Well, as those who may know, I usually end up keeping from 5 to 10 hives for my own purposes and get the rest of the bees that I capture or cut-out to area beekeerps to help keep these bees alive.
I went into this winter with five hives of my own. Four at my Forest bee yard and one at a residential outyard.
A bee buddy (the “Wild Beeman” Gary K) and I went to look over the four hives in the forest today as the temps got up about 60, to see how the hives were faring this month.
Out of four hives, I have lost one at this point. It is one of the modified Warre hives. Two of the other modified Warres are doing exceptionally well. The single 8 frame medium hive, the one I worried most about going into winter, is also doing extremely well so far.
We put some sugar patties of Gary’s own recipe (a modified version of the recipe another bee club member Joe S passed along) on the three remaining hives to help the girls tuff out the rest of this goofy weather winter.
I’m hoping they continue doing well and come into Spring ready to make splits and turn them into 6 hives.
I still need to get out to the residential outyard and check on the girls out there. Hopefully they are doing just as well as the other three hives.
Good news so far in the wacky winter of Omaha, NE.