Middle Of March

It’s the middle of March and the snow drops are just starting to pop open here on Cape Cod.  Spring is just around the corner!

After enduring a long cold winter, mice, mites, small hive beetles, starvation, falling trees, and poor food stores, the bees are just now beginning to emerge from their winter cluster.

:Left:  Small Hive Beetle, dead on the sticky board.

          In March?  Realy?









The queen should have started raising young by now, and the new bees will be taking fights for the first time. How many of them emerge fly a little too far from the hive and become too chilled to make it back home?

Right:  Bees were finally able to take flight during warmer days here and there over the past couple of weeks.










We lost 50 percent of our hives to this long winter. We did not receive our January thaw as we do most years. Temperatures remained in the 30's for six weeks or more.  But then, I don't have to tell most of you that!

Of the remaining hives two are very weak. The Kona queens I introduced last year seam to be longing to return to the warm Hawaiian weather they came from.

They did not do well here.

Of course they have done better than the dead hives… That’s it… Look on the bright side!

Left:  My storage shed.... Filled with beekeeping equipment, boxes, frames.....  And mice!


















One hive that started the winter with plenty of bees, frames of pollen, and frames full of honey was found dead a couple of weeks ago.

I had given them candy feed towards the end of January.

At that time they were robust…. 7 frames of bees. When I dissected the dead hive I found thousands of dead bees only two inches away from capped honey. There were still 6 frames of capped honey in the hive and three frames full of pollen. Why did they die? During the cold weather they probably just could not shift over to the food stores. What a shame!

Right:  The mice are so bold as to build nests in plain sight!









Sometimes you cannot figure out what went wrong. Is it natural selection? Or just a stupid beekeeper?

But yes…. As beekeepers often do, I spend a lot of my time during the winter thinking and dreaming about the bees. Perhaps answers come during those long months. I do have something up my sleeve… Perhaps I can do something about the weather!

The mice have been taunting me all winter as well. Despite my best attempts at thwarting them I continue to find chewed items around the storage shed. They love the newspaper wrapped wax foundation. An expensive item to snack on.

Right:  Outside temperature 34 degrees....  Inside temperature 60.

Perhaps I've found a way to control the weather!








One family even had the nerve to build a home right in plain sight, as if to dare me to try to do something about it!

But bright days are ahead! The weather is warming. The days are getting longer. The first flowers are poking there sleepy heads above the ground. The bees are starting to fly…

Yes the bees are starting to fly!

So you think you are helping?

In the middle of December I quickly checked the bees and found that they had consumed almost all the candy feed I had installed in the hives in November. At that time I added more candy assuming that it would be consumed in about a month (January).

 Left:  A dead bee in the snow about 500 feet from the hive.  It is just too cold for them to be flying that far away from home.

With more snow predicted for our area this week, I thought it would be timely to check the hives and add more sugar candy if needed. I made the candy in the morning, let it cool and went to the apiary to install a piece in each hive. Sure enough, the candy feed was gone in most of the hives.

Right:  Looking through the hole in the inner cover you can see the bees are still alive.

With temperatures in the mid 30’s I carefully slipped a piece of candy under each inner cover so as not to disturb the clusters of bees. While I lifted the inner cover I took a peak inside to see how the bees were doing.

Right: Many dead bees after taking a cleansing flight in 35 degree weather.














All the hives seemed to have plenty of bees. I did notice some dysentery spots on the top of the frames in the last hive I checked. I had fed the bees sugar syrup and medicated against nosema in the fall, so I did not think much of it.

This morning I went out to look over the hives. This is what I found.

Left:  a closeup of the mess.



















We have had a long spell of cold, probably five or six weeks where the bees have not been able to fly and take cleansing flights.

Apparently having been disturbed by my candy the bees broke cluster and attempted a cleansing flight.

Right:  An even closer look.

Being too cold, many of the bees were not able to return to the hive.

I have included photographs of the resulting mess.

I will have to wait for warmer weather before I can check these two hives to see if any of the hive will survive the rest of the winter.

And I thought I was helping them.

Bees And Snow

It is the middle of winter here on Cape Cod. In fact we are getting another snow storm as I write this blog post.

Left:  Icickles hanging from the cover of  the hives.



















Already the cold winter has claimed the life of one of our hives. It seems that they starved only inches away from stores of honey and pollen. The weather must have turned cold for too long of a time. The cluster of bees could not move to a new location.

I cleaned out the dead bees and placed the hive bodies in storage. There are 8 frames of honey left in the dead hive along with frames full of pollen. A new package of bees in the spring will take advantage of the hard work done by the deceased hive.

Right:  Bees were flying and still gathering pollen in the middle of November.  They needed all the food they could gather after the bad summer season we had last year.

As I mentioned earlier we are experiencing an unusually snowy and icy winter this year. The snow from one storm turns to ice just before another one hits. Of course we have been fortunate compared to other towns further inland where they have received much more snow. Our deepest accumulation has only been 6 inches or so, compared with feet of snow inland.

The bees have been consuming much bee candy this winter due to the colder temperatures. It was nice to see them flying in December, on the two days temperatures climbed into the 40’s.

I have one nuc hive I am trying to over winter in one hive body that seems to be struggling. It contains one of the queens I raised last summer. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will make it.

Left:  A cluster of bees feeding on bee candy places on the tops of the frames of comb.  This candy will last them about one month.

This time of year I start to get a little stir crazy. I find myself sitting and dreaming about the bees and spring. There is not much beekeeping activities to do other than wait for the new catalogs and the bee journals to come in the mail. Well...  a glass of mead while reading a bee journal isn't all that bad..

What new products will we find and be trying out this season?

There it is again…. As the snow falls….. I’m dreaming of summer!