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Better season 02/01/25

Better season 02/01/25

East Devon Beekeepers January meeting 2025

Preparations for a Better Season – a talk by Dan Basterfield NDB

Held at Kilmington Village Hall. Attendance 35, Including friends from West Dorset branch.

Dan Basterfield and farther Ken run the Blackbury Honey Farm in East Devon, currently with between 90-100 hives. They are both BBKA and NDB examiners and teach, lecture and write at all levels across the UK and Ireland. They founded Advanced Beekeeping Courses in 2020 to provide training for experienced beekeepers.

How will your colonies start the season?

A good start to the season would be that your bees have survived the winter with a youngish, laying queen, they are healthy and they have, or will have, space for expansion.

A bad start would be a dead colony! Examine the remains and try to work out the cause(s). Was it a drone laying queen, or problems such as chalk brood, Nosema or mouldy combs. Look for granulated stores which prevent colony expansion in the spring (queen blocking).

Dan displayed four key events that will help you have a better season.

To achieve the Good Start referred to above, preparations need to be initiated in the autumn, so let’s look at a universal beekeeping plan to achieve this aim.

Spring is the time of swarms and swarm control (or prevention), often by making increase with simple splits.
Summer will see the honey crop harvested, but it is also a time when queen raising can be attempted. Queens raised now will be suitable for replacing old queens in the autumn and can be overwintered to replace any losses you may suffer.
Autumn is the time to take stock of the situation. Small colonies or colonies with poor queens can be united. These stronger stocks are more likely to survive the winter. Old queens can be replaced with your newly raised queens, and all the usual winter preparations can be started (varroa treatment, feeding, mouse guards, close entrances down, wasp traps, woodpecker proofing if you have a problem with them, hefting (see later), make sure hives are weather-proof and wasp-proof, tie hives down, etc, etc.

In Winter, despite all your preparations, there will be losses. Remove the affected hives and clean them up ready for next season. Check the hive parts and carry out repairs and renovations if necessary.

The message is:

Successful overwintering is preceded by a good end to the previous season.
Of course, with our British climate, we are always dependent on the weather.

Dan explained that the role of the beekeeper in winter is that of a caretaker. The preparation for winter has already been done. The beekeeper therefore needs to ensure the hives are dry and remain upright during winter storms. Also, occasional checks for remaining stores will ensure the colony does not starve. This is quickly and easily done by ‘hefting’ the hives, preferably from the back. The timeline of events is as follows: in November and January, if the hive feels heavy, that’s good. Plenty of stores for the rest of the winter. From February to April, ‘heavy’ could be a sign that all is not well. This is the time of year when brood is increasing rapidly and stores are being used to feed that brood, so you might expect the hives to be lighter. Heavy hives at this time of year may need to be investigated.

Any inspection during the winter months needs a good reason to disturb the colony, therefore, if you feel it is necessary to check your bees, make it a quick inspection. Wait for a still, sunny day with the temperature at or above 12°C before opening the hive, and don’t open the brood chamber unless you feel it is really necessary.

Emergency feeding

Hefting may indicate feeding is advisable. Fondant is the best emergency feed for the winter months. It keeps well and does not go mouldy. Bees need moisture to take it down but usually there is enough moisture at the top of the hive for them to dissolve the sugar crystals. Only bakers fondant or specially purchased fondant feeds from beekeeping supply companies should be used.
Dan uses clear plastic take-away tubs filled with the fondant (above), putting one or two tubs over the holes in the crown board. The amount used can be seen by lifting the roof with minimal disturbance to the colony, and topping up feed is also quick and easy. If the bees need the feed, it will be used quickly. If not, it won’t go mouldy.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Benjamin Franklin

Ideally, you should be looking to prepare for the whole season. No. 1 priority is ‘All equipment cleaned and repaired’. Do you have enough spares? Do you have extra equipment for, say, queen rearing or cut comb / sections?
If you are only looking at the next 3 months, then you will need brood boxes with drawn comb or foundation fitted, with contingency stock for swarming and possibly making increase.

Drawn comb has been called ‘the most valuable piece of equipment that you can’t buy’. Comb that has not had brood in can be used after cleaning up the burr comb. Brood comb that has some dark patches can be used after acetic acid treatment, but dark comb is always recycled.
Spring-drawn comb can be created by putting a deep box as a first super. This will be drawn out where oil seed rape honey is available, but be sure to extract these frames promptly!

Plan for beekeeping eventualities – have a plan to deal with swarming, robbing, starvation, disease, varroa, queen failure, uniting…
Develop core skills – making splits and uniting are essential skills. Using nucleus hives is a good way to learn these management techniques.
Mark your queens – ideally, mark queens at early spring inspections. If all your queens went into winter marked, this will tell you if there has been a late supercedure. Queens are easier to find in spring as colonies are small and there are no drones to confuse you.

Helpful guide to Options throughout the beekeeping year

Decide what you want/need to do. Make honey, make bees or make queens? You can’t do all three.

Summary of colony checks and what to practice this coming season

Colony checks after main flow:What to practice next season:
QueenrightQueen handling
Disease freeQueen marking
Stores and laying spaceNuc making
Unite weak healthy coloniesUniting colonies
Hives weather-proof & pest proof

Further reading

Using Apideas -How to set up and manage Apideas for mating honey bee queens.
Dan Basterfield.

BBKA Healthy Hive Guide – Dan Basterfield, Roger Cullum-Kenyon, Ivor Davis.