We thank the bees for the 21 lbs of honey they’ve produced for us this Summer and now it’s time for the bees and beekeepers to prepare for winter.

The ladies can still be seen buzzing in and out of their hive, bringing in pollen from the remaining local flora including the himalayan balsam, ivy and late lavender.

They’ve fought off the proliferation of pesky wasps and we’ve given them varroa treatment to ensure the colony is healthy and strong. We’ll continue to occasionally examine the hive over the next few weeks to check the health of the bees and make sure they have enough honey stores to keep them going over the long cold winter months.

If necessary, we’ll give them some additional sugar syrup feed to ensure their stores are full enough. Once the outside air temperature drops below approximately 14 degrees c they shouldn’t be needing to forage for food. They want to stay inside the hive and keep the colony and importantly the queen warm and safe ready for spring.

The work for us beekeepers doesn’t stop in Autumn though - during the winter we keep busy cleaning down equipment, building new boxes and frames, and taking stock of what went well and what can be done better next year to ensure we have healthier bees and more lovely honey.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our beekeeping updates - we look forward to doing it all again next year.

Bye for now,

The CHC Apiary Team