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Bee Keeping Journal – 2017 – Warm February Days

Feb23

WEATHER

The warm weather has continued, with most days above 60 degrees and a few above 70. That is all about to change and go back to normal, which is close to freezing at night and mid-40s during the day.

Hive 201601H

The good news continues for this hive – for now! There is plenty of activity on the warm sunny days. In fact in the last week they are even bringing in pollen from somewhere, my guess is the maples. The news reported several trees, including the maples, with high pollen counts right now on the hay fever report. Good Times! My concern now is as the weather returns to “normal” that the bees may have already started the spring build up. I have decided that I will not being doing any in depth hive inspections in order to not chance rolling the queen or chilling any brood, so I cant be sure what is happening. Today is the last predicted extra warm day for the next 10 days so I popped the top and found about half the sugar bricks remaining. I dropped in a pollen patty and closed it back up. The weather was so nice they barely noticed I was there! Plenty of bees inside and out doing what bees do, so keeping my fingers crossed this hive makes it to “real” spring!

Configuration

This hive consist of two deep hive bodies, a spacer for feeding and a top entrance, and a quilt box currently full of wood shavings.

This is the life!

Dec3

While this rural life can be great during spring and summer, I truely love fall and winter.  What a great day it was today!

The day started sitting in a frosty tree stand.  It is deer season here and with sunrise later and later I didn’t even have to get up early.  I always dreamed of this day when instead of getting up early and driving for more than an hour to hunt I could just get up and walk out back.  It now takes me longer to get dressed in several layers, than to get to my stand.  It was a balmy 25 degrees, but I loved every minute of it.  Plus since I am fortunate enough to work remotely,  I was able to sleep in, hunt for 2 hours an still get to work on time.

It was going to be the last relatively warm day for a while so I took the opportunity to feed the bees the sugar bricks I had made according to Laurie’s recipe.  I cut it down since I only have two hives and it turned out not too bad.  When I got to the hives it was about 2pm and 48 degrees.   There were a couple of bees out flying so I figured it was safe to open up the hive.  I was ecstatic too see clustered bees. A couple were none to happy I left the door open, overall things looked good.  I quickly placed half the sugar brick in each hive and closed them back up.   There is normally a warm spell in January, so will check on them again and see if the need more sugar.  Otherwise beekeeping is over for 2016.

After a normal work day, it was holiday date night.  Meaning we headed to town for dinner, shoppping, and a live nativity presentation.  The shopping included buying our live Christmas and black oil seeds to keep our winter feeders full.  The nativity presentation was a drive through setup of the life of Jesus.  I had to laugh a little since the specific nativity part consisted of two small goats.  I give an A for a good overall effort.

We spent Thanksgiving at Universal Studios Orlando with the family where it was 80 degrees both days, so we are planning to have a mini turkey dinner tomorrow with all the trimmings.  Personally I am only in it for the pumpkin pie!

Jump to the comments and share about your fall/winter activities.