We removed the queen excluder and left the hive with a super on with 3 frames of capped honey and others with honey and nectar.
The brood box has plenty of frames with honey and nectar and we are confident that this should supply the bees with sufficient food until the spring. We will heft the hive to give us a sign of how much food they have in mid-winter.
We will then decide if they need feeding with fondant with a nectar supplement.
On reflection, we should have opened the hive more in the warm weather. However, our feeling is that we should leave the honeybees alone as far as is possible. Only opening the hive to check the brood and the laying of the queen.
As this is our first year with a 2019 queen we have had no problems. She has laid consistently and is easy to find on the frames. We wait to find out if she will be that same in 2020?
Our main concern this year has been the wasps and the varroa mites. Although our traps were good, https://newbeekeeper.co.uk/2019/08/06/update-on-wasp-traps/ the choice of bait could have been better and more tuned to the wasps feeding needs.
We dealt with the varroa and are now looking to treat again in the spring. https://newbeekeeper.co.uk/2019/10/04/varroa/ Although our queen did not produce a large number of drone cells we still had an infestation.
We have left the solid floor off the hive as we believe that the circulating air will prevent condensation. Damp is known to kill a colony of bees that are overwintering. I may well place some polystyrene under the top of the roof as it is a metal-clad one. This will stop any condensation forming on the underside of the metal.
Next year will use queen excluders that are within a frame. Ideally, with the frame having a bee space on one side and two bee spaces on the other.
Also, we are going to use a polystyrene National hive. Two reasons for this approach.
First, we may need to split the hive next year as an anti swarming technique. Second, the poly hive has been found to give the nuc an early start to foraging. Therefore allowing the honeybees to build a strong colony earlier and with more honey and nectar store for the winter.