"Six More Weeks"
Well, Groundhog Day happened last week and the old guy saw his shadow, so I guess we have six more weeks of winter. We were all expecting it here in Minnesota. We are in that long, quiet stretch of winter where we are starting to feel it's "too cold," but we know that we haven't hit the typically coldest part of the year yet. Because we moved last fall, we weren't able to put as much energy as we typically do into winterizing and monitoring our hives. I took a trip out in January to see how things were going. Surprisingly, walking up to this was not as alarming as one might think. A healthy colony can lose between 30 and 40 thousand bees over the winter so the fact that they were dumped outside is actually a sign that things might be ok inside. Bees are naturally clean - beekeepers call this "hygienic," and it means they keep a clean and healthy living environment. We might be more alarmed this time of year if we walked out to ...