Putting the hives to bed for the Winter

My colonies sit on 4x4’s which sank into the ground. Today I laid 4x4’s crosswise underneath to raise them farther off the ground, then added shims until they tilted forward. Soon, before the mice move in, I’ll staple hardware cloth to the entrances. That at least slows them down.

I broke the rules with these hives. Two survived last winter. A bear tore one of them apart twice in two days, killing the queen. Putting the pieces together again, they actually recovered, although not enough to harvest a crop. The remaining hive I split seven ways in June. You’re not supposed to do that. I decided it was a bad idea until recently. We had a good fall nectar flow. The mother hive which received the most bees from the splits (all the older ones flew home) made 3 surplus supers of honey. The weaker sisters, ranged from almost no honey to 135 lbs total weight. Two won’t make it through the winter, four might and one I gave to my little beekeeping friend, TT. So if the winter has lots of snow and spring comes early and I feed them…