Winter Time

It is that time of year again when I put on the winter wrap. It is a thick rubber pond lining I picked up from a local garden center. It was scarp and they were happy I took it away. It does not have any real insulating properties but being black it will absorb the sun light and help out a bit. I also put a two layer insulating bubble wrap on the inner cover to help out. This should give them some help holding the heat in. Now to keep an eye on then throughout the winter, keeping snow and more importantly ice from accumulating at the front entrance, and suffocating them. These are dreary pictures of my bee yard, two sites but it is that time of year.

My first bee year.

An extension to my bee year, about 30 ft beside the first one.

Spring Start

I did a complete check of the "girls" and all looked good, except #3 which I notices earlier this spring that it didn't make it through the winter. It did have lots of honey filled frames, and the other colonies are helping themselves to it. I was also lucky this year to see 4 of the 5 Queens this year. I couldn't find the Queen in #5 because of the amount of bees in this colony, there are lots. When I was moving old frames out of #4, I sent on aside because of the bees on it and was about to shake the bees off into the super and took a quick look. The Queen was on this frame and I didn't see her when I took it out. She moves quickly and I'm lucky she didn't walk off when I sent it down. She was gently returned to the colony.  All are strong and in a few day's I'll try to split #5 and restart #3, move some of the honey frames around and put on my honey supers for the season. The dandelions are starting and I'll keep an eye on when they die out to see if I can change out the honey supers to try and separate dandelion honey from regular field and wild flower honey. I also changed out 2 1/2 boxes of old frame and comb with new ones as they were not using them, I have several more in #5 to do and will change them out when I split it. Here is how things looked and I got pictures of three of the Queens. My battery expired, sorry.

A good looking frame, capped brood, pollen,
honey and larva.

Another good looking frame.

Lots going on in #2, lots of capped brood.

A look inside the top super.

You can see the Queen from #1.

Here is the Queen from #2.

The Queen from #4.

Coming Along

Since taking off the winter wraps, I've given them protein patties, 1 1/2 lts syrup, then 2 lts of syrup with medicine, and they look like they are coming along. I did lose one colony though, it looked a little weak when I took off the wrap and I was hoping it would come along, but it didn't. I checked inside and I didn't see any capped brood, larva or eggs anywhere, so I think not too long ago I lost the Queen. There was plenty of honey inside and some pollen cake but thing else, just a few workers left. I'll save what I can and use the the boxes for a split if I need too. Here is a little of what is happening right now.

Colony 1 & 2

Numbers 3 & 4. #3 didn't make it.

Numbers 5 & 6

Everyone coming and going with pollen.

Lots of activity, looking good. 

An Early Unwrap.

With a very strange winter that had temperatures very cold and then not so with sunshine, I was concerned on how the bees would make it through to spring. We've been checking on them throughout the winter, keeping snow from the front entrance, because it would rain and ice up quickly, they didn't seem too bad. Now that spring is here, and they are becoming very active I thought I'd give them protein patties, I only had two left and split them between all six colonies, I have more on the way, I'll give the some meds in sugar syrup to help them out. After I took off the winter wraps and gave them the patties, they were a little more active, even the ones that didn't look like they were very strong. We'll see how the next couple of weeks turn out and hopefully they'll all come through strong. Here are few pictures of our winter and after the wraps were taken off. This is the earliest I've taken the wraps off.

6th of March snow fall.

They need to be cleaned out.

One of the colonies, looked really good.

Another one, looking strong.

All unwrapped, ready for summer.

Busy looking for food, the first two on the left.

The middle two, not as busy but there is activity.

A slow start on the two on the right, but busy inside.