Spring weather - freeze warning 3/26/12

It is the warmest spring on record and everything is in bloom from flowering pears to wild cherries.  Low of 26 tonight.  I wonder if the bees will have forage come tomorrow!  Spring dearth?  I hope not.

Update 4/15/12:  We've had a few snows and there have been some trees that have suffered (the magnolias look terrible) but things are blooming and the bees are bringing in nectar and pollen.  I did not have to resume feeding.

Format change to blog

In 2009 and 2010 with 2 hives I generated a blog post for each inspection.  I intended to do the same in 2011 with 5 hives, but my records were poor and sporadic.  However, it clearly would have been difficult to track the progress of a particular hive through many different posts.  This year I'll be trying a single post per hive.  Significant issues/changes will be documented in the post body via an update.  Minor inspections, feedings, and observations will be documented as comments.  Hopefully this will allow the tracking of individual colonies.  The dates on the main posts will not be relevant and the "labels" cumulative, but the comment dates will remain relevant.  Not sure what to do with photos as bulking up the posts too much will make it hard to read.

6/5/12 update:  I had to figure out how handle combines given the current posting format.  I decided that I would keep the hive number of the hive that is queen-right during the combine and continue the updates for that hive.  The non-queen right hive will be updated with a link to new hive and state that the hive ended on the combine date and that hive #/year combo retired.

For example, Hive 2 (not queen right) was combined with Hive 5 (queen right) to create Hive 5.  The original post for Hive 2 was shut down and linked to Hive 5, which will continue.

Overwintering: Early spring 2012 Update

Of the 5 hives going into the winter, 1 starved out by late December.  I inspected on a day above 55 at the end of December and that hive was dead, the one that had so many bees and had produced so much honey in 2011.  I suppose I pulled off too much honey in the fall, even though I left a full super on top of the two deeps.  It's too bad as that queen laid like crazy.  Despite moving some bees from this hive to boost others there were too many bees going into the winter.  They might have lived if I harvested NO honey.

The winter was unusually warm.  I think I shoveled the driveway only 3 times.  Seemed like everytime it snowed it was followed with weather warm enough to melt it.  The bees fared well.  The remaining 4 colonies have decent sized clusters and did not starve.  3 of 4 overwintered in two deeps and I began feeding pollen patties on Feb 24, 2012 and sugar syrup on March 7,2012.  1 of 4 overwintered with a deep and a shallow (started 2011 as a nuc) and I began feeding on Feb24 with pollen patty embedded in candy board. 

Candy board was a new thing for me, courtesy of Allan T.  For candy I used 10lbs of sugar in 2 cups water with 1 tsp vinegar and 2 tbsp Honey Bee Healthy.  Once heated to a uniform slurry, I poured it into a frame that had hardware cloth on the back which I lined with wax paper.  I embedded pollen patty in the candy and allowed it to cool and solidfy.  The entire board went on top the super and under the inner cover.

Fingers crossed for the best bee and honey year yet.