The care you give the colony, or colonies, in the fall can be crucial to your success the following year. Because of this, fall management is often considered the starting point in providing strong colonies to produce the next year's honey crop. Each colony should have enough honey and pollen to last until spring. This means 40 to 60 pounds of honey and as many combs with areas of stored pollen as possible. A well-filled deep hive body with some empty space in the center combs provides enough stores for a strong colony wintered in two hive bodies.

It is more difficult to rate the pollen supply, but colonies with a shortage can be given combs from other colonies or given stored combs that contain pollen. Bees winter best on combs that have been used for brood rearing. If possible, do not winter bees on all new honey combs, and be sure that any frames of foundation are replaced with drawn comb.

Weak or queenless colonies should be united with stronger colonies that have queens. If you want to keep the individual small colonies rather than unite them, consider putting the small colony above a double division screen on a large colony. A double screen is a wooden frame holding two layers of wire screen, usually 8-mesh. The screens are sufficiently far apart that bees on either side cannot touch. A rim with an entrance cut in one end lets the division screen serve as a bottom for the top colony while the heat from the colony below helps to keep the smaller colony warm. To use the screen, remove the cover and inner cover of the large, colony and put the division screen in place with the entrance toward the back of the hive. Put the small colony above the screen after making certain it has a good supply of stored honey of at least five or six full frames.

Good management includes a careful inspection for disease in the fall. If you follow a program of disease prevention with drugs and antibiotics, each colony should be treated after the honey crop has been removed and while the bees are still active.

A double division screen in place on top of a hive. The small entrance is suitable for winter but should be enlarged for use at other times of the year. As the weather becomes cooler at the end of summer, field mice look for warm places to spend the winter. A nest in the lower corner of a bee hive is just such a place. For this reason it is necessary either to use the 3/8-inch entrance or to restrict any deeper entrance used during the summer. An entrance block, a piece of lath with an entrance slot, or a metal entrance reducer can be used. Do not make the entrance less than 4 inches wide or cover it with hardware cloth because the bees that die during the An unwelcome guest winter may block the entrance.

The colder the winters, the more the bees benefit from a top entrance to the hive. This entrance permits the escape of some of the moisture produced by the bees. The top entrance also lets the bees get out of the hive more readily during brief spells of sunny and warmer weather during the winter and spring when it is still too cool to allow the bees to move down to the main entrance of the hive. You can make a top entrance by boring a 3/4-inch hole in the top hive body near the front hand hold. Otherwise, you may cut a 3-inch by 3/8-inch slot in the front lower rim of the inner cover. Push the telescoping cover forward to provide access to the opening. Similar entrances can be made in one-piece covers by cutting a slot with a dado blade on a saw.

More honey bee colonies survive the winter and are stronger in the spring if they are routinely fed the antibiotic Fumidil-BĒ to control Nosema disease. Each colony should be given 2 gallons of sugar syrup (2 parts sugar to I part water) containing the antibiotic.

Wind protection is important to good wintering. Shrubs, fences, or other artificial windbreaks help the colonies survive by slowing the loss of heat from the hives Snow may completely cover the hives without damaging the bees but the hives should not be located where water may collect. The winter apiary site should also be on a slope or in an area where cold air will flow away from the hives and not collect around them. If your winter apiary location does not permit the sun to shine on the hives or is undesirable in other ways for wintering, plan to move the bees to a better location.

Losses of bees during winter are often high in spite of increasing knowledge about the biology and management of honey bees. Many bees of all ages die in the hive. Losses appear to be greater in very large and very small colonies as compared with those of moderate size. It is not uncommon for more than half of the bees in a colony to die, and for 10 percent or more of the colonies to die. Starvation, either from lack of honey or from inability to reach the honey in extremely cold weather (cold starvation), is the most common cause of winter death of colonies.