Today, 03/08/10, found one hive dead and one hive with many bees flying. About 48 degrees with lots of snow on the ground. Never had a hive make it through winter. This is the crucial time - now until late spring? I just popped to inner cover a little bit to see them, but didn't want to get them chilled by inspecting any further. They looked great after this long winter!!! Any thoughts on how to make sure they continue to thrive? Thanks everyone (or anyone).
Mark
Next time you get a nice sunny day without a bunch of wind. Pop it open and pull the frames beside the cluster and see if they are empty of stores. If they are not mostly full, then pull frames from farther away from them that have plenty of capped honey and put beside them. In the case of some real, cold, nights you want them to be able to reach the food.
Thanks for the input. Today I just put some granulated sugar on top of the inner cover. Somewhere I heard that works until I can get in there and move frames around?
If there are stores left in the dead out you can also centralize those frames into a hive body and put it on top of your surviving hive. This is assuming they didn't die of something like AFB. The hive will use these remaining stores and keep the frames clean and in good shape. If they move into the upper 2 hive bodies steal the bottom one when you need it. If they move the stores down and stak in the bottom 2 bodies steal the top one. Either way the drawn comb will be ready when you need it.
Thanks again for the input. It was 60 today, so I opened the top and tried to put three full frames of capped honey from the dead hive into the one that seems to be doing real well....but the bees just exploded out of the hive and were really agressive. I took out three empty frames and put the full ones in despite their objection. I'm hoping this is going to be a strong hive to start my third year.
I had my bees robbing my dead out colony..... there was chewed up was cappings all over the dead bees. I need to get in there and snap a pic.