2 hives lost

It was warm enough again for the hives to have bees out and about cleansing. I noticed 2 hives for the second time durring a warm spell, not active. I broke them open and this is what I found:

Both hives with Kona Queens from Hawaii didn't make it. There were inches from food, but starved to death. There were also random pupae ready to hatch that they abandonded to try to stay warm. I will place some of their old honey stores on a hive that is desperatly needing honey.

2 out of 12 isnt so bad... but we have a few months left to go!

For Michelle

I managed to get a really nasty bug on Monday that has run me over like a truck. Before the inconvenience, I have had the opportunity to take some quick peeks at where the clusters are and check the stores.

I have candy boards on all of my hives and my nucs just to be safe. There is a small gap that I made to keep the boards from turning to complete mush due to condensation on the inside of the hive. Only 2 hives are to the point of using the candy boards. Two hives also have a super and a half left of honey. I can use their candy boards if needed. All of the other hives seem to have enough to make it the rest of the way through winter.

We have had snow stick 2 times already this winter and tomorrow (Christmas day) it is supposed to snow and accumulate again! It is really too bad I feel so terrible.

Busy

I have been busy with various things and have forgotten to post.

I moved the hives off of my back deck and organized my main bee yard some. I had some stragglers not want to orient to the new spots and they buzzed around the back deck looking for home.

It was warm enough to crack open the hives to take a peek and several have me worried. They have eaten through ALL of the bottom and most of the middle boxes of honey. This means they have one medium left. I threw sugar in there via the mountain camp method (place sugar on newspaper and wet slightly to let them eat it as they go through the rest of the honey) and will be making candy boards (hard candy that sits in the inner cover for them to eat if they run out of honey). I guess 66 lbs of honey is not enough for this climate.

I should have enough honey next year to have a few supers left for winter swapouts if they get low next year.