Cleansing Flights!

There was a lot of activity coming from the green hive.  The green hive is wrapped up in a “Bee Cozy” winter wrap. It is like putting a down jacket on your hive and the best thing about it is that it literally takes less than a minute to throw it on. I am super impressed with it; it looks like the bees are happy with it as well. Today there were a lot of bees flying around in front of the hive and cleansing themselves. For those of you who do not have snow as a backdrop to see what bee poop looks like, then I guess you are in luck.

This picture shows a typical spotting of a bee. It has had some time to melt in the snow. Alright, that is enough of that. The reason was checking my hives was to see if they were doing well and taking their flights. It is also important to see if there are any potential issues; such as nosema. Nosema is a unicellular parasite which is now classified as a fungus. Beekeeping for Dummies is wrong / my issue may be out of date! Anyways, Nosema symptoms include bees appearing weak and crawl aimlessly around the front of the hive. Also the hive will have streaks of mustard-brown feces that appear in and on the hive. Beekeeping for Dummies suggests placing your hive at a site which has good airflow and a nearby source of fresh, clean water to avoid Nosema issues.

The perspective from the top of the hive shows all of the yellow snow. Another beekeeper once called it yellow rain; I think it is very fitting. You can also see how much snow is still left in my young orchard. There is 3 feet in some areas. I also took the time today to dig out my single boxes; which were completely buried in the snow again. I hope it allows them to get out a bit and clean up their hives.