I haven't been able to check the bees this year. In fact, it hasn't been warmer than fifty degrees since sometime in the middle of October. I usually take a peak every month or so and see how they are doing. Not so this year.
Today it was 55 degrees in the apiary. So I thought I'd take a peak.
The white stuff is snow. If you look closely, there's thousands (literally) of dead bees around each of the boxes. (2 stacked boxes, 1 rock = 1 hive) There is another stack of bees in the snow behind this hive.
I've never seen anything like this. I can only postulate that it was so cold, so quickly that many of the bees died in the hive. The bees were removed by house bees in the last couple of days. I was concerned that the hives might not survive the cold. If you look closely, though, there are bees coming and going from both hives.
And?
These two hive are really healthy. They have lots of food (pollin and honey) to take them through the rest of the winter. WHOO HOO!The hive along the fence died - bees frozen solid. It's very sad, but I am so delighted that ANY of the hives survived this cold, cold winter.
It's a good day!
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