It’s been a long cold snowy spell here in central Minnesota. Beekeepers have not had a chance to crack open their hives and check on their bees because of record cold temperatures. Temps should be at least in the high 30’s or in the 40’s, and little or no wind, before attempting to check on the your bees. Hopefully by mid-March, we will see those temps. And even at those temps, make inspection times as short as possible. You don’t want to expose the bees too long and chill them.
Before you open a hive on the next warmer day, have a plan and know why you are checking (disturbing) the bees. There are two main reasons for checking your hives this time of year. 1) Checking for dead-outs or weak hives. 2) Checking if bees have enough stored honey to make it to spring. It’s not a time to spend finding the queen, or even pulling frames. Bees are in a clustering mode, like a ball shape of bees, this time of year and the cluster should not be disturbed.
Dead-outs are basically a hive of dead bees. This is sad and disappointing to see if you are new to beekeeping or a long time keeper. There are many reasons bees don’t make it through our cold winters – starvation, they lost the queen going into winter, mite loads, viruses, bees got wet from condensation inside the hive, etc. Most of these reasons are preventable as we gain more knowledge, but some are by no fault of our own. You may also find weak hives – very small cluster of bees the size of baseball or fewer. This small number of bees most likely will not make it to spring. Beekeepers count their dead-outs and weak hives so they know how many replacement bees to order this time of year.
Hopefully, most of your hives will be alive with a good size cluster of bees inside. One thing to check without disturbing the cluster is how much honey is still available for the bees. Late March is when most hives run out of food. The queens starts laying eggs as the days become longer. Great amounts of stored honey and pollen are used to raise the new brood. The only food they have is stored inside the hive. There are no flowers in bloom yet, so no nectar or pollen is being collected. Beekeepers must decide if there is enough stored honey or they must feed the bees.
Sometimes bees will starve even though they have frames of honey in the hive. When bees are clustered in the colder part of winter, they eat honey to stay warm. They generate heat by flexing their wing muscles. As honey cells around the cluster become empty, individual bees are unable to travel far and retrieve honey because they will freeze and die before making it back to the cluster. Therefore, the whole cluster must pick up and move to the stored honey. The bad thing is the temperature needs to be warm enough inside the hive for the cluster to move. When there are long periods of very cold weather, the cluster of bees do not have an opportunity to move. In a matter of days, they starve and die. Bees share to the last drop and then die all within a short time, a day or two.
So, if weather permits, check your hives and feed if necessary in March.