Late July Winter Feed Prep and Consolidation

Summer 2024 has been a busy one from a life perspective. Lots of work travel across Canada and Western Africa. Mix it in with my other outdoor hobbies (kayaking, hiking and fishing), I didn't have much time for my bees. They are doing well and pretty much ready for winter.
This video was taken July 28 or 29th just before leaving for Guinea where I was doing some work. (I was gone all of August). As you will see, the bees even at this point are pretty much ready for winter with little risk of starvation.
I managed to run my colonies with one or two inspections per month. I ran them in larger volumes to help me manage swarming issues. So all my colonies are headed into winter in 1.5 to 2.5 deeps. I also collected more honey this year about 60-70lbs from 2 colonies. It is about double what I usually get which shows that less is more (fewer more purposeful inspections) is better.
I have had to do two newspaper combines to deal with queenless colonies.

[@dougstucki8253]

I'm going to have to do a couple of newspaper combines too after finding two queenless hives today. They were older queens and I think my Randy Oliver method thymol blocks may have been a little too strong. It's actually good though because I have two new queens in 5 frame nucs that I can add. One of them is my HiveIQ, so given the size difference I will probably have to just cage the queen with a candy plug and add the frames.

[@etiennetardif6552]

just finished converting some of my old wintering gear to the HiveIQ geometry!! I will get them in tomorrow morning

[@aaronparis4714]

Why do you feed 1-1 should I feed 1-1’or 2-1 I’m in Nova Scotia

[@etiennetardif6552]

I start with 1:1 in late July and then switch to 2:1 for the remainder of August and early September

[@aaronparis4714]

@@etiennetardif6552 I understand

[@mikkoainasoja5018]

how much feed your bees need in Winter?

[@etiennetardif6552]

I will put in 10 to 20L max per colony. Most are actually close to ready when I pull my honey. The syrup is to give them the fuel to raise the final rounds of brood and backfill the shrinking nest.