The Seasons Are Changing

It looks like winter is on its way!  Yesterday we got our first snow of the year.  It has snowed up on the mountains a few times already, but this was the first snow down here in town.  It didn't snow a lot, just enough to cover the grass and ice up the windshield.

Here is a picture of the hive in the little bit of snow we did get.

Not much snow there, but it is chilly enough to keep the bees inside today.

This next picture was taken inside the feeder that I still have in place.

I think the bees must be clustered up in the top of the hive just under the left side of the feeder.  It looks like the cluster is overflowing up into the feeder.  If you look closely, though, you can see some of the bees lined up on the bottom with their heads pointing down- they are feeding on the sugar syrup.  I hope it stays warm enough long enough for the bees to finish off this last batch of syrup.  We are supposed to warm back up to about 50 degrees F (That's about 10 degrees Celsius) later this week.

The following are a few pictures of the Bighorn mountains which I took this morning.  The Bighorns run north and south.  We live just on the west side of the mountains so these pictures are looking east at the western slope.  You should be able to click on the photos and see larger view.

I love the Bighorn mountains!  I think they are one of the most beautiful places on earth and feel truly blessed to live where I do.

Cleansing Flights

Heat wave today! It finally got above 40 degrees. We have had a few days approach 40 but never warm enough for the bees to actually get out of the hives. Consequently, I have not been able to see the bees get out for any cleansing flights. I had looked for the little yellow spots in the snow that are evidence of cleansing flights but had not seen those either... until today.

When I noticed that the temperature was climbing I ran out to look at the hives- lo and behold there were actually a few bees getting out and about. I decided to take this opportunity to peek in the hives and see how winter stores were holding out.


I lifted the cover off of Virginia first- here is a photo of the cluster. I did not pull out any frames or move anything around so as not to disturb the cluster too much. As I looked over the hive I found that they have capped honey left on 4 or 5 of the frames. I didn't have time today but I am still going to supplement Virginia with dry sugar. Maybe 4-5 frames of honey will be enough to get them through, but I don't know enough to be sure yet. There is a huge learning curve when it comes to beekeeping- especially this first year.

I didn't bother with the veil and gloves while looking at Virginia. The bees were so calm- not a single bee flew out of the hive. When I lifted the cover off of Georgia, however, about 4 bees shot out. Maybe they wouldn't have bothered me, but I didn't feel like testing the water. How would I explain a bee sting in February? Anyway, I ran back in and donned the veil and gloves before proceeding.

This is what I saw when I finally got in to take a look at Georgia. It doesn't look like they were organized in such a tight cluster as Virginia. It looks like there are just a lot more bees as well. Georgia developed into a nice strong colony last summer while Virginia kind of dwindled at the end, so I am not surprised to see more bees here. I am a little worried about Georgia swarming during her spring build up so I am planning on performing a procedure called "opening the broodnest" as a method of swarm prevention. I think that Georgia is doing just fine as far as honey supplies go. They have moved up to the top deep hive body, but if you click on the picture to get a larger view, you can see that all the frames are still full of honey.

As I said earlier, there were some bees out on their cleansing flights- just a few though. Bees are very hygienic and won't relieve themselves inside the hive. This means that while it is cold outside the bees have to "hold it" until it gets warm enough outside to fly out and "cleanse" their systems. You can always tell when bees have been performing cleansing flights by the little yellow dots of bee pooh in the snow. Here I was able to capture some evidence of their cleansing flights today. After taking off the veil and gloves I found a little yellow spot on top of my helmet where one little bee decided to say "Hello".




In this next picture you can see the bee that followed me in the house. I pinched it in a paper towel to stop my youngest son from freaking out. When I unfolded it I found this yellow stain that had apparently been squeezed out of the bee. I assume it is the material the bee would have shed during its cleansing flight this afternoon. Don't ask me why but I felt compelled to give it a whiff. Maybe it should come as no surprise, but bee pooh does not have a pleasant odor.

On a completely unrelated note, the honey that we harvested last fall has finally started to crystallize. It has not solidified completely, it just looks kind of cloudy with all the little crystals in it. We pulled the supers off last September so it has taken about 5 months for crystallization to begin. I have no idea how that compares to anyone else's honey. I do know that honey from different nectar sources crystallize at different rates. Dandelion and sunflower honey, for example, will crystallize fairly quickly. In any case, crystallization doesn't affect the flavor and our honey is still the best anywhere (in my unbiased opinion that is).

Snow Bees

Here we are at the end of January and man is this winter dragging! Every year I forget how long it stays cold and start looking for the warm weather before it is ready to arrive.

Anyway, we have had a cold but relatively dry winter up until a few days ago. Over the weekend we got dumped on by a big storm system that came through. By Saturday afternoon we had about 7 inches of snow on the ground.


The bees survive the snow just fine. In fact I doubt they are very aware of it at all. I have read that snow piled up around the hive actually helps to insulate them and protect them from the wind.

I did clear the snow away from the fronts of the hives but I don't know that that was completely necessary. The heat from the hives had already melted the snow directly in front of the entrances. What was interesting was that even though it was only 24 degrees outside when I took this picture, there were bees crawling around the front entrances. They are not supposed to break the cluster until it gets well above freezing. The only thing I can figure is that they were taking advantage of the melting snow in front of the entrances to collect water.


Now back to the subject of feeding Virginia. I know I have changed my mind on this subject a couple of times. Back in December I was worried about both hives and wanted to add some dry sugar as supplemental feed. Then, when I peeked in at the beginning of January, Georgia's bees were still in the bottom deep and Virginia's had moved up to the top- I thought they both had plenty of honey so I quit worrying. Since then I have read that if the bees are to last the winter on their own honey, they should still be working on the bottom deep in the first part of January. Apparently spring can be a precarious time for bees and they can quickly starve to death if they run out of honey stores too early. So now I have decided to supplement Virginia with dry sugar- if we can ever get some warmer days that is. I don't want to chill them to death while I am trying to save them from starving to death.