Brrrr! It had been cold! How are the bees surviving?

I have been worried with the temperatures being so cold for weeks. I don’t recall temperatures being this cold in the past, but part of that could be that I haven’t been keeping bees for that long and during that time we had a few mild winters, which may have spoiled me a bit.

I was lucky to see some bee activity in December, and while remember the activity on the some of the hives a warmer day, and was concerned about one of the hives. Luckily, the following day, though it was a bit cooler out but those bees, and only those bees, decided to come out. The must have gotten the memo late, the one for them to prepare colder weather. That was shortly before the cold started settling in and the bees stayed inside, not a buzz. I don’t blame them. I don’t like the cold either.

Bees do not hibernate in the cold weather. They do something different, they form a “ball’ of bees and vibrate their wings muscles, essentially shivering to generate heat inside of the hive. The bees will rotate their positions within this ball. The colder bees move to the center of the ball while the inner, warmer bees move to outside of the ball. This is called clustering.

Another thing that can happen to bees is that they can go into a suspended animation. When the temperature drops suddenly, their metabolism slows down and they may appear to be lifeless. I have experienced a few times where I saw this and saw the bee come back to animation. That is called torpor. Other animals, outside of honey bees, go through that as well.

These winter coping mechanisms do not guarantee the survival of the colony. There are other factors as well, the size of the colony, the length of the cold temperatures, the ability for bees to break from the cluster and move to other area of the hive where food is available. These can all be detrimental to a colonies survival.

In these frigid temperatures I decided to suit up, not in my usual bee jacket, veil and bee gloves, snow pants, winter jacket, hat, winter gloves, and took a trip to check on my bees. With a thermal camera in my hand, I attempted to measure the temperature through a tiny hole on the inner cover, about 3/4 inch wide but 1/2 in tall. There is not a lot of space to shoot through there. My goal was to get a temperature higher than 10 degrees Fahrenheit or a glow indicating heat. I started from the bottom of the hill and worked my way up. First hive, nada, second hive nothing, third hive, zilch, fourth hive, what is this, a glow and temperature around 35 degrees, fifth hive, nope, eight, a glow and a temperature in the 30s, ninth, a glow and a temperature in the mid 30s. I am happy with those results from the hives that showed that there is heat being generated and sad for those hives that didn’t. I intentionally skipped over my seventh temperature reading, there was a strong glow and I got a temperature reading of 77 degrees. Wow! I definitely have one hive surviving very well.

After taking the hives temps and know there may be wind gusts that could produce -30 degrees feel like temps, I decided to pile snow around the cinder blocks as a wind block and to help hold the insulation in place. Any additional help to keep these colonies going will not hurt.

Within a few days, after taking the temperature of the hives, the temperature rose to a soaring 37 degrees with the sun shining. I thought that some of the bees in the colonies might take an opportunity for cleansing flights, a flight to relieve themselves. It is not unusual for bees to take these flights when the temperatures are a little too cold. Unfortunately some of the bees may not make it back, but it is a good indication that you have colonies that are surviving. If you see a bee outside in the snow, most likely it flew out at one point. I was hoping to see a few bees in front of the cooler hives as an indication that those are colonies surviving. Unfortunately, I didn’t see that. I still have hope for those colonies.

The hot hive, on the other hand, had at a hundred bees outside of it and the snow around it tints of a tan, indicating that the bees had relieved themselves. While it is sad to see so many dead bees outside of the hive, it is an indication that there is a strong colony inside. I am absolutely amazed by this colony.

I am hoping that spring is around the corner. I will leave you with the pictures of the thermal glows from the hives and bees that didn’t make it back to the hive with their tinting in the snow. Thank you for reading and be kind.