The Beehive

🤓Did you know??🤓
During winter (+10 to -20 C) the bees form into a
‘ Wintertraube’. They huddle together and form into a ball that takes up between 3 to 6 frames in the brood chamber. You can think of this ball as a thick winter coat 🧥that keeps all the bees warm and dry. The temperature in the middle can get between 20-30 C.
Isn’t nature absolutely amazing? 😀

What’s happening at The Beehive apiary you ask? 🤷‍♂️🤷

Well, we’ve just finished the second varroa treatment that makes sure that the bees don’t have to deal with the pesky Varroa mite. We’ll check the number of mites that fall off within the next few days and that will tell us if we need to do a final treatment during colder months when there’s no brood in the hive. We’ll feed our bees a 3:2 sugar syrup so that they have enough food stores for the winter.

I’m actually super curious about the bee calendar for tropical beekeepers. How is your calendar different? What do you do around this time of year during the cooler/rainy season?