With the colder weather coming, beekeepers all over the country are getting their hives winter-ready. The experienced beekeepers are harvesting the honey as well, but new-bees like me (get it? newbies? lame, I know) won't be taking any honey this year. My hive will need their whole load, about 50-60 lbs, to feed themselves through the winter, with no leftovers for me.

Pesticides are coming up a lot in the winterizing conversations. We need to make sure that our hive is as healthy and strong as possible going into winter, and that means keeping in check all the potential life-threatening parasites and diseases. Varroa mites, tracheal mites, Nosema, and more. Each potential threat comes with one or more toxic chemicals that are offered as treatments.

Hobby beekeepers like me can avoid all these chemicals with just a little effort. For example, I successfully got rid of Varroa mites, nasty little white buggers that eat away at the new bee larvae, with powdered sugar. I sprinkled the "nursery" (brood chamber) with the sugar so when the mites try to crawl from one larvae to another, they slip and fall to the bottom of the hive. With repeat applications I succeeded in riding the hive of those little pests. And, its cheaper and safer than any chemical treatments.

Tracheal mites crawl into the bee's throats (I actually didn't know that bees had throats until I learned about this mite) and suffocate my poor little bees. But, I can prevent this disaster by providing the bees with fat patties to eat. I make them with a 1:1 mix of lard and sugar, and freeze them in muffin tins. The bees eat them for the sugar, but the lard coats their throats and prevents the mites from sticking. Double bonus because it provides an added food source for the bees during these low-pollen times of the year. Triple bonus if I ever feel like munching on a frozen lard-sugar patty while watching TV some evening... which hasn't happened yet.

On a related note, did you know that there is almost nowhere in the U.S. where organic honey can be produced. The beekeeper may  avoid chemical use in the hive, and the hives may be placed in fields where no chemicals are used, but the honey can't be certified as organic because bees forage as far as five miles from their hive location. 

Since bees and other pollinators are required to produce one of every three mouthfuls of food we eat ($15 billion of agriculture requires pollinators), it seems that growers would also take an interest in eliminating or reducing their use of bee-toxic pesticides. We need to work together, with beekeepers, growers, and government regulators, to cancel or severely reduce the use of bee-toxic agriculture pesticides. Now.

More information on why bees need protection is here at our NRDC website