LISBON, Ohio – Here comes winter in northeast Ohio. Fortunately for my “wish-it-was-summer-all-the-time” soul, the sun will be out and it will be a nice day. Unfortunately, this is not the best situation for honeybees at this time of the year in this part of the country.

As the weather and climate continue to change in Ohio to being more like that of North Carolina, beekeepers need to stay on top of the fact their bees, which should be clustered tight, tucked in their honey-filled hives in a state of semi-dormancy, are not.

Instead, this warmer weather will have all the bees doing a cleansing flight – bees do not soil the interior of their hives so any warm day, once temps drop below freezing at night, will find bees going out of their hives to “do their business” during the day when it is above 50 degrees, and then go back inside.

Still, the foragers of the hive are driven to search for food. Activity in the hive – the bees not being clustered tight; the semi-dormancy not really taking place – means the bees are moving about which requires energy which means they are eating their honey stores. Eating their food stores now could result in the hive running low on food when they need it most – in the dead of winter, or worse – early spring. And the foragers are wired to not let that happen. It is their job to bring in food.

Because it will be 60 degrees today, I have several options and will probably avail myself of all of them to help my bees. I plan to open feed powder pollen in an old half round length of gutter I have lying on the ground in the apiary just for that reason.

I will also dig out the wax cappings covered in honey from uncapping frames I have kept in containers and lay it out on old plastic bin lids I reserve for this purpose. The bees, who have nothing to forage on since it is the middle of November and no plants are flowering here in Ohio, will busy themselves eating and cleaning up the  honey covered cappings. They will dust themselves with the dry pollen and take said pollen back to the hive as a food source again giving them something to do besides trying to rob out weaker hives of their honey stores.

I already have in place screened moisture boards. We call them “Nutter Boards,” which make it so I can feed the bees fondant – basically sugar and water “cakes” – all winter long. With the fondant in place, the Nutter Board’s screen is then covered in sheets of burlap. The design of the Nutter Board makes it so the bees can access the fondant but not get tangled in the burlap.

Both the burlap and the sugar cakes will absorb any excess moisture produced inside the hive that comes from the condensation created due to warm bees inside, and the cold temperatures of winter outside, the hive. The burlap soaks up the moisture as does the fondant cake, making the cake soft and an easy food “extra” for the bees to consume along with their honey stores.

Other hive maintenance aspects I will perform on this warm day are to be sure to pull and scrape clean the white board in any hive that has a screened bottom board. That white board is not accessible to the bees inside the hive because there is screen above it. I am no longer a real fan of screened bottom boards and am slowly switching all the hives over to solid bottom boards. Those with solid bottom boards are kept clean by the bees. Less work for me and honestly, the bees are much better at maintaining their own hive than any beekeeper can ever hope to be.

I will also double check the front entrance reducers making sure there are no globs of dead bees blocking the entrance on the inside of the hive. By now most hives have evicted all the drones from the hive, which is a story for another column. But there is always death within a hive as the life cycle continues on its way albeit at a slower pace during colder weather. Yes, the bees do a great job of disposing of their dead, but if dead bees are blocking the entrance to the hive, I will help the bees and clean those away.

While going through and inspecting a hive this time of year is not an option – beekeepers need to respect the fact the bees have sealed their hive up tight knowing cold weather is coming and not break those seals – there is still a great deal of “bee-keeping” to be done as winter comes to call.

Beekeeping is truly a year-round hobby.

Susan Nutter and her husband, Scott, maintain 60 hives on their 65-acre tree farm in northeast Ohio, where they also produce maple syrup along with selling honey, beeswax, and honeybees. Follow Susan on Facebook by searching Bees and Trees, and on Instagram @beesandtrees.co Got questions about beekeeping or honeybees in general? Please email Susan Nutter at SusanNutter11@gmail.com.