Winter Beekeeping: How to Keep Learning When You Can’t Open the Hive

Ever felt like you don’t know what to do with yourself because it’s winter and you can’t be into your bees? At least in the PNW, that’s a very real concern for beekeepers. I’m sure some like the break, and I do too, for the first two weeks to a month. After that, I start to miss being in the bees. Beekeeping is my hobby, my side hussle, and how I relax all at the same time. So the first little bit of winter you just might find me “lost”. Sure, I have other things that take up my free time- family and friends, the holidays, extra music practice and winter wheeling. But none have quite the same effect as working my bees. Working them brings calm to a stressful situation, and clarity to my life, unlike almost anything else in my life besides God. So the winter can be a hard time for a beekeeper.

But I’ve found some things to do during the winter that actually make it quite an important part of the beekeeping season, even for those of us who may be snowed in this time of year, with the bee yard almost a chore just to tromp out to, for the knee to waist deep snow into between.

There may not be as much to do in the hive, but a beekeeper should never stop learning. I’ve heard it said, that beekeepers are citizen scientists. And I believe it’s true, we’re a little bit crazy to willingly stand in the middle of thousands of stinging insects, loving every minute of it. We’re a strange bunch, ever learning all we can about these tiny insects. But if we hope for them to survive under our care, we really must keep learning. As more pests and threats come to the honey bee, we must do our best to stay one step ahead of the curve.

One of my favorite ways to learn is through podcasts. My favorite beekeeping podcast is the Bee Love podcast, sponsored by Mann Lake. The neat thing, is they aren’t pushing Mann Lake products but instead are really educational in an entertaining sort of way. One of my favorite episodes is Keeping Bees in Single Deep Broodboxes. I haven’t yet gotten a chance to try his method, but I’m fascinated by it. They interview beekeepers who are pioneering new discoveries in beekeeping like this man who invented solar hive heaters. I find it a good way to keep up to date on new beekeeping developments.

YouTube is another invaluable resource during this time in earth’s history. One of my favorite channels is run by a master beekeeper named David Burns. He knows beekeeping, and is educational and informative. So often with YouTube beekeepers will begin to share “helpful tips” when they really don’t know much bc they are beginners too. This is one channel I’ve found that seems to be reliable, and mainstream for the beekeeping industry.

If you’d like to check out my channel, I’ll link it here as well. I don’t have the best recording equipment, so my videos currently leave much to be desired. Some of my more helpful videos share what a hive that is too hot acts like, how to tell if your hive is queenless from their buzzing, and how to transfer a nuc to a full size hive.

Books are another great resource, but keep in mind that books generally cannot have the most up to date information in them, since it takes so long for a book to actually be published, and make it to store and library shelves.

As with YouTube, it’s necessary to be cautious with forums, because Great Aunt Suzy can post on them, even though she’s never kept bees a day in her life, but the more time you spend on a forum, the more you’ll be able to recognize top contributors and who is just a little wacky. My favorite beekeeping forum is BeeSource. This forum is an excellent way to get answers to timely questions, and it’s not uncommon for me to ask a question and get an answer within half an answer from someone who’s kept bees for 30 plus years.

I like to use winter to continue learning and also plot where I’d like to see my apiary go in the coming year. I’ll share a post about this soon. Enjoy your time off, but keep learning as you can. There’s always something more to learn about honey bees!