Drama. Queen.

Today warmed up some, the best we’ve had, so I decided to transfer the bees to my top bar hive.

I lifted the feeder.

No movement.

I lifted the lid.

No movement.

Crud.

I lifted off the box, and there were my bees, in a pile.  An unmoving pile.

It looked like they had been around the queen box, and then just fallen in a pyramidal heap.

I honestly thought they were dead.

So, I called my bee guy, who was surprised they didn’t make it… but assured me we could get some more, maybe wait a week or two for it to get warmer…

I returned to the scene of the crime and set up my top bar hive, ready for the next batch, and drug the table and pile out of the way.  Minutes later, I decided to check on them and see what I could figure out… by golly, there was some movement!

The sun came out and, son of a gun, if there wasn’t a tad more!  OK, bees, if what you need is heat… I spread them out and laid a piece of tin over them… that got even more moving.  Then some neighbors came by, who happened to have bees once upon a time, and they encouraged me to dump the whole pile into the top bar hive and put it inside the little bunkhouse.

I plugged up the entrance and did… they’re cozy now.  Probably should have done that the first time!  Live and learn.

Monday is supposed to be another snow storm, but then it should warm up well.  I doubt that my queen is alive, but perhaps enough of my bees are… and all I’ll have to buy is a queen.

I’ll just have to wait and see… today was full of drama… dead bees, live bees, queen, no queen…

ah, apiculture!

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