Hey everyone, as we start to prepare your hives for winter, this year we will be carrying hive mats with us.
What are these?? .... these are essentially vinyl cut to the inner sizing of your hives, they act as a piece of insurance for any unseasonably cold, wet conditions that can impact the brood, without the need to suddenly pack down your hives.
As we have seen recently the weather is somewhat unpredictable and a hive mat helps ensure the brood can stay at a good constant temperature by trapping the generated heat in just the brood box and without the bees having to work harder, which means more time to forage and stay healthy over winter. You will notice we cut them shorter to still allow supers to be accessed and maintained so in qld 1-2 supers can remain on with a good population of bees no problem.
There is also a bonus the mats we use have felt backings which the adult have beetle have a hard time with as it catches the claws on thier legs, so they will help drop the population of hive beetle going into spring.
These mats will be just $10 from Grace and myself so if we forget to offer or put one in be sure to ask us.
Thanks and Bee Wiser
Rick and team.
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