My bees took a big hit this winter. It was a terrible winter. I am STILL cleaning out hives. I had eggs in early February. I assumed I lost most hives because they used reserves because it was so warm.. daytime temps in the mid forties, nighttime temps ten to twenty degrees... In cleaning hives out, I am finding a LOT of capped syrup/honey. I have at least fifty gallons if I was to extract it at this point. EVERY hive had lots of honey, but I am finding dead bees in small clusters. five or six clusters in each hive. baseball sized clusters, along with bees dead on brood. I can only assume that when we had warm spells, queens started laying, and then the bees did not leave the brood and froze. It was warm, they were flying, and then when temps dropped down near single digits, they didn't go back into one large cluster, they started several clusters that were not big enough.
I am starting to think Robo's idea of foam hives might have more merit for winters like that, so the temps do not fluctuate so dramatically inside the hives.
Starting over with the hives I have left. Been a good spring, they are building comb like mad.
It was a good birthday though!
