The weather report said it would be the last sunny, wind-free day in the mid sixties for at least a couple of weeks. As we headed into December, actual winter or at least what passes for it these days, was about to begin. One beehive still needed to be sized down a bit, consolidated into fewer boxes so the colony would be better able to keep the space warm through whatever cold nights and windy days we might have. I’d arranged the other hives a month ago, but West hive had been crazily overflowing with bees. I couldn’t imagine making their quarters any tighter, so I’d waited till they thinned out a bit for the season.
Bees “cluster” in the winter, form a pulsing ball of thousands of bees with the queen safely sheltered in the center. The bees vibrate their bodies to create heat. As the outermost layer of bees tire and get cold, they rotate toward the center, and their warmed-up sisters take their turn in the outermost layer. Fueled by the store of honey they worked all summer to stash, this process goes on constantly anytime temps in the hive fall much below 50F. At the center of that pulsing cluster, the queen basks in cozy 95 degree bee-generated warmth.
I put plenty of wood chips in the smoker because in the fall and winter the bees are at their most defensive. That honey stash is life or death for the whole colony and they are hellbent on protecting it even if the beekeeper is not interested in taking any honey. You can’t be too careful, the bees would say. I suited up more carefully than usual, put on the thicker dishwashing gloves rather than the thin ‘nurse’ gloves I usually use. Doublechecked my jeans tucked into my boots for bee-sized openings.
In Spring and Summer the typical lifespan of a honeybee is six weeks. But the winter bees are born for a special job and live for months in a near-nonstop vibrating process of working to keep the colony alive. You can put your ear to the hive in winter to hear and feel a low steady vibration. Over the winter these determined workers die off steadily but with full honors. On warmer days the workers muscle up funeral duty and haul the fallen to the doorstep and..toss them off. Honor sure, but duty to keep the hive clean comes first.
I began to take apart the top boxes of the hive. The most difficult part was pulling out frames of empty comb and combining frames with honey into fewer boxes. The bees glue the whole hive together with propolis, a tarry glue they make that is the honeybee equivalent of duct tape. Propolis is also sold as an antimicrobial medicinal at health-food stores. The bees use it to make their home strong, windproof and highly unlikely to come apart. In summer it’s gooey and sticky and just makes a mess. In the cooler temps, it is as hard and strong as caulk and every frame had to be pried loose with great effort. All while trying not to make the jarring, banging or jerking movements that piss bees off and sometimes crush bees which REALLY pisses off the bees. I didn’t venture into the lower boxes where most of the bees were gathered, for obvious reasons. (Photos below courtesy of my friend Marianne, from back in May.)
Winter is a critical time for a colony of honeybees. Survival depends on many only-ifs. The colony will make it through winter only if there are enough bees to create a cluster large enough to both maintain heat all winter and to have enough workers remaining to nurse their replacements to adulthood in the Spring. That’s only if the queen survives to lay the eggs to create those replacement troops. And only if they have enough food to fuel this 24/7 process. The colony is also at highter risk for the some diseases brought on by close quarters, and other illnesses brought on by the parasitic mites that have been one major factor in the decline of honeybee populations.
As I worked through the upper boxes of the hive I saw West Hive didn’t have as much honey stored as I’d hoped, but being a first year hive coming out of a drought year, that’s not too surprising. Most new hives will require supplemental feeding at first. I’ll use thick sugar-water mixed with nutritional oils to try to get them through till Spring. Sugar is better than the corn syrup used by some beekeepers but still not nearly as good as honey. Even if I could afford to buy honey to feed this colony, the risk of transmitting diseases from another bee yard would not be worth it. Hopefully as I have more hives, I can store extra frames of real honey from established hives to gift to new hives their first winter.
West Hive was gentle with me after all. They allowed me to get the boxes ready for winter while only giving me a loud buzzy warning to do it fast and don’t mess with the lower boxes. I agree. Putting the bees to bed for winter feels both warm and worrisome. I’ll keep an eye on them during mild winter days to see if they are venturing out and make sure they still have enough food. I’m cheering them to stay tough and make it through till Springtime brings the flowers and sunshine back. Till then, stay warm and safe, sweet sisters.
