# Three out of four hives ....



## AverageJo (Sep 24, 2010)

are still ALIVE!!! Yippeeee.... Now if I can just keep them going until the dandi-lions start blooming!! I even saw a couple of bees going into the fourth one but it didn't have the activity of the other three. And.... get this... I even saw a bee going into the hive that had the late swarm in it last fall. Granted, I didn't pop open any tops, so there might actually be 5 out of 5, but I'm not counting on the hive and swarm to make it... But hoping for at least 3 splits this spring if all goes well. :sing:


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## SmokeEater2 (Jan 11, 2010)

Good to hear! Did they still have food stores left?


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## AverageJo (Sep 24, 2010)

I left them with a honey super last fall and filled the inner cover with sugar when we had a warm spell in January, just in case. A couple of days it got in the 50's and I put out a sugar syrup feeder which they hit as well. It was getting late today when I took a walk out there. I popped the lid off the 'dead' hive and there was sugar on top and one bee did come up to investigate but I didn't see much activity other than a couple of bees. I didn't want to pop them open and dig very deep because of the risk to them and the lack of time. I'll continue putting out sugar syrup and may put a pollen patty on the really active hives.


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## mare (Aug 31, 2006)

awesome, i wish it warm up more here so i can check---this is going to be a long spring


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Mare ,, what ??? going to be a long spring ,,,, No ,,, it is -this is a long spring ... the temps have been right at low spring temp from sept on ..


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Mare ,, glad to see your still looking .. I know life has gotten in the way ,,here life has been , 2 or 3 weeks of life in each week . not a dull moment


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## AverageJo (Sep 24, 2010)

And then there were two.... I'm so bummed out!! Went to check on the girls as the weather was supposed to be in the upper 50's although windy. Only 2 hives left, but they had a lot of girls out and about. Put on some 1:1 syrup on them, so I've got my fingers crossed. Hope they can make it and get a good start to spring so I can do a split on both.

Checked the two dead hives. One had MOLD. I was surprised when I found that. White and green mold. My camera's battery was dead so I hope to get pictures tomorrow to post. The other hive had white bits in it. I'm hoping that it is the sugar that I had put in that hive in January that they've brought down. Again pictures forthcoming hopefully. Both hives still had honey in them, so they didn't starve out unless they were too confused to move to where the honey was? On hive had the bee space between the upper and lower frames filled with comb so I'm wondering if they just couldn't move to the next frame over to where the honey was? Is that possible? Why would they do that? I'll be making sure that doesn't happen again. Hope to do a better job of hive management this year now that the 'baby' is 2.5 yo. Guess time will tell....


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