When summer gives way to fall, some beekeepers start winter preparations to ensure that they have the best chances of overwintering success. The truly smart ones start much earlier. In fact, from the moment hives start building up in the springtime, everything a beekeeper does throughout the season should be in preparation for winter. This includes mite treatments and utilizing methods to ensure that the queen has plenty of room to lay and smart management to keep everything in balance - from food supplies to a good water source, adequate hive ventilation and strong pest control.
Successful overwintering final preparations include putting good ventilation practices in place, along with feeding systems that will keep the bees fed in winter should they run out of stores or, in extreme cases, in the event that it's so cold that the cluster can't move to where the stores are.
One piece of equipment that you may have never considered as an important part of this is the Vivaldi board - a vital element that can actually be used year-round to help maintain a good balance in your hive as winter turns sometimes brutal. Whether you believe in climate change or not, the fact of the matter is that we are seeing extreme swings in weather each year and it's nearly impossible now to guess what winter holds based on El Nino or La Nina patterns alone.
There's a common misconception that frigid cold temperatures kill bees, but that's not accurate. The cold is a contributing factor to what can cause hive loss but the fact of the matter is that it's not the cold in and of itself, it's the moisture and condensation that builds up inside the hive that typically kills a hive, sometimes overnight. When the air outside is cold, natural forces at work inside the 90-plus degree hive interior cause condensation to form along the inside walls and the top of the hive. When that moisture builds to a certain point it can drip down on the bees in the cluster with fatal results.
The Vivaldi board is a fantastic piece of engineering that, in combination with a moisture board and moisture quilt (more on that later in a separate article), works to mitigate condensation by providing ventilation and a constant source of easily accessible food should stores run low. In my case, I often leave the Vivaldi board on the hive throughout the summer as well to help provide additional ventilation during the hot summer days.
Bees work year-round to control ventilation on their own by sealing up cracks with propolis in strategic locations to help guide air flow to where its needed and by leaving the board on year-round, they are not suddenly confused just before the cold season by a hive that has been reconfigured, changing the airflow patterns that they have established.
Here's how the Vivaldi board works. Think of it as an inner-cover with higher walls - sides that include ventilation slots and a central raised box that can hold sugar bricks or pollen patties, depending on need. The bees access the food by climbing up through the central hole and are confined by a mesh that they can not get through. As a beekeeper, checking emergency food stores is easy because all one needs to do is take the top off of the hive in order to quickly check how much of the sugar brick is left. If all looks good, the job is done. If the sugar brick is nearly gone, it's easy to replace it without exposing the entire hive to the elements, thereby losing any warmth that the bees have carefully maintained between the frames. In the summertime, when the sugar brick is no longer needed, simply flip the screened food box upside down to keep the bees from building comb inside the Vivaldi board and allowing the empty space to provide ventilation and an air blanket both.
True, there are other methods to feed bees over winter. Some use the 'Mountain camp' method (putting sugar down directly over the frames) or using a candy board. These are both good options and generally provide enough emergency food to hold the hive through winter but in my case, I've found that it can cause me to become lazy over winter by not checking the hive as often as I should. Additionally, those methods require that you expose a lot more of the inner hive to the elements when inpecting stores. With the Vivaldi board, you are only opening a part of the hive that has one small hole where warmth can leak out.
Kitsap Beekeeping generally offers a discount on overwintering supplies during August and into early September. There will be a special discount code to enter on checkout and this year, the code is FALL2025KB. In 2026 the code will be FALL2026KB and so forth with each passing year. This discount is good on all qualifying overwintering equipment (moisture boards, moisture quilt, Vivaldi boards, etc.) and can not be combined with any other offer or discount.
Whether you buy from us or someone else, it's vital that you go into winter prepared. We are a small business in Port Orchard, Washington that works hard to help you bee successful. As our business grows, we will qualify for better pricing from our vendors and that will result in lower prices for you over time. Every order, every good review, every kind word matters to us as we work to grow this business so it can become your go-to local supplier for hives and equipment that you often need in a pinch.
And winter is truly a big pinch. Are you ready? If not, we are. Let us help. Thank you for supporting local small business.
