It is December 11, and Old Man Winter has finally hit West Michigan. My hive tops are laden with 8 inches of snow cover. As I stand basking in the warm light and heat of my kitchen baking cookies, I look out at the hives adorned in their black cloak of tar paper and I smile. The thought of them all clustered together to maintain life and keep their queen at a balmy 90 degrees is nothing short of miraculous. God, our and the honeybees creator, is to be praised!! Such detail, intricacy and wisdom!! To walk out into a snow filled apiary and place your ear up against the cold hive box and hear the low hum of bees vibrating their wings muscles collaboratively to maintain heat and life is amazing!! I took a few winter pics of some of my hives and a fellow beekeepers. Enjoy.
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| Quickly peeked in on this cluster Dec 4, 2016. |
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| Honeybees on sugar brick. December, 2016 |
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| December 11, 2016. Yes, hundreds of thousands of Honeybees alive in those boxes! I can hardly stand to be outside in the whipping wind and snow. The Honeybees are clustered down, maintaining the required temperature for survival and consuming the honey they had stored over the summer. These hives have a barn for a wonderful windbreak. |
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| The snow actually helps insulate, but you need to make sure you have ventilation, somewhere for that warm air rising from the cluster to go so it doesn't condense on the underside of top cover and drip back down on the bees. Honeybees can do cold, they can't do WET! |
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| Can't get enough of awesome apiaries! Just to know there is life in those boxes in the dead of winter gives me hope for spring! |
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