I checked my hives actually the day after I wrote the post about my bees possibly being dead.
The weather has been fairly gnarly lately (like -15ºF to 55ºF the next day), so when it was hella frozen but melted the next day, I checked on the hive!
I walked towards it expecting the worst, but instead found about 3 of my little guys peeking out of the top entrance, checking out the happenings of the outside world, buzzing about. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYY
I WAS SO EXCITED. SOOOOOO EXCITED.
Yayyy little bee guys! You’re alive! Man, what a relief. Every beekeeper I talked to had been somewhat chill about my bee fears.
“Bees are super resilient,” they would say. “They’re probably fine.”
BUT I FOUND THEM FROZEN IN ICE.
“Yep, probably still fine.”
I read an article the other day about how bees and their caretakers are connected, how they can tell the difference between me and a friend, for example. Maybe it’s like when a new mom is separated from her baby and freaks out about it. The winter is too many months for me to be separated from my bees.
On an alternate note, beekeeping is giving me a reason to look forward to the warmer months ahead. As an avid skier and winter enthusiast, I normally rue the warmer months. They don’t matter to me. I don’t care about summer. It can die in hell as far as I’m concerned.
ANYWAY, bees are alive. All is good! 🙂
-M
Photo by paul morris on Unsplash