Our bees have been loving this sunny weather. Which is good, having them out foraging a bit in November will hopefully help them pull through the cold months to come.
A few folks have asked what we do with all the equipment bits that don't stay on the hive overwinter.
Good question.
This year it's particularly relevant because we lost a hive last winter and thus have quite a few additional hive boxes that require storage.
This year we were a bit more organized in preparing hive components: we scraped down some of the dead hive's frames (saving and melting down the wax for later use), froze all parts for 24-48 hours (in the hopes that we could kill any wax months that may have taken up residence), sealed the boxes in plastic, and then labeled each bag with the contents and condition.
Last year we sealed everything up but didn't do any labels. When we needed a specific super, we had to open every bag, effectively destroying the seal and creating a giant mess.
We're hoping to avoid that, come spring.
