What to have in before autumn

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Why the timing is the whole point

Almost nothing on this list is expensive. Nearly all of it is useless late. The varroa treatment has a window measured in weeks and the mites do not wait for a delivery. A mouse guard is no help once the mouse is in. Sugar sells out in September because every beekeeper in the country wants it in the same fortnight.

Buy in July or early August. Then autumn is a series of short jobs rather than a series of emergencies.

Treatment

• An authorised varroacide, enough for every colony on the site, including nucs. Treating some and not others just lets the mites walk back in.
• Work out the doses properly before you order. A double brood box needs more than a single, and a nuc needs less. Putting the varroa treatment on has the numbers.
• Check it is authorised for use in the UK, and check the expiry date on what arrives. 3
• Somewhere cool to keep it. Thymol products want to stay below 30 °C, so not the car and not the greenhouse.

Buy a record book or set up the record now, before you use anything. What you used, on which hives, when, how much, and the withdrawal period, kept for five years. The beekeeper’s veterinary medicines record covers it.

Feed

• White granulated sugar. Never brown or raw. 2
• How much: the target is about 20 kg of stores per colony. Our arithmetic on the NBU figures is that 1 kg of sugar ends up as roughly 1.2 kg of stores, so a colony 10 kg short needs about 8 kg of sugar. For a small apiary, budget a 25 kg sack and you will not be caught out.
• Or ready-made invert syrup if you would rather not mix it. Dearer per kilo, keeps until opened, saves an evening. Making sugar syrup has both mixes.
• Fondant, a block or two per colony, for later in the winter when it is too cold for syrup. Buy it now and it is in the shed when you need it in February.

Hardware for feeding

• A feeder per colony if you can, so you are not shuttling one round the apiary. A 6 litre tray feeder is the autumn workhorse.
• An empty super or an eke per hive, to make the space the feeder and the treatment both need. 1
• The supers your bees barely touched this year will do. Setting up to feed explains the setup.

Keeping things out

• Mouse guards, one per hive, in the right size for your floors. Mice nest in hives over winter and can kill a colony. 1
• Entrance blocks or reducers for weak colonies and nucs, for wasps now and cold later.
• Chicken wire if green woodpeckers are a known problem near you. Make a simple cage around and over the hive, and here is the figure most people get wrong: put the wire at least 300 mm away from the hive walls. Any closer and the bird can still reach through and drill the box. It also needs to let the bees fly.
• Plastic sheet or heavy wrap is sometimes used for the same job. Whatever you use, keep the entrance clear and do not seal the hive up.

Keeping things upright and dry

• Ratchet or hive straps, one per hive, to fasten the hive to the stand. It stops roofs blowing off and stops sheep and badgers tipping hives over. 1 Go easy on poly hives, because overtightening damages them.
• Insulation for over the crown board. An offcut of rigid board is ideal. It is worth it in a hard winter as long as you keep the ventilation.
• A spare floor per apiary, so you can swap a dirty floor for a clean one in October and scrape it at home.
• Roofing felt or a spare roof for anything that leaks. Damp kills more colonies than cold.
• A clear crown board or two. They let you check a colony in January without letting the heat out.
• Dummy boards, to shrink a box down to the size of the colony.

For putting the comb away

• Heavy duty bags and zip ties or tape, and freezer space booked with whoever else uses the freezer.
• Spare queen excluders if you are going to store comb in an open stack.
• A dust mask for cleaning out anything wax moth has already been in. Cleaning, freezing and storing supers covers the method.

The apiary itself

This is the part that costs nothing and gets forgotten. The NBU asks for firm, well-drained ground, good access in all weather, a sunny spot, shelter from heavy wind, and no frost pockets. 1

• A windbreak on the exposed side. Hurdles, a run of stock fencing with windbreak netting, or a hedge if you are planting for the long run. Aim to slow the wind rather than block it, because a solid wall creates its own turbulence behind it.
• Cut back the vegetation in front of the entrances now, while it is still growing. Grass that flops over an entrance in a wet November blocks it.
• Check the stands. A stand that is fine in July can sink in a wet field by January. Slabs or gravel under the legs.
• Think about winter access. The track you drive up in August may not be drivable in February, and you will want to get to them.
• Move hives off any low ground that holds water or frost.

What not to buy

You do not need a top ventilation gadget, a heated hive, or a special winter wrap for a normal UK winter. Ventilation from the roof, entrance and floor is usually enough. 1 Colonies die of starvation, damp, mites and queen failure, and none of those is solved by a purchase.

Spend the money on sugar, treatment, and a decent roof.

Winter is also when the boxes get scraped and scorched: Hive tools, and keeping them clean. And if you are thinking of expanding, Hive types used in the UK and Choosing and laying out an apiary are the two to read first.

The short version

• Order in July or August. That is the actual advice.
• Treatment for every colony, plus the record book.
• About 8 kg of sugar per colony that is 10 kg short, plus fondant for later.
• A feeder and an empty super per hive.
• Mouse guard and a strap per hive.
• Woodpecker mesh 300 mm clear of the walls, if you get them.
• Windbreak, drainage, and cut the grass back.