The high today was 51F, the warmest it’s been in weeks! We had a pretty big snowstorm a couple weeks ago, which kicked off a long cold spell. I was worried about the bees, since I knew they’d likely be working through the fondant I gave them for winter feed. The last time it was warm enough to visit them was January 8. Both hives looked great then. It was an unseasonably warm day, and everyone was out for cleansing flights.

Even though it got up to 50F today, there’s still piles of snow on the ground from the snowstorm. It’s just been too cold and there was too much snow for it to all melt. I could tell something was off during my short walk from the car to the hives. The north hive was missing its top! I had been meaning to strap things down, but nothing blew away during some earlier windstorms this season. I figured that the headstones and monuments must be decent windbreaks, so this started feeling less urgent.

Oops. Very stupid.

The feeding shim and fondant I put over the inner cover were exposed. How long was it like that? I have no idea. There were still bees there, coming up through the inner cover to eat the fondant. I gave them a new patty, then checked the south hive, which was intact.

I replaced the fondant patty on the south hive. While I was putting it back together I noticed something sticking out of the snow — the moisture board from the north hive! After kicking some more snow around (and learning I need to condition and waterproof my Blundstones again), I found the two sheets of Reflectix I have been using for top insulation. If these lightweight items were this close by, the top cover couldn’t have gotten much farther away. I kicked a little more snow and the top cover appeared.

It was a bit damp, as was the Reflectix, and I couldn’t put the soggy/icy moisture board back on, so I left the top off to dry a bit and drove back across the city to get a spare out of my garage and make cuts in it for ventilation.

As soon as I got back to the bees and replaced their roof, they started coming out of the front entrance of the hive. I think they were relieved to be cozy again.

I noticed a lot of bee poop on the hives; I’m hoping this is due to cleansing flights and not indicative of disease. I’ll spare any readers the photos of this fiasco. It was depressing and embarrassing. There were wet/frozen/dead bees and poop on the hives. I’m just glad both colonies are somehow miraculously still there.

It looks like it’ll be in the high 50s late next week; I’ll have to pop over again for another visit.