Winter Hive Management Task Checklist

It's February in the northeast and spring is right around the corner! While winter may have felt like a well-deserved break from weekly interactions with your bees, it's not a vacation. Learning, planning, analyzing, and improving are all winter beekeeping activities, on top of regular (but brief) winter hive inspections. 

Do quick inspections to check on the wellness of your bees through the winter months, keeping the following questions in mind:

Are my bees still alive?

• Do a "knock check." Place your ear to the hive and rap a few times on the hive. If you hear an increased hum within, your bees are alive.
• If you see many dead bees in the snow outside your hive entrance, it may be a good sign! Just like in the warmer months, hundreds to thousands of bees will die natural deaths in a weekly period. Many bees in the snow may just mean that the undertaker bees are doing their job of "bringing out their dead" on warm days.

Where are my bees?

• Open the outer cover of your hive and see if the cluster is up high in the top super. If it is, it's time to feed.
• Try using an infrared camera to see where the heat of the cluster is within the hive. You can also use remote sensors, such as BroodMinder, to track your hive's temperature to see if bees are still working to keep the cluster warm. If the inside temperature of the hive nearly matches the outdoor temperature - unfortunately, your bees have likely perished. 

How much food do they have?

• Heft the hive to gauge its weight quickly. If it seems light, consider feeding.
• Use a BroodMinder or Hivetronics hive scale to gauge the weight of the hive over time. This will give you an idea of how much honey is left, and whether it's time to feed.
• Consider adding insulation to help your bees. Insulated hives need less heating fuel (honey) than bare-wood hives, so your bees' honey stores will last longer with any level of insulation you can put on (consider a hive wrap). Read more about insulation, ventilation, and moisture management in this video and article about the condensing hive concept.

Any signs of trouble?

• Colony didn't make it? Successful beekeeping requires a mindset of constant learning. Take the time to diagnose why your hive perished so you can learn and grow as a beekeeper
• Do you see moldy bees and comb during your postmortem check? This doesn't mean much, just that moisture made its way into the hive after the bees died. There are likely other reasons why they died, and the mold has just grown afterward.

Final thoughts

• If the hive is light and the cluster is at the very top of your hive setup, it's urgently time to feed! Be sure to choose solid feed options only during the colder months, such as sugar bricks, loose sugar ("mountain camp" method), winter patties, or fondant. Check out this video for tips on feeding during the colder months.
• Opening the hive in a blizzard may kill your bees but running low on fuel will kill them, so take the time to add feed when needed, regardless of weather.
• As spring approaches, consider offering pollen patties to give your colonies a boost. These patties include protein that will increase brood rearing. A small colony will benefit from this, but be careful not to supercharge them too much or it's a recipe for swarming! 

Whatever you do with your hive during cold temperatures, be sure you are in and out. Winter is not the time to pull frames and check for queens. That will have to wait until warmer weather arrives!