Autumnal Jobs

Autumn will come around quickly and preparation starts in August ready for the weather to change come September or October.

The ambition is to send your bees into winter healthy, happy and with plenty of food stored for whatever the winter season will bring.

If you haven’t already, and you have excess, then you can remove the honey from your hive(s). It is important that before you take any honey, you inspect the hive to ensure they have stored plenty in the brood box. You may wish to keep a super on the hive throughout winter; particularly if you have a large colony or are using a standard National Hive.

This is also a good time to start to understand the weight of a full hive by ‘hefting’, it will help you to gauge whether they are too light later in the year without having to open them up to look.

Checklist

• Check the health of your bees.

• Remove excess honey.

• Treat with Thymol based varroa treatment.

• Add mouse guards.

• Make sure hives are solid, roof waterproof.

• Add woodpecker protection - guards or wraps.

This is a good opportunity to do a stock take of what you have and what you might need for next year. Some of the beekeeping shows take place in September and October which will often have sales to take advantage of!