The Temps May Still be Tropical, but It's Bee Winter Already!

St. Gobnait joins St. Ambrose and
St. Valentine as a patron of beekeepers.

And time to get the girls ready. We usually reduce the boxes to three and feed. But when we examined the hives today, the two large colonies had stores galore! So we only fed the smallest, two-box hive. There are plenty of bees in that hive, but limited food. We transferred a full honey frame from each of the two larger colonies and gave those girls a bag of sugar syrup. The other two bags will go in the refrigerator and be brought out for the next inspection in mid October.

We reduced the largest hive from five to three boxes and next time will plan to reduce both hives to three. There was just too much going on in the hives to do the reduction today -- and that is not a bad thing!

Lots of pollen is still coming in: yellow and bright orange. How lovely to behold!

Hopefully, all will be well for all three colonies. Going into the winter strong is key to a healthy colony in the Spring.