Work of the Mortician Bees in Winter

We have had very cold weather for late November in Atlanta. When I came home from a week away for Thanksgiving, all of the hives had dead bees on the front porch. It is part of the cycle of life that bees die during the winter, but when it is too cold to fly the mortician bees can't carry out the dead.

As you can see in the two pictures below, the dead bees accumulate on the bottom board of the hive until it is warm enough for a mortician bee to carry the bodies away from the hive.






Today although it has continued to be quite cold for Atlanta, we did have a few hours above 50 degrees. The bees can fly under those conditions and they carried away the dead, leaving their front porches clean and shiny.

This was true on my strongest three hives: Bermuda, Mellona and Aristaeus2. These hives went into winter with plenty of honey stored for the cold days and I often see bees at the entrance when the temperature approaches anything close to a flying level (above 50 usually, but sometimes these bees go out at 45 if it is sunny).

Note the clean porch below compared to the picture above with dead bees lying all around.



Persephone is another story. Her landing had dead bees on it on Sunday (see the picture below) and still has dead bees today. Closer inspection shows that there are many dead bees in front of this hive. I wonder if the hive has been killed off, as was the absconded nuc hive.

I opened the top of the box to see if they needed more food and only saw a few bees.

The baggie feeder is on top of the super and the cluster may be in the bottom box, if there are any bees left. I checked the syrup in the baggies and this hive is low. I will make some more tonight and see if they are there tomorrow to give it to them. When I went out to take a later picture, I did see a bee carrying out a body from this hive so maybe a small cluster is still alive.

Tomorrow I'll replace the baggie feeder without really opening the hive and hope for the best.

Note: My daughters who put credence into magical thinking asked how could I expect a hive named Persephone to survive? They reminded me that in the winter Persephone is condemned to the Underworld and her mother, Demeter, forces the earth to languish and almost die before Persephone returns to the Earth in the spring.

If this hive does make it through the winter, I'll rename it and maybe relocate it in the spring to take away this bad Karma!



At this point I have three hives that appear to be doing OK and this Persephone hive that appears to be in trouble. My first year only one hive made it through the winter: Bermuda. Bermuda entered the spring with bees ill from varroa-vectored diseases and was quite weak. Last winter both Bermuda and Mellona made it through the winter, and because of my attention in the fall with powdered sugar shakes (I assume) both were strong and healthy.

If Bermuda, Mellona and Aristaeus2 manage to live until spring, that will be an increase of one hive per year! Aristaeus2 is the small swarm that I collected from a shrub in Dunwoody. The bees are tiny and feral in appearance and it would thrill me if it lives until the spring.

The Rescued Nuc Hive has Died

Today at the end of the work day, I decided to check to see if the nuc hive needed more sugar syrup. I had put baggie feeders on top of the nuc box under the inner cover and top of the nuc. There appeared to be no bees when I opened the top. When I removed the baggies I could see ripped up comb and dead bees. You can see the ragged edges of comb and a few of the dead bees in the picture below.



Sadly I lifted off the box and here's what the bottom board looked like.



I sifted through the bodies but didn't see the dead queen although I am sure she was in the pile somewhere. The beige stuff is composed of the wax cappings, ripped off of the comb as the robbing commenced.

I wish I had been a better beekeeper. All of this destruction is because I replaced the queen in Devorah when the original queen was still alive and kicking, although not laying. I also think this is because we have had such a drought in Georgia that supplies for the bees are so low - just as the US economy is in a recession, the bees are in a depression!

How Does Martha Stewart Keep Her Beehives So White and Clean?

As winter is in full swing in Atlanta, I look at my aging beehives and wonder how Martha Stewart keeps her hives so clean and beautiful. One of my friends on Beemaster took the picture above of Martha's hives herself (so this picture is not doctored up for the magazine)! It was in April, but even in April, my bottom box is dingy from the year before.

Here's a video of a Martha Stewart show on harvesting honey. She uses an extractor and makes it sound as if that is the only way to harvest, but I don't use the extractor and get great (prize winning) honey. In the video she says she gives her bees all new homes for the winter. Even if mine go through the winter in new boxes, they would look a little done in by spring from the vestiges of the weather.

My bees, if they live through the winter, are in an old box at the beginning of spring. I wonder if it's worth giving them a new box? My bees are on my deck in full view of anyone who visits my house and a new box would certainly be more attractive. But would it be worth it to disturb the hive just for beauty? HMMMMMM.....

How the Bees Protect Themselves in Winter

When I opened Mellona on Sunday, even though bees were flying in and out of the hive for about an hour before I opened the hive, there were no bees under the inner cover. I could hear the hum of the hive but couldn't see a single bee.

I took off the first box and there they were. Their cluster was just below the top box on the front left corner of the hive box. Interestingly this corner of the box is where I always found the queen in this hive during bee season. They clustered in their "home place" in the hive.



When I took the telescoping top off of Bermuda, I found the hole in the inner cover had been propolized to keep out the cold. Bermuda has the most stores of all my hives so I decided not to break the propolis, but to leave them alone until my next hive check in a week or so.

The only reason I have to open the hives in winter is to make sure the bees don't need feeding.

The Baggie Rules!

I have had two Boardman feeders inside an empty nuc box on top of the absconded hive. Yesterday I opened the box and found some dead bees inside the holder for the feeder jar. I don't know if the cold weather affected the flow or if the jar was leaking between the lid and the glass - whatever the explanation, liquid leaked and bees died.



I removed the jars and replaced them with two sandwich sized baggies. I used sandwich bags because if I ever use a baggie that can't lie completely flat, then the bags get filled with drowned bees. I figured that the two sandwich bags gave the bees about the same amount of food, but wouldn't cause the problems that the full sized baggies do.



Persephone is also a hive low on supplies. I had put a baggie in last week but was not in a suit. When I opened the hive, the bees weren't happy with my intrusion so I couldn't leave the hive open long enough to slit the bag. So this week I slit that bag and added another full bag.

The Bees are Flying

On Sunday in Atlanta finally the temperature began to rise. We've had day after day of highs in the 40s but on Sunday it was supposed to go up to 50. While my thermometer still read 45, the bees began to fly. Both the hives were in a sunnier spot than this thermometer and maybe the bees knew that the afternoon was going to be continually warmer.

There were active bees on the entry way on each hive. In fact, at the time I took these pictures, the bees looked like they were doing orientation flights, but my pictures don't really capture the numbers in the air.
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I have been concerned that the bees in the nuc may not be alive, but they are thriving. Their numbers look strong and they seemed more active than any of my hives.

Feeding the bees in Winter

It's a dilemma - to feed or not to feed. I definitely need to keep food on my small nuc hive. Persephone went into winter short on stores as well. I checked a week ago and all was fine. It's been way too cold to open the hives (didn't get above 45 today) so I haven't checked the stores this week. I will feed tomorrow, however, so I mixed up some sugar syrup today.

It's hard to mix up 2 parts sugar to one part water and have the syrup be liquid. Instead I mixed 6 cups sugar to 4 cups water. Hopefully that will not be thin enough to encourage brood rearing but will be thick enough for me to manage as I transfer it to the hives.

At first it's mostly sugar, solid in the liquid as in the first picture. With heat under the pot, the dissolving begins.



In the picture below the syrup is just below boiling and will be clear soon. When it is clear I'll turn off the heat.

Here's the finished syrup, clear and because it's a thick syrup, you can see some sugar crystals at the edge of the liquid. I'll put this in Ziploc sandwich bags to put in the nuc. I may also feed Persephone.

Where are the bees?

Bees in winter are deeply involved with each other but not seen except when the temperature is higher than it is today in Atlanta. The front of the hive looks lonely and forlorn. Mostly in the winter, the bees cluster in a ball and keep themselves warm. They are not warming the hive but rather are warming the cluster. They do not relieve themselves in the hive but save up for a warm day when they can fly out and relieve themselves outside the hive.


Right now we've had a number of over 50 degree days and the bees get out and fly so I don't have an entrance reducer on my hives. However, it will be below freezing tonight and probably tomorrow I'll put entrance reducers on my hives to help the bees keep out intruders.


I did open Persephone and gave the hive a bag of syrup to help them with their low supplies. They were not happy to see me (it was 4:30, cold and almost sundown). I only got one slit cut in the bag and will revisit this hive feeder bag tomorrow or the next day to cut slits that are useful for the bees.



I saw a ton of hive beetles in this hive just under the sugar syrup Ziploc. I didn't stay in the hive long enough to kill them but was disgusted with how many there were. Even though this picture is not focused, I thought I'd show you their large numbers - and that's only under the sugar syrup bag......GRRRR.