I went in to all my hives today to see:
1) How many live bees are in there
2) How many dead bees are on the bottom boards (and clean them off)
3) How much honey they have4) How the remaining honey is distributed
The good news is I have live bees in every hive. The bad news is I never did combine that nuc I raised as an insurance policy with another hive and it turns out that was a bad idea. Almost all the honey was gone and the nuc was 5/6ths dead. Queen and maybe 200 bees are left. I'm sure they will die, very sad. I'm tempted to try to move them inside the shed or something to give them a fighting chance, but don't really know what will help. One other hive was light on bees with already 1 inch of dead bees on the bottom board. They may or may not make it, long shot, I'd say. The four remaining hives were relatively strong and had quite a bit more honey. Best of luck to all of them. I did move some frames of honey around so they'd be more available to the clusters later. I will probably make some candy boards later, especially for the two hives that were already near the inner cover.
Most hives actually die in March cold snaps, not Nov and Dec, so it is still too early to tell.
