Today it reached 65 degrees after 4 very cold nights down into the 20s. On Thursday I grabbed the hive and lifted it to check the weight. I thought it was getting light, bees need 10 pounds of honey a week when they are raising brood, that is 40 pounds for just February. With all the recent pollen that has been brought back to the hive I suspected the bees were raising brood so I was a little worried they needed syrup as a supplement.
I put on all the gear, gave them a little smoke and opened up the hive. The upper super had 3-4 frames of partially filed honey last I check in late fall, today 2 frames maybe half full of honey. The deep box in the middle was slap full of honey(10 frames) in the fall, today it was still full best I could tell.
This is a full frame of honey from the middle deep box. It came from the end of the box, bees fill the frames from the center and work to the outside. So we have lots of honey for the bees to make it through the winter still. Question is have the bees refilled these frames as they fed on the honey? Or have they subsided mostly on what they have found during warm winter days? Before I opened the hive I saw hundreds of bees bringing in pollen.
Here is a bee gathering from a pansy flower in our garden today. It checked all the pansies at this planting and proceeded to check several crocuses. Bees are supposed to most of the time stick to one type of pollen source at a time, the bee did not utilize the crocuses.
This photos does not show real well that the entrance was very busy.
Crocus ancyrensis "Golden Bunch" bloomed last year on January 23, it is only a week behind last year.
Here is muscari "Golden Fragrance ' just getting started in the garden. This is the third year in the garden for these bulbs.
Crocus "firefly" looking lovely.
Woodland anemone
Last from the Poets Walk parking lot yesterday! I got a big kick out of this bumper sticker.
6 comments:
NPR mentioned tonight that the average age of the nation's cars is over 10 years (a record). Perhaps more of those bumper stickers will be needed.
It sure does look springlike there! I looked at your last few posts too and can't believe all you've got blooming. I don't remember the last time I saw a honeybee around here. They will sometimes come out on a sunny winter day, but we haven't had many of those lately.
I love the bumper sticker, that's cute! Your bees look very happy.
It's difficult not to worry about the bees in winter. Our weather has been strange, very cold overnight, but warm days so we've seen lots of activity too. Then the last two days we haven't cracked 50F, and we have rain coming for the rest of the week. I'm half tempted to drop a little extra syrup in the hives to give them a boost, but I don't want them raising extra brood if we head into a wet spell. On the other hand, after the rain, we may get a nectar flow! Who knows? Sometimes I wish the bees could tell us what they need ;)
I wonder about the beekeepers who sell their honey? Do they only gather in the summer? Interesting bee info once again.
I love that Golden muscari, will have to see if I can find it.
Janet,
In the US honey is harvested from May until September. The golden muscari I have is 3 years old and it has not grown any, but it is still alive.
I'm so out of the loop - when did you get bees?! So cool!
You're always a few weeks ahead of us. I can just see the green shoots of our crocus here but no flowers yet. Yours are so pretty. Love the golden bunch.
PS: Funny bumper sticker. We need one of those for our truck. lol
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