Winter Warm-up

Today was the first day in more than a month that the temperature got above 50 degrees, which meant the bees had a chance to get outside, stretch their wings a bit and -- most importantly -- poop. Or as we beekeepers put it, go potty.

Bees don't do their business while inside the hive, so they have to hold it until the weather allows them to fly around outside. That typically means temperatures above 50, but I've seen a few bees out in the mid-to-high 40s. Those must have really had to go.

I took the opportunity to do a quick check on the girls just to see how things are going inside my four hives. This time of year, the check has to be as non-invasive as possible, so as not to cost the bees the heat they've built up inside. So I lifted the lids and removed the sugar boards to take a quick peek.

I'm happy to report that all four appear to be in good shape. White and Periwinkle were hunkered down down deep where they should be while a few bees came and went. Yellow and Mighty Blue were like Grand Central Station at their entrances with comings and goings while inside they were stacked to the rafters with bees. I'm taking this as good omens for what Spring will bring.

Each hive has a cake of sugar on top as a reserve food source for when they exhaust their honey supplies, probably around March. Blue has been chewing its sugar cake pretty much since I gave it to them in December. The rest have either left theirs untouched or just now started into them. 

I'll prep a few extra cakes for them this week to supplement their reserves through the end of the month. Hopefully, by that time, the flowers and trees will be blooming their heads off and the bees can start making honey.

Winter Bees

It's snowing outside, which means it's also time to clear the entrances on my four hives to keep the bees inside healthy with plenty of fresh air.

The question of where bees go in the winter is one I hadn't considered before becoming a beekeeper. Did they burrow in the ground? Or just die out while the next generation waited to emerge somewhere? The answer is neither.

Honeybees hunker down for the winter, riding out the cold weather in a tight cluster surrounded by the honey and pollen they collected during the summer and fall.

Actually, the bees that did all the work of gathering supplies for the winter are long gone by the time the first leaves begin to fall. That's because summer bees live around six weeks. They emerge and do their work more or less between March and about October, leaving behind a legacy that will carry the hive into the future.

The bees that ride out the winter -- the winter bees -- are fatter than their summer sisters and can live up to six months, giving them better odds of making it through to Spring. Snuggled inside their hives, they flex their wing muscles to generate the heat needed to keep the colony alive.

Like penguins in Antarctica, they rotate slowly between the heart of the cluster, where the queen stays, and the outer edges where the cold starts. Together, they can keep the hive temperature hovering around 70 degrees F, cooler than the 90+ degrees in summer but still plenty to keep everyone comfy.

Ideally, bees go into winter with food stores surrounding their nest and hanging over their heads. Over the course of the winter, they move up as they eat through their supplies. The risk is they'll run out of food before they run out of winter. I had the unfortunately experience last Spring of opening a hive only to find all of the bees head-down in their empty honeycomb. They had starved to death.

To prevent that, I give my bees blocks of compacted granulated sugar (aka candy boards) that they can chow down on while waiting for the Spring nectar flow to start. This year's blocks are smaller than they were last year, so I'll probably have to provide extra candy as they get closer to Spring.

In the meantime, I'll be pressing my ear to the hives between now and March to hear the girls humming to themselves all snug inside.

How We Got Here

On a lovely day in mid-April 2023, I loaded two narrow boxes made of corrugated plastic into the back of my Forester. Each hummed menacingly.

The six-mile trip home was the most carefully I have ever driven. With just a piece of silver duct tape holding down the lid on each box, I felt for sure I was one hard-hit pothole or taken-too-fast turn away from complete disaster.

At home, I carried each box up the hill to the spot in the back yard where my property meets the neighbors' woods and set them carefully on the wooden stand I had built to receive them.

Next to each box sat a freshly painted wooden box, one blue and the other yellow (because slava ukraini). The following day, decked out in my white jacket, gloves and veil and with my smoker close by, I transferred the residents of the white boxes into their new homes. 

With that, I became a beekeeper.