As I write this it is late February and we're just having that short period of welcome warm weather that we get around this time of year that fools you into thinking spring has sprung. Give it a few days and the arctic blast will be back with vengeance.

It's also the time of year when I hear Beekeepers complaining that their Bees have died. I sit and listen or read with sympathy but when I look at the circumstances most of the time it is avoidable.

So, I'm going to detail the actions I take to ensure that my Bees get through the winter. I'm not saying I don't lose hives through the winter, and any beekeeper who says they don't lose hives is telling lies, but I like to know that I have done everything in my power to minimise my losses.

These tips are intended for people who don't take their hives to the Heather, I'll give some additional tips that cover the Heather Hives

This is the probably the most important thing to get right and a lot of Beekeepers get wrong. Sadly, it's been wrong for so long the Beekeepers who get it wrong are now teaching it other beekeepers.

First of all, when to start feeding. I always start in mid-August not October as some Beekeepers are being taught. As soon as I take the supers off, I start feeding. I go down to the Apiary with the back of the truck full of Feeders and Syrup and come back full of supers.

I start in August feeding 2:1 syrup (2 Parts Sugar to 1 Part Water) and I keep feeding up until either the Bees stop taking the Syrup or the beginning of October whichever is earlier. Even if they stop taking the syrup I will leave the feeder on with some syrup in until October just in case they start taking it again. Which can be the case if we have a cold snap. During the six weeks I'm feeding I will be checking the weight of the hive. My general rule of thumb, and bearing in mind I use 14x12 hives, is if I can lift a hive I haven't fed it enough. Then as I said I keep feeding until the beginning of October and then remove the feeders and take them home and clean them.

That's it then for feeding until Christmas. If they were heavy enough at the beginning of October, then they should be OK well beyond Christmas.

During Christmas week I will go round all my Hives and place a block of fondant on top of the Crown Board. This is the Bees Christmas Present. From now on I visit my Hives every 2 weeks checking the weight of the Hive and adding more fondant as require. At this time of year, the colonies are expanding and can go through stores very quickly.

This continues until late February at which point I change from Fondant to Pollen Patties. Pollen Patties are blocks of Fondant mixed with Pollen. This gives the Bees an addition protein boost to assist in the raising of Brood.

I finally stop feeding Pollen Patties normally at the end of March or Beginning of April when the Cherry Laurel starts to flower. The Cherry Laurel normally flowers about 2 weeks before the Oil Seed Rape starts to flower which is my first main crop of the year. At this point its Pollen Patties off and Supers on.

Never feed Bees when the Supers are on as it leads to contamination of the Honey.

This is another subject where there is apocryphal information floating around.

Varroa is a tiny parasitic mite. They ride around on the back of the Bees and feeds on the Bees Fat Bodies. All hives have Varroa to some extent and a heavy infestation can kill a colony of overwintering Bees. I use the following graph, provided by the National Bee Unit, when I determine If I should treat my Bees.

There is a fallacy among Beekeepers that a colony needs a Queen from this year to get them through the winter. This is wrong. This year's Queen is not necessarily the best. If she wasn't mated well then, she may run out of steam halfway through the winter. I've come across numerous colonies over the years where I've found that the colony has started to supersede the queen in the autumn because they are not happy with her. As Beekeepers we need to look at our hive and see how well the queen is laying.  If you can find the queen then look at her attendants, if they form a nice star pattern around the queen when she isn't moving then she's well mated. If the queen is on her own with no attendants, then I'd be worried. This is all down to the pheromone levels in the Queen. The more pheromones she's giving off the more attentive the Bees.

This one is a bit obvious really. In essence the more you put in the more you get out. So, the more Bees going into winter affects the number of Bees coming out of winter. Bees do gradually die off over winter and a colony can get to the point where there are not enough Bees to keep the colony warm and supplied with food and the colony collapses.

We can avoid this by making sure we have big strong colonies going into winter. This is where we need to be objective as Beekeepers and need to make hard decisions. If we have two weak colonies. Rather than try to nurse them through the winter and hope they get through it is better to unite them into one large colony that has a better chance to reach the spring. In September we need to be assessing our colonies and make the hard decision to kill a queen and unite weak stocks.

I have to say this is something I'm guilty of. I don't like killing queens. I want to be "nice", but you do have to make that hard decision.

Make sure all of you Hives are in good condition. If not swap them out.

Most of my hives have 10" deep roofs this almost gives a second skin to the hive. This prevents the wind and damp driving into the sides of the brood box.

I also tend to not use poly hives. I find in a wooden hive the Bees cluster tightly and don't use stores as fast. Whereas in a poly hive because of the added insulation the bees don't have to cluster so tightly which leads them to being more active which results in them using more stores.

Location is vitally important. One of the biggest killers of Bees in the winter is the damp. You tend to lose more colonies in a warm damp winter than in a cold dry winter. Make sure the apiary is well drained. Cut back any long grass in the autumn just to get better air flow around the hives. Make sure the hives get full sun for at least part of the day.

The problem with going to the Heather is that we bring the Hives back in mid-September which to me is getting too close to the October cut off. I've known year when I've brought the Hives back and winter started the next day. So, you have very limited time to get them ready for winter.

I put the first varroa treatments on before I bring them down. It just saves that little bit of time.

Fortunately, the Hives normally come back with the brood box full of heather honey. Now some Beekeeper will say that you should never over winter hives with Heather. They say it is because the moisture content of heather is higher which leads to fermentation and causes dysentery. I've never had this problem. What I will do however is feed them as soon as they are into the lowland apiary and I will use a bucket feeder to feed them. I find that they seem to take it quicker than if I use a Miller or Ashcroft feeder.