Chat with Paul Kelly

Conclusions after chat with Paul Kelly today re prepping bee hives for winter:

1. lift off both brood boxes from a hive;

2. remove screen bottom board, and clean bottom board;

3. replace bottom brood box, making an assessment as a matter of interest of its weight; if it is entirely empty, no brood, no bees, no honey, this can be removed, but his advice is just to put it back in that instance;

4. with syringe, dribble evenly between the frames 25 ml of 8.75 grams of oxalic acid crystals mixed with 250 ml of 1:1 by weight water and granulated syrup (I explained that our 1:1 crystalized immediately and I diluted it a bit so it wouldn't but he didn't seem to think this mattered much);

5. place the second box on top of the first, having very approximately estimated its weight, i.e. "heavy" or "light" or "in between" and

6. dribble as in (4) above;

7. place above that the inner cover, from which has been cut a 3" wide slot from the rim, and this 3" slot is placed directly over the top edge of the top super at the front (in the summer, flip this and place the slot uppermost at the back);

8. close off the oval opening in the middle of the inner cover (we have bee-escapes and can seal these);

9. place above this a piece of insulation board, 1", cut to fit;

10. place the hive lining over the hive, so that the bottom rests on the hive base, and

11. place the front entrance so that the smallest hole is useable by the bees, this should allow ready egress and entrance if all goes well with the liner;

11. place the hive top above the insulation board and

12. put the cover on top and place several bricks on the cover.

Repeat for the other hive.

He said that if our bees aren't eating the sugar syrup in their top feeders, there's something wrong with the feeders, OR the hives are so full there's no place to put the feed. I know that the red hive is not THAT full because those bees were so keen to clean up the partially-capped frames. I will rig a front of the hive pan feeder.