With temperatures barely rising to double digits it is a sure sign winter is coming. The 2018/19 bee season is ending here in the southern hemisphere. So what happens now?

The bees are spending almost all their time inside their hives at our apiaries now. We are lucky to see them flying every few days. Within a week or two they will hunker down to avoid the cold. And while that sounds like a great thing to do – sit by the fire with a warm drink and another beekeeping book – there are still many jobs to do for us here at 8 Frame Honey.

Construction

Construction for us is many things. Cleaning used frames and hive boxes that aren’t being used for the winter and building more hives and frames for the upcoming season are standard winter activities.We are also in the final stages of building our bee room. This will host our bee courses for the coming spring. After fitting it out we will build a bee friendly garden around it, ready for planting once the weather warms up.

Construction has begun on our top bar hives that customers have ordered for the coming season. With delivery of the roofing materials in the next fortnight we will be able to finish the hive bodies, attach the legs and then paint or oil the hives as requested by each customer. These will be ready for collection or delivery by mid-August.

Expansion

We are still expanding our apiary. We hope to have colonies of bees in our Slovenian hives before the end of the year. This will give course participants the chance to work with three different types of hives and five different hive variations. A perfect way to decide which type of hive/s they would like to keep their own bees in.

We are trialing new lip balm flavours. Our aim is to to bring the new flavours to market before August. A new batch of beeswax wraps is penciled in for June so look out for some new patterns come July.

Are you interested in stocking our products? We will also be spending time over winter finding additional like-minded businesses to stock our products. If you are interested in stocking our products in your store let us know here.

Admin

Besides for the usual business admin we have almost finished locking in our beekeeping course dates for the upcoming season. If you have pre-registered your interest and provided your email address you will be given advanced notice of when the dates will be released. This will allow you to secure your preferred class ahead of the general public. You can check if the course dates have been release by heading straight to the course page in our online store here.

Relaxation

Of course we will also make time to follow the bees’ lead and spend time indoors. There will be lots of quality time huddled around the fire, relaxing, reading, reflecting and keeping warm. The theme for our bee books this winter is queen rearing. Two different queen-rearing techniques have been decided upon for next season’s trails. The more knowledge we can acquire on each method, the better our chances of success.

Good luck

If you are a southern hemisphere beekeeper, like us, we wish you every success in your efforts to overwinter your colonies. For our friends in the northern hemisphere, may your bee season be bountiful, full of blooming flowers and an abundance of honey.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your journey!