A reassuring message in the midst of frigid weather...

The weather forecasters missed it by almost four-degrees. This morning's predicted low was supposed to be 18...but as you see...at my house...it was 14.9. Okay, I'll give them the 10th of a degree and we'll say they missed it by three degrees. They were close anyway.

As you may recall from my post earlier this week entitled "Weather warning: Batten down the hatches" -- North Carolina and the eastern states are in a nasty pocket of frigid weather right now. And according to the local weather prognosticators, it doesn't look like we'll warm up too much for the next few days. Overnight temperatures are expected to climb back to the regular range of the 20s by later this coming week...and then we have the threat of snow on Friday. It seems like, at least here anyway, that Old Man Winter is making up for those really milder winters we've had over the last few years. All I can say is, C'MON SPRINGTIME!

I got a really nice email reply from Richard Underhill. Richard is a fellow blogger and beekeeper, and you can read his posts from the links on the right side of my blog. He owns the Peace Bee Farm in Proctor, Arkansas, and he is the former President of Memphis Area Beekeepers Association and the Tennessee Beekeepers Association. All of that and he's a really nice guy too.

Anyway, I sent him an email to ask about shutting off screened bottom boards...and about all the dead bees I've found in front of my hive in the last few weeks. Since I've read so many blogs lately where people have the same concerns about dead bees near their hives in winter, I thought I would share his reply with you. After all, he's a very experienced beekeeper and you don't become the president of two large beekeeping organizations while you're a novice. Here's what Richard had to say:

Mark,

Greetings, I’m glad that you are finding my writings of interest. Thanks for the kind words and your most interesting hive observations.

From your descriptions, it sounds like you have a healthy hive which is well set-up for the winter. Keep in mind that there are two requirements for successfully over wintering a hive of honey bees. First, they must have an adequate store of honey which is located where the bees can access it. It is usually best to go into the winter with the cluster of bees low in the center of the hive with capped honey above the cluster. Second, the hive must have adequate ventilation. It looks like your bees have both.

Protection from the cold is not a requirement. You should be able to safely leave the plastic insert off of the screened bottom board even in the coldest of North Carolina winters. The design of a honey bee nest with parallel sheets of honeycomb is quite good at blocking the wind. As the bees eat the honey stored in the honeycomb over the course of the winter, the empty cells filled with dead air provide excellent insulation to hold the warmth of the cluster of bees.

Finding a hundred or more dead bees in front of the hive in the winter and seeing worker bees carrying out dead bees on a warm day seems quite normal for a healthy hive. Typically, a hundred bees die inside the hive in a day’s time. At this time of the year the only surviving bees are those born in the fall. They are the bees that have a longer life span of about six months, and they will feed the new brood in the late winter for the colony’s spring build-up. Among the dead large and small bees found on the ground, there were probably drones forced out in the late fall and possibly some chilled brood.

Nothing that you mentioned sounds an alarm. It looks like the colony is in good condition to complete the winter and start its spring build-up as soon as the bees find some dandelion and red maple pollen on a warm January day.

Best wishes,
Richard Underhill
Peace Bee Farm
Proctor, Arkansas

So there you have it! Thanks so much to Richard Underhill for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer questions from a newbie like me. His email made me feel so much better about my hive and knowing that all seems to be okay. I do appreciate it! And I hope others that read this blog can take comfort that maybe the lack of activity in our hives during these cold months just means that our girls are snug inside their homes and doing just fine.
 
Stay warm!  

A moment of silence: Carrying away the dead...

For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.
-The Bhagavad Gita

It was just in the past few days that I read an interesting post on Barbara's blog, The Bee Journal. It was 2010 resolutions for beekeepers, and the first resolution read, "I will not cry over each bee that dies. I accept the fact that it happens on occasion. However; I still reserve the right to raise them from the dead if they are willing."

I agree with Barbara 100% in her post...bees dies just like people and animals and plants. We all have to go sometime, sooner or later, although I think most of us opt for the later part. And even though I know that dying is all a part of living, its just a part of life, I'm still bothered by it in some way.

In the case of my bee colony, I'm bothered to see the dead in front of the hive..and the sight of them leaves me with questions I just can't answer. Maybe it is all first-year beekeeper jitters..but I find myself dwelling over why they're dying and then I start quizzing myself. Did I do something wrong? Could I have done something better? Should I be doing more? And at the rate they're dying, will they make it to the spring?

Today as I was checking around my hive to make sure everything was okay, this is what I found. The girls were removing the dead from the hive. As you can see, the landing board and edge of the hive stand are littered with the carcasses of bees that died inside the hive...that's because their sisters would drag them out and leave them. Within a short amount of time, other bees would come along, pick them up, and fly away with them. As always, you can click on the pictures to see them in their full size which gives better detail.

The ages of the bees varied. I found some older ones, much larger in size. Then I found some very small ones, they looked as if they were just days old. Of course, some bodies were heavier and required two bees to drag them out. In the case of the dead bee above, after the two got her outside, one of the stronger ones would pick up the carcass and fly it away from the hive. She went about six to eight feet away and dropped it on the ground. Then she returned for another body.

And yet, here's another. Here you see one bee as she drags the body of her sister out of the hive. It was amazing to watch. She climbed out of the hole, and while she was clutching the body of the dead bee, she finally got her bearings and flew away with the body. And like all the others, after she made her deposit away from the hive, she returned to start the task all over again. All while I was crouched down and watching all of this, not one bee offered to stop and see what I was doing. I suppose they were too busy with the task at hand.

Take a close look at this picture and you can see that this bee is depositing her sister's carcass on the ground not far from the hive. That is just one of many little bodies there..and there were plenty more in the immediate vicinity. As I took a good look at the dead bees, I kept my fingers crossed that none of them would have a green paint mark on her back. My queen, reared in 2009 and thus marked with a green dot, has the mark on her back. But as I examined the bees, I saw none with green markings, so I felt a little better about the situation. Not that much better really, but enough to figure that the matriarch of the hive is most likely still alive and protected by her charges.

This old leaf almost caresses the lifeless body of a dead bee who was newly removed from her hive. I watched closely as she was placed here. Her sister landed on the leaf with her cargo, deposited her, then just flew away. I tried to snap the picture quickly but I was too late to get them both. But as you can see, she's not the first dead bee to be brought here, and I don't think she'll be the last either. All I can hope for is that this is nature at work and not something out of the ordinary.

I'm most sure that my hive, with two deep supers, still has a pretty healthy population of bees inside. When I stick my ear to the side of the hive, I can hear a low, steady buzzing of activity inside. It sounds busy and alive. As many of you recall, late this past summer, there were so many bees in there that it was difficult to manipulate and manuever at times. And as I said in the beginning of this post, maybe it is just first-year beekeeper's jitters that's getting the best of me.

But seeing all those dead bees, those being brought out of the hive while I was there and those already deposited on the ground, it sort of un-nerved me just a little bit. I'm just hoping that this is what nature does to bees in the winter and its not something that I did...or something I didn't do. Truthfully, I'm perplexed. Some people say that dead bees on the ground in front of the hive is normal..then some say that you shouldn't have all that many on the ground at all. I didn't count them...but I can say I've never seen this many before.

As always, your thoughts and own experiences are more than welcome. Please share what you think is going on. I would love to hear from you!