Mid-Winter Beekeeping Tasks

• #1- Prep your equipment now and have it ready for Spring time

• #2- Mid-winter Hive Inspections

• #3- Outline your Goals for 2024 and write them down

Now let’s get into the guts of each one. Ew, guts!

Task #1: Prepare your Equipment now…Have it ready later!

One of the Keys to Successful Beekeeping is thinking one season ahead. Having your equipment (boxes, frames, covers, bottom boards, etc.) ready before you need them, paves the sticky road to success. Below are three things to consider:

• Build any new equipment you will need. Perhaps you are increasing your numbers (bee hives) and therefore need more deep hive bodies, frames for those boxes and honey supers and their frames. Right now is the time to do all of that, one step at a time.

• Clean up any old, unused equipment. After awhile, beekeepers will have unused equipment stacked and stored until ready to use at specific times of the year. This is the time to go through each hive body and honey super, cleaning up (and saving) any excess beeswax on the boxes and frames. It’s also good to clean up excess propolis. This way you have clean boxes ready to go when the time comes for making splits and making a honey crop!

• Repair & Re-paint old equipment. After months and years of use, our equipment tends to need repairs, especially since it literally sits outside being exposed to whatever elements that your climate has to offer. This is the time to repair box edges, corners, frame rests and frames so that everything is ship shape and serves you when it matters most. Just imagine harvesting 40+ pounds of honey in a super that is falling apart! That’s a disaster waiting to happen (I know from experience 😉).

Here are some of my YouTube Channel videos to help you with this:

-Watch my video on How to Clean your Equipment here!

-Watch my video on How to Clean your Equipment & Save your Beeswax!

-Watch my video on How to Paint your Hive Equipment!

-Watch my video on How to Repair Frame Rests!

-Watch my video on How to Build Frames!

-Watch my video on How to Fix Damaged Comb!

Task #2: Mid-Winter Hive Inspections

Red Alert! First of all, pay special attention to this one! Opening a hive in the winter is risky to a honey bee colony and should only be done under specific weather conditions.

I personally and professionally do not condone hive inspections during the winter though there are beekeepers that do. Hive inspections during this time will release colony heat, potentially chill (kill) brood and put the colony’s queen at risk as you rush through the hive, inspecting conditions quickly so as not to expose them longer than necessary.

However, IF you are to perform them, then I recommend waiting for the most ideal conditions before doing so. Look for a freak winter day when you have weather conditions as close to the following as possible:

• Little to no wind. Wind chill (when the wind is blowing) will create lower temperatures than the projected “low” temperature in the forecast. It can take a 60 degree day and turn it into a 52 degree day. If you’re not careful then you could chill the brood when it’s exposed to cold conditions, thereby killing at least 3 weeks worth of reinforcements and hive population, setting them back big time.

• Shoot for at least a 60 degree day. If there is no wind then a 60F degree day should be warm enough to perform inspections.

• Sunny day! Hopefully if there is little to no wind, the temperature is at 60F, then having a sunny day will create ideal circumstances for a hive inspection. ☀️

• Go in with a plan & be prepared. The only reason for a hive inspection during this time of the year to check on a colony’s food stores and to see if they need more food. Have any supplements (pollen patties or fondant patties) that you may need to use already prepared and ready to use BEFORE your inspection (because this is the time to use them). This way you will not need to come back and open them up for a second time, thus exposing them to the winter elements unnecessarily.

Here are some of my YouTube Channel videos to help you with this:

-Here is the idea of Going in with a Plan, fast forward to 4:13 in the video.

-Here is the risk to consider for Winter Hive Inspections.

Task #3: Outline your Goals and Write them down

It is vital that you make your beekeeping goals clear. It’s possibly that your goals may change as time goes by but knowing what your goals are will help you to prepare and be ready ahead of the game.

Here are some examples from my own goals for 2024. Which one(s) resonate with you?:

• Increase my numbers (beehives): This year I want to grow from my 30+ hives to around 70 beehives. What does this mean? It means that I have to make splits! Making splits is simply creating more beehives from the ones that you already have. This can be done in several ways: 1) Allowing the new or parent colony to make their own queen. 2) Giving the split or parent colony a queen cell or 3) Giving a virgin or mated queen to the split or parent colony. I have done all of these but prefer to allow my bees to make their own queens.

• Build more Equipment: Since I’m increasing my operation size, I need more honey supers which also means I need more frames. So I will be building a lot of supers and frames this year (as many as I can before the honey flow in mid-spring).

Here is one of my YouTube Channel videos to help:

Here is my video on Making Goals in Beekeeping.

What are some of your beekeeping goals this year? And just as important, what will it take to get to accomplish those goals?

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom 😉 See you next time!

Jonathan Hargus//The Hive Doctor