R.I.P
Spring has finally arrived in southern Maine, but with it comes very bad news. Only two of our hives have survived the brutal winter - guess which ones - yes, you guessed it, Jamaica and Katherine the Great. These two were clearly our very strongest colonies and, of course, they are the two quirkiest queens that we have had.
It's hard to know exactly why the others didn't make it through the winter. We've discussed this with Peggy and Richard, but can't pinpoint one thing as a cause of their demise. We find lots of capped honey in the dead hives as we are cleaning them out, so food was available. Richard would say that the cluster was not large enough to allow them to access the food in different locations in the hive during the extreme cold. We lost 5 hives in mid-February and our nuc in the backyard in mid-March.
Right now, we are in the process of cleaning out the dead hives - removing the dead bees, cleaning up lots of bee poop (they suffered from dysentery from not being able to get out for six weeks in Jan/Feb) and finally, freezing honey/pollen frames for future use and storing all the rest of the good comb. This is a huge undertaking (oops!) for six dead hives. Here's hoping the next posting contains happier news!
