter feeding honey or syrup does not work in Northern climates. Once the syrup doesn't make it above 50 F during the day (and it takes a while to warm up after a chilly night) the bees won't take it anymore anyway. The time to feed if needed is September and if necessary and if you're lucky you may be able to continue into October some years. The questions always seem to be what concentration and how much.

When feeding honey, I don't water it down at all. Watered down it spoils quickly and I can't see wasting honey. When feeding syrup (because you have no honey) the concentration should not be below 5:3 nor above 2:1. Thicker is better as it will require less evaporation, but I have trouble getting 2:1 to dissolve.

How much is not the right question. The right question is "what is the target weight?" For a large cluster in four medium eight frame boxes (or two ten frame deep boxes) should be between 100 and 150 pounds. In other words if the hive weighs 100 pounds, I might or might not feed, but if it weighs 150 I won't. If it weighs 75 pounds I'll try to feed 75 pounds of honey or syrup. Once the target weight is reached I would stop.

My management plan is to leave them enough honey and steal capped honey from other hives if they are light. But some years when the fall flow fails, I have to feed. I like to wait until the weather turns cold before harvesting as it solves several issues. 1) no wax moths to worry about. 2) the bees are clustered below so no bees to remove from supers. 3) I can assess better what to leave and what to take as the fall flow did or did not occur. Another option for a light hive, if it's not too light, is to feed dry sugar. The down side is that sugar is not stored like syrup, so it's more of an emergency ration, but the up side is you don't have to make syrup, buy feeders, etc. But it not being stored is also the up side. If they don't need it, you don't have syrup stored in your combs. You just put an empty box on the hive with some newspaper on the top bars and pour the sugar on top of the newspaper. I wet it a bit to clump it and wet the edge to get them to see it is food. If the hive is only a little light this is nice insurance. But if it's very light, I think they need to have some capped stores and I'd feed them honey or syrup.

A solid bottom board can be converted to a feeder. This makes sense to me because feeding isn't my normal management plan, leaving honey is. Why buy feeders for all your hives if feeding isn't a normal situation? But if I need to feed, I don't have to buy a feeder for each hive. They hold about as much as a frame feeder. Around here candy boards are popular, but the dry sugar on top is easier as you don't have to make the boards, and make the candy. You just use your standard boxes and sugar. I've also been known to spray syrup into drawn comb to give a light hive to get them through.

4)Top Entrances

I think this is essential to reducing condensation in my climate. It was not necessary when I was in Western Nebraska which is a much drier climate. It doesn't have to be a large top entrance, just a small one will do. The notch that comes on the notched inner covers is fine. This also provides a way for the bees to exit for cleansing flights on warm snowy days when the bottom entrance (which I don't have) would be blocked with snow. I have only top entrances and no bottom entrances.

5)How strong?

This question comes up a lot. I used to combine weak hives and I seldom lost a hive over winter. However, since I started trying to overwinter nucs I've realized how well a small hive takes off if it does make it through the winter. So I've overwintered much smaller clusters. Also if you have local queens, instead of southern queens, they do better as well as the darker bees overwintering on smaller clusters than the lighter colored bees. So, while I've never seen a softball sized cluster of southern package Italians get through the winter, I've seen that size of feral survivor stock, Carniolans and even Northern raised Italians make it. This is actually going into winter on a cold day (tight cluster). There is some attrition in the fall, and if they are this size in September and there is no flow and they are rearing no brood, they probably wouldn't make it. A strong Italian hive going into winter would be a basketball sized cluster or more, while Carniolans or Buckfasts are usually more like soccer ball sized or smaller, and feral survivors tend to be even smaller.

[shawnwri]

Thanks Michael!

[Michael Bach]

Mite levels, queen evaluation, winter stores, combining weak hives, winter protection (mouse guards, reducers, wrapping?, wind break, moisture management).

[Apis_M_Rescue]

As always a through run down of sustainable bee husbandry Michael. If I ever move to the families farm up north in midwest, can use this experienced insights.