Designing a Warm Winter: Prep Work at the Bee House
As the New England autumn chill starts to settle over Temple, my focus out at the apiary undergoes a major shift. The honey harvesting tools are put away, and my days are now completely dedicated to one goal: ensuring every single colony is set up to survive the long winter ahead.
Winter prep isn’t a one-size-fits-all job. It requires listening to the hives, calculating honey stores, and making tactical decisions to protect the bees from the drop in temperature.
A Story of Recovery and Resilience
Every time I check a hive right now, I am looking closely at three critical metrics: hive health, population size, and honey stores.
Sometimes, nature throws a curveball. This year, I have two small hives that both started out incredibly strong but hit a roadblock mid-season. The wonderful news is that they are both on their way to a strong recovery. Both have healthy queens, and they are actively building out their brood and storing up honey. I’ve had to practice a lot of patience during this process—making sure not to disturb the hives too often and giving the queens the quiet time they needed to just lay and rebuild their numbers. To give them a boost, I also supplemented them with frames of capped brood and honey from our stronger colonies.
Even with that progress and extra resources, they are simply still too small to generate enough collective heat to survive a cold winter on their own. To give them a helping hand, I am utilizing our Apimaye 7-frame hives with 2-deep boxes and division boards. This setup allows me to house both smaller, recovering colonies under one roof. By keeping them safe inside our dedicated bee house, they stay protected from the weather and can easily share a central heat source.
The Art of the Condensing Hive
For the rest of the apiary, winter success comes down to moisture and thermal management. I practice condensing hive principles for all my colonies during the winter. We mostly use solid plastic frames by 21 B aka Infinity frames specifically aid in bee mobility, and mite control.
Instead of adding heavy ventilation that forces the bees to work overtime to stay warm, a condensing hive mimics a natural tree hollow. It traps the warmth generated by the bee cluster and allows moisture to safely cycle down the walls rather than dripping directly onto the bees. Because the hives stay naturally warmer and drier, the bees use up far fewer food stores to stay alive.
We tailor this thermal management depending on where the bees live on our property:
Inside the Bee House: We use the compact 7-frame insulated Apimaye hives to create a micro-climate out of the weather.
Above the Garage: Up here, we run 10-frame insulated Apimaye hives. This elevated position mirrors a much more natural environment for bees, who instinctively love to build their nests high up in tree hollows.
By combining these protective, insulated hives with intentional placement and condensing methods, we are giving our bees the absolute best odds of thriving. Hoping we have done all we can to help our resilient ladies will wake up buzzing next spring makes every bit of autumn preparation worth it.
