Succession Planning

It's surprising what you can find out about your bees without opening up the hives. Take a look at these two photos that I've just taken of my hives in the snow. What do you notice?

You can see that the snow in the centre of the each roof has melted, but it remains around the edges. This is just what I wanted to see because a circle of melted snow means localised heat, and that heat is coming from the bees clustering together and vibrating their indirect flight muscles to keep warm. So I know my bees are alive... but take another look at the photos.

Notice how the hive on the left has a much larger area of melted snow. This hive is East hive, the one with the neurotic bees that are out and about as soon as the temperature gets above 7 C. Last week when it was mild they were bringing in pollen. That pollen and the large area of melted snow tells me that the queen is still laying, and the colony has a lot of brood to keep warm. This is not good because at this rate they are going to use up all their honey before spring and may starve unless I feed them.

West colony in contrast stays hunkered down and won't venture out unless its 10 C or more. It has no brood so the cluster of bees is tighter and the temperature of the cluster is lower. West colony's stores should easily last till spring. The only slight worry is that the reason they have no brood is because the queen has died - but I doubt it.

Contrary to what you might expect, bees survive quite well in cold snowy condition, provided they have enough honey. But the neurotic bees in East hive are not well suited for our climate so come the summer I'm thinking I might replace the queen with a young princess from West hive.