Prepping Colonies for Winter

Sat October 30, 2010. The second flow is starting to wind down as the days get shorter and shorter. We have started checking colonies looking for pollen and honey stores that will allow the bees to make it through the winter. We normally try to keep 1 full super or about 60lbs of honey per colony for the bees to feed on. Weather forecasters are saying we will be having a warmer dryer winter this year which will make feeding at some point a must. Colonies that do not have at least 60lbs of honey stored will be fed a 1:1 Sugar Syrup mixture. Normally towards the end of October to the first part of November we start seeing less and less capped brood. This year however due to a semi heavy flow we are seeing larger amounts of capped brood.