Feeding for Winter

Sunday 20th September

The weather's taken a really chilly turn and it's looking like I may not be able to inspect the hives again this year. It has to be 'shirtsleeves weather' to do an inspection otherwise there's a danger of chilling the brood.
It doesn't really matter if I can't look in again as all I have to do now is feed them sugar syrup to boost their winter stores and then secure the hive for winter - none of this requires doing anything more than lifting the top lid off.
These rapid-feeders can hold 4 pints of sugar syrup (usually that can be taken in 24 hours) so I'll just keep topping these two up until the bees stop taking it inside.
Once that's done I'll do all the same jobs as last year in preparations for winter.

Varroa Treatment Completed

Sunday 13th September

We didn't have much time today so I went on my own to remove the empty Thymol packs. Usually my wife is holding the frames while I mess about taking photos (she's very good-natured about this, even after 18 months!) so I had to do all the hard work myself this time!

I didn't take time to do an inspection at all, just whipped the empty packs off and estimated how much feeding they'd need to get them ready for the winter.

Both supers were in a similar state, quite a bit of stored honey but still plenty of empty cells. I reckon a good week of feeding them sugar syrup and their stores should be full enough to see them through.

This time last year I was feeding them huge quantities of sugar to boost their stores but this year they have managed to build up better stores of their own (this year the colonies had to start from scratch at the start of May whereas the year before they'd had to start from the same situation at the end of June!)