FallWinter Management

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Fall/Winter Management

• 8
• Presented
• By
• The Ohio State Beekeepers Association

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Fall/Winter Management

• Introduction
• Fall management in my opinion begins with the
  honey harvest. Usually this takes place in late
  summer.
• Topics to be discussed
• How to take the honey supers off the hive
• Processing the honey
• Processing  wax
• Some characteristics of honey
• Getting your bees ready for winter

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Fall/Winter Management

•  
• Taking off honey supers and processing honey
• One of the joys of keeping honey bees is the
  reward of having some of your own honey.  It is
  not "store bought."
• A beekeeper must determine just how much honey
  he/she can remove from the hive and still leave
  enough for the bees to over winter.  We have
  indicated earlier that at least 60 pounds of
  honey should be left on the hive.  You can
  estimate this amount by checking the honey stores
  in the brood chamber.  A deep frame full of honey
  will weigh approximately 6 pounds.  The bees will
  need 10 of these.  Two shallow frames will equal
  one deep frame.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• What is a honey super?
• It is a hive box filled with honey (hopefully)!
• Capped honey
• In a frame

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Methods to remove honey supers from the hive.
• Honey supers will have bees in them.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Various methods are used to drive bees from a
  honey super/frames.
• Brushing/knocking them off the frames
• Using bee escapes of various kinds.
• Using a bee blower
• Using Fume pads

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Various methods are used to drive bees from a
  honey super/frames.
• Brushing/knocking them off the frames. This is
  time consuming but does little damage to the
  bees.
• Picture from the Dadant 2007 catalog. A bee
  brush is useful for a number of things around the
  bee yard.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Various methods are used to drive bees from a
  honey super/frames.
• Using bee escapes of various kinds. Inner cover
  with bee escape placed in vent hole.
• Conical bee escape
• These illustrations taken from the Dadant 2007
  catalog.
• Both of these work by placing the escape under
  the honey super to be removed. It takes time for
  all the bees to leave the honey super.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Various methods are used to drive bees from a
  honey super/frames.
• Using a bee blower
• An effective way to get bees out of a super. A
  lot of equipment to drag around however. Bees
  are surprisingly gentle when blown out of a honey
  super. Do not blow them out where you intend to
  walk.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Various methods are used to drive bees from a
  honey super/frames.
• Using Fume pads or boards as they are sometimes
  called.
• This fits the top of the super to be removed. A
  chemical repellent is sprinkled or sprayed on the
  cloth pad in the frame. This is placed over the
  hive. It drives the bees down into lower
  sections of the hive. If left on too long, it
  will drive bees out the front entrance of the
  hive. Several can be used on different hives at
  the same time to speed up honey removal.
• These are Dadant catalog photos.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• These are things to do before removing the honey
  super and frames from the hive.
• Check for any brood on the frames of honey.
• After the honey is removed from the hive.
• Secure the honey supers in a secure area where
  bees can not get to them to rob.

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How to take the honey supers off the hive

• Check for brood on honey super frames
• Check for any brood on the frames of honey. This
  is brood placed in a honey super frame. You will
  have this if you do not use queen excluders and
  care must be taken that you have not also removed
  the queen from the hive. The brood frames
  should not be removed from the hive. If you use
  queen excluders, it means the queen got thru it
  some how and is located in the honey super area
  of your hive.

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After the honey supers are off the hives.

• Honey supers with honey in them will attract many
  bees. They arrive to take honey from the supers
  back to their own hive
• A serious situation can develop in the area where
  bees can get at honey supers.
• This is a secure honey room of a commercial
  beekeeper. This room is kept dark and warm until
  the supers are moved for extracting. The honey
  in this room will be in 50 gal. barrels in two
  days.

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After the honey supers are off the hives.

• Do not sit them away until you have time to do
  something with them. Honey is hydroscopic
  meaning that it collects moisture from the air.
  This causes honey Fermentation. Honey will
  become sour-- Look for bubbles in your honey.
• And honey may granulate in the comb making it
  very difficult to remove the honey by extracting.
• And wax moths will attack the comb if the weather
  is warm.
• And ants and mice will visit your supers if they
  can get to them.

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Removing honey from honey supers

• It is time to remove the honey from the supers.

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Extracting Honey

• Check the various Bee Equipment catalogs for
  equipment.
• Always buy stainless steel products. They do not
  contaminate honey and they are easy to clean up.
• This is an area where you can spend a lot of
  money.
• Our illustration is from the 2007 Dadant catalog.

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Extracting Honey

• You most likely will want an extractor (hand
  crank or electric) which spins the honey by
  centrifugal force out of the comb. There the
  honey collects and moves down the sides of the
  extractor so it can be drained into buckets, etc.
  Shown in the photo are the essentials for
  extracting honey.
• The extractor
• A plastic uncapping tub
• Bottling bucket
• Capping scratcher
• A uncapping knife
• Our illustration is from the 2007 Dadant catalog.

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Removing honey from honey supers

• The process of removing honey from supers is
  called extracting if liquid honey is being
  obtained. For the sake of time, we are not going
  to discuss comb honey production. This is a
  topic for a more advanced class.
• The process begins with removing the cappings
  from the honey comb. This is usually done with a
  knife. If you have several supers of honey to
  extract, it pays to have a good knife.
• Our illustration of uncapping knives is from the
  2007 Dadant catalog.

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Removing honey from honey supers

• Some of the equipment if you plan on getting into
  commercial beekeeping. Buildings to house your
  business, moving equipment such as trucks, and
  skid loader, honey house and supper storage, and
  of course a lot of bee hives.

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Processing Wax

• Wax cappings which are cut from the face of the
  comb include honey and wax. The wax from this
  source is outstanding usually a very light
  yellow.
• Wax melted from old comb generally tends to be
  dark.
• Honey processed in iron vessels will also darken
  due to the oxidation of the iron.
• Our illustration of uncapping knives is from the
  2007 Dadant catalog.

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Processing Wax

• The easiest way to process wax in small amounts
  is to place the cappings in a solar wax melter.
  The sun will not only melt the wax in the melter,
  it will also bleach it to the lightest of yellow.
• You will also be able to recover quite a bit of
  the honey in the cappings.
• They are easy to construct yourself.
• Cappings can also be placed in water and boiled.
  The wax will separate and rise to the surface.
  When cooled, the wax will be a solid.
• Illustration from the 2007 Brushy Mountain Bee
  Farm Catalog.

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Processing Wax

• Wax is very flammable and melts at 147.9 degrees.
  
• Light beeswax is highly desirable and sells
  quickly.
• A beekeeper may also use wax for candles, as an
  ingredient in various cosmetics, and many other
  uses.

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Characteristics of Honey

•   Honey is not nectar.  It is created from nectar
  by the honey bee.  So bees do not gather honey
  from plants but rather they gather nectar from
  plants which is then converted by them into
  honey!    Lets take a look at this process.

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Characteristics of Honey

•  Nectar undergoes a physical and a chemical
  change to become honey. 
• The Physical change occurs as the bees reduce the
  amount of moisture in nectar.  Nectar may have as
  much as 70 to 80 moisture.    Dr. James Tew of
  Ohio State University has often describe the
  honey bees behavior of collection flights as,
  "shopping for nectar with the highest sugar
  content much as a housewife shops for bargains at
  the local grocery store."    Most flowers secrete
  nectar but this nectar is not always attractive
  to honey bees.   Thus, honey bees will visit
  flowers which provide the honey bee with just the
  right access to its nectar rewards.  After
  gathering the nectar, the bee must reduce the
  moisture in the nectar to less than 18.6.    
  This 18.6 figure is the maximum amount of
  moisture in honey which prevents fermentation at
  or below this moisture level.
• The chemical change occurs as the bee change
  sucrose (the sugar content of nectar) into the
  sugar of honey (glucose and fructose).
• .

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Characteristics of Honey

•  The color of honey varies considerably according
  to the nectar source of the honey.    These
  samples represent the wide range of colors found
  in honey and are identified from the left to the
  right as very light clover honey, amber star
  thistle honey, dark amber blueberry honey, and
  buckwheat honey which is almost black.   To help
  with some description of honey, these colors may
  be of some help but the pollen grains in these
  honey samples can tell us the true source. 
  Looking at color alone can not determine what the
  nectar source is or if it is a combination of
  nectar sources.  A dark honey for example, might
  be overheated lighter honey.  Taste is also a
  factor to take into consideration.  

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Getting Bees Ready for Winter

• Your honey crop has been harvested

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Getting bees ready for winter

• Everything you do preparing your bees for winter
  will make your job in the spring more worthwhile.
• Generally speaking, colonies need 60 to 90 pounds
  of honey to survive an Ohio winter. You need to
  leave at least this amount on your bees if you
  expect them to survive the winter.
•   Lets take a look at the Plant Hardiness Zone
  Map courtesy of the United States Department of
  Agriculture.

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Getting bees ready for winter

•   Lets take a look at the Plant Hardiness Zone
  Map courtesy of the United States Department of
  Agriculture.

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Getting bees ready for winter

•   This graph shows bee populations during late
  summer into winter.
• This information is copied from Bulletin 450
  issued by the Ohio State University in 1971.

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Getting bees ready for winter

•  Winter weather can be harsh. Days are gray and
  temperatures can reach down to the -0 degree
  range with windchill factors below that.
• What can the beekeeper do to provide for winter
  survival?

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Getting bees ready for winter

• What can the beekeeper do to provide for winter
  survival?
• Starting in September when all surplus honey is
  removed
• Check hive for a good laying queen and brood
  pattern. If she is not doing a good job, now is
  the time to replace her.
• What is the bee population of the hive? If it is
  small, you may need to think about combining the
  hive with a stronger hive or replacing the queen.

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Getting bees ready for winter

• What can the beekeeper do to provide for winter
  survival?
• Starting in September when all surplus honey is
  removed
• Check hive for diseases. Especially any brood
  diseases and mites. Then treat for these
  diseases.

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Getting bees ready for winter

• What can the beekeeper do to provide for winter
  survival?
• Before hard weather arrives.
• Provide for entrance reducers.
• Level hives allowing for a slight slope from the
  back of the hive to the front to allow water to
  run out of the hive rather than into the hive.
• Provide the bees with a wind break.
• Provide for an upper entrance and good
  ventilation.

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Winter Management

• Feeding your bees during winter
• Feeding your bees during a hard winter with a
  liquid syrup is most likely not going to help a
  whole lot. This is a job that should have been
  done when the weather would have allowed the bees
  to move to the syrup and place it in the
  locations that would have helped them now.
• What will help?

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Winter Management

• Feeding your bees during winter
• What will help Now?
• Dry granulated sugar placed about the inner cover
  hole is a good emergency feed if the bees are in
  the upper hive body.

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Fall/Winter Management

• Finis