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.