Saturday, February 28, 2015

Solid food

The cold snap continues, and I am worried about the bees. It warmed up to twenty degrees today, and I popped the cover and foam board off of each hive and poured some crystalized cane sugar on top of the inner cover. As usual, there was no sign of life in the Valentinium. There were lots of bees up at the top of Benediction, so many that I figure that the honey stores must be mostly depleted, and the cluster has moved up to the top.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Bitter cold

Our warm spell is over, with temperatures around zero at night, and no warm up in sight. I decided to remove the buckets, despite the thirty degree weather. I just did not feel comfortable with feed dripping into the hives at these temperature. The hives were only open for a few seconds each, and only above the crown cover.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Feeding time again

Temperatures nearly reached 60 degrees F today, and so we mixed up some thick syrup and headed out to the hives.

There were no signs of life in the Valentinium.

The Benedictium is going strong, however, and we put 7 pounds of sugar mixed with 5 or six pounds of water on top in feeder buckets. The bees were excited to see us, and greeted us vigorously. Fortunately, we were suited up.