It's been pretty cold!!!!!

My first year of bee keeping and mother nature is testing me and my girls. I sure hope they've had their "woolies" on as we've had the longest streak of cold days, most below 0 F in 12+ years. I think that we've only had one or two days in the last month with the lows above 0 F. If we survive this, I'll feel pretty good about their ability to survive some rather hostile weather and my luck by not losing my first and to date "only" hive!! I'm not going to mess with them until things get a lot better, then I'll check and see how they've done. I guess I'll just try and be patient for about 2 1/2 or 3 months! memtb

Good luck with your bees! I worry more about wind, moisture, and adequate supply of honey than I do about low temps. (Although, we have not had the long cold spell that you described!) Did you wrap them or insulate them in any way? Do they have any ventilation to get rid of moisture? If you had a good population of healthy bees going into winter, you should have a shot at having bees in the spring.

Good luck to you and the girls.

All the best. We are forcasted to have 5 below 0 tonight, and we have had as low as 15 below so far this winter.

Going to -15 tonight. Have not seen the girls since the first of November. Longest cold streak in a long time.

Been cold up this way too. Got a lot of snow and a bit of a blizzard like I haven't seen in a while. It will get real cold now as the clouds clear off.

We went into winter with what I think were pretty good stores. Hive was wrapped in tar paper, but not insulated. I was hoping for some daytime warm-ups as we have lot's of clear (but cold) days. The top cover is notched for some ventilation, plus we are very dry. Not often that the humidity exceeds 40%. So, crossing my fingers!!! memtb

Here in central Mt I popped lids four days ago in fifty degree weather to just take a peak then rewrapped them. The next day I shot ducks and geese in a snowstorm and it was supposed to be -9 last night but didn't make it below zero. It is supposed to be back in the thirties Tuesday. We are having a harder winter than lastr year and I hope we get a snowpack in the mountains!

We are over in Noxon, Mt. The weather has been in the 20's and 30's for the most part. A mild winter for us. We do have 3' of snow on the flat. Checked the bees and all seemed OK so far. It was a quick look and remove the snow on top. We have insulated with 2" insulation board and this is our first year at beekeeping.