As the beekeeping season draws to a close you’d like to
think that those people ‘of beekeeping age’ (according to The Guardian*, they are “ripped, rugged, with a confident bearing,
and have a certain ease in their skin”), could finally think about putting up
their feet for a few weeks. Far from it! It’s true that the work involved in
keeping bees is less intensive over the winter months, but it is still
important. Bees are living creatures, not toys to be packed away until next
year, so they need to be looked after even if you don’t actually see them very
often.
After the honey harvest, typically for us in September, we
treat our colonies for varroa mites, and carry out our final disease
inspections to ensure that our bees are as healthy as possible going into the
winter. We assess their food stores, and if we feel they are a little low
(happily very rarely), we’ll feed them sugar syrup that they can store. In a
typical French hive, a viable colony requires around 18-20kg of food to see it
through until the Spring when the foragers can start again to gather nectar and
pollen in earnest. So, by checking the frames for capped honey and nectar, and
by hefting the hives to feel their weight over the following weeks, we can
ascertain whether or not they have enough to live on.