January Backyard Honeybees Upkeep
I want to share some things with you that we will be doing with our honeybees every month in order to keep the hives healthy and thriving.
Let me tell you a little about our set up. We live in Ft. Worth Texas on a little ½ acre lot. Our winter season is shorter than most so it doesn’t get really cold and we hardly ever have any snow or freezing temperatures so we are able to do some maintenance with our bees over a 2 to 3-month period. We also have some chickens that share the same area as the bees.
This month we will working around the outside of the hive because our temperatures typically don’t get above 60 degrees so we won’t open the hives to do any inspections because the cold blast from outside the hive could really put a damper on things like killing off the bees. I know that some people ask “Well how do you know if the bees are still in there?” With our chickens in the same yard, we are out there a couple of times a week and when the temperatures in the 50’s we can see that some of the bees are traveling in and out of the hive which tells us that things inside the hive are doing ok. As soon as the weather breaks and the temps are above sixty degrees we will get inside and check things out in more detail.
We check around the hives to make sure there are no weeds grown up close the hives, within a few feet. We use cardboard boxes that we flatten out and lay on the ground the help control the weeds. Our hives are about 6 or 7 feet away from the fence line so we make sure the fence line is trimmed back to make sure the bees have enough room to fly out and then up. We also check for any dead bees that could be around the hive and make sure that it is all cleaned up. The chickens that we have in the same yard help with that part of it because they eat pretty much anything and everything that they can get a hold of.
We also go thru all of our supplies and restock anything that we are low on. We make sure that our extra frames are clean and ready to go into the next hive that we may be starting.
If you are ordering package bees, now is the time to do so. The new bees will be ready to be delivered in the first part of April. If we keep up with things during the months that we can’t get inside the hive we will be ready for the new ones.
When everything is ready to go there will be less stress on you and less stress on the bees. You can enjoy the watching them flying in and out like a super highway.
Tell me about your honeybee set-up.