What can the beekeeper do to provide for winter survival?

Before hard weather arrives and temperatures drop to freezing, there is work to be done.

Take off surplus supers, if the bees don’t need the space, remove them. If you are working with an 8 frame brood box and only 4 frames are being worked, take off the super.

Provide for entrance reducers to keep other animals out, especially mice, they need somewhere warm to be as well.

Place pollen patties in hives for additional protein and remember to feed your bees in the fall so they can store up food for the winter. Placing liquid syrup out of the hive will not help as much when the weather doesn’t permit them to move the syrup into the hive.

You must use caution when choosing the method to feed them because feeding them in the hive invites robbers and other animals. But when temperatures are at a low feeding them in the hive by a method that would put the sugar syrup or crystals in the very back would be preferable.