A warm-up on Valentine's Day

The temperatures got into the mid-50s F on Valentine's Day and my concerns about only one of my two hives surviving were relieved.  There were clearly bees flying in front of both hives that went into the winter. 

Here bees can be seen hovering in front of both hives and walking around on the bottom boards.  The hovering activity are, I think, orienting flights, suggesting that there are some new bees beginning to be produced in these hives, as this is a behavior exhibited by new foraging bees when they first start to leave the hive.

Focusing in on the north hive, there are little bits of white grains on the bottom board, which are bits of the sugar that I had placed in the hive for emergency food in November.  For some reason, they are removing some of the sugar rather than eating it.  I have seen this before in certain hives, but not sure what it means.  Perhaps they are just removing bits of sugar that are difficult to consume, or they may view the sugar board as sort of an intrusion and therefore are removing it. 

This still the north hive with bees flying in front and milling around on the bottom board.  You can see the bits of sugar here too.  I don't want to open up the hive to see how much sugar has been consumed until it is in the 60s outside and there is no prospect  of that anytime soon. 

Here are bees flying in front of the south hive, that hadn't shown much if any activity on the last warm day, so I was concerned for its survival.  The amount of activity shown here is very reassuring. 

Again, flying bees at the south hive.  Also seem to be flying orienting flights. 

Each hives also has a top entrance -- a hole in the top box containing the sugar block.  This is a bee coming out of the top entrance in the north hive.  I saw several using that entrance though it was not nearly as active as the bottom board.  The other hive also has a top entrance though I accidentally put the box on  backwards so it is on the back of the hive away from the entrance.  I did see one or two bees using that entrance as well.

Now ice

A few warm days and some rain has taken most of the snow away, but the last bit of rain left a glaze of ice on everything. 

The weeping cherry tree in front of our house wears a coating of ice.

Grape vines

Ice on trees along the lane.

Ice covered bushes farther down the lane.

Groundhog day thaw

On Groundhog Day, the snow was still on, but we were starting to get a thaw with temperatures approaching 50 F.  There you can see that there is finally some gravel starting to show through on our lane.

Much of our lane, though is partially shaded by woods along the south side of the road.  This means that the snow and ice stays on longer than in other areas. 

This is the township road that leads away from the entrance to our lane, looking to the south.  You can still see a glaze of ice on the roadway but some gravel becoming visible.

I, of course, checked my hives for activity and was happy to see that there were some bees flying around the two hives that were alive at the beginning of winter.  The hive on the right was very active and I wasn't sure if I was seeing activity on the hive on the left, or just some bees driving over from the first hive.

There was lots of activity at the bottom entrance of the hive on the right, with lots of bees flying and crawling around at the entrance.  There were a few bees coming and going from the top entrance  too -- a hole in the front of the top box holding a sugar block for emergency feeding in winter.

There were a few bees crawling around on the other surviving hive so am cautiously optimistic that this one is surviving the cold too.

The land to the south of our house falls away to a ravine with a small creek in the bottom.  Today the creek was swollen with muddy melt water.

Here the same swollen stream meanders away to the east through the snow.

The snow remains

The snow remains on the ground and we have suffered some bitter cold temperatures.  One morning our thermometer was down to -18 F, with that day remaining below zero and down below -10 F the following night.  Not much chance with these temperatures for any snow melt.

I decided to visit my apiary to look at my beehives, though it was much too cold to expect to see any activity.  I had cleared a roadway last year so that I could drive a truck back to the hives.

The only two hives that have surviving bees at the end of last Fall are the first two hives wrapped in black.  I am anxious for a day where the temperature gets to 50 F or close to it, so that I can see if they have survived the recent bitter cold.

There are a few rabbit tracks in front of the hives and a nice topping of snow. 






Below the two surviving hives show that there is a small opening at the bottom entrance of each hive when the bees are warm enough to make  a trip outside.

My birdfeeders remain very busy with the heavy snow cover, as seen here through our family room windows. 

The finch feeders in particular are covered with eager patrons.  These are all goldfinches in their drabber winter plumage.

Frosty morning

We did get the lane plowed out the day after the large snowfall.  This is about midway on the land looking back to the house.

There was a frost that stuck to everything this morning.  You can see the garden fence with a frosty white coating as well as the trees behind.

The bushes along this section of the lane were all coated.

Looking along the plowed lane toward its entrance around the bend.  Everything coated.

A week later -- heavy snow!

A week later and we have a foot of snow falling.  This was a heavy wet snow that my tractor couldn't budge, so to hire someone to plow out our long lane.  It was rather pretty falling, though.

The snow cover brought a lot of birds to the feeders outside our family room window.  My baffles seem to be holding off the squirrels and raccoons successfully this year.  The black baffle in the middle of the pole is a retail "torpedo" baffle advertised to keep both animals away, but I found that larger raccoons could shimmy up the baffle and still get to the suet on the feeders.  Last year I had put a large bucket about that baffle but they somehow got around that obstacle.  This year I used a wash tub, cutting a hole in the middle to fit the pole through and securing it just above the torpedo baffle.  (This is a pole that comes out of the ground each Spring and re-installed each Fall so this maneuvering is possible.)  The larger wash tub seems to have the raccoon's "baffled" and is keeping my seed and suet safe .... so far.

I did manage to get several pictures of birds on the feeders and the dogwood tree next to it, where they like to perch waiting for a turn at the feeders.  Here is a female cardinal.

Two goldfinches in winter plumage waiting their turn.

A female downy woodpecker.

A male cardinal.

A junco on the ground where the like to feed among the seeds knocked off the feeder by other birds.

A male purple finch, which have been pretty abundant at the feeder this year.

A carolina wren.  This one had me stumped so I had to post a picture on a birdwatcher's site to identify it.

Resolving to re-start regular blog posts

 I have resolved to start regular blog posts again.  We started the year with pretty mild weather and temperatures in the 50s and up to 60.  That turned our lane into a sloppy mess.

I am down to two active hives.  The one on the far left is vacant.  The other two though seem pretty active on this date.  The temperature was close to 60 I think.  I did get them fully winterized with straw bales on the west and north sides to block the worst winter winds, a sugar block on top of the frames with a quilt box on top of that, and wrapped in tar paper.   So far so good.

Here is a closer view of the bees flying.  There was quite a bit of activity and coming and going.