Aren't they supposed to be buzzing??

The break in the seemingly endless snowfall brought us a couple of crazily warm days. For about three days the thermometer climbed into the 50's and low 60's. The huge banks of snow that I piled up along both sides of our drive vanished as if it had never happened.

During the 1980's I lived in Tennessee and was a hobbyist beekeeper. I gave up the hobby when I moved back north and took up life in suburbia. Last summer I got the bug (so to speak) again, replaced all of my equipment and started a new hive. We decided to call her "Hope".

We tucked the hive quietly away in our suburban backyard and the bees worked obsessively to pollinate every flower in our neighborhood. After buying the new farm I moved the hive in November in the back of the moving van. At that time they were vigorous and none too happy about the disturbance. I was impressed at how much the hive weighed as I strained to move it about. It felt to me as if there was well over 100 lbs of honey in there.

During the cold snap I had been worrying about "Hope" because I am not so confident that my Tennessee beekeeping experience taught me much about what it takes to keep bees alive in the Michigan winter. The unseasonably warm weather gave me a welcome opportunity to take a peek and see how they were doing.

Aidan and I headed out to the hive on a beautiful afternoon and right away noticed that there were no bees flying in and out of the hive. I thought that they would take advantage of the warm day to fly around a bit but I wasn't entirely sure. Without any protective gear we opened the top of the hive and carefully listened....to complete silence.

We removed the supers and dug our way down through heavy honey-laden frames until we found them in the second brood chamber. They were bunched up in a softball-sized wad as I expected to find them since that is how they preserve heat. We noticed that they weren't moving at all. After a bit more poking at them I decided that they were all dead.

They had plenty of honey so it wasn't a matter of starvation. I thought that perhaps they had simply frozen to death. I assumed that there must be some trick that the local beekeepers know to helping them stay warm, something like wrapping the hive in plastic or some such. I really need to join the local beekeeper's association!

Yesterday afternoon I discussed my poor bees and their fate with a man at the beekeeping supply store. After hearing my description of what we found he guessed that they were done in by tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi). Part of what I missed in the past twenty years of being out of beekeeping is that these deadly little mites have become a massive problem. I guess that I have a great deal to learn!

In February I will order a new package of bees to get "Hope" going again. In the mean time we plan to harvest the honey and bottle it for sale on the website and at the local farmer's market. Our first samples were delicious!