Winter Patties

Now is the time to put winter patties on the hive. Winter patties are an emergency food that can save a colony from starvation in February. The patties can be put on now, when it is easy to get to the hive. Winter Patties are emergency food and will not keep a colony alive that has four frames of honey in the hive right now.
 Winter patties are basically sugar. What happens in February, the queen starts laying eggs. The bees will keep the brood around 96 degrees no matter what the outside temperature is. The bees feed the brood and consume honey to keep the brood warm. So the consumption of honey increases. As the bees deplete honey around the brood, the bees will move out further away from the brood to get at more honey. The brood never moves, so the bees may have to move one or two frames away from the brood to full frames of honey.
 Now if it gets cold in February to near zero or below for two to three nights, the cluster of bees contract into a tighter cluster to keep the brood warm. The bees now in a tighter cluster, pull off the frame of available honey. The cluster is producing heat and feeding the brood now have no food. If the cold snap lasts a couple days, the colony can starve because they have no food.
 By having winter patties on the top bars of the top box, the cluster can reach this sugar and have feed during this cold snap.
Winter patties are a good investment that can save a colony and save on the purchase of more bees in the spring.
Winter patties are put on in pairs, I usually check them on February 1st and also before a February cold snap to see if they have been consumed and add more as needed. A hive can be opened in the winter to check on patties. This will not hurt the colony.
Patties are $2.50 each, a 10 lb box is $20.00. They also come in a 40 lb box.

Winter patties are put on in pairs on the top box right under the inner cover. They look like a pollen patty, but they contain mostly sugar and will not stimulate brood production.

Winter Patties

We are now carrying Winter Patties. A winter patty is the same size as a pollen patty.

Two Winter Patties

The patties contains mostly sugar and a small amount of High Fructose Corn Syrup and Bee Pro pollen substitute. The patties will not stimulate brood rearing.
They are for emergency feeding or to help prevent late season starvation.
 Patties are placed on the top bars of the top box after the bees are clustered in the lower box. Clustering in the lower box usually happens when the daily temperatures are in the 30's. At that point the bees won't eat the sugar patties too early.
Single patties can fit under the inner cover. If more patties are needed, a shim is required to raise the roof slightly to accommodate the increased height. The extra height would require a slight hole relocation on a winter cover if there is one already in the cover. Patties can be stacked on top of each other.
 I would check the hives around the first of February to see if the bees are eating them and add more if needed.
Winter patties cost $2.50 each, 10 lbs $20.00, 40 lbs $60.00
 

February hive update

This is the front of one of my overwintered colonies. There are dead bees in front of the hive. The brown snow is bee poop from cleansing flights. All of this is normal. As the snow melts, the area in front of the hive will be peppered with dead bees. Consider this, the bees went into winter with 40,000 bees. About half of these bees have perished. A strong overwintered colony has about 15,000 to 20,000 bees right now. A nice looking overwintered colony of bees would be fully covering both sides of four to five frames, top to bottom on the frames.

At this writing on Feb 9th, what is going on with the bees?
 The weather for this winter so far, has not been bad at all. We haven't had any extended bitter cold with bone chilling winds.
 I have talked to several beekeepers who have been experiencing good winter survival so far. They were all running hives with Saskatraz queens.
 One beekeeper says his hives look great. The one hive he lost was due to fall robbing that depleted his winter stores and the hive starved. Other beekeepers that I have talked to have experienced small colony losses with their Saskatraz bees.
 We are now entering into the critical time of the winter. In most cases, the bees have now moved up into the top brood box. The bees have been uncapping honey in the top frames. If you did your brood box reversals last summer, there should be pollen under the capped honey. As the bees expose this pollen, this can help spur on the beginning of egg laying by the queen.
 The queen will start laying eggs very soon, if she hasn't started already. She will start laying slowly and then as time goes on, the egg laying will start to increase.  With brood in the hive, there will be a slight increase in using up honey stores and feeding on the newly discovered pollen stores. The bees will be covering the brood, keeping the temperature where the brood is at around 95 degrees F. To maintain this temperature the bees will eat more honey.
 Beekeepers get in trouble this time of year if the temperatures go subzero for usually three days or more in a row. Looking at the 10 day forecast, I do not see any multi-day subzero events. A one day of subzero is usually not a problem for the bees.
 Having ample food stores is the only problem that beekeepers are sweating right now. If your top box was very heavy going into winter, there is probably sufficient winter stores right now. If the top box was not full of honey going into winter and your bees are alive. Adding winter patties, sugar or Fondant might be a good idea. The winter patties are nice because you can have them made up and slip them onto the top bars of the top brood box. The patties can be added in 15 seconds. Be prepared, take the Telescoping top cover off, have a smoker going. try to keep the winter patties warm. Lift the moisture board, a couple puffs of smoke into the inner cover hole, lift up the inner cover using your hive tool. Slip a big patty right on top of the bee cluster. Have the edges of the patty exposed so the bees can get to the sugar goop right away. Close the colony. Make sure to wear your beesuit and gloves.
 The bee season is now underway. By the first of March, we can give the hives their first pollen patty. Syrup can also be fed if the bees need it. By late February our daily temperatures will be getting into the thirties. We should be able to go out and break the top box loose and lift it up to see how heavy it is. This can tell you what the existing food stores are, and if feeding is needed on a larger scale.  When doing spring syrup feeding, we feed as needed. Do not feed pail after pail of syrup. The bees will take it all down and plug the brood box with syrup. This will leave the queen with not much room for brood and the population of the hive will suffer.
 Time to get out the beesuit and gloves. Check them for mouse damage. Pollen patties can be purchased anytime now, for use in March. A strong overwintered hive may eat three or more pollen patties in the spring.
 I know my batteries are recharged and I am ready to keep some bees.

Hives short on food

Winter Patties can help save a colony from starvation. If a colony is out of food, two patties is enough food for 7 - 10 days of food. Patties can be stacked on top of one another to give the bees more food. While winter patties are for emergency feeding only, they can very helpful for late season starvation that happens when brood is in a colony during the month of February.

I have had several beekeepers stop in to get winter patties for their hives as they have colonies light on food.
One beekeeper noticed the bees had eaten all of his patties already, I told him his hive is close to starvation. He thought the bees will go down in the hive because his bottom box was full of honey. I told him bees do not move down to get stores in the winter. As the last gasp to save his colony I advised him to do a reversal yesterday while it was warm and put some winter patties in between the two boxes so the bees can transition up into the new top box. The advise I gave was one of desperation because the bees would more than likely not have made it if he did nothing.
Another beekeeper noticed his hive was out of honey. I told him to take out four frames of empty drawn comb. Take a spray bottle with the highest amount of sugar water that can be sprayed through the sprayer. I think 2:1 syrup will not spray through a hand sprayer but I think 1-1/2:1 syrup will. Spray the syrup into the cells of the frames and fill them with syrup, as full as the frames can be.
 Then take the frames and put them next to the cluster of bees in the hive.
 Yesterday was 30 degrees and the bees were flying taking cleansing flights, so the bees were moving around in the hive and can easily move on to the new frames of syrup.
Both of these were last ditch make or break solutions. Will their bees make it? The answer to that is, it was a sure bet they would have starved if the beekeepers did nothing. A better solution for all beekeepers. Check your hives in mid August. If the bees do not hive the top box full of honey at that time, take the honey supers off and feed the bees then. Fall feeding can be tough to get enough syrup into the hive for proper winter stores. 
 I will give these two beekeepers credit that they noticed a serious problem and have tried to fix it. No matter what the outcome is, they did everything they could to save their bees.

Check bees today

Today, Sunday the temperatures are going to be in the 40's. It is a great day to check on the bees. We will be looking at if the bees are alive or dead.
 The bees should be going out on cleansing flights because of the warm temperatures.
 Also, today would be a good time to check on or put on winter patties. A quick look under the inner cover will tell the story of if the bees have eaten winter patties or add some winter patties or granulated sugar. Be ready when you open the inner cover, have the plan in your head, so the quick glance will be brief.
Feeding Sugar look at the second post.
Feeding Winter Patties The posts are a couple years old and the prices are off a bit but the method is still solid.
I hope you find your bees are alive. If you think they are dead, the bees can still be down deep in the hive. Rapping on the side of the hive or looking under the inner cover and listening can give you the real story.
If the bees are dead, it is a good idea to order packages right away before the supplier is sold out.

Sub Zero Next Week

Next week according to WCCO weather, we may be having subzero weather for two to three nights. Nights like this are colony killers during the month of February. With the warm weather a week ago, brood may now be present in bee hives. The queen usually starts laying eggs in early to mid February. If the queen started laying over a week ago, a little earlier than normal. There may be a decent size patch of brood in the colony right now.
  When it is warm the bees may be able to move easily in the top box.
Sub-zero temperatures, can pull bees off of an adjacent frame of honey to keep the brood warm. The cold forces the bees into a tight cluster.  If the extreme cold lasts for two to three days, starvation can occur.
Winter patties can help prevent starvation from happening. The cluster can get on the patty and consume the sugar to feed the brood if they pull off a frame of honey.

The bees do eat winter patties. I put the patties where the bee are. In this case the bees were still in their lower box, so I put the patties there.

This colony was light on honey and I put a shim on the hive and loaded up the winter patties.

Winter has arrived

After enjoying the warm late fall weather, reality hit this morning. Ice and snow. It looks like the snow may be here for the duration.
 I was able to vaporize and cover all my hives before this weather hit. If you did not get around to covering your hives, now is the time to do it.
 If winter patties have been on for longer than two weeks, it may be a good idea to go out and take a peek to see if the patties are still there.
 The warmer than normal temperatures had the bees spread throughout the hive. In some cases the bees have been eating the sugar patties. So, check it out, replace as necessary. Now with the colder weather, the bees should stay clustered below the winter patties. If the hive has enough food the bees should be in the box below the top box.
 The warm weather has been an easy time for the bees. Honey consumption over the last month has been very low. Normally bees eat about 12 lbs of honey per month in the winter months. Over the last month, the honey consumption has probably been around 7 lbs (depending on cluster size).
 Now beekeepers can take a break. The season is over, the hives are covered and treated for mites. All the bees are ready for the rigors of winter.

Wintering a beehive in the upper midwest

These are two videos of different winter covers and how to install them on the hive.
 Winter covers can be put on anytime after November first.
I usually put my covers on around Thanksgiving. But I watch the weather also. If there is going to be several inches of snow, I will run out and cover the hives.
A top entrance is imperative for wintering. If you don't have one, drill a 1" hole like in my previous post.
Wintering a hive, needs at least 8 frames of bees. Meaning at around 45 degrees, the bees would be covering both sides of 8 frames. I say 45 degrees because at that temperature the bees are more concentrated in the hive to get a more accurate judgement on the population strength.
 The other winter parameters are a young queen that has not gone through a winter yet. The top box should have eight full frames of honey with the ninth frame partially full, locate this frame in the center of the box. Put two winter patties on the top bars of the top box for emergency late winter feed.
 If your honey is under the cluster of bees like in the bottom box. The bees will not go down in the winter. They will end up starving. Also, do not leave any partially filled boxes on top of the hive. The bees may move up into this box, remember what I just said? The bees will not move down. Many new beekeepers do leave partially filled boxes on top, not realizing they are making a potential bad situation.
 This is one of the last chores for winter. Then the bees are on their own. A properly prepared hive with a low mite count, has a good chance at winter survival.


Cardboard Snug Fit


Bee Cozy


Winter Patties

Cold coming back next weekend

With the cold weather coming back next weekend. I am out checking hives and putting on winter patties. This hive is Carniolans. They winter a smaller cluster. There was about three frames of bees. For Carniolans three frames of bees this time of year is fine. Carniolans just explode in population and I expect them to do fine. Three frames of bees for an Italian colony this time of year is on the weak side. A weak Italian hive with three frames of bees, should build up ok but they may not be able to divide.

I added two winter patties to this colony. I will be able to feed it and add pollen patties in about two weeks. I placed the patties right where the bees are so they can touch the patties.

Sale on all winter patties

Closeout sale on all in stock 40 lb boxes of winter patties
Sale price $39.95 per box regular price is $60.00.
Also, 2 winter patties for $4.00, while supplies last. Normally $5.00

Looked at my bees this last weekend

I looked at my bees over the last weekend. Most of them are alive and looking very good. I did add more winter patties as they have been eating them up. Some of the hives are light on food and I hope to get them through the upcoming below zero weather that is on the horizon.

Added more winter patties

This colony looks great. A large number of bees. They have been going after the winter patties.

A mouse made a nest on top of one of my moisture boards. It was under the telescoping cover, not in the hive.

2016 Season Recap

Happy New Year, I always like to try to sum up the previous year to reflect on how the season progressed. The good and the bad.
 January was pretty much a normal month. Warm to start out then a couple weeks of very cold weather with warmer temps to finish the month. Maybe a little warmer than average.
 February was cold from the 8th to the 15th. This did cause some colony losses to some beekeepers. There was brood in the colonies and starvation occurred when bees could not reach honey due to tight clusters because of the cold. Beekeepers using winter patties did fare better. The winter patties provided emergency food during this cold snap until the weather warmed up. February is also the time when beekeepers find dead colonies of bees usually killed by viruses brought on by mites. I myself lost several very nicely populated colonies to viruses.
 March bought normal to above normal temperatures. Overwintered colonies had great weather to increase their populations. Pollen patties and feed help bolster the overwintered colonies.
 April started cool but warmed rapidly with above normal temperatures. Packages arrived and the weather was good for installing and for the bees to get a good start. Overwintered colonies continued to build with colony strength looking very good. Divides started a little early with the warm weather bringing up populations a little sooner.
 May, the above normal temperature brought the spring bloom in faster than normal. We were about two weeks ahead of schedule. The fruit bloom started in early May. Many areas had a freeze in mid May severely damaging the fruit blossoms around MN and WI. Packages were building nicely and overwintered colonies were starting to swarm in late May. The Black Locust bloom was early. Beekeepers that have a large amount of Black Locust trees were able to get several supers of honey by the early June.
 June the temperatures were at or slightly warmer than normal. The main nectar flow started two weeks early, Overwintered colonies put up honey, package bees and nucs still were not up to good populations yet. When the packages and nucs were ready for honey collection in late June the nectar flow was pretty much over. Swarming occurred from lack of a nectar flow in some areas and that followed us through the summer.
 July and August were pretty much average temperature wise. There was no Basswood honey around the state. This hurt many new beekeepers preventing them from getting any excess honey this year.  Many large commercial beekeepers depend on Basswood honey to get a good crop of honey and they were were hurt with the Basswood flow no show. Some beekeepers did get decent crops off of hay fields and ditchweed flowers. There was never any hot weather this summer. Good nectar flows need heat to produce good honey crops, the heat was lacking this year. Over wintered colonies that were not being monitored for mites, started crashing during this time. Splits that were done off of untreated overwintered colonies were showing stress from high mite counts. These failing colonies contributed to passing mites to other beekeepers colonies. Even package bees that initially had very low mite counts, saw suddenly very high mite counts do to this passing on of Varroa from some unwary beekeepers. Mite treatments were put on in August with good success. Some beekeepers that had a high mite count in August, even though they treated, their bees were so damaged they ended up not making it to late fall.
 September and October, were warm months. Mite treatments were going on. The early mite treatments kept the mite numbers down. As beekeepers treated in late September and early October in many cases the mites had reached too high of a level. So their survival over the winter is not assured. October was very warm making Oxalic Acid treatments difficult. Many colonies had brood late into the season producing more mites and eating stores. Some beekeepers were feeding late into October which made brood and mite population increase in the colony. This also made Oxalic Acid not very effective on these colonies.
 November came warmer than normal with many beekeepers not being able to do Oxalic Acid treatments until mid November. Normally we would like to have this done by the third week of October. Time will tell if this helped colonies treated later than we wanted to. Winter came on like a flip of a switch. Cooler weather and snow finally came in late November and December.
 My summery, while we have no control over the weather, we do have control of our mite population. Monthly testing of colonies will help keep the beekeeper aware of the overall health of a colony. Mite treatments are loosely based on time of year, but sometimes the beekeeper needs to intercede if the mite counts creep to a higher level before the normal treatment times. Mite testing is easy to do and with more experience, it will become a simple task. Keeping mite levels at the proper mite count is the key to being a successful beekeeper.
 New beekeepers that just started, you knew nothing of this beekeeping process at the start of the season. You started with new equipment, fed and managed your colonies. The bees thrived and at the end of the season there was a strong colony to winter. I would call that success. Cheers to the new beekeepers.

What is happening in the hive right now.

The winter is moving forward, now it is early February and beekeeping spring is about 30 days away. Beekeeping spring is when we can feed pollen patties and syrup (if needed) to our overwintered colonies.
 Right now the bee cluster should be up in the top brood box. The exception to this if your hive was very heavy with honey. The bees may still be in the lower box. But, for most of us the bees should be up. In most cases the queen has just started to lay a few eggs or will be starting very soon. The bees will be uncapping and consuming honey. When they start opening capped cells of honey, there should be pollen under some of the capped honey (if you did reversals on your colony last early June). The pollen will help stimulate brood rearing. If you don't think you have pollen under the cells in your hive, just solid honey, you may want to throw a pollen patty on, around Feb. 20th or so. If you did a reversal or two last spring, I would not put pollen patties on until early March.
 Don't put pollen on too early, pollen patties can get the colony moving forward too fast. Putting pollen on too soon leads to increased consumption of honey and in some cases, results in huge hive populations in late April. This can lead to early swarming before queens are available for divides. Think about timing and what you did last year before putting pollen patties on. Once pollen patties go on, you need to keep them on through spring.  
 As we get into the start of brood rearing, this is the time when bees can starve if the weather gets cold.  This week is going to be cold, if the queen has started to lay, I wouldn't worry about starvation because of small amount of new brood in the hive this week. But anytime after the February 10th is around the time when most hives have brood in the hive. There won't be frames of brood, but one side of a frame will be getting eggs laid on it. Being it takes 21 days for brood to hatch, as time goes on, more sides of frames will start having brood on them as the queen starts increasing her egg laying.
 Starvation can occur in February when there is brood present and we have weather that is near zero or below for three or more consecutive nights. The cold weather makes the cluster of bees contract to a tighter cluster. The tighter cluster is needed to maintain a 96 degree temperature over the brood. If the bees have consumed honey off the frame(s) of brood, the bees have to go to the honey that maybe a frame or two away from the brood. The brood can't move, so the bees have to move to the honey. When it is cold for several days in a row. The cluster  moves off the honey, to maintain the proper brood rearing temperatures. Moving off the honey for several days can result in starvation, even though honey is one frame away. This is the time of year when winter patties, candy boards or even granulated sugar on wax paper laying on the top bars of the top box can possibly prevent starvation. If the weather in February, is around the normal highs and lows, most colonies will be fine.
 By the end of February, most hives will have a couple frames of brood in the hive. Maybe more if their population is large and they can cover and feed that large amount of brood.
 Our hives are changing, soon it will be time to dust off that bee suit.

What is happening on the bee front.

This Goldfinch says spring is coming. The feathers are starting to change to bright yellow.

Spring is coming, we can start feeding our bees syrup and pollen patties in about three weeks to a month,
February is almost half over. We are getting hammered with some snow, but the below zero temperatures seem to have gone away, at least for the near term.
 Not much to do on the bee front at the moment. When I look forward, to early next week, there is some sub zero in the forecast for a day or two. Long term extended outlooks look more seasonal as we approach March.
 We are now getting into the danger period of over wintered colonies. The queen will begin laying soon. Once brood rearing has begun in the hive, the cluster loses some of its mobility. The bees will not leave the brood and cannot just move to more honey if their stores begin to get depleted around the brood. The bees can move to honey and bring it back to the brood area. This is not a problem when the daily highs are in the 20's. If the weather turns cold, near zero, with cold days, the bees cannot move to more honey very easily. Starvation can occur if the cold event is three consecutive days or more, even though honey is in the hive. One day of very cold temperatures is usually not a problem. As beekeepers, we need to get the bees over the hump and to the balmier month of March.
 If the temperatures stays seasonal there is usually not much worry of starvation. If it gets cold, starvation can happen. There are some emergency food options that can be used, winter patties, fondant, sugar can all be used for this emergency food. Winter patties purchased from Nature's Nectar LLC are now just the sugar premix. The beekeeper needs to put the sugar premix on a sheet of wax paper and flatten out the premix to make the patty.



Spring will be here soon and we can put this winter behind us.

Late winter hive work

Put the pollen patties right where the bees are. They need to be able to touch the patty. Leave the wax paper on both sides of the patty. Replace if the patty starts getting hard or moldy.

We are now turning the corner on winter and transitioning into spring. Right now there should be brood in a live hive. The queen should be laying. The amount of brood can vary widely from hive to hive. Several factors can influence this, available pollen in the hive, hive strength, room for queen to lay.
 Sometime this week, pollen patties can be put on the hive. Once pollen patties go on, they should be checked every ten days or so. If they are being consumed, replacements should be offered as needed. Do not let the colony run out of patties. This can set them back and brood could perish from lack of protein. A steady supply of pollen assures good hive development. Poor protein supply results in poor quality bees that will have shorter lives and improper glandular development.
 Natural pollen collection can be interrupted by an extended cool or wet weather. Keeping pollen patties on the hive assures always having a protein source for the bees. I leave pollen patties on the hive until the dandelions come out. Then the fruit bloom comes with fruit trees and ornamental flowering trees. After the fruit bloom there is usually a dearth of pollen. I normally put pollen patties back on from mid May until early June. Package bees will need pollen on the hive from the time they are installed into a hive, until early June.
 The introduction of pollen into the hive will kick the hive into more brood production. More brood means greater consumption of honey stores. 
 Feeding sugar syrup or ProSweet may be required to keep the colony alive.
A beekeeper needs to judge whether feeding is necessary. Lifting up the top box should give you a clue if feeding is required. If a groan is involved in the lifting process, there is probably enough food for now, in the top box. If the top box seems light, give the colony a pail of syrup.
 The problem that beekeepers run into is, overfeeding. This is a common problem with spring feeding. If a beekeeper feeds pail after pail of syrup on an overwintered colony, the bees will fill their hive with syrup. This will leave no place for the queen to lay and the hives population may suffer.
 When feeding package bees or when drawing out comb on new foundation, feeding needs to be constant until the comb is all drawn out.
 Not much else to do yet. Keep the winter covers on for another couple weeks.

What is up with this weather.

I have been hesitating writing about the current late winter weather. I wasn't sure what to make of it. But now the long term forecast looks like this weather may be here to stay. I am looking at this two ways one side says go for spring time management or the other, hold off because it is still winter.  I think it is safe to take off the winter covers and moisture boards. If it gets cold again the covers are easy to put back on if a person wanted to. The moisture boards can be put away they will no longer be needed.
Normally reversals happen around April 1st. If your colony is jammed packed with bees a reversal can be done. If your top box is not packed with bees then I would hold off on reversals for a while. Pollen patties should be on now. The pollen patties need to be placed where the bees can touch the patties. If the patties are put too far from the bees, the bees will not consume them and the brood in the hive may not be getting what they need to build up.
 Speaking of pollen, we should start having natural pollen available soon. Pollen patties still need to be on. If the weather turns cold the bees can't forage. If there is no pollen in the hive the brood can perish and set a colony back.
 Bees will be looking everywhere for pollen. The bees will be at bird feeders and sawdust piles picking up dust. It is not pollen but they think it is.
Sawing up green treated lumber this time of year? Bees will collect the dust and bring it back to the hive. Treated lumber sawdust is toxic to the bees and can kill a hive.

This hive is not strong enough to do a reversal at this time. It looks great for this time of year, but needs further development

This colony if it has bees top to bottom like this, could be reversed. Look under the box to see if the bees are covering all the frames. If they are, it could be reversed. If not hold off.

A reversal is in this order.
three deep and two deep, box number order. Before and after the reversal.
Three deep --Two deep
1 ----- 3        1 ------- 2
2 ----- 1        2 ------- 1
3 ----- 2
When in doubt, do nothing. The most important thing right now is pollen patties and enough food to stay alive. Don't feed pail after pail of syrup. You will plug the hive up with syrup leaving the queen no place to lay.
The weather will dictate the reversals in the near future. There still may be 40's in the future and getting too far ahead, may be like shooting ourselves in the foot. Queens aren't available until late April. The bees won't be swarming until late April at the earliest. Patience and observation is where we are at on the bee front.
Look at my links section on the right hand side of this blog. How to divide a colony. That is from Gary's webpage. Gary does a great job of describing the pre- divide work and the divide itself .

Using Winter Patties

Winter patties are basically sugar. They are for emergency feeding. They may help a colony survive late winter starvation that can be a problem for beekeepers in the upper Midwest.

The 2012 Bee Year Review

The last season brought some things that no one around here had seen before.
Winter of 2011 - 2012 was the warmest for wintering bees that I have ever seen in almost 20 years. The warm winter made overwintering bees a cake walk. It seems that if the bees had 40 lbs of honey they were able to survive.
Most queens starting laying early in January. The only cold spell we had was in Feb for about three days. This did kill a few colonies caught with no honey and brood on the frames. Starvation still was an issue in colonies that went into winter short on stores.  Early feeding saved many colonies.
 The early laying put populations on a steady rise. By March colonies were building up nicely. Pollen patties were being devoured at a steady clip keeping the spring build up on course. Late March and early April there was natural pollen coming in. 
 April put colonies three weeks ahead of schedule. Package bees arrived on schedule and the weather proved nice to install them and get the bees up and running. Dandelions were coming out in mid April around the metro area. The fruit bloom started in late April with apples finishing in the first week of May. A hard frost hit in early May severely damaging the fruit crop in MN. The early fruit bloom left many colonies with no pollen coming in for three weeks in May. This dearth in pollen contributed to swarming, queen laying issues and supersedure. Beekeepers that put on pollen patties saw the bees gobbling them up.
  Swarming started becoming an issue in late April. Overwintered colonies began bursting at the seams. This caught many beekeepers off guard. Swarming began early and went on into June. Colonies were being divided three weeks earlier than normal starting in late April into early May. Luckily queens were available for most of the divisions.
 Package bees progressed nicely through May into June.
The main nectar flow started three weeks early around the first of June. Overwintered colonies that were strong began packing the honey away. Package bees still had not fully developed yet and were not able to reap the nectar at this time. The weather was fine and moisture was ample.
 Overwintered colonies put away large amounts of honey around the metro area. Beekeepers in the north had to contend with large rainfalls and beekeepers south of the metro had drought conditions to deal with. Wisconsin beekeepers had very dry conditions that contributed to a poor nectar flow. Minnesota beekeepers in the central part of the state heading straight into South Dakota had a good to very good nectar flow.
 The nectar flow was steady through the first three weeks of June then the weather dried up and so did the nectar for many of us. Package bees were up and ready to go by then but the dry conditions kept the nectar flow at bay.
 July came and the dry weather continued. Swarming came out again keeping swarm chasers busy for a long swarm season.
 The crud was in many bee colonies across the country. This was probably a virus. Luckily the crud responded to a couple of treatments of Terramycian.
 August did produce some Goldenrod honey for many colonies. The honey did have a higher moisture content than the June crop had.
Sept did prove a surprise. Being that the over wintered colonies had an early build up, mites started to rear their ugly little heads. Mite treatments were going on over the the fall months. Some colonies experienced mite damage  in August. Mite treatments applied in Sept and October on these mite damaged colonies  proved ineffective as the bees started to abscond in late Sept and  Oct. Mite damaged colonies were too far gone to save. Beekeepers that treated in August had good luck keeping the mites in check. The mite build up in packages was mixed. Some packages needed treatments but most seemed to have lower mite counts. 
 Winter stores in many colonies were light. Feeding went on through the fall. Beekeepers that fed early were able to get ample food in their hives. Cooler weather made late feeders struggle to get their colonies up to proper wintering weight. They had to resort to putting on candy boards or feeding dry sugar.
Late fall weather was warm even into December. The warm fall made for low consumption of winter stores that will hopefully bring the bees through winter.
While the last year was challenging with the weather most of the bees are in great shape and with a little luck and a normal winter, 2013 looks to be a good one.

What's happening now with the bees

Right now the bees have survived our January subzero temperatures without any problem, if they were on honey frames. If a cluster has food during below zero weather, survival is normally is not a problem.
 The January thaw that MN/WI is currently experiencing, has come at a perfect time. Right now most bee colonies have been transitioning from the lower box and moving into the top box of hive, Depending how much food was in the lower box(s). Some hives the bees have already moved up and hives that are very heavy with honey, may not have moved up yet.
Once bees have moved up, as the calendar moves to February, brood rearing begins. The queen will start laying eggs. She starts out laying slowly and will increase her egg production over the next few weeks.
 This is the danger time for the hive. Once there is brood in the hive, the bees can't move off the brood. If they deplete honey around the brood, the bees have to move out away from the brood to get honey, this feed is used for their food and to keep the brood warm.
 Usually getting this honey is not a problem. But if the weather gets in single digits or below for more than one night, starvation can occur. When it gets very cold, the cluster has to tighten up to keep the brood warm. This can pull the bees off a frame of honey that they were using as a food source. The bees will not leave the brood no matter what. The hive will die trying to keep the brood warm.
A beekeeper can help prevent this from happening by adding sugar, candy boards or winter patties. This gives bees some emergency food that can hopefully get the bees over this short cold blast.
 feeding sugar
feeding winter patties

Adding Winter Patties To A Hive

I put winter patties on some colonies today. The weather was perfect to open a hive. Nice and sunny and no wind. A couple colonies were short of food. I could tell these hives were light on stores by all of the bees in the top box.
 Right now the bees should still be in the bottom box. In some colonies I could see the bees down deep between the frames, this is fine. That is a sign of ample food stores.
But, when the bees are covering the frames in the top box, they need food.