Preparing hives for winter

I was out on Sunday to check my hives starting to get them ready for winter.  The two south hives here have treatment for mites in them and have a feeder in the top box feeding them so they have enough honey stored for the long winter months.  There are lots of bees coming and going gathering nectar and pollen to, mostly from the goldenrod, I think.

The south too hives are preparing too, though I don't have a feeder for the small nucleus hive.  I am not sure that it will make it.  If it doesn't produce a good queen by the end of October, I will probably just combine it back with the hive to its left where it came from.  The odds are against it developing a good queen this late in the season.

This is the North hive (the one on the far right above) before I "smoked" the hive to drive the bees down off of the top.  The little tray on top holds the mite treatment, and still had a little left.  This hive had lots of nectar and pollen stored in the top box.

This is a center frame out of that top box that is almost completely capped with honey.  The capping is rather dark, but this is honey rather than brood and was very heavy.

This is the original hive -- one on the far left in the above pictures-- before I smoked the top.  Lots of bees in this hive too and they had completely finished off the mite treatment.  It takes two treatments two weeks apart, so I put the second treatment on.

This is one of the center frames out of the top box in that hive that shows lots of nectar with much of it capped as finished honey.

This is the other center frame out of that box showing even more capped honey ready for winter.

This is the center frame out of the middle large hive -- one made from a split of the far left hive in May.  This has some capped honey and some nectar in the center frame but I hope to see lots more by winter.  They have a month left to build up those stores, though, so I think it will be OK.

This isn't OK though.  I saw several hive beetles in this hive last week when I went through it and reduced it down, and saw one beetle this week, which is shown here by the arrow.  There was a bee on its tail chasing it down into the comb, which is good.  I panicked a bit when I saw the beetles, but I think all of these hives are strong enough to deal with them.  They are only a real problem in a weak hive.  Not want I want to see, though, going into winter.