October, the time in many parts of the United States when we need to prepare our bees for winter. It might be tempting to think that the bees can handle whatever comes their way, because, well, they usually can. After all (people always say), bees survive just fine in the wild, so why are we always fussing over them?
As you know by now, even if it is your first year of beekeeping, bees don’t always survive, with or without our help, but less so without it thanks to Varroa destructor. Unfortunately, varroa isn’t the only stressor for our bees. While bees can, and often do, survive these stressors, this is no reason for us to take for granted what they are struggling with when we could make life a lot easier for them.
All of beekeeping, and especially preparations for winter, should be about reducing the stressors working against our bees, even if they aren’t always stressors that lead to their demise. Even slight issues, when compounded with multiple others, can lead to the death of the colony. Beyond survival, reduction of stressors will lead to bigger, stronger, healthier, more productive colonies.
One key stressor for bees in winter is a too-small population in areas that suffer cold weather. When freezing weather causes a lack of incoming pollen, the population of bees begins to shrink as summer bees die of old age. There must be enough winter bees with healthy fat bodies to thermoregulate. Individual bees are cold-blooded — too much time at temperatures too low causes them to fall into a cold coma from which they cannot recover alone. But the superorganism that is a honey bee colony is warm-blooded. They can maintain the temperature of the cluster of bees as long as there are enough of them and they have fuel (honey) to burn for calories.
Here in high-altitude Colorado, where we have seven months of cold weather, I have found that four frames of bees are adequate for thermoregulation, but they will struggle to build a good population when spring finally comes. Colonies will have an easier time of it, and come out in spring faster and stronger, if they have at least eight frames covered on both sides with bees.
Equalizing of colonies is best done in spring, but it is possible to bolster a weaker colony in fall by moving frames of emerging brood from one colony to another. Be careful not to reduce your strong colony by too much; the loss of one frame of brood per strong colony is enough. Another method, and the one most commonly practiced, is the combining of colonies in fall.
“Take your losses in the fall” is the way it has been expressed, and that might discourage some. It is hard to know when to quit! Maybe combining shouldn’t be thought of as taking losses, but rather marshaling resources. After all, if you combine two smaller colonies and they survive winter well enough to come out strong in the spring, you will split that colony into two and end up with the same number you started with, just without the weakest queen, who will be replaced with a young strong one in the split. Really, all you have lost is the weaker queen, not a colony — and not two colonies, which is what you risk by refusing to combine …
