Preparing for Next Year with the Advent of Autumn Bee Square Yamada Bee Farm

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Preparing for Next Year with the Advent of Autumn

Yamada Bee Farm Beekeeping Division
Takayuki Ono

The hot summer in the bee farm has finally come to an end, but we have already started preparing for the coming spring.
Not only is the change from Autumn to Winter short, the turning of the seasons is generally rather fast. I find one year for beekeeping really so short that I wish I had one extra week for each flower season.
When the Karasusansho (Zanthoxylum ailanthoides) flowers that bloom during the Bon period and then those of the Taranoki (Angelica Tree) and Nurude (Sumac) end,

the honey from Coppice trees that has been collected by bees since spring is nearly finished. Now, the season for the cosmos flowers in the countryside is drawing to a close and Seitakawadachiso (Goldenrod) flowers that dye fallow fields and vacant lots in bright yellows will soon be in bloom. Because honey from goldenrod flowers is not normally collected, I have never had any. In any case, it doesn't look delicious at all. For bees, however, the goldenrod flower is a very important source of nectar and provides plenty of nectar required for passing the upcoming winter.

Around the first day of autumn, the hornets, the most dreadful natural enemy of honeybees, begin to attack the beehives. In this region, there are relatively large numbers of the largest variety of hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica). They are feared by the local people who refer to them as "Onika." We set up devices to exterminate the hornets before the Bon period to be adequately prepared for hornet attacks. Still, quite a number of beehives end up being attacked.
Honeybees originally come from Europe where there are no hornets. As honeybees have been domesticated, beekeepers need to protect them.
Honeybees making up stronger swarms containing greater numbers of bees may stand up to the hornets to desperately protect their swarm, resulting in more deaths. It's a really bitter experience to find a mountain of dead worker bees who have been bitten to death by hornets at the entrance to their own beehive. Honeybees with weaker swarms (comprising smaller numbers of less bees) dare not fly out of their beehive, fearing the hornets that fly outside making a cracking sound with their large jaws. This leads to less storage in the beehive, less eggs, and a gradually smaller number of worker bees. If we are not careful enough, several hornets may enter the beehive through the hive entrance to damage the entire beehive. They make dumplings from larvae they pull out of the honeycomb cells and take them to their own hive to feed their larvae.
Hornets are also predestined in the natural world to protect their own swarms and to preserve their species, so the attacks may be considered unavoidable. However, I can't help but feel rather angry as a beekeeper if a swarm in a beehive is wiped out.

There are more than 40,000 bees in each beehive during the peak period, but even if there is no hornet attack, the number of bees gradually decreases as the autumn breezes begin to blow. Then, the honeycomb plates used for laying eggs and storing honey and pollen become unnecessary, and we remove them as the number of bees decreases. If there are too many honeycomb plates relative to the number of bees, the bees become more sparse, lowering the temperature inside the beehive that should be kept around 35 degrees centigrade. Thus, the area in which the bees reside should always be suitably crowded.
In this manner, the autumn for the beekeepers passes in the twinkling of an eye.