How to Winterize a Beehive

Winterizing a beehive is a necessary skill for beekeepers. Unless you live in a year-round tropical climate, it will be your task to make sure your bees are ready for Winter. Your climate (including the severity and length of Winter cold in your region) determines the exact steps you will need to take to protect your hives. In this guide, I will discuss the most common issues that should be considered as the productive season comes to a halt.

In most regions, our beehives are not very active during the cold months. When it is too cold to fly and there is no food out there anyway, they stay home – and eat. For the beekeeper, good beehive management plans must be made and executed before cold arrives.

Preparing Beehives for Winter

What exactly does it mean to make sure your hives are ready for Winter? Must you buy or knit thousands of little bee-sized jackets? No – not at all.

Honey bees have a natural plan that serves them well. With a good population of healthy bees and ample food stores – they may not need your help. And truthfully, that is what we hope for.

Still, it is important to make sure they have all the resources they need to survive. This involves assessing hive conditions before cold arrives.

Winterizing Beehives Check List

Remember that each colony is different (even those in the same location). Be prepared to customize your beehive winterizing plan to fit the needs of each hive.

Here are some steps to check when winterizing the beehives in your apiary:

1. bees have sufficient honey stores
2. decent population
3. hives are healthy with low mite loads
4. good ventilation for each hive
5. beehives may be wrapped for Winter – in very cold regions
6. entrance reducer or mouse guard in place on hive
7. remove that queen excluder (if you have one)

Does Your Colony Have Enough Food?

How do you know if your hives have enough stored food to last ? Sometimes, you don’t. The amount of honey a hive needs for winter – varies from year to year and even hive to hive.

Consult local beekeeping associations in your area to learn how much honey most beekeepers keep on the colony.

Typically, we see at least 2 boxes on a hive with the brood nest in the bottom box (with some honey) and a full box of honey on top.

The size of that top box may depend on where you live. If you live in a moderate climate – a full medium-sized super of honey (or even a shallow) might be enough. Using two medium sized supers for winter food is another popular strategy.

In South Carolina, my beehives do well with a full shallow super of honey (avg 40-50#) plus what they store in the deep.

This is a minimum of course. And, I always monitor my hives closely once new rearing of bee brood begins in late Winter/early Spring.

Good Hive Population

It is normal for queen bees to slow down egg production in late season. This can make evaluating colony population levels in Fall a bit tricky. Do you have enough bees to sustain the hive?

Depending on the type of honey bee (breed or race) that you have – a small population might be normal. However, the colony needs a certain amount of workers in order to generate enough heat for survival.

Location and genetics aside, a beehive with less that 5 frames covered in bees has a very low chance of survival in most locations.

When this happens to me – I take hives with less than 4-5 frames of bees and combine the beehives into one family.

You may be reluctant to reduce your hive numbers. But, it is much better to go into Winter with 4 strong colonies – rather than 8 weak ones.

Colonies with a larger number of bees have a better chance of survival. As for hive numbers, take your loses in the Fall – expand in the Spring.

Healthy Bees – Pests Controlled

Healthy bees do better and have an increased chance of surviving winter. A common problem I see in beekeepers, is a failure to control varroa mites.

The colony needs a good population of healthy nurse bees in the hive (July-August) to raise healthy fat winter bees during September-October. Sick nurse bees will not rear healthy winter bees.

Varroa mite treatments are especially important from late Summer – early Fall. Though some beekeepers like to use oxalic acid for bees as a mite treatment during Winter – you can’t wait until Winter to do something.

Have you ignored mite management until late Fall and find your colony with a heavy infestation? I would certainly try to do something now but the chances of successful overwintering is not good. You may find dead hives later in the Winter.

Provide Good Ventilation

Good beehive ventilation is critical. It may sound crazy but your goal is not to keep your bees warm. You want to provide them with the resources to keep themselves warm.

Without proper hive ventilation, condensation can be a problem. Condensation forms when excess moisture from the warm bee cluster rises and condenses into water droplets on the inner cover.

When temperatures rise above freezing, cold water rains back down on the cluster. Cold wet bees are dead bees.

Increasing Ventilation:

• add an extra super on top of the inner cover (between the inner cover and outside top). Fill the added space with absorbent materials-often called a “hive quilt” or quilt box (make your own).
• add an upper entrance to allow warm, humid air escape – may be especially in regions with a lot of snow. Drill holes in your beehive boxes or supers or use a small shim with opening

Mouse Guards in Place

In the warmer states, we don’t have a big problem with mice in our beehives during Winter. Still by the time cold arrives -I use an entrance reducer set to a smaller opening or a mouse guard. This helps weaker colonies fend off late season robber bees and may keep out cold drafts.

With the bees tightly clustered to stay warm, Marty Mouse may pick your hive for his Winter abode. Once inside they chew up comb, urinate and leave feces inside – its a mess. Choose a wire or metal mouse guard if you live in an area with this type of problem.

Remove Queen Excluders

As one of your final steps in winterizing your beehives – take off those queen excluders. Failure to do so results in many dead colonies every year.

As the honey bee cluster moves up through the hive to stay in contact with food, what will happen if the queen can’t get through? They won’t stay with her – that’s for sure.

The colony moves up through the queen excluder to reach stored honey and the queen is left to freeze. Take them off and only put them back on when you are ready to add another honey super for you.

When to Winterize Bee Hives

Cold weather preparations should begin in the apiary during late Summer and into Fall. Your goal is to have any problems addressed by the time cold arrives to stay.

In my area – this is mid October. All feeding, combining of hives, etc is began by early September and finished by mid October. This in an apiary where varroa control was implemented if needed in August.

Late Fall inspections should have a purpose and be brief. Beekeepers often use the term “putting bees to bed for winter” to describe the last major inspection.

Expert Tips

• finish liquid feeding before cold arrives – do not feed bees sugar water in winter (creates extra moisture in the hive)
• colonies critically low on food – implement suitable methods of feeding beehives in winter

Because we keep honey bee colonies in less than natural situations, we have a responsibility to do what we can to help them survive. Good Winter beekeeping depends on proper preparation in Fall.

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