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mwiehn

First winter, new beekeper

marcindy
18 years ago

Hi beekepers,

I have a couple of questions, but here are the facts first:

I started with two hives last May. Everything went well so far, the two nucs thrived throughout the summer and are now filling two hivebodies. I even added a queen excluder and a super to each hive as they looked pretty crowded in July and August. I checked last weekend and the hive body frames are fairly full with capped honey, and some brood, but not much at this point. Each hive had one frame per hive box on the outside that had one side not fully drawn out. I moved those two over towards the center (mistake?). The super on each hive has a little honey in some frames, nothing capped though. On almost all frames in the super the foundation isn't even drawn out yet, with the exception on one or two frames in the very center were a small patch is, and that patch shows a little honey in the new cells. I figured I'll go ahead and take the queen excluders and supers off for the winter, but what do I do with the little honey in there? Do I let the bees empty the honey out of the supers as a little added bonus for the winter? If you suggest to not do that, how qould I best store the supers in my garage? Should I insulate the hives with tar paper? They are located between tall shrubs (decidous) and a garden fence, so wind is not much of a problem. Also, I checked for mites with sticky paper on bottom board, and I found a few, but not many, do I need to treat with anything at this point? Anything else I should be doing right now? Sorry for all these questions and this long post folks. I'm just very new at this. Thanks in advance for any answer or sggestion you can give.

Marc

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