It’s been an unusually cold winter and we’ve had record snowfall since December, so we’ve been anxiously waiting to see if the bees have survived. Until the temperature is in the double digits, we can’t remove the hive lid to check on them yet. Bees go into an incredible heat generating mode during the winter, clustering together in a ball and beating their wings quickly to create heat for the group. If the lid is removed, all of that heat escapes and they may not have the reserve energy to begin the process again.
We’ve had a few nice warm days this weekend and we were thrilled to see those honeybees venturing out of the hive to see what kinds of nectar and pollen are available. We don’t know if the queen has survived, but we do know that we have a good number of bees at this point.
As soon as it’s warmer, we’ll remove the lid and have a keek in there. Fingers crossed!
