October - Getting Ready for Winter

Come October, things certainly were changing. Most of the month was spent in the high '60s and plenty of low '70s, with most lows in the upper '40s. The warmest day was Oct. 2 at 83 degrees, and the coolest was 53 on the 30th. But that cool breeze was here in the evenings and mornings, and the leaves were turning and falling. Leaving work on Oct. 4, I saw this beautiful great blue heron at the pond near our entrance. He tolerated my getting 8 feet away from him with my camera phone, without breaking his stance. But he gave me a certain look that said, "One step more, buddy, and you're toast."

I also was very aware that I needed to give my smallest nucs, the two that are in my 5-frame deep homemade boxes that are three boxes tall, a leg up for the winter. One of the most important items is the slatted rack. It just makes sense to me to give the bottom of the brood nest more protection from the wind. On Oct. 22, enjoying some time off for my 45th birthday, I made a couple of slatted racks for my nucs. I used raw wood that my brother gave me, hickory and cedar.

_But gee whiz these are ugly, spaced unevenly and .... just ugly. But they'll do for now. I'll make a couple more while I'm building equipment over winter and install them in the early spring. I now realize I need to PLANE all raw wood I'm using, so everything's NOT CROOKED and making my hives lean out of balance enough to annoy me (but the bees, thankfully, don't seem to care). Hand planing ... a new thing I'll learn along the way.

On Oct. 24, I saw some beautiful "survivor plants" adjacent to the remote parking lot my work is forcing, er, allowing me to use while they repave the main lot. I soon found out that I loved going there. The beauty in the surrounding flora is quite astounding. I got out of my car, ignoring my co-workers who thought I was nuts traipsing into the fields of "weeds" at the old Charlotte Coliseum, to investigate. Pollinators of various kinds were all over these plants, though no honeybees. The 8-foot tall bushes in the foreground I don't know what is, though a fellow beekeeper is telling me it's "Hurricane Weed".

_"Hurricane Weed" only showed up here in the 1950s, is the local story, after Hurricane Hazel blew it's deadly path through the Carolinas. These tall bushes were filled with tons of little white trumpet-shaped flowers. Just behind them was a 9-foot tall stand of goldenrod. As I surveyed the area, I saw way more than I'd first realized of flowering "weeds", or survivor plants, that were feeding our pollinators, including wasps, mason bees and bumblebees. I'm now determined to learn what these are, and organize them into a regionalized journal of Survivor Plants of North Carolina. I just know that following the flora will help me understand what's going on and what may lie on the horizon. And personally I think they're beautiful.

This goldenrod was magnificent. Lots of wasps and mason bees flying about. In the light of sunset, the flowers were glowing in golden hues.

And what's this? Beautiful flowers, growing through asphalt. Now THAT'S a survivor plant. And look how gorgeous the flowers were. It was a favorite of the bumblebees enjoying it's nectar and pollen.

A close-up of this daisy-like flower. The bumblebees weren't very cooperative in posing for the camera-phone. But I managed to nab a few of them in action. Really, there were tons more than shown here. You could hear the buzzing of the bumbles around this 4-foot tall stand of flowers.

_On Oct. 28 I had a perfect inspection opportunity, on a 69-degree day. The two small nucs filled me with relief to see they'd put away lots of fall nectar. And boy, did it stink. The sour smell of aster nectar filled the air. There was this red-colored nectar in the top boxes. I have no idea what this is. But it's gorgeous.

All of my first three nucs had this red nectar in them. I love that on this beautiful frame of capped honey you can see the red honey below the cappings. Most of the top frames in all of the boxes had been filled with empty foundationless frames. Now, all hives had at least half of the frames drawn and were busy filling them with stores for the winter. My fear had been that there hadn't been enough food in the fall. I'd decided to feed heavy syrup only 4 times from September to October, and let the fall flow take care of the rest. I am hoping that my gamble was accurate. Seeing the drawn comb and stores up top made me think it was. Even Natasha, which I'd given a completely empty super to, had filled frames with comb and nectar. A sure sign she's as strong as ever. Boris and my last nuc proved just the same. That last nuc, which is actually my first, is Hive Rocky. It is only a single deep plus one super tall, much smaller than Boris and Natsha. But it's the heaviest this year. I love the queen in Hive Rocky. We'll see how the 3-year-old queens in Boris and Natasha fare next spring. I may need to take out their old queens and let the hives raise new ones. My local queens are laying at a higher rate than my two-year-old queens, who were quite small in comparison, even though I'd paid a pretty penny for them. These local girls are cheap (free), fat, and industrious. The break in the brood cycle will also put a break in the Varroa mite cycle, so I'll at least split off the old queens into two tiny nucs and have as spares.

It was time to see how my two original hives from 2011 were faring. I've been treatment-free all year long, except for the powdered sugar dusting debacle in March (at least it was organic). Mites are in all of my hives. Were the hives strong enough to store up enough and have a cluster big enough to make it through winter? That's the $64,000 question. Hefting the hives, all were feeling much lighter than Boris and Natasha did last year. Of course, I fed from May straight through to November without stopping. That's a lot of sugar! But with 6 hives, I wanted to be more strategic. Nectar from plants and honeydew is far better for the bees than sugar syrup. And buying all of that sugar? Good grief, it adds up. I can only make so many trips to Costco to get several 50-pound bags of granulated sugar. Use what the Good Lord provides. And you get to work less ... "lazy" beekeeping to me means allowing things to work to your and the bees' advantage. I'm learning.

_No eggs or larvae were found in the top combs, only nectar, bee bread and capped honey. They're getting ready for winter time when they bundle up and try to survive the next 4 months into Spring 2013.

Compare the freshly drawn foundationless comb above to this foundation frame which has been untouched all year long. Now, which do you the bees prefer, foundation or foundationless? For me seeing is believing. This partial frame of fresh comb was quite heavy with nectar and it's lovely to see it connected top to bottom, seeing how they start drawing in two groups straight down, combine in the middle, attach to the bottom and then start building out horizontally to fill the frame. At least, that's how this one went. Foundation is now useless to me, other than lots of extra work for contaminated wax entering the hive. I'm selling what I have remaining in my supply closet.

I took out all empty frames and one tiny comb that had begun on one frame and replaced them with drawn frames I had on hand (thanks again, Keith, for the donation to the apiary!). Then I refilled the feeders with heavy syrup, touched with a little bit of lemon juice to ward off recrystalization, which has worked wonderfully this year. Now, I just hope they have enough for those long cold months ahead.