Spying on Honeybees during a Michigan Winter.

My husband has tools, lots and lots of tools.  The Snap On tool guy loves my husband.  I never really took an interest in the tools until my husband told me that he owned a Bore Scope, a long flexible tube with a small lighted camera on the end.  He says to me, "Ya know you could stick that in the top-hole of your hives and look at your bees."  Of course I could.  He also recently brought home, on loan for a jar of honey, a thermal imager.  I played with the thermal imager first.  Because of the wraps on my hives it is harder to see where the cluster is, however it would show heat coming from the top entrance hole.  Heat from a live cluster of honeybees.  I tried it on a friends hives who had no wrap on his hives and it was much easier to identify where the cluster was.  The thermal imager was exciting, but the Bore Scope was thrilling.  Thrilling enough to get me out poking it through the top entrance holes of my hives in nine degree weather with a windchill below zero.  Gotta love Michigan! 
Between the imager and the Bore Scope, I think I can confidently say with ninety-five percent certainty that a large majority of my hives are alive!!  That is much better than last year at this time, they had all met their demise except for two sick stragglers who died a couple months later.  I took a couple of pictures of the screen of the Bore Scope, I took video too of the bees but have not yet figured out how to get them to play on this blog!  The Scope was very helpful to see which hives had enough sugar brick and who could use some more very soon. You could get it down in between frames and see how much honey was left on the sides of the cluster.  A couple hives that I thought were down in the bottom box had moved up to the top box.  All useful information this time of year.  If we get a little warmer weather soon, I will be able to give bricks to those who need it without popping tops of those who have enough yet.  Saves me time and energy.  Energy I need to get through this Michigan winter!

Honeybees on top of their sugar brick inside the hive. Viewed on the screen while end of bore scope is in the hive.

Honeybees in Michigan winter staying cozy in their hive.  Seen through the tiny bore scope camera stuck in through the top entrance hole of the hive.

Baby it's cold outside!!! Nine degrees, below zero wind chill. Nine out of eleven hives in this yard alive :-)

Bore Scope came in handy to peek inside the hive without having to disturb them or pop covers off.  Able to check food stores and where the honeybees are at.