Unfortunately, we seem to have decided to skip winter this year and have had unseasonably warm weather-I would imagine our average temperature has been in the 30-40 degree range. Last year our area had so much snow that roofs were collapsing and this year we've had exactly one "storm" and it left less than 6 inches of the white stuff.
Because of this and the surprisingly great number of days in the high 40s and lower 50s, we've seen a lot more activity at the hive entrances than we should. The problem with that is that if the girls are out flying around, they're going through their stored honey faster than they would normally and run the risk of starving in the months of February and March, when there is still little pollen and/or nectar available. Our bee association Facebook page has been abuzz (sorry) with talk of feeding pollen patties or not and trading recipes for fondant versus sugar bricks. Sugar bricks are made with a lot of sugar and a very little bit of water and fondant is made with sugar, water, and corn syrup:
I've been adding one or two of these plates of fondant to the hives each month since the middle of December and they are being devoured. The bees are none to happy that I'm opening their roofs and letting the cold air in but they cover my gloves, and the fondant as soon as I start to lay it in the hive.
When you put the fondant in the hive, you break each circle up into 6-8 pieces so that there is a greater surface area for the bees to utilize.
My overachievers hive is the one that I'm now more worried about because there are markedly more bees in the top of that hive than in the top of the party girls hive. The theory is that the bees start in the lower hive body and then eat their way up to the top hive body and by the time they've exhausted their stored honey then it should be spring and time for them to forage in the wild. By December, I was already seeing bees in the top hive body at the over achiever hive and now there are a vast number in that area. Maybe the large number is there because I'm feeding them and they're waiting there for the fondant but only time will tell. The party girl hive has some bees at the very top but not a huge number. Hopefully this means that the rest are doing what they're supposed to be doing and hanging out below and doesn't mean that many of them have just died off and that's the reason for the lower numbers that I'm seeing.
Ah, being a beekeeper is full of uncertainty!!! I'll have to wait until April to really be able to get into the hives, look around and access how each colony made it through the winter.
In the meantime, I'm keeping an eye on the hives to see how much sun they're getting now that so many trees have been taken down around them and readying my new hive. I may have mentioned that our club holds raffles at their meetings and at one this summer I won a new hive set up! I'm quite excited and have ordered another box of bees so that I can expand my apiary from two to three hives. I was tempted to go ahead and use some of my extra equipment and make it an even four but since checking on the hives in full gear in July and August is hot and uncomfortable........I think three sounds just right.
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