Autumn chores

Now that the hustle and bustle of the beekeeping season is effectively over things might seem a little subdued. Spring blossom, colony inspections, queen rearing, and heavy honey supers, all feel a long way off.

And they are 😞.

But that's no reason to feel melancholic, or to develop withdrawal symptoms, as there are still a number of beekeeping-related chores that need to be done. Some of them are (relatively) urgent, and others are easier to do now than in the depths of winter.

A third group is better done now than either summer or midwinter.

There's a fourth group — the 'necessary but not in the slightest bit enjoyable' — which we all have to do, but which you might not appreciate a reminder about this soon after the season ends.

For me, this final group includes things like frame-building, sterilising boxes or scrubbing clean Varroa trays.

The great thing about winter is that there's ample procrastination time ahead … you can postpone anything in this fourth group (repeatedly, as my years of experience have shown 😉) for another week or two, without feeling in the least bit guilty.

For now.

The guilt comes at the end of March next year, when you realise that swarming might be starting within a couple of weeks, and you've not got enough frames prepared.

But, largely because this last group of tasks can be postponed, I'm going to talk about other things this week. If you want to read more than you'd ever want to know about building frames, then here's somewhere to start.

Frames

How have I managed to write over 450 posts without having one specifically dedicated to the bane of every beekeeper’s life … frame building? Actually, that’s not quite correct. It’s sometimes the bane of my life {{1}}. Building frames in the height of the season can be a

The ApiaristDavid (The Apiarist)

I've not written about sterilising boxes … maybe I'll think about crafting something amusing {{1}} and informative about blowtorches or soda baths sometime in the distant future.

Amazing … I've also managed to put off writing about a topic that I usually just try to postpone actually doing.

Art really does imitate life 😉.