April 8, 2020

It’s early spring of 2020 and all three hives from 2019 have successfully over-wintered.

It feels like an extraordinary bit of luck.

What did I do differently from 2018? In 2018 I did not test for Varroa Mites correctly. This is an absolute must-do bit of apiary management. I also didn’t insulate my hives.

You really need to consider where your hives are located when considering how and if to insulate. If the hives are extremely sheltered from the elements and in full sun, potentially, you might not need to. Colorado sun is intense. But, if you’re out on the windy plains or above 6k feet in elevation, you might want to consider it. But as Greg McMahon pointed out to me in my first bee-keeping class at To Bee, Or not to Bee, “For every five beekeepers, there will be six opinions.”

But, not putting in place a practiced and accurate varroa mite control program was the ultimate demise of my 2018 hives. The hives most likely succumbed to viruses due to cold conditions and weakened immune systems from the mites.

Flash Forward to Spring of 2020, last year at this time, I had just installed three packages of bees and, after releasing the queens on days three through five, I immediately performed a OA Sublimation on all three packages.

Going into the 2019/2020 winter, I opted to leave all honey reserves – 1 deep and 1 medium box – for each hive. In retrospect I probably could have taken some honey. The hives were insulated from October 2019 during our first snow until April 2020. The available food stores and insulation most likely contributed to a successful overwintering.

And here I was on April 8, 2020, 70 degrees in early Spring in Colorado, with three hives busting at the seams. Holy wow! Not only had they survived, but I was going to have to split them! However, Colorado weather was not on my side. 70 on that inspection day, but we were expecting a 50 degree temperature drop and over a foot of snow. Not an optimal situation to help with my first split. This is spring and beekeeping in the Rockies.

To split the hives I needed to either make a queen, or buy a queen for the splits. But first we needed to get through the snow and cold.

Protecting our pollinators and testing for Varroa Mites in honey bees.