Well, the weather here in southern Ontario has been extremely eratic this winter. We have had no snow and warm temperatures up until about January 1st. We have gone to -25 degrees Celsius, and -35 degrees Celsius with the wind chill. It has been a crazy winter!
Today is February 21st and while I was in the barn, I decided to check on my 3 hives. I removed some of the winter plastic wrap that I had on them and prayed for good results. I have been counting on the fact that the weather has not been all that cold that all the bees will have survived.
To my great pleasure all three currently look like they have good clusters and are doing well. The one that had no black plastic wrap for the winter still had sugar sitting on the top board. The other two hives had black plastic wrap for the winter. These ones we're all out of sugar, leading me to believe that the black plastic wrap did have some effect, in that it gave them a greater degree of warmth. This allows the bees to move out of the cluster and up to the cover board and consume the sugar that I had placed there in the fall.
So I quickly ran into the house, grabbed a kilogram of sugar, ran back to the house and fed them. I will check in a few more days and see how they're doing. I am hopeful that this season will be much better than last year and that if I stay on top of them then they will make it through the tumultuous spring weather.
As always, remember to bee stoic!
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