winterizing the hive
My hive is my home. It is a safe space for rest, and creativity, and industry and collaborative togetherness with my spouse my family. Being above ground is living honestly, authentically. -from my home page.
The weather has officially turned, not only are the nights in the 30s and 40s, now many of the days are seeing these lows. We have darkness at 4:00pm and snow could fall any day. We have had several fires in our living room fireplace, and I am burning candles in most of the rooms in our house. Pumpkin Spice is back on all the menus, the leaves are changing, there was apple and pumpkin picking and fall sweater weather photo shoots. Fall is a whole vibe for many people. It’s kind of crazy., but I get it.
Fall is all of that for me to, but it is also a harbinger of the unwanted visitor’s Insomnia, and Anxiety, and Depression. In seasons past I have known these things to be exhausting and at times very scary, like taking medications and seeing a counselor, and sometimes reluctantly telling someone close that “feeling low” was a casual way of saying, “Well, I don’t have a plan, but it feels like if I didn’t wake up tomorrow, it might not be so bad.”
This is my promise, I am in no danger. I have had an on again, off again relationship with this pain for many years. I’m getting better with hard and very intentional work on my part. When the unwanted visitors knock, I open my door. I have to welcome them in for a short visit. I acknowledge their existence and learn a little about them, and what brought them around this time. If I don’t take this time to attend to them, it becomes a home invasion, which is much harder to recover from. Take it from me, I’m a nurse. Never ignore pain.
Getting better, means getting honest, with yourself and those around who are important to you. When I need to, I accept that I’m NOT well, and I make a plan to care for myself, the same way I would care for a loved one. I do my best to set boundaries around obligations and responsibilities. I spend time with my people. I make myself a meal that I enjoy and more importantly that is good for me. I do something creative, make something with my hands, like a cake or yummy cookies. It makes a dark time so much nicer to share with others. I listen to music. I get a massage twice a month. Sometimes I need to reduce my coffee and alcohol intake and drink more water and herbal teas. I work with my bees or cuddle my dog. There are times when what I need the most, is to cry. I cry a good ugly, snot hanging cry, there isn’t much that an ugly cry can’t fix at least temporarily.
I am an advocate for telling your truth. Truth is not always easy to hear or read, in fact many people aren’t open to hearing other people’s truth. We ask dozens every day, “How are you?” and we don’t stop to hear the answer. Often the answer isn’t even the truth. There was a mass shooting that left us all feeling a little more vulnerable than yesterday. We have a new health problem, causing us to miss work and lose income, or just lose sleep from worry. We put a beloved pet down after seeing them in terrible pain for a long time. We had a fight with our spouse about money, but it was about so much more than money, wasn’t it? It was about feeling scared and insecure. The price of everything is rising, and the cost of living is unbearable. and we say, “I’m good, how are you?”
Whoa, that escalated quickly. I’m here writing this blog with intention to be positive, and I vow to keep it going that way, but I think it’s important even in positivity to be honest and real for a minute every now and then. Carefully check in with those that you love, those that depend on you. Don’t just listen to words when they answer, put down your phone, and listen to their tone, look in their eyes and watch their mouth while they speak, and let them feel your love. It could save a life, at the very least you could reassure someone they are seen and heard, trust me it helps.
on to the part with the bees!
Since a long harsh winter was visible on the horizon, it was time to prepare my bee’s hives as well as my own. They fortunately were a little less complicated in their needs than mine. They need food, warmth with ventilation, a strong population, because their strength is in numbers. They also need a clear entrance/exit to their space, and it helps them a lot to have parasites and disease under control. It seems pretty easy, right? If you are new here, you might think that, but if you have been following along since early summer, you’re most likely chuckling a little as you read this. They are less complicated, yes. They are not easy.
The new feral hive in Hamden was our first stop, and it was a bit melancholy for a moment when we cracked her open and saw there were very few bees left alive in there. We were so certain that they were a lost cause, we considered just leaving them, doing nothing more for them. We consoled ourselves saying, we did give it a try and we knew there was a big chance that they wouldn’t have made it through the winter even if they still looked good at end of fall. After all we only had a couple of weeks to try to undo a whole season worth of neglect, from a beekeeper’s point of view. Honeybees have survived in America for millions of years, these types we tend today, for hundreds of years. We only increase chances of their survival by helping them out, at least that’s what we tell ourselves.
We had saved these girls from a fire, we fed them, we treated mites, and because we had invested so much already, we kept on going. Both the oxalic acid treatment and winterizing procedures went well. We did mix up the process a little due to having and oddly sized Homasote board. It was strapped up with the bees when we found them, and we didn’t notice its odd size until we were reassembling everything. In order to adjust for the small sized board, we placed the inner cover underneath it, when normally the inner is removed for winterizing.
What is Oxalic Acid (OA) C2H2O4?
Oxalic Acid is a toxic colorless crystalline organic acid found in oxalis and other plants; can be used as a bleach and rust remover in swimming pools and is used in treatment of mites in bee colonies. This treatment is good only for killing the mites riding on adult bees, it does not reach brood in capped cells. It is very inexpensive aside from initial investment in equipment. I’m reading that the vaporizer method isn’t really effective for beekeepers with 20 or more hives while it is cost effective, it is time consuming, but it is perfect for the small handful of hives I have to treat.
I have continued to read and watch videos about this treatment even after finishing my first few treatments. Different beekeepers bring new experiences to the topic and can have a completely different perspective if given the chance. Your local network of beekeepers is always a good source of info and I highly recommend using them.
I have shared my experiences with these recent OA treatments and the winterizing of hives in a video on my YouTube channel. Please take a look and keep in mind that I am learning and having fun while I am learning, if you are experienced you no doubt will see me do something wrong, often I will correct myself or point out my own mistakes. I encourage you to use my experience and point of view but also do your own research and proceed with educated caution.
what do I need?
Oxalic Acid Vaporizer-Bee Keeping
These go for $20-$50, I bought mine on Amazon. It is a battery powered heating plate. The oxalic acid is a powder, when heated will sublimate, it is placed on the metal plate at the end of the wand and heated with electric current.
12V Battery
This is a lawnmower battery, and Husband had it in our basement, they go for $30-$80. Remember not to store it in the cold, it will drain. The amperage is important too depending on how many hives you have. Do your research and shop for what’s right for you.
Oxalic Acid Dihydrate/ Api-Bioxal Brand
Cost about $15 for 35g. You will use about 1 g per brood chamber according to product instructions on the back of this package.
A Respirator
Husband bought my respirator at a local hardware store. It was about $30. Always follow manufacturer’s instructions when using PPE. Also remember you will need to wear long sleeves, long pants, gloves, and protective eyewear.
Let me share some things I learned while doing these treatments this year. Have all of your gear together and understand how it all works ahead of time. Check your battery before carrying it all the way out to your hive. I filmed the treatment of my hive here at home and I demonstrated almost everything you should NOT do. I left the entrance reducer out too long and it was too warm outside. There were tons of bees outside the hive, and I got very nervous with them being all over my body and stinging me multiple times, on my upper thighs because I did not put on my beekeeping pants and my wrists through my gloves. Because of my fear response, I shortened the treatment. For the other treatments, Amanda was running a timer. I forgot the timer this time and my nerves made 1 minute seem like an eternity, and I really should have stayed in there a couple more minutes as the crystals had not completely sublimated yet.
Because there was nothing else to do, I forgave myself that mishap, the number of bees in that hive are insane and I did a total of three mite treatments including this one. My mite numbers were very low all summer long. They have lots of food and three winter patties up top. I’m chalking this experience up to beginner status, and I’m still having fun here. So, it is all good.
Lastly, it was time to wrap up the bees. To do that we start by reinstalling the entrance reducer with the tiniest opening, allowing only one or two bees to enter or exit. These small entrances prevent draft and also prevent neighboring bees and hornets from robbing precious winter food. Next, we removed the outer cover and removed the inner cover setting it aside to be stored for the winter. We placed three winter patties on top of the top box then we opened the bee cozy and slid it down over the hive. This creates an air pocket around the hive acting as insulation. Once the cozy was on, a feeding rim was added, this piece has a notch cut out on the front of it. This makes a top entrance. The Homasote board, which prevents condensation from the cold outer cover from dripping on the brood nest, is placed on top of the feeding rim. Then a foam insulation is placed on top of the Homasote. Next, we put the outer cover over the top edges of the bee cozy trying to tuck all the edges up underneath the outer cover. It is important to make sure the entrance on the bottom and entrance on the top are not obstructed, we used three-inch nails to prop the cozy out away from the hive entrances. I have already been out a few times to check that these safety measures are still in place. I will continue throughout the winter to check on them to make sure that snow isn’t packed over the entrances as well.
The last thing I will do before wind and snow flies is secure the whole thing with ratchet straps. This is completely optional of course. I know some beekeepers will use heavy objects to hold everything down. We like the idea that the straps will hold everything snug and add an extra measure against drafts and also critters that might want to get in.
This wraps up the beekeeping year, see what I did there? Not much happens now except my continued education. I will be building a flow hive after the holidays. Come February or March I will be taking inventory and possibly buying a few more supplies to be ready for a swarm or two. I would like to get our hive numbers back up to a minimum of two on each property and maybe I will be lucky to have a third in the flow hive. In Spring, we will watch for temperatures to be 50 degrees or higher, most likely this will be a day or two here and there in March, the bees will be taking flights outside the hive. At these times, we can open the tops of the hives to inspect for 30 seconds or less to avoid losing all of the heat in the hive. During this “inspection” we will be assessing how much food they have left and looking to see if their population is still good. Until then we wait.
I sincerely hope you will continue reading Diary of a Beekeeper. This winter I will be post more baking and authentic living content. I often post videos on my You Tube channel to add to/compliment the written content. I’m looking forward to picking up more skills and experience in both and discovering where this can go.
Until next time!
All Bee Blessed! -Melissa