It’s been quite a while since I posted on the blog and that’s because, well it’s winter.  Winter is both the easiest and hardest season to be a beekeeper.  Easiest because all you can do is wait. Hardest because all you can do is wait. Wait for spring, wait for the flowers to bloom, and hope your bees are alive. Here’s a look at the hives in the snow over the past few days.

As you can see the hives are almost completely buried. They all have upper entrances and are able to get out if then need to. It got up to 28F today, which is positively tropical compared to what it’s been. The bees were out flying, and getting rid of the old dead bees.  Take a look at the bees peaking outside.

 You can also see dead bees around the outsides. That is actually a good sign because we know there are bees inside alive doing the housekeeping.

So for now at least three of the hives are good. The other two are buried deeper and have fewer dead bees around the outside – hopefully they are clustered together inside. At this point we don’t know if they are alive or not. Only time will tell.