Jan 10, 2024
Winter hath arrived in west Michigan. We’re down to single digits here and of course my first thought is “I hope I put enough sugar blocks in my hive?” I ususally try to check all of my hives for sugar supply when I know an arctic front is coming. Thankfully this one is only going to last four days. We’ve had some that lasted two weeks in the past and I did lose colonies due to starvation. Does cold weather kill bees? No, not directly but when bees are too cold to move the cluster to another area in the hive where there is food they starve to death. So yes, in a way the cold can kill bees. This is why you want to move your honey frames to the middle of your super during one of those last hive inspections in October and have ample sugar bricks or fondant covering the entire top frames of the top super. You want food to be in close reach no matter where they come up in the box. I went out and cleared the bottom entrances again so they can get out if they need to. I don’t need to worry the bees suffocating because I use screened bottom boards with a 1 inch square cut out of the slide board. This is my first year using just the bottom board entrance with the 4.52″ opening. I noticed one of my hive propolizing their shim top entrance, so I decided to plug up all of my top entrances to see how they respond. I like the idea because it keeps it warmer on top where the sugar is so they can eat without getting chilled and it just plain stays warmer in there, so they use less energy to generate less heat and eating less food as a result. Hang in there babies!
