January

Overwintering bees January 2019 – film.

 

The middle of the winter  days are short and often occur frosty days. Dangerous for bees are days with a temperature above 10 ° C. In that cases the queen mother can start lay eggs. It is still to early (read December description). This will expose the family to the risk of epidemics and to significant unproductive losses of supplies and life energy of the overwintering bees.

In the wild about 15-30% colonies (it depends on the winter conditions and the preparation of bees colonies)  will not survive winter. Much lower mortality concern WindowBee hives. Do not be discouraged and start the adventure again in May if You loose Your colony. However, it is worth to know what was causing the failure. If disturbance and early egg laying or lack of supplies – then You can be calm enough and make it better in future. On the other hand, if  the reason was sickness, we should diagnose what exactly and thoroughly decamp the hive before reinstallation. It is important to find out why – for epidemiological and didactic reasons. If the bee adventure we want to continue especially . Most beekeepers of those who started did not stop.