(Courtesy of Joli Winer, The Bee Buzzer, Oct. 2013,
Newsletter of the Northeast Kansas Beekeepers’ Association)
- Take any late honey off & get it extracted. Remove all queen excluders. Bees could move above the excluder into a feeder or super and leave the queen below.
- Finish any mite treatments–be sure to remove any remains of medications.
- Take an inventory at your bee yards to see what equipment you need to repair or replace over the winter.
- Get your entrance reducers on to keep mice out of the hives.
- Store any frames with drawn comb in paradichlorobenze (moth crystals). Wax moth damage can be devastating to your combs. Store them in a cool ventilated area. Never wrap supers in plastic bags as this acts as an incubator for wax moth eggs.
- Check the frames in your brood chambers. Make sure you have a queen that is laying and that you have brood. If you find a queenless hive this time of year, it is best to combine it with another hive. Always take your losses in the fall. At this point you can still save your equipment from wax moth damage. You can always make a split or get a new package or nuc next spring.
- Make sure all of your hives have heavy bricks on them to keep winter winds from blowing the covers off.
- Prepare a windbreak if your bees are exposed to the north wind.
- Close off screened bottom boards.
- Analyze the record book — which queens did best?
- Consider participating in a local craft show to sell extra honey. All jars of honey should be attractive, clean, bright— NEVER sticky.
- Monitor your hives for small hive beetles.
