Winter Hive Check

Mark and I were holding our breath for the past month wondering how our two hives were fairing through our winter season.  This is our first winter as beekeepers, so we weren’t sure what to expect. 

We have learned from attending the Houston Beekeepers Association meetings, and also from reading up on our beekeeping books, that preparing bees for winter is very important.  If the bees are not allowed enough food, the hive will certainly be lost.  We spent time during our last visit making sure they had enough sugar water and food patties to last awhile. 

The hive also needs to be prepared for the bees to maintain warmth when temperatures become very cold.   We are very lucky that our winters are mild and short.  The nighttime temperature in Caldwell has barely dipped to 32 degrees on a couple of occasions. 

One of our favorite “go to” books that we own is “Beekeeping for Dummies”.  I bought it used at Amazon for about $4 and it was money well spent for certain.  The book mentions that even though outside temperatures can reach the freezing point, the bee colony will work hard to keep the bee cluster within the hive at a constant 92 degrees, creating heat by shuddering their wings. 

On cold nights when Mark and I were secure in our warm home, we have mentioned to each other frequently that we “hope the bees are doing okay” out in the cold.  We often forget that bees are more than capable of living in the wild without human intervention.  And, quite the contrary, we humans likely disrupt bee life by caring too much and trying to make improvements as we would see fit, but instead causing complications within the hive.  It is probably a good thing that Mark and I live an hour and a half drive from our bees, or we would have no doubt opened the top cover this winter, at a time when “Beekeeping for Dummies” would suggest otherwise.

Today we visited the hives and found them both doing very well.   The sun was very bright, there were no clouds in the sky and the temperature outside the hives made it to 60 degrees.  We opened hive 02 and found they had barely touched their sugar water in the frame feeder.  They had also barely touched any of the sugar patties we put in place four weeks ago. 

Hive 02 upon inspection still had food patties in place
that were added during the last visit four weeks ago.

This puzzled us, but the population seemed fine and there were no hive beetles to be seen, except for one, which was drowned within one of our beetle jails filled with oil.  We checked the remaining beetle jails and found no more beetles trapped within them, so either the jails aren’t as effective as we had hoped, or the beetle population is very low.  We believe the latter, because we did not see any scurrying inside the hive.  We filled the frame feeder with fresh sugar water.  Whether they will use it or not is to be seen, but they have the option.  The hive did have several frames still full of honey stores.

We opened hive 04 and were a bit surprised to find that the top feeder that we had added at our last visit didn’t perform as well as we thought it would.  This was likely due to our error though (which has been the case most often when we have experience equipment performance failures).  There was still a small amount of sugar water in both sides of the top feeder and it had fermented. 

Top feeder from hive 04.  Sugar water had fermented and killed many bees.
We wonder if this is due to our error in adding the top feeder while also
having the entrance reducer in place.

We also noticed that there was some mold on the inner cover and along the sides of the feeder.  The odor within the hive was musky and sour and many bees lie dead on top of the grills, while some staggered along, heavy with sugar water so much  so that they couldn’t beat their wings.  It was heartbreaking to watch.  We quickly removed the feeder and dumped the remaining stale sugar water on the ground in the sun where the surviving bees would gain warmth and hopefully recover.  I think the cause of the fermented water was due to the entrance reducer that we added to keep the winter air out of the hive.  In my opinion, the entrance reducer limited the ventilation needed to keep the air dry within the hive.

 
We also found that the bees had eaten all of the food patties we put in place during our last visit.  This surprised me because the hive has so much honey stored up.  I don’t understand why they seem to like the patties so much, while hive 02 has no interest in them.  We did not reposition the top feeder in hive 04, but instead placed a one-gallon frame feeder in the hive and filled it with fresh sugar water.  We added several new food patties on top of the frames.  We closed the lid and the hive seemed to be in good shape.  

Hive 04 with frame feeder back in place and top feeder removed.
Fresh water added and sticks in place will help the bees swim to safety.

We planted about three pounds of wildflower seeds along the fence line situated about 10 yards in front of the hives, hoping that when spring approaches, they will grow as a food source very close to these two colonies and to the six additional colonies we will install in late February. 

Mark and I noticed that a couple of bees had foraged and collected some pollen that was pinkish in color.  We aren't sure what plant it came from, but we thought it was very interesting.

A hive 04 bee has collected some strange pinkish pollen.
There were only a few bees with any pollen and this was the only color seen during our visit.
We aren't sure of the source of the pollen. 

On another note, Mark and I happened to be shopping at a grocer near our apartment in Houston a few weeks ago and stumbled upon a tiny jar of bee pollen.  We had read that bee pollen is a popular diet additive, so we bought it out of curiosity.  It sat on our kitchen counter for a few weeks and we weren’t sure what to do with it.  A couple of days ago, it struck me that our bees would be short on pollen sources through the winter.   Why not take this pollen (which is stripped directly from the bees’ pollen baskets and put directly into the jars) and give it back to our bees?  So, we did.  I truly didn’t expect anything to happen, but we were delightfully surprised to see that they were all over it.  The pollen balls were very large and the bees struggled to secure it and bring it into their hives, so we smashed the pollen into dust for them.  A few bees noticed it quickly and began fanning their wings around the dust to generate static, enabling the pollen to stick to their hind legs and carry into their hives.  It was a fascinating scene to watch.

Mark and I inadvertently brought along pollen that we purchased at our grocer.
We were curious to see what the bees would do with it (if anything).

They were all over it and loved it, working to pick up the
pollen and bring it into the hives.