In spite of 18 inches of snow, the temperature went above 40F this weekend and I decided to find out for sure who has survived so far.
Ethel and Justine are definitely gone. I opened them both up and there is nothing but dead bees in them. There is lots of honey, much of it uncapped. The meaning of the uncapped honey is not clear to me. Otherwise, the hive looks OK. I will take out any frames with capped honey and spin them when the snow melts and it is easier to get back to the bees. There may be 100 pounds or more of honey in the two hives.
Based on the theory that the hives suffocated, I will reuse the hives and frames. My new bees will have a ready made hive with lots of comb and some uncapped honey to get started with.
I am going to order some honey buckets and sieves to make the extraction easier. I have been pouring the honey into cheesecloth and then squeezing it – all by hand. I want to try just letting it sit for a day or two and drain through the sieve. The honey bucket has a gate in the bottom for bottling from the bottom. This way there will be less wax in the bears.
Now, Martha and Connie have lots of dead bees outside the hives and a few live ones on their backs. I opened up Martha and took a peek in and saw a large clump of bees near the front. A bee started to come up out of the box so I put the cover back on quickly – and then bang! I was stung on the top of my head. That was the first sting since last July.
I noticed that there was lots of noise from the have – snap, crackle, and pop sounds. I put my ear next to the boxes and I they were fairly loud.
I went to Connie and listened and there was the same snap, crackle, and pop. Connie, too, was cleaning house and I saw live bees dragging dead bees out the entrance and dumping them. Connie, my strongest hive, is doing well.
My April packages will be Justine II and Ethel III. I want to get some cinder blocks and raise all my hives another foot above the ground.
I am also getting NUCS in May from the New Jersey bee farm. I will need boxes for these. A NUC is a small hive (about half the number of frames) that has lived through the winter so it should be strong. (I am not sure the nucs I am getting are “over-wintered”, though).
I think six hives is too much and I may sell one. I should be able to get $250 for a strong hive, maybe even more than that. An empty hive kit with two deeps and frames is about $100 plus $40 shipping. A package is $120. I would need to get about $260 to get my money back. I also would have done all the work and got the hive started so I should get about $100 for that part. I might advertise a complete hive for $350 in May and see if I get any offers.
I am going to order the pretty copper tops for my hives. They look very cool, but they cost $65 each, plus shipping. I’ll start with a pair, I think.
