Good grief, its the neverending winter!!!!
negative temps again.. looks like at LEAST another ten days of 0 or below at night with the warmest temp being 23 on Friday. Glad my bees got a chance to get out last week, but I am starting to get a really bad feeling about this.
I guess the sunny side of the cloud is that the bees I do have survive WILL BE survivors.
Class last night, talked with several beekeepers. MOST have OVER 50% loss now. the local breeder has lost 80% of his Nuc's and 30% of his production hives.
the gent I bought my extractor from has lost all 18 of his hives. Those who still have live bees are worried SICK, much like I am. They, Like I set my bees up with 100 to 120 lbs of stores. Almost every one of them checked their bees when we had the 50 degree day, and 95% of them found their bees IN the very top of the hives. Everyone was scrambling to get sugar into their hives.
Every one was trying to find bees to buy last night. Looks like it will at least be a good year for package and Nuc producers.