On November 18th I put a 3 lb. sugar brick into my lightest (in stores) hive to help them get through what I hoped would be a typical Alabama winter. Well our winter has been anything but normal, as almost everyone else can say as well, and today, 3 months later, I finally had a warm enough day to check my hives. I was worried about the light hive but was pleasantly surprised at what I found. They had only consumed a very small amount of the 3 lb. brick of sugar and the number of bees was higher than I expected to find. So all five of my hives made it through the cold weather in good shape so far.
Sorry, I tried several times to post a couple of pictures but can't get them below the 750KB limit.