“How much stores does a colony need to get through winter?” It’s one of the commonest questions beginners ask, and I understand why. Like most of us, you want your bees to survive. The trouble is the answer usually comes as a single figure, delivered as fact. I think that’s a mistake. When it comes to winter stores for bees, a fixed number is unreliable.
It’s also one of those things that gets copied and pasted from one place to the next until everybody repeats the same line.
What I mean by winter stores
I’m talking about getting the colony from the end of the autumn forage to the point where income arrives in spring. Not just topping up. That gap is long, and it isn’t the same length every year.
Why the weight figures don’t work
The National Bee Unit gives a general rule of around 20 kilos of honey going into autumn. Look around online and you’ll find figures anywhere from 30 to 90 lb. One is three times the other. How’s a beginner meant to make sense of that?
My worry is that it gets people thinking in numbers rather than in what the colony actually needs. Feed by weight and you’ll overfeed some colonies and underfeed others. Overfeed and you can crowd the queen out. Underfeed and starvation is on the cards.
And starvation is one of the commonest causes of winter loss. To a degree, I’d say it’s the beekeeper’s fault, for listening to people rather than the bees.
What decides how much food a colony needs
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Your queens matter. Prolific queens will probably need about twice as much food as non-prolific ones to get through. I’ve seen colonies headed by very prolific queens turn their stores into brood they didn’t need at that time of year, and come the turn of the year they were light. Locally adapted bees tend to be frugal and look after what they’ve got.
Colony size matters too. In proportion, a smaller colony needs more food than a larger one.
Then there’s where you live. Generally, the further north you go, the longer the winter, so the more food a colony needs. A bland figure might suit one area and not another. Daffodils going over in Cornwall one weekend and still in tight bud in Northumberland the next tells you everything.
Climate plays its part as well. In warmer winters, bees tend to use more food than in cold ones. I suspect it’s because they break cluster, get more active and raise more brood. In a cold spell they sit tight.
Spring is where colonies run short
Autumns are usually much the same. Queens aren’t laying much, brood is hungry, so with little brood consumption is low. Springs vary a lot. Two consecutive springs can be up to four weeks apart, and that’s a big difference in percentage terms.
Consumption rises in spring because the queens are laying again and ramping up for the summer forage. Two weeks in March will use far more food than two weeks in November. That’s when colonies get short.
Autumn forage and the ivy honey problem
Autumn forage varies by region. Rosebay willowherb, heather, Himalayan balsam if you’re near waterways, and ivy, which can be a big yielder in some years. With less brood to feed, the bees can pack a lot away, and ivy especially.
That can be a real problem. Ivy honey granulates quickly and goes absolutely solid. If the bees have no water, they can’t liquefy it. If there’s other food mixed in with it, usually it’s fine. But if it’s all ivy and the weather is cold, with the bees in a tight cluster, they can starve on it. I’ve seen colonies die with 10, 15, 20 lb or more of solid ivy honey in the hive. So be a bit careful.
How to heft a hive
Hefting tells you far more than a book figure. Do it when the supers are off. Take the roof off and lift the hive from the back, then from each side. Doing each side shows you whether the food is central. If it feels about the same from both sides, it is.
Heft a couple of times before the turn of the year. The colony shouldn’t be using much then. After the new year, I’d do it every three or four weeks, because that’s when the weight starts to fall. If it’s dropped quite a bit, you can do something about it.
Luggage scales only give you a comparison, not a true weight. If they read two kilos less than last time, that doesn’t mean the colony has lost two kilos.
Know what you’re lifting, too. A new comb that’s hardly had any brood is far lighter than an old one full of cocoons. Two hives side by side can weigh quite differently. There may also be much more pollen or bee bread in one than the other. And remember the ivy honey, because a heavy hive full of solid ivy gives you a false picture.
Get to know your bees
If your bees needed a bigger box in summer, they’ll almost certainly need it in winter. If the queen lays wall to wall in a single brood chamber, you’ll need a bigger hive or more boxes to match.
If you’re a beginner and you’re worried, wait for a cold day when the bees should be in tight cluster and take off the crown board for a look.
Try hard to avoid starvation. A colony that dies of hunger, or can’t reach the food that’s there, takes a good queen with it. You lose all the food you put in and all they gathered. And you lose next year’s crop. It’s an expensive loss.
Winter is a good time to learn about your bees, so don’t abandon them in September and come back in March. Have a look now and then and watch what you see. Each colony is different and so is each winter, so the food a colony needs can vary quite a bit.
Give the bees what they need, not what somebody says they need. For more, the National Bee Unit is a useful starting point. I hope your bees get through.