Down for the winter

I popped back today to remove the feeders and take off the associated empty supers. Sure enough the feeders were empty. Since the sun was out, I took the liberty of going through a quick inspection of hive1 to see how the stores and brood were going. I went too fast to get any kind of count on the stores, but the state of the colony looked excellent. Striking, though, was the large quantity of brood, mainly capped. Was this as the result of the feeding? Well, no it can't have been. Worker brood is capped on the 8th or 9th day after laying, and I gave the food 7 days ago, so the majority of the brood was laid before I gave the feed. I also saw some uncapped brood of various sizes, though I went too fast to see either queen or eggs. Overall - the girls look great!

I did not bother with an inspection on hive 2, but instead just peered inside. I got the impression of lots of healthy bees, and though them better not disturbed.

So that's it! The hives are down to brood-and-a-half size and feeding is over. I need to pop back and put the mouse guards on at some point. But consulting my "Bees at the Bottom of the Garden" book I see that I should schedule in an average of 1 hour beekeeping per month until the middle of March! I'll miss seeing inside and watching what's going on, but these bees know far better than I do what's best for them over the winter, and I trust their stores are good enough till spring comes. I'll swing by every now and then to give the hives the odd heft.