Dead-out

One of my hives died recently. 

I don't know exactly when, but I suspect it happened during our recent cold snap when nighttime temperatures dropped to 10 degrees. 

Bees survive the cold by clustering in a tight ball and flexing their wing muscles to generate warmth. This colony was undersized going in to December, so I didn't have a lot of hope for them.

Colonies died over winter. It's something all beekeepers must plan for. Small colonies can be lifeboated by placing them atop another colony separated by a double screenboard to keep the two colonies from mixing pheremones, which could cause one queen to try to kill the other.

I considered lifeboating this one, but its likely partner was fairly small itself and I worried about being able to tend them both if they needed additional resources.

The dead-out solved that problem. The unused resources from the dead hive, including multiple frames of capped honey, went to the White hive, inproving its chances of survival.

Waiting for Spring

It's that time of year when the bees hunker down and wait for spring. I'm right there with them.

Until I became a beekeeper, I never really thought about what bees did in the winter. I guess I assumed they died out or went underground.

The fact is that they huddle together like penguins in Antarctica flexing their wing muscles to generate the heat needed to keep the colony alive. These bees can live up to six months and have more body fat that their summer sisters.

The winter crew lives off of the honey stored by the summer workforce, moving upward through the stores as the winter progresses. If all goes well, they will have exhausted their reserves about the time the first blossoms appear in the spring.

To give them a little nutritive cushion, I will add candyboards -- blocks of hard sugar -- to the hives between now and March. That will help the smaller colonies make it all the way to spring, hopefully.