October 25: Preparing for winter at the club apiary

[Rob Mathews, 2025 ACBA President]

Hi folks,

On Saturday, October 25 from 1-3 PM we'll have a gathering at the club apiary to talk about preparing your hives for winter.

Sung Lee and I (and maybe other people with overwintering experience) will be there, and it will be a relaxed group to talk about what you need to do. How much honey do your bees need? What about insulation? Is there a recommended mite treatment?

See this page on the club website to reserve your (free) spot.

[Phil Stob]

We will also combine this with a garden day, with a very similar theme.   Prepare your garden for winter, or in our case, our spring of sorts.

Dead head all the annuals, add some mulch, put some seed in the ground, prune back some of the perennials, and make grand plans for next year. 

Bring hedge shears if you have some, pitch fork for moving mulch and a mellow mood to match the weather. 

Thanks for Thom Mand for showed up last weekend to spend some quality time in the garden. 

Nows a great time for planting, so if you have some plants in pots that need to go into the ground, bring them along. 

Cheers, Phil 

[Robert L Mathews]

Thanks to those who came out on Saturday to our damp "Preparing for Winter" hive dive (some pics here)! Sung Lee showed us how to downsize hives and treat for mites, and Phil Stob showed us some of his neat insulation tricks.

I collected some info from past discussions for a handout to give to the people who attended, and I guess I might as well share it so as not to waste it.

Remember that people sometimes have differing opinions about the things listed here, and perhaps we can discuss those in replies. For example, Sung doesn't insulate any of his hives, but Phil thinks it's definitely worth it, sharing that Sue Donahue had great results with it this year. (I compromise by insulating my hives, but only with free stuff like election signs and foam that I find.) Similarly, I know Jennifer Radtke doesn't feed pollen patties to hives unless they're small, but Sung feeds pollen to all of his.

One way to think of it is that each of things can strengthen your hive, which might prevent it from completely dying, or might just mean it's stronger earlier in Spring. Either way it's useful to have a framework for thinking about what you might need or want to do.

(I also just saw that Jennifer sent out a Winter Checklist to members of her Bee Circle; that's a good resource to compare to this, and get answers from her for individual questions too.)

Anyway, here's what I came up with (with a little feedback from Sung); I encourage others to post their differing opinions!

Preparing hives for winter

Winter tasks:

• Prepare for storms
• Make sure hive is queenright
• Make sure hive is big enough to survive
• Rightsize hives
• Make sure hive will be warm enough: insulation?
• Make sure hive has enough food
• Block pests, including ants and mice
• Treat for mites
• Don't be afraid of failure!

Prepare for storms

Winter storms can blow the top cover completely off a hive that doesn't have a strap on it. Get a small ratchet strap to make sure that doesn't happen.

Make sure hive is queenright

If it's not, get a mated queen or combine with a queenright hive. Methods of combining include a Snelgrove board or newspaper.

Make sure hive is big enough to survive

In the Bay Area, you probably need a minimum of three frames of bees with brood. If it's smaller than that, either combine with another hive, or overwinter it on top of another hive so it can stay warm enough.

Rightsize hives

The boxes should be as full as possible so that the bees don't have to keep empty space warm. To whatever extent you can reduce the stack size and pack them in, do that. If the bees don't fill entire boxes, consider follower boards next to the sides instead of empty frames to improve insulation.

Make sure hive will be warm enough: insulation?

Close to the coast, you won’t get more than mild overnight frost, which bees can usually handle by themselves.

But keep in mind that they will cluster in a ball in the center of the hive for warmth, and the cluster needs access to honey. Make sure the honey isn't on the outside of the hives where they’ll need to leave the cluster, especially in a sideways direction (if you have multiple boxes and they can move up to get honey, that’s less of a problem).

Insulating the hive improves survival rates, even in the Bay Area. If you do insulate, start with the top under the cover, which reduces condensation inside the top that can drip down onto the bees. Use whatever junk you have: old foam, coroplast election signs, etc. Once the top is insulated, consider wrapping the hive with something like Reflectix if you want to do more.

Whether you should close screened bottom boards is a subject of debate; having them open helps ventilation and some studies show not much heat is lost from the bottom, but some people do close them off (or close them mostly off).

Make sure hive has enough food

Ignore things you find on the Internet for climates where it freezes or snows, because those don't apply here. You probably want something more like one frame of honey per frame of brood, with a minimum of two honey frames for a tiny hive and a maximum of ten for a large hive.

That should be enough for our climate (some people get away with less). If you don't have enough, you can feed them sugar water to build up their stores; use thick syrup (2 sugar : 1 water, or thicker) so they don’t have to spend too much energy evaporating it and store it. Note which frames have sugar water because they may be difficult to identify next year when you’re pulling honey.

The bees can often forage a little throughout the winter, although watch out for useless solid white ivy honey. Eucalyptus can bloom from November-March and is a good source of food. A problem with foraging around here isn't so much the temperature or the lack of food as the fact that there aren't enough hours of daylight for them to collect a lot.

Some people suggest not bothering with pollen patties unless the hive is tiny, but other people feel that using pollen patties is helpful because the bees will take it if they need it, and the patties are fairly inexpensive. Make sure to leave any pollen patties near the ball cluster so they don't have to travel far to get it.

Block pests, including ants and mice

When the bees are clustered in a ball, they're less likely to attack pests that enter the hive. Keep the entrance small! I've had mice take up residence in my hive, which is unpleasant. Watch for ants and use something like “Tree Tanglefoot” to block them.

Treat for mites

Testing the mite levels before winter is a good idea. If you have more than perhaps 8 mites, a treatment like Formic Pro before winter will help them survive (but using it in two single-strength doses over 20 days, instead of one double-strength dose over 10 days, can reduce queen loss).

If you use Apivar (amitraz), winter is the time to use it, because you probably aren't going to eat any of the honey you leave in the hive anyway. Leaving oxalic acid sponges (or the new commercial equivalent VarroxSan) on the hive all winter is safe and recommended.

Don't be afraid of failure!

This is difficult even for commercial beekeepers. If your hive doesn't make it, find out why: Did they starve? Were they too small? Were they overtaken by pests? Take some photographs and share them with the Bee Talk group. Every failure is an opportunity to do better next year if you learn from it.

-- 

Robert L Mathews

[Sung Han Lee]

Thanks for all coming out.

One note.

 About Pollen patty. 

I do not use PP for all the hives.

First identify what are the conditions of the each hive.

Then categorize which hive needs what. Then i can set a goal for each hives main objectives that is including spacing, food, mite check which is very important. I get a lot of calls for bees in January and February. Most cases due to mite infestation to cause colony to collapse. 

Due to temperature drops queens start to slow down laying. However, ones gotten new queens around August and September and Nuc size colonies that i wanna grow through the winter then i do two things. 

1. Put a heating pad under to keep them warm.

2. Giving them Pollen Patty. 

This will initiate laying continuously through out the winter months. By end of January into February these colonies need to transfer to deep boxes. Also i have to keep my eyes out very closely that if the growth goes too fast then it might trigger to swarm. 

Rest of them are keep them the way they are at that do not need PP. 

Also if any one the colonies need more food then i usually add a crystallized honey frame that i have saved. 

That's why it is called BEEKEEPING NOT BEEHAVING 

Gotta keep up with them.

Sung Lee The Bee Charmer 

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[Gerald Przybylski]

I endorse the list of recommendations.  
Most of them have been issues in our yard at one time or another in the past 14 years of beekeeping. 

• Some of us have an "ivy" nectar-flow in the fall that fills the cells around the brood ball with crystallized honey
with characteristics like plaster.  The problem is worst October through November.  
If this is a problem for YOU, try taking away their ivy honey and giving the bees a syrup feeder; otherwise they might starve. 
• Some of us find our colonies fill up with pollen-frames the bees will never use.  Pull them out when right-sizing hives. 
If they also have honey in them, move them into the honey boxes and renew them after extracting the honey. 
Pollen frames are valuable to colonies in temperate climates where the bees depend on them for spring build-up. 
In our climate we have fresh pollen 12 months of the year, so our bees will ignore pollen frames.
- mouse-guards, yes.  #2 (half-inch)) wire mesh or hardware cloth works great. Integrate into hive entrance.
- Robbing can continue through fall and winter. Randy Oliver's most recent article on robber screens is worth a read. 
Particularly - this new design requirement that minimizes forager loss
https://scientificbeekeeping.com/robbing-screens-part-9-designing-a-robbing-screen-that-works-in-conjunction-with-the-colonys-guard-bees/
- 1 cup boiling water, 1 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp of boric acid crystals makes an effective ANT BAIT. Carried back to the
nest it eventually kills the nearest colonies. Use bee-proof bait-stations.

- Hives in sheltered yards are less challenged by winter weather issues.
- Hives that have a prevailing wind blowing at them all the time loose more heat.  
They'll go through more food, and may need a stronger colony to make it, and maybe tape over the seams, or a blanket.. 

Beekeeping is hyper-local.  Our colonies differ. Our setups differ. Our local food sources differ. 
The learning curve is steep. We figure out what works in our own yard, and stress less about disaster. 

"mistakes" are learning opportunities. 
10 to 50% colony losses have been documented nationally in recent years. Sometimes not our fault. 
The beek with a single hive has the highest risk of having no colony in January. 

Thanks, Rob, for summarizing fall/winter prep so nicely for us. 

j

[J R]

Sorry i could niot be at the meeting , a real nasty cold i rather keep for myself 

 One word of caution when insulating , it is imperative that you open the insulation and closely check for wax moth ,  VERY OFTEN if you find one treat because they only come by the dozen , it is exactely how i lost several beehive last winter .

     A single wax moth can lay up to 130 eggs there is no match for the larvae they will eat everyting including brood . They typically have 4 to 6 cycles per year.

    If you did not treat for varroa you weaken the entire beehive .

     Yes insulating do work but it is not economically feaseble in the inner bay area . Mine have 1.5 “ thick foam in marine plywood         

      Awaiting my CFO approval as i got some 3” foam left over from a job site ( this should imitate solid wood)

       To deal with humidity i have made frame with fine screen mesh and i lined them up With old cotton towels .

Last and not the least insulated beehive do have a higher rate of swarming , simply based on tbe fact they have been very cosy , this alone require that you do full inspection every other week , some will tell you simply kill the new Queen , it is totally useless as the bees are in The mood for swarming and very little can be done to prevent it . 

Get a spare beehive for them to move in . Hopefully ! 

Back in the old country no beekeeper had insulation and we did have some brutal winter ! 

In conclusion insulating here in the inner bay area is useless !

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

[J R]

Thanks Jerry for posting your recipe for the ant , it does work very well. , I usually add either cooking grease of meat / fish juice from tbe supermarket packaging , nust a drop they go after it lilke crazy  . 

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 27, 2025, at 3:53 PM, Gerald Przybylski <gtp0...@gmail.com> wrote:

 I endorse the list of recommendations.  

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/4e9d0071-9bab-4fd8-a1e3-6581fe919372%40gmail.com.

[Jerry Przybylski]

Wonderful idea. 

Thanks for the tip

J

-- Siri apologizes 4 autocomplete errors...

On Oct 30, 2025, at 8:55 AM, 'J R' via The Alameda County Beekeepers Association <the-alameda-county-b...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Thanks Jerry for posting your recipe for the ant , it does work very well. , I usually add either cooking grease of meat / fish juice from tbe supermarket packaging , nust a drop they go after it lilke crazy  . 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/D54ACC8A-E54B-421A-B281-2E85B88B18E5%40aol.com.

[Paula Breen]

For those of you who want an alternative to the plastic waste of the Terro baits (which work GREAT but pain me each time I toss the plastic into the landfill bin) but want a solution that is a little easier than making your own traps and bait, I found these reusable bait stations and honeydew boric acid bait online. You can just keep refilling them as needed. So far I am happy with them after a few months of use. No more ants in all bee yards except one, and I just refilled those traps so hopefully it will clear up soon. It def worked well in other yards so I am optimistic it will finish the job at this last location soon. The only drawback is that you have to buy a bag of 48 bait stations, but maybe share them with bee friends! 

https://www.domyown.com/ant-cafe-refillable-bait-station-bag-48-stations-p-340.html

https://www.domyown.com/green-way-liquid-ant-killing-bait-32-oz-p-338.html

These ones also came recommend from the UCANR team but I opted for the cheaper one. A bit more pricey but you can buy smaller quantities, and they look more substantial than the Ant Cafe that I bought.  

https://www.domyown.com/antopia-r6-ant-bait-station-p-17501.html

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/6A00C0C6-7F3C-45F8-B898-31E67C6699EE%40gmail.com.