Mid Winter Clustering
Winter is in full swing and I checked up on the bees today. I slide open the bottom board’s tray and looked up in to each hive. Antheia was clustering at the bottom of the lower box. I couldn’t see the cluster in Hegemone, so I’m guessing that they were in the upper box. The weather forecast shows many more cold days and nights and the temperature should creep up above 50 on Friday. If the forecast holds true, then I’ll put bag feeder spacers on both of the hives and give them a lot more dry sugar. I’ll also get a chance to replace the falling apart outer covers with some new metallic topped ones that are a bit more weather proof.
I took advantage of Brushy Mountain Bee Farms December free shipping and ordered a lot of stuff to prepare for next year. Next year I plan on adding another hive and if the bees are strong enough, split a 5 frame nuc. I’m undecided about starting the 3rd hive from a nuc or a package. Still a little bit of time to make a decision on that. To prevent robbing and to make feeding easier for me, I purchased top feeder for all of the hives. I also bought screened tops to sit above the feeders to prevent robbing or having the bees fly at me when I refill the syrup.
As a beekeeper, there is not much to do when the weather is cold. I decided to branch out a little bit more and start tinkering with some of the various bee related crafts. I’m starting off with candle making. I ordered 10 pounds of beeswax, a votive mold and a few other essential tools of the trade. Candles and honey will probably be my gift of choice until I start making mead. If anyone know a good source of candle molds or some good mead recipes, let me know.
