Transitional Beauty
Daylight hours are waning. The angle of the sun has shifted lower, and the mornings have a cloak of damp crispness that stirs restlessness in all living creatures. The northeast is in the late summer transition towards autumn.
Echinacea, left on the stem, is becoming bird food. Bees are supping on the late season forage including Goldenrods, Caryopteris, and Autumn Clematis, followed by Asters. As we move into autumn, consider letting the leafy greens and herbs in your garden bolt and flower to provide much needed resources for pollinators.
Each grain of pollen collected offers its specific array of amino acids, and a possibility of a balanced mix of nutrition for pollinator health.
Late Summer / Fall Beekeeping Tasks
Kick back Varroa mite population
Protect Hives Against Robbing
Tighten up hives.
Protect against Wax Moths
Assess food supply for raising winter brood
Managing for Over-Wintering Survival
Beekeepers often judge success on their colonies’ overwintering survival, not the bounty of the honey harvest.
The parameters of winter survival are a complex combination of factors, some within our control (choice of bee genetics, location, and hive management) and some beyond our control (length and severity of winter).
Within a hive, a voluminous cluster of healthy “winter” bees with good honey and pollen stores is a standard goal, as each individual bee burns less energy and the utilization of provisions is more efficient. This means both the life-force of the bees and the vital food stores aren’t as rapidly depleted as within a smaller cluster.
Think backward in time to piece together a puzzle of elements to reach this goal.
Late-summer is a critical time to assess the strength of your hives, as colonies are primed to begin raising the “winter” brood. In order to successfully overwinter a colony in a temperate climate, these winter bees will need to survive for months, not weeks, until they begin to be replaced by “summer” bees in late winter.
The proper term for “winter” bees is diutinus, which is Latin for long-lasting.
Diutinus bees are also seen in environments which consistently have long periods of dearth, perhaps a lengthy yearly dry season.
These long-lasting “winter” worker bees are anatomically different than “summer” worker bees. The fat bodies of winter bees are enlarged, as they are required to store nutrition within their bodies, as well as within their hives, to survive the lean months. The bees use these internal reserves to feed the queen and the initial brood of a new cycle, when it occurs.
The physiological journey of any worker bee through her life’s tasks are regulated by the needs of the superorganism, and triggered via signals of pheromones and hormones from the bees within the colony. The winter bees do not spend their life-force early in their adult lives tending brood, building comb or foraging. The colony moves into a low or non-brood cycle, and the winter bee’s anatomical transitions are suspended until brood begins again.
In the chill of winter, bees work to maintain the temperature and humidity of the cluster for their colony’s survival. The carbohydrates for their energy source comes from the honey they have stored (or the winter candy supplied). This allows them to vibrate their flight muscles for warming the cluster.
The sustaining nutritional needs of the colony comes from the worker bee fat bodies and the Vitellogenin (Vg), a protein associated with egg yolk production, that is stored within the fat body. As brooding initiates the pollen stores of the hive will also be drawn upon.
Once brood rearing begins again, the winter bees continue with their anatomical transitions to nurse bees, and finally on to foragers, depleting their life-force more readily as the brood nest expands (comb building remains a task for the future bees of the next cycle).
What does this mean for late summer hive management?
1) This is a critical time to knock down the Varroa mite population in the hive. Treating for mites when brood is in the low dip of the summer season, and before the winter bees are being raised is a vital management strategy for winter survival.
Varroa mites are not only vectors of pathogens, mites feed on the Honey bee fat bodies, accessed from the underside of the bees’ abdomens. This is where the Vitellogenin (Vg) that the bees need for winter survival is stored.
If the worker bee fat bodies are compromised by Varroa, then the colony begins the lean season with a deficit.
2) Make sure the nurse bees are able to produce a good quantity of royal jelly for the young larvae, with a good supply of “nectar” and pollen in the brood nest arena. If the brood looks “dry,” consider feeding internally to limit robbing.
3) As we enter September, assess the population strength of colonies. Consider merging weak colonies, as long as they are not weak from disease. Remember that the larger the volume of bees in winter the more likely they will be to survive.
4) Generally, the last deep inspections should occur no later than September 15, so the propolis seal can be secured for the cold weather.
5) In mid-September, if honey stores are low, and there is not a major fall nectar flow expected, you can feed hard until the middle of October with a thick 2:1 ratio (sugar to water). Generally, it is best to stop feeding in Northern climates by October 15, so there is time for the “nectar” to be cured and capped, limiting the moisture concerns within a wintering colony.
Winter survival for a colony is predicated on healthy, long-lasting winter bees, ample food stores, and good winterizing (or micro-climate protection) from the brutal variables of winter weather.
The winter bees are being raised now, so harness the time ahead to position them for survival.
Fall Planting for Spring
The gardening season in the northeast is winding down. Do not be disheartened...plant bulbs.
Our surroundings will enter a resting period for above ground growth, however roots under the surface continue to stretch out for nutrients and store energy for the marvel of new growth come spring.
Autumn is the time to plant bulbs for carpets of spring honeybee forage.
Plant bulbs in groups, in areas where they can naturalize. They will provide an exhilarating spring display as the bulbs proliferate over the years, offering much needed early forage for honeybees and lifting a beekeeper’s spirit out of the worry of winter. The earliest selections will rise out of the snow.
Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is a cheery yellow flower accompanied by delightful frilly green leaves. Its in the buttercup family and provides an early nectar source. The plant, especially the tuber, is toxic if ingested.
Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa forbesii) is a blue star-shaped flower with a small white/yellow center, held up by a 4 to 6 inch stem. They can spread easily if conditions are favorable, and are not considered invasive. In early spring, they can beckon you into a deciduous forest before the leaves appear above with in a mesmerizing display of blue.
Snowdrops (Galanthus), with their sweet downward-facing, white, bell-shaped flower, is a familiar sight for most of us. Appearing as the sun warms the patch of ground where they have been resting below the surface.
Hellebore, commonly called “Lenten rose” or “Christmas rose,” is bigger and more elegant than most early blooming choices. They come in many different colors, all slightly mounding with multiple blooms, and gently nodding flower heads. Watching bees work the flowers make clear that pollen, even if minimal quantity, is the bee’s goal.
Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) is a blue flower, similar at a glance to Glory of the Snow, with striking blue pollen. This plant however is considered invasive, and even though you might delight in seeing blue pollen coming in on your bees’ corbicula, it is suggested that gardeners avoid this plant.
Crocus is in the iris family. The spring blooming variety comes in colors ranging from brilliant yellow to deep purple, sporting large pollen-laden anthers within the deep-petaled cups. Crocus tommasinianus is particularly striking with its purple petals and orange stamen. There are fall blooming Crocus, including Crocus sativus. The harvested stamen of this variety is the coveted spice saffron.
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) is in the buttercup family, like the Winter Aconite. Their April blooms appear in damp, marshy conditions on large spreading mounds. They provide both nectar and pollen to visiting pollinators.
As the season progresses the flowers of these specimens will have faded and the greens will eventually disappear, however its best not to mow right after bloom to allow the sun to restore energy back into the bulbs for the coming years.
Planting bulbs is not an advisable activity, or expense, for those who have an abundance of chipmunks, who will be right behind you digging them up.
Plant bulbs and dream about spring during long dark nights ahead.
Enjoy the abundance of the season!
Thank the pollinators and the farmers that work so hard to provide an abundant harvest for us all.
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Citations & Links
Stephane Knoll, Walter Pinna, Antonio Varcasia, Antonio Scala, Maria Grazia Cappai,
The honey bee (Apis mellifera L., 1758) and the seasonal adaptation of productions. Highlights on summer to winter transition and back to summer metabolic activity. Livestock Science,Volume 235, 2020,104011, ISSN 1871-1413,
Keller, I P Fluri, A Imdorf (2005) Pollen nutrition and colony development in honey bees: Part 1. Bee World 86(1): 3-10.
Swiss Bee Research Centre, Agroscope. (unknown). Fat Body Bees [Photograph]. Used with permission.
Bill Hesbach. CBA. Seasonal Proactive Varroa Management Schedule >>
About the Author:
Grai St. Clair Rice
Grai has been a beekeeping educator since 2006. She teaches beekeeping classes, coaches beekeepers, does public presentations, writes about Honeybees and gardening for pollinators, and consults on landscape plantings.