Well the yellow hive was still today… but ‘life’ unfortunately wasn’t a feature. I went to check the hive seeing as how we have had 4? of snow. I removed the mouse guard and went to empty the entrance. There were quite a few bees there, even some looking like they had gone outside and then frozen solid.
I thought I would just take the lid off and look through the gap in the crown board at how things were going. As it happened the crown board was stuck to the lid and when I lifted that came up too. What I saw was like a photograph. The bees were frozen in the process of going about their business in the hive. Some in a ball, some outside the ball on other frames. It was quite odd, it was as if I had opened the lid on a game of musical statues and someone had just said freeze.
Given it was about 1C I thought if there was, however unlikely, a few bees left alive in there that I should close the lid and let them get on with it.
Well that is one hive down and two queens… hmm maybe enthusiasm isn’t all you need for beekeeping.