Spring is starting to show

The purple crocus have now bloomed for a few days and I have seen honey bees visiting these flowers.  Many of the early flowering trees, like the maples, are also breaking buds.

These white and yellow crocus are also in bloom.  I have seen bees at these too, both honey bees and smaller native bees.

A clump of moss is greening up in the woods sending up little tendrils.  There is also another plant sprouting up -- the white sprout on the far right side of the moss--which I think is a may apple just emerging.

Buds on the plums are showing green as they swell and prepare to bloom -- still some weeks off I think.

Leaves of rhubarb are emerging from the ground and just starting to unfurl.

I did a more thorough check of my bee hives today.  This is the weaker hive with just a few bees on the top bars of the top box.  They hadn't touched the pollen patties.  I did not in the course of the inspection though that some bees were bringing in pollen from some source -- a tan colored pollen.

There were a lot of dead bees in this hive and quite a bit of honey left.  A lot of bees died on the comb, or with their heads stuck in comb, presumably dying of cold or starving when they were unable to move due to cold.  I think that an additional factor was the Nosema, a dysentery disease, that weakened the hive.  I was somewhat surprised to find any brood at all but there was just a small spot of brood on two frames.  This is one of them.

This is the other frame with a little brood.  I did see some larvae too, so it seems that there is still a queen surviving in the hive, though I didn't see her.  I thought perhaps this was a laying worker, but if that was the case this would be drone brood but it doesn't look like it is.  The queen has a long way to go to build up from this beginning -- I'm not sure if this hive is going to make it or will just dwindle away.

This is the screened bottom board on this hive, with the screen almost completely covered with dead bees.  I tried to brush all of the dead bees off of the frames, and also brushed these bees off of the bottom board.  A lot of the bees died while stuck in the comb so I could not get those out on this quick inspection.

This is the other stronger hive.  I made the mistake of not properly replacing the cover on the hive covering the hive top feeder the other day, so bees had gotten into the feeder.  Luckily it was almost empty at the time so not too many bees drowned, but there were a lot of bees in this box with the feeder where there should not have been.

This is the inner cover that was on top of the hive top feeder.  It is covered with bees as well.  I shook and brushed all of the bees off of the feeder and the inner cover when I filled the feeder with more sugar water and replaced it, but a few bees were persistent enough to get back into this box and will surely drown in the sugar water.

This is how the brood pattern looked in the healthier hive -- with lots of brood and lots of bees.  I think that six of the ten frames in the top box were covered in bees and capped brood.  I saw lots of larvae too.

Another one of these frames showing lots of brood and bees.  This hive had consumed almost all of the protein patty that I had placed on top so I put another one.  Some bees were bringing in pollen but I didn't think there was enough available to feed all of the brood and the new bees.

One more frame with lots of bees and capped brood.  This hive is doing very well.  I found that all of the brood though was in the top of the three boxes, so I re-arranged the hive so that the brood box went on to the bottom to give the queen room to move upward as is their natural approach.

I encountered only a few dead bees in the first two boxes, but found this pile of dead bees on the top bar of the bottom box.  There were also white crystals scattered thoughout the hive which I believe is the remnant of the sugar block that I fed them over the winter.  As almost all of the honey was gone from this hive, they definitely needed the sugar bloc and had consumed all of it.

This is the bottom board of this hive which was also covered in dead bees, which I swept off.  I hope that all of the sugar coated bees don't attract the wrong kind of vermin that will disturb the hive.

I also checked the bluebird house in the garden today and found that they had constructed a nest that looks about finished -- no eggs yet though.  I had been checking it before and as of a week or two ago it had been completely empty.

Spring arrives on the calendar

Finally a few signs of Spring arrive, as the calendar tells us it's Spring.  These daffodils finally appeared up three inches or so all at once in a sheltered spot near the front of the house.  One day this week our house and the surrounding woods were thick with robins -- there must have been hundreds of them.  I heard the movement of dry leaves in the woods that sounded like a large herd of deer tromping through the trees, but when I investigated I saw that all of the noise was being made by robins who were flipping over leaves on the floor of the forest looking for something to eat.

These crocus appeared all at once as well blooming in front of the house.  An early sign of Spring that is much later this year.  The usual first harbinger of Spring -- the snow geese flying over in large numbers -- never appeared this year.  They must have used a different route, perhaps due to the heavy snow cover here during that time.

The fuzzy buds of the magnolia tree in front of the house are swelling.

The garden still lies dead and brown though, with only the faintest showing of green on the ground.  The dried remains of last years grapes show here on the vines.  I have planted my tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds inside to start them for planting in May.  I fear that the Spring will be slow and late in coming this year.  My bees are still alive but I do need to get medicated syrup on the hives for them as soon as the weather warms up enough -- perhaps in another week or two.

Winter loosens its grip

A bluebird sits on the garden fence.  Today the temperatures got well into the 50s and it finally felt like Spring.  Daylight savings time arrived today too.  There was a small flock of robins looking for food in the front yard this morning and I saw a turkey vulture floating around int he sky.  No signs of any spring flowers poking out of the ground, but winter seems to be losing its grip.

I continue to have bees flying in front of both hives.  There weren't so many today despite the warm temperatures probably because there was quite a bit of wind too.  This is my stronger hive.  If you look close, you can see a few bees hovering on front.

I popped the top to see how the sugar block was holding out.  The bees have eaten most of the sugar in the stronger hive and there were a lot of bees on top.  I did buy some protein patties to put on the hives but I think I will wait a week or two.  The protein encourages the queen to lay more brood and that can cause problems if the weather turns cold again, as it surely will in March.

The weaker hive also had a few bees flying in front.

When I popped the top on this hive it looked very different, though the number of bees flying in front always seems to be about the same as the other hive.  These bees have not eaten through the sugar block and there were what appeared to be dead bees on top, though not a lot of them.  Also note the signs of  bee poop on the sugar -- a sign that the bees are suffering from Nosema or some other form of dysentery.  I have antibiotic to treat them with but that has to be done in sugar water and it is still too cold for them to take that.  I hope that they survive until I can treat them.  This hive is clearly going to remain weaker than the other.

More cold and snow

Another snow storm and bitter cold.  It was only about 5 degrees when I went out to take this picture at 3:30 pm, and temperatures are predicted to go below zero tonight again.  We only have 2 or 3 inches of new snow, which is much better than the 8 to 10 inches that was originally predicted.  The average temperature for this time of year is in the 40s and we have daylight savings time starting next weekend.  We did have a few days that approached 50 for highs in the week after my last post and I was glad to see a number of bee flying in front of both of my hives.  So, both hives were alive before cold set it in again.  No relief in sight until the end of this week and then only into the 30s.

I did get my garden seeds ordered this past week, so I haven't completely given up on Spring.  I suppose that Spring will be late this year but perhaps will hit us all at once and stay.  I hope so.

And MORE snow

A prediction of "less than an inch" of snow for Friday turned into heavy snow that send me home from work almost as soon as I got there, for fear that I would not be able to get back in.  I think we ended up with five or six inches of new soft fluffy snow on top of what we had.  These tracks show how I was able (barely) to get out of our lane on Friday but by Saturday morning drifting discouraged me from trying again.

This seems to be my classic snow picture now -- snow on the tractor.  The accumulation keeps building.

My grape vines and garden under a blanket of snow.  At least the garden will have a good start of moisture when all of this melts.  The prediction is for warmer temperatures next week to start the melting process, but also some freezing rain and snow on Monday.  At this time last year I was taking pictures of daffodils four inches out of the ground with big buds and was watching snow geese flying overhead.

I took this early on Saturday morning, so there is still frost on the remains of last year's grapes.

Here are the tracks of Friday's drive out now drifted on Saturday morning, though this wasn't the worst of it.  We had it plowed out by late afternoon on Saturday.

The sun shines through frosted trees.

I took a look at my bee hives though it was only about 30 degrees so too cold to open them up and look inside.  Here there are dead bees on the landing board of the weaker "north" hive, which in a way is encouraging as it indicates there are live bees carrying them out and leaving them there.  So, dead bees are actually signs of life.

Here is a dead bee (probably) on top of the snow a foot in front of that same hive.  Since we had another inch or so of fluffy stuff on Saturday (I took this today -- Sunday) this tells me that this bee and the other two dead bees I saw were flying in the last 24 hours.  Again, this is encouraging sign of life in the hive.

The stronger "south" hive had no dead bees in front or on the landing board, but I saw three live bees either walking around on the snow in front or climbing out of the top entrance.  This one was walking around in one of my footprints and seemed to be cleaning itself, then took off.  We have been having such a prolonged stretch of bitter cold weather that I was fearful that there would be no bees surviving, but these signs suggest that both hives still have survivors.

My bird feeders have been very busy with all of this snow cover, but are being actively raided by squirrels --here there are four fox squirrels on the two feeders enjoying my sunflower seeds.

Another eight inches of snow

We received another eight inches of snow on top of the ice and snow that we had received over the weekend, and this snow was immediately followed by high winds that brought a lot of drifting, as well as temperatures dipping below zero.  The schools were closed for three days, and I was stuck at home all of the work day before we could get our road cleared just before 5 p.m.

Here the tractor is covered with snow that is drifted around its base.  I tried several times to get the tractor started but it would run only a few minutes and then die.  I presume there is ice blocking either the fuel line or the air intake.  Each time I returned to the tractor to try again, my footprints from the last trip would be obliterated by drifting snow.

Here the straw bales that serve as a wind break for my bee hives are covered with snow with snow drifted around them.

The hives themselves were covered with snow and the bottom entrances were completely blocked by the two past storms.  I cleared off the bottoms to open the entrances but it was too cold to expect any activity.

Ice and snow

As this unusually harsh winter continues, we received a snow fall of about 3 inches followed by a lot of ice.  Here ice is gleaming on the trees in the forest next to the house.

A small weeping cherry tree in our front yard is encased in ice, with the forest in the background.

Trees along our lane covered in ice.

The tractor covered in ice and icicles.

My grapevines covered in ice.

Apple trees covered in ice.  I really should have put away that picker.

Pear and peach trees covered in ice.

My beehives covered with ice and snow -- snow covered with a crust of ice covers the bottom entrances.

Sun shining through the icy trees on the following day, Groundhog Day.  Though the sun was shining to show the groundhogs shadow he was no doubt unable to escape his ice encrusted home to take a look.  I don't know what that predicts for the weather, but it can't be good.

I took the opportunity to take some pictures of birds around the bird feeders that have been so busy with all of this snow cover.  Here a cardinal is perched on a small dogwood tree next to the feeders.

A goldfinch in winter plumage perched on a feeder.

A purple finch finding seeds among the seeds knocked from the feeders above.