Snow Day

Notice there are no dead bees at the entrance to this hive. If you look back two days on this blog you can see just how many bees there are inside those snazzy blue boxes. After any snow, you expect a few dead bees at the entrance of a hive. But where are they??

I was looking out a few moments ago and saw a bird fly down in front of the hive, hover for a moment and then fly off. Looking at the snow at the entrance, I think that bird was having bees for breakfast!

Today is the day!!

Bees don't pee or poop inside their hives so when we have a long stretch of weather that keeps them inside, well, you can imagine the number of crossed legs!  Today it was over 50' at 7 am so the girls were out and doing what beekeepers call a cleansing flight.

A cleansing flight on a warm day like today gets everyone out of the hive and is a great opportunity to assess the health of a hive. I am so pleased with the number of bees in both hives.

They were also looking pretty healthy. Both hives tossed out some dead bees and were crowding around their entrances.

There was no poop on the outside of the hive, so they were strong enough to head out and don't seem to have dysentery.

And they were calm. Bee behavior will often give you a good indication of the health of a hive. Testy bees generally have some stress and calm bees are happy bees. That is my arm and a couple of bees landed on me and then left after a moment.

Go bee!