Snow Bees

Here are the hives a few weeks after our record breaking December snow. The hives are on on the back side of a slight rise so the sun doesn't hit the ground there full strength. This day was beautiful, 54 degrees when I went into the hives, clear, sunny, and no wind. When I got to the hives there was just a little activity. Still I only had the top open for about 3.5 minutes each hive. It was just a quick trip to see if both colonies were alive (they are!), feel the weight of the hives doing the hive tipping method (they were both still fairly heavy but definitely lighter than November), and put in some bee candy and pollen substitute. Hopefully the queen is laying but I don't know if there is a way to tell. There were a couple handfuls of dead bees in the snow but it didn't seem like that many so I guess that is just normal die off.

I can see why the call the bees a "cluster" in the winter. They were packed into the smaller area across these 5 frames instead of being spread out across all of them as they were during the summer. Hive 1 they were even tighter spread across 4 frames. Maybe Hive 1 has a smaller population at this point. It is hard to tell without being able to pull frames or view them for a longer period of time.

The ventilation problem I had before appears to be resolved. The inner cover was nice and dry. Another month or so until the earliest trees start blooming!