February 17

Many Bees Lost This Year

Have you been checking your bees?  Yesterday was a wonderful opportunity to do so.  Sadly, I checked all of my hives last week and have lost 7 hives.  I know that three of our bee Sustainers still have good bee populations including Bobby and Melanie Black and Shawn.  Lost hives include: Scott – 7, Keli – 1, Irene – 1, Erin – 2.  I am unsure of Andy’s hives as of this writing.  If any of you want to reorder bees I need to know ASAP…like this weekend.

Cause of death includes cold and starvation (even if you have plenty of honey in the hive, cold weather prevents the cluster from moving up.  You must open the hive and move honey stores down to them.  This was a dillima as the weather so cold for so long we could not open our hives.

Right now I have an order for the Blacks that includes a second hive setup and bees.