{"id":1497,"date":"2013-01-17T10:50:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T16:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2013-01-18T12:58:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T18:58:26","slug":"beehive-in-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/?p=1497","title":{"rendered":"Beehive in winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having a beehive in winter is definitely not as much work as during the summer months. It’s pretty much a sit and wait kind of deal. Instead of opening the hive to check on eggs and the queen every 11 days I just have to replenish the sugar water every 2 weeks or so. Once a month I open the lid to see if they need an extra pollen patty to help them survive the cold days. Beyond that though it really is more of watch and wait.\"\"<\/a>It is important to protect the hive from the cold north winds that come blasting through. So Dick setup a very effective odd looking sail-like structure that works pretty well. (See image above) It directs the incoming winds over the hive.<\/p>\n

We also took out the mesh front screen at the entrance of the hive that was so valuable in adding extra ventilation during those hot summer months, and replaced it with a wooden one that does double duty in keeping the hive warmer and preventing opportunistic, overwintering mice from climbing in and eating all the honey.<\/p>\n

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On this warm day, bees broke cluster and left the hive to do some ‘cleansing flights’ as well as search for nectar and water.<\/p><\/div>\n

On cold days (below 54 degrees) the bees in the hive form a ball-like cluster so as to maintain the heat they need to survive. The colder the temperature outside, the tighter the cluster. On warmer days they break cluster and venture outside to see if there is any pollen or nectar to forage and to relieve themselves. We call this their ‘cleansing flights’. Yes, bees definitely do poop. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I have found several bees scoping out the compost pile and taking advantage of the juices of various fruit scraps. I have also seen them collecting some water from the bog of my pond. I did not know they would need water during this time. In summer they need water to cool the hive. Right now it’s cool, so I have no idea why they are collecting it.<\/p>\n

I can’t wait for spring, to see what blossoms will emerge first and how the bees will respond to the change. I know that the first inspection of the hive in spring will be a messy one, since they have had all winter to seal up all the frames and boxes nice and tight with wax, so that no air can get in. One of the upper frames had broken during the last inspection, oozing some of their valuable honey down the hive box. They immediately started sucking up the honey and fixing the frames, ignoring my frantic words of apologies. Bees are very industrious and I am sure they immediately sealed up the frame and attached it to the lower frame box, which will make opening the hive and looking for a queen and eggs in spring a very difficult and messy task, to say the least! The bees will NOT be amused and I will suit up for sure! Should be very interesting. Hopefully they will survive the winter and early spring healthy and happy, and we get some replenishing rain so that we have a productive honey flow this year. Till then it’s a watch and wait……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having a beehive in winter is definitely not as much work as during the summer months. It’s pretty much a sit and wait kind of deal. Instead of opening the hive to check on eggs and the queen every 11 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1501,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sun-dancing.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}