Its out of my hands now.

October 14th
We finally finished putting the bees to bed for the winter. Its out of my hands now. You kinda feel helpless. You do all you can do to help them survive the winter but in the end its out of your hands.
You can only hope the moisture level doesn't get too high, or the winter isn't tooo long that they run out of food or the mites you treated for, all died.

Below is the wrappings we did on the outside of the hives. It certainly wont win any award for the best curb appeal, but it works.     This year since we had 4 hives, I decided to wrap two hives together.

The Styrofoam is wrapped around the hives and tuck taped together, then this year I put a strap around the whole thing, just to hold it together.
The very last thing I did was drill a hole thru the insulation and the top box. This hole is in the attic box, it serves as a top vent to help get rid of excess moisture. Plus its also handy as I discovered last year....during the winter I could stick my finger in the hole and if I could feel warm air, I knew the bees were still alive.
So as far as anymore chores to do during the winter, there isn't much to do.

There are a couple things I do, one is go out and make sure their door way is clear of snow or dead bees. I have a long skinny piece of bamboo I use to poke in the opening and kinda sweep any dead bees out of the entrance area. Its normal to find dead bees during the winter and its very important not to let them pile up and block the entrance so there is no air circulation.

So  that's about it for the bee season. This winter, I will make plans for next spring. read lots and learn as much as I can about these interesting little creatures. And hopefully next year all our hives survive the winter and I will hopefully have learnt more about being a better beekeeper. I might find the odd thing to write about during the winter, but if not........Have a great winter.