As we move from winter into spring here in England, Steve Donohoe discusses over-wintering success, feeding colonies, and plans for once the season kicks off.
Welcome to the Walrus and the Honey Bee Podcast, which is based on writings and discussions by Steve Donohoe, author of Interviews With Beekeepers and Healthy Bees Heavy Hives. Steve is known as The Walrus, and he works on the bees with his son, Alex, also known as The Mole. It is an odd family, and we have barely scratched the surface of that, but who isn't a bit odd? My name is Imogen, and I'll be reading from Steve's blog post of 20th February 2025 called Early Spring '25 Update. What a stunning and inspirational title - I wonder how long it took him to come up with that one. So, settle down, grab a nice cup of tea, and listen to my beautiful and soothing voice as I pass on the gospel according to St Walrus.
I have returned from a holiday in Lanzarote – the Seaside Hotel Los Jameos Playa as usual – and I’m eagerly awaiting the Beekeeping Show at Telford. Snowdrops and hazel catkins have been out for some time, but there is still a cold bite to the air. It’s tempting to overreact to the recent cool weather; I think it is a good thing for us to have a ‘proper’ winter. Anyway, time for a quick early spring update on life at Walrus Apiaries.
Firstly, is this weather in England currently anything special? I don’t think so, having looked at the weather data at the Met Office. Our weather is much warmer now that it was in the period from 1961 to 1990. In my area we only have ice and snow for a few weeks of the winter at most, whereas back in the day the average temperatures were lower, and the freezing over of ponds and canals was not uncommon. The winter 2024 temperature anomaly map shows how warm it has been compared to the past. The January 2025 map shows us bang on what we had in 1961 to 1990; it felt freezing to us, but only because we have become accustomed to much warmer times.
I like it when we have spells when the temperature drops to around zero degrees Celsius and stays below 8 degrees Celsius in the day. It might mean that hibernating wasp and yellow legged hornet queens have a tough time, which is fine by me. It also means that the bees are likely to have some broodless periods over winter, so they consume very little honey, and it disrupts any varroa mite reproduction. Although I like prolific bees, I don’t want the type that produces lots of brood and consumes excessive stored honey during winter. My bees are currently doing well, even the nucleus colonies, and when I checked some today they were still heavy and alive. Heavy and dead would not be good. Dead bees don’t eat honey. Maybe that should be the title of a book?!
The chart shows Randy Oliver’s translation of some work by Southwick in 1982. The metabolic rate of honey bees is lowest when the ambient temperature is in the range -4 degrees Celsius to +8 degrees Celsius, which just happens to be the type of weather we have had in my area in early 2025. The lower metabolic rate corresponds to lower honey consumption. This is a good thing, but at some point, probably quite soon, the queens will ramp up their egg laying. The bees will consume plenty of stores rapidly, to help with maintaining a brood nest temperature of around 34 degrees Celsius.
I have seen many people giving advice about feeding fondant to colonies recently. My bees were heavy in the Autumn, either from honey that they gathered late in the season or syrup fed by me. The majority are still heavy, but I expect the nukes to need feeding sometime in March or April if the weather is bad. In good weather, they will be fine. My nukes will get a protein ‘patty’ quite soon (two weeks time), which may not be necessary, but I want them to have everything they need to get super strong. I am selling nukes in April and need to make increase too, so lots of brood and bees is good. I just have to make sure that they always have plenty of food, especially considering how cold and rainy spring can be.
Going back to weather charts for a moment because they are fun, I enjoy playing around with the anomaly charts - there's the link in the blog post on thewalrusandthehoneybee.com.
There is a strong desire to try to infer some kind of pattern, but my little sea-mammal mind can’t find one. Sometimes a cool January is followed by a cool spring, but sometimes the opposite is the case. The last couple of times we started a year similarly to 2025 were 2021 and, before that, 2011. In 2021, we had a cold spring after our cold start to the year; in 2011 it was a very warm spring. One chart really stands out though – the infamous year of 2015, which was terrible for honey in the UK. The temperature anomaly chart shows why – what a stinker! Compare to the 2022 chart, which was a great year for honey, at least for me.
It is worth considering the demand for stores inside our bee hives during winter and early spring. There can be a big difference between a nucleus colony and a full-sized one, although the general pattern is often the same. For the bees to survive winter and prosper in the spring, they need to be a big enough colony to start with. Big enough depends on the hive they are living in. Those little four-frame colonies in the autumn will do fine in a polystyrene nuke, if provided with stores, but in a full-sized hive, they will probably die or dwindle into a tiny useless thing. Poly nukes are incredible for over-wintering small colonies, assuming they are healthy with a decent queen. Stacked mini-plus colonies are great too, and the main way I take spare queens through winter.
As we have seen, as long as ambient temperatures in winter are about normal (for my area), the bees will have a low metabolic rate and won’t eat much honey. Unless, of course, there is brood in the hive. A little brood at certain times is normal, as are periods of no brood at all. Once we get into spring, even if the weather outside is cold or wet, the bees have no choice but to ramp up the brood rearing so that they can restart foraging when conditions allow. This places big demands on aging bees – they throw everything they have at the task, as they hand over the baton to the next generation, then die.
At present, as far as I can tell, my small colonies (nukes) are consuming very little honey. Definitely less than 1 kg per week. I know that soon this will rise to something around 1–2 kg per week once brood rearing takes off. And that is not far off a Langstroth brood frame of stores, per week. At that point, if they are not bringing nectar in, they will be starving quickly. That means they cannibalise their open brood, which is not what we want at all. So, especially for nukes, I know that feeding may well be needed. I have to be vigilant, and check their weight regularly during March, feeding if needed.
My larger colonies, in full sized brood boxes, have more bees than the nukes, and a lot more stored honey. I find that it is usually the nukes that require careful watching, but occasionally a larger colony needs feeding too. They will munch their way through 2–3 kg of honey per week once they get fired up. Once a larger colony gets low on food it will starve more quickly than a smaller one, which happened in June last season to a couple of mine.
At my mating and main nucleus apiary, I have a handful of ‘drone donor’ colonies. My plan is to re-queen most of them using good queens that I have over-wintered in mini-plus hives, and either give them drone comb in April or a couple of foundationless frames. One of these already has a superstar queen, so she can stay where she is. I have no idea to what extent this helps me, but hopefully some virgin queens in the area will mate with my lovely drones. I will be using breeder queens from different lines to reduce the chances of inbreeding.
Given the relatively low number of ‘spare’ overwintered queens that I have, and my need to populate two new apiaries with bees, there is a temptation to buy in some early queens. I am going to resist that urge. Once swarm season arrives I should have plenty of opportunity to make increase and, if the weather obliges, get newly produced Walrus queens mated. I can make up nukes and give them a queen cell each. Perhaps those new apiaries will not make tonnes of honey this season, but at least they will go into next winter strong, and headed by my queens, not something from Greece. I enjoy making queens, and believe that mine are as good as (or better than) many purchased offerings.
If anyone wants to say “hello” at Telford on Saturday morning to me or The Mole, please do. I will try to have my friendly face on! Also, if you enjoy these podcasts, please spread the word to other beekeepers who might be interested. Thanks, and have a great day!