A chance to check the hives

Temperatures climbed to 70 degrees today allowing me to check the emergency food stores in my three hives.  The bees were actively flying in all three hives.  This is the bottom entrance of the North hive showing lots of bees milling about the front.

A close shot shows the bees gathering on the front and coming in and out of the holes in the mouse guard.

Here a bee is caught on the wing returning to the hive.

I pulled off the quilt box on each hive to check the sugar stores.  The North hive had eaten through the sugar and eaten out quite a bit from the bottom causing a thin layer of the top of the sugar block to collapse onto the bottom of the sugar box.

A closer look shows how the sugar is eaten out from underneath.  I would estimate that the bees had eaten about 50% of the sugar in the box on the North hive.

The Middle hive was the most active of the three.  Here bees are in the air and crowding the bottom entrance.

Here bees return to the hive while others mill about the front.

An even closer shot shows numerous bees on the wing.  None of the bees, of course, have pollen on their legs as we are likely a month from the first maple pollen being available.

The sugar box on the Middle hive was more empty than the North hive, confirming my impression that this hive is the strongest of the three.

A closer shot shows how the sugar is being eaten from the bottom.  I suspect that 75% to 80% of the sugar has been consumed here.  I may need to add some sugar late in the Spring at this rate of consumption.

The South hive is noticeably weaker than the other two but still has several bees flying in warm weather.  I am concerned about the survival of this hive but optimistic as there are still quite a few bees there well past the mid-point of winter.

Some bees in flight and bees on the entrance of the South hive.

The sugar box on the South hive has been well eaten through and bees were working it and visible below.

Here bees are busily working on the sugar block.  They may have eaten 20% to 25% of the sugar in this box -- not nearly as much as the other hives but still a substantial amount of activity.  We still have several weeks of winter before the pollen and nectar flow starts and until I can get into the hive to see if it is queen right.  Still, I think there are enough bees to survive -- I hope so.

Bees flying in mid-winter

The temperatures got up in to the low 50s today which brought the bees out of all of the hives, doing some orientation flights hovering in front of the hives and going in and out of the hives.

Here bees land on the South hives.  This hive was probably the least active of the three, but was still quite active.

The top entrance of the South hive was also busy.

The middle hive was the most active of the three, with a considerable number of bees hovering in front appearing to do orientation flights, particularly when the sun was out.

The top entrance of the middle hive was also active, but most of the bees seemed to prefer the bottom entrance.

The bottom of the North hive was also active, favoring, as always, the far left side of the entrance.  Overall, I was quite happy to see this much activity mid-way through the winter, showing that all hives were still alive.  We do, though, have a long way to go before winter survival can be confirmed.

Fog on snow

There was a light fog early Friday morning as I left for work that was rather pretty.

The fog put a coating of frost on the weeds and trees that it touched, but it only coated the bottom three or four feet.

The path to my little apiary was coated in frost.

We had a snow fall of about four inches this week that coated everything and was partially covering the front of each hive, though there was still room for them to get out.

The snow as accompanied by some pretty cold temperatures so some ice had formed on the front entrance of the hives.  A few days later, though, the ice had melted and a few bees were flying from each hive with temperatures in hte mid-40s.