Honeybees in Autumn: Preparing for Winter - Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - page 85

grabbed the nearest twig and began flicking yellow jackets off the hive entrance. I fur-
ther attempted to separate the brawlers. I hated the idea of my honeybees potentially
givingtheirlivestodefendtheirhive.Butdespitetheircourageandmyfeeblebutwell-
meaningaid,therobbingcontinued.ThenextdayInoticedwhatappearedtobecrumbs
attheentranceofthehive.Icouldnotimagehowthispileofgrithadfounditswayonto
the entrance. When I bent down to peek inside the hive entrance, I could see where the
robbers had forced their way in and uncapped some of the honeycomb. Those crumbs
were actually the wax cappings that had been chewed up and left behind by the rob-
bers, who'd most likely filled their own bellies with the stolen honey. Nature, I had dis-
covered, could be cruel, and it made me furious.
I managed to shut down the continuation of this particular robbery for one day by
closinguptheentranceofthehivewithawadofgrass.Youarebasicallycallingatime-
out. Nobody goes into the hive, and nobody comes out. After one day, you can remove
thegrass.Hopefully,therobbersontheoutsidewillhavegivenup,andtheonestrapped
inside have been stung to death. If you do not catch the robbery early and it escalates,
the result can be most unfortunate. Honeybees need that stored-up honey when there is
adearthofnectarandespeciallygoingintothewintermonths.Overthenextfewweeks
I kept an especially watchful eye on the activity around my hive entrance.
P REPARING THE H IVES FOR O VERWINTERING
Preparing your honeybee hives in the fall for the upcoming winter is as important as
taking care of them throughout the summer. A hive that has been properly prepared for
a long, cold winter has a better chance of survival until the spring. As the fall arrives
and foraging activity winds down, bees prepare to cluster .
During the winter months, the colony drops down to approximately 25,000 bees.
Most noticeably, the drone population dwindles. Since the only contribution the drones
make to the colony is to mate with a queen, their presence becomes rather unnecessary
during the winter months, when the queen's laying is at a bare minimum. Since pollen
and honey is also limited during the winter, the economy of nature takes its course and
refusestoallowallthedronestoremaininsidethewarm,cozyhivethroughoutthelong,
cold winter. As cruel as it seems, most of them are kicked out by workers and left out-
side the hive to starve and freeze to death. A few luckier drones are allowed to remain
inside the hive during the winter for early spring mating.
The worker bees and remaining drones will form a tight cluster around their queen,
whichwillkeepherandtheentirecolonywarmthroughoutthewinter.Throughaseries
of rotating movements, along with rapid wing vibrations, beginning from the inside of
thecluster andworkingtheirwayout,heatwillbespreadfromthebodyofonetinybee