Luckily, the rain stopped in time for us not to need the umbrella Continue reading
Clermont May 28
Clermont’s bees continue to store honey and produce brood. Continue reading
Clermont May 14
The weather for today’s Clermont visit was a little humid and got a bit warm. We decided Continue reading
Clermont April 30
Today’s Clermont visit provided encouraging queen status data and reassuring mite infestation level information.
We inspected the colonies looking for brood in all three stages (eggs, larva, and capped) Continue reading
Almost there
Today’s temperature made it into the high 40s which was warm compared to the past three weeks. Continue reading
Hive Temperature
I visited Clermont on several warn days over the last few weeks and added fondant to the colonies. I was encouraged to find bees in all colonies although several had lower quantities. I just looked at the top bars under the inner cover. There is little doubt that some colonies may not make it to spring. I have also been keeping protein in the external feeder, the bees have been using a good amount.
Updating the Brood Minder site to keep the data current has also been part of the routine. On December 16 the data showed internal temperatures of 72⁰ in the colony center and 60⁰ at the top. Kind of low I’m thinking but standard rational is that there is no brood at this time of year, so temperature is not going to be 95⁰. I searched Brood Minder back for two years data and found that the colony has data that matched what I am seeing, low temperature in December through February. I thought this might be of interest to some of you and have attached a screen shot with two years of temperature records. Browse to https://map.beecounted.org/hive/summary/nKhR if you would like to review this data in more detail. There is 5 years of data from the same hive.
