Landblog/Houseblog

Snow bees -- 11 February 2014 -- The last time I opened the hive was early August, half a year ago. That gave the bees plenty of time to gather more stuff, arrange it all for winter, and seal up the hive. In October they still had not kicked the drones out, but they're definitely gone now. I peek in the window about once a week, and I was expecting to see a large population to eat their way front to back through the honeycombs, but instead I've watched a declining population stay at the front of the hive. Best case: they know what they're doing, it's normal for Carniolan queens to stop laying in winter, and they'll come back strong in spring. Worst case: the queen is dead. I'm also afraid I accidentally took too much pollen in my last harvest and they have nothing to feed the brood.

Anyway, in the photo above you can the bees coming out into the snow this morning. Spokane has just come out of an unseasonal early February deep freeze. It didn't get above freezing for about two weeks, the coldest night was -3F (-19C), and about six inches of snow built up. Today it's sunny and probably 50 degrees (10C) in the south-facing hive yard, so there was a lot of action at the hive entrance. Bees were landing in the snow, sunning themselves on the grass fence, and pooping:

Also, if you look at the hive photo above, you can see that they're not using the top entrance at all. They prefer the front, so I've drilled a total of five holes and three are sealed with corks. On the coldest nights I closed the front down to one hole. You never want to completely close it because they need ventilation to get the moisture out. As it warms up more, I'll gradually open more holes. If the queen is healthy, they have massive honey stores and will regrow their population with no supplemental feeding.

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