Is Warm Weather Good For Bees - What Effect Does A Warm Autumn Have - Unseasonably Warm Weather

Today I'm going to talk to you about the unseasonably warm autumn weather and the impact that it's having on all of our colonies of bees. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. This November, this October and September have been so, so warm, way above average, really good wind speed as well, And the bees have had ample opportunity to get out, to forage on the ivy, to build up into really big strong colonies. And overall, I think that's a really, really good thing. What I'm going to talk to you about in this video though is the negative impact that's potentially going to have on your beehives, on your colony of bees, what to look out for, and how I think they're going to come through the winter. So don't get me wrong, unseasonably warm weather towards the end of the year results in big strong colonies of bees, especially if you've been trickle feeding as well. You've been feeding them up to strength and they've had adequate access to natural pollen, or if you're in areas where you're not going to get late season natural pollen, you're feeding them a pollen substitute. The colony of bees in this beehive here, absolutely huge. I've been doing snapshots on all of my apiaries and they're just bubbling over the top, overflowing, big strong colonies of bees. So ultimately I've got bigger, stronger colonies of bees going into winter, which always for me means I'm going to have bigger, stronger colonies of bees coming out of winter. That goes without saying. So like I said, that's a really positive thing and something that I'm very excited about for next year. However, there's 2 main things that you need to be focusing on in terms of the negative aspects of big strong colonies at this time of year. The first one is relatively straightforward. And that is the use of stores. So as we get this unseasonably warm weather, the bees will continue to go out and forage on nectar when it's available, but even later than that, they'll continue to go out and forage on pollen, mostly on ivy pollen. The warm weather signals to the queen, with the incoming pollen as well, that she can continue to rear that brood, which means that the colony stays at a good size, which is definitely a good thing, but they can work through their stores much quicker than in a normal year. It's the 19th of November today. A few years ago on the 19th of November, it was well into minus figures, really, really cold, lots of snow. And the bees respond to those different temperatures very, very differently. When it's cold, they just cluster up, they don't use that much stores, they're not rearing as much brood, and they're not anywhere near as big or as strong. When you get that prolonged warm, unseasonably warm spell that we've had in this October and November, You end up with much bigger, stronger colonies that are still rearing brood and they're considerably lighter. So you come to a point where you're struggling a little bit for weight. So if I go and pick up this colony here, I realize that I have it strapped onto the stand, so it's not going to go anywhere. I do that all the time. So if I take this colony here as an example, it's so, so light in terms of where it needs to be and it's a little bit misleading. All this is is a brood box with a crown board on. I'm just storing the 2 supers above it. So it is a single national deep colony. And it's nowhere near where it needs to be in terms of weight for the year. So the only mitigation that I'm going to do, I've said it before, said it in loads of videos, big slab of baker's fondant on top, and that resolves the issue in terms of giving them enough stores. Now if it's warm enough, they'll still come up and take syrup down. They will take syrup down all the way through November if the weather permits. Definitely feed them only 2:1 syrup, or preferably invert syrup so it doesn't go off though. But you always run the risk that you leave syrup in the feeders, and in my system, leaving syrup in the feeders is just a big no-no because I like to flip the feeders to feed fondant. And if I go back and there's 6 or 7 litres of syrup in there, I have to throw away the syrup, which I never like doing. So I tend to err on the side of underfeeding syrup to get them up to weight and then sticking on a big slab of fondant. So I would imagine across the UK there is going to be lots and lots of colonies that light. You don't necessarily realize they're light just yet because you might be hefting them and thinking, okay, they're still heavy, but they might be lighter than where they would normally be for the middle of November. And colonies generally don't starve in November or December or even January. It's when they move into February and March and it's getting warm and there's some pollen available. There's no nectar available at that time of year though, and they burn through their resources really, really quick. This is what I'm forecasting is going to happen a huge amount next year. So March, April, even into May next year, I think we're going to find colonies that are going to starve, especially if we get a bit of a false start like we've had on previous years where first week of April is 35 degrees— maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit there— 35 degrees Celsius, and then it goes back to -10 in the middle of April. Lost a lot of colonies when that happened the last time round. Because the bees build up to the temperature, they build up, get nice and strong, but they don't have sufficient stores to enable them to keep up that prolonged rapid spring expansion. So I would say that is the first impact, and it's a bit of a look into the future impact, because at the moment, like I said, you're going to be hefting your hives and you're going to be thinking they're relatively heavy. If you're hefting them at the moment and you're thinking, wow, they're really, really light, don't leave it too late to take action. Doesn't matter what when you put your fondant on. So if you want to feed in January, you can put your fondant on now. They're just going to sit there, just going to leave it there as long as it's well insulated around it, either with some Celotex or some Kingspan or an upturned feeder, however you want to do it. Get your fondant on early, don't let your bees starve. I'd say that's going to be the number one result of the unseasonably warm autumn weather. The second one is a little bit different. It's slightly related to the warm weather, but it more relates to the varroa load on the colony. Really interesting one, this one. And I do think that treatment-free beekeepers are going to potentially see a bit of an issue next year, going into next year. And this is going to have far-reaching consequences. This is just my hypothesis, so I'm just speculating a lot here. But a lot of the colonies where they've come to work without any treatments, any harsh chemicals, any oxalic acid treatment, they do that by having a prolonged brood break. And generally they have a prolonged brood break Around back into November, early December, even into January, maybe as late into January. But over that period, they'll have a significant brood break where they won't raise any brood, and that gives them a real good chance to get that varroa load down. Now, I went into all of my colonies last week, every single one, because I was going and taking out the remainder of the Apivar strips, or I was putting on a big slab of fondant. When I was taking out some of these Apivar strips, I could not believe the amount of winter bees that are still being created. I could not believe the amount of capped worker brood that I was seeing. It's truly astonishing to see such big colonies in November, but for there to be that much brood still present in the hives. So if it continues to remain so unseasonably warm, you might not get that brood break. And for me, not getting the brood break isn't the end of the world because I've treated with Apivar. So my regime, Apivar should give me enough of a drop to get the levels down low enough to where I need them to be, and then another 12 months I'll come back and do Apivar again. As a bonus, I go in in December, try and target the right time. It's always a bit of a guess. Early December is what I find works well for me in North Wales, and I'll do some apibioxal sublimation, and I'll try and target them for that broodless period just to zap that varroa down, get it as low as it can possibly be going into next year. Now, if you are solely relying on doing numerous doses of oxalic acid sublimation, it might not be too much of an issue because you're going to keep on getting those phoretic mites each time they emerge out of the brood. But if you're just relying on either being completely treatment-free or just doing one zap, a broodless period in December, then the unseasonably warm weather may not give you the best opportunity to do that, and you might need to look at other treatments. So they're kind of my 2 hypotheses for what's going on and the impacts, how that unseasonably warm weather is going to impact the colonies of bees. The first one is I think they're going to run out of food a lot earlier because they've not had the ability to keep the weight that they need to get through winter. because they're burning it off by keeping the brood going, which results in big strong colonies but gives you the negatives that they might run out early. So you've got this impact February, March, and April is when that's likely to happen. And like I said, the mitigation is just get a big slab of fondant on there, 6 kilograms of fondant on top of the cluster, touching the cluster. That's going to mitigate that nicely, and all you're going to see there is a really good benefit from this weather. And then the next one is the fact that they're going to continue rearing brood for so much later. It potentially eliminates your opportunity to get in there and do that varroa treatment, or it very much narrows the window of opportunity, and it's always a bit of a guess anyway in terms of when they're actually going to be broodless. So there you go, that's my summary of what I think the impact is. I find it really interesting just to see over the last 6 or 7 years since I've been living in North Wales the changes in the weather. The winter seems to come so much later at the moment, like I can't believe it's nearly December I've took my jacket off because I was a little bit too hot. It's about 14 or 15 degrees here today. The bees were flying earlier, just a little bit of cloud come over and it's spitting now, so they've stopped. But all of the colonies, this is the best they've ever looked going into winter. Really low varroa load because I treated them early. They're fed up to weight, or they were fed up to weight, and now when I've been going in, they're very, very light. The lightest they've been at this point of the year. and by far and away the most active they've been at this point of the year as well. I'd be expecting to open up generally in November and they're starting to cluster down, at least starting to cluster down as opposed to going into a full cluster. Every single colony I've opened, not even bar one, has just been active, completely active. You take the lid off and they fly up and just say, what are you doing? This is not November yet. We're not clustered up yet. So it's interesting to see how the bees are reacting to those changes. And it's interesting to see the benefits that you're getting from those changes. And the disadvantages that come for it as well. I just wanted to do this video just to give you all the heads up as to what I think the impacts are potentially going to be on your colonies and to make sure that you don't fall into the trap of either your colony dying because they've run out of food or dying because they've reared brood pretty much all the way throughout the winter and your treatments haven't been effective to keep the varroa numbers low. So I hope you enjoyed that video, I hope you found it useful. As always, wish your colonies the best of luck getting through winter. Please hit the subscribe button, Please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.