yes a little sigh of relief. our weather has been blustery with off and on scattered showers all day. the forecast is for an ice storm tomorrow nite. i had planned all week for today to be the day for me to recheck my hives, as the forcast had been for a day with temps near 50's. well, it never did get very pleasant today and you have to be careful not to get bees all riled up on a nasty day, as they will break their winter cluster, start eating more honey, loose the combined heat of the cluster and be depleting their winter stores. so, since not very nice out i just went out and bent down low enough to get a good look at the beehives landing boards and see if it looked like they were drier. thankfully they were, so my actions the other day did help. just keeping fingers and toes crossed that the pink hive will be okay now. they had alot dead the other day, although it was encouraging to know the queen must still be alive, or i don't imagine they would have even bothered to make the cluster in the upper hive body. i guess spring will tell!each of the hives did have a few dead bees on their landing boards, which is normal and good. i think the most at one of them was 4 dead. what was also good is that these bodies appeared dry, (yipee!) and i could see no deformities, such as deformed wing virus or anything. i had got nervous toward the fall time as i had found 2 bees outside of the hives, crawling around, and these two bees had very small wings, like you would see with deformed wing virus. was really hoping that nasty virus hadn't attacked one or all three of the hives! so, keeping a close eye on the deceased this winter to keep a watch for any deformities or other abnormalities that i can see with the naked eye. peace to all who visit comfrey cottages!
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