At this time of year I expected the bees to be very quiet but even on a dull day in late November there are still a few bees coming out of the hive and coming back with pollen. I did feed them with fondant during October however I was advised by a local beekeeper it isn’t a good idea to over feed them. Since being told that I’ve since read that it is almost impossible to give too much food so today I decided to give them some more fondant. I wore my bee suit as a precaution but it wasn’t necessary as they were very lethargic. From this photo you can see how they are clustering together to keep warm.
To add the fondant you need to have a box, called an eke, above the brood box to give the bees some space to get to the fondant. Rather than build an eke I decided to put a Super on top and then halve its capacity with some Kingspan insulation material. This will also help to keep the heat in the hive. I’m not sure if it will work and only time will tell. I don’t expect to look into the hive again until early January when I will be giving a Varroa mite treatment.
The problem I will face in the spring is if the hive fails I will be looking for reasons why – there are so many variables it will be impossible to tell what went right and what went wrong.
Hey, what a busy weekend