I hefted the hive the other evening - checking for the remaining supplies - it’s still heavy, so the girls should be fine for a while yet.

Unfortunately, when I peeked in through the mouse guard, there was a pile of dead bees. Not good. There are still lots of live ones, clustering on the combs to stay warm (and alive!) so that’s good. It’s just a shame that winter kills off so many of them.

The other thing is, being on our first season of actual bee keeping, we don’t know what to expect in winter. The last couple have been wet and miserable and that’s what kills bees, damp, not cold.

We shall see what happens soon. The queen should be up and laying shortly, then the stores will start going down and we’ll need to keep a close eye on them then. We don’t want them to starve after surviving all winter.

Cheers.