okay well in the part of the United States where I live we've been setting
records this past week records for snowfall amounts and records for cold
temperatures in fact in the last three days we got over sixty inches of snow if
you're like me one of the first things that comes to mind is how are the bees
surviving this how about all that snow that's piled up on the hives you're
looking at an orchard bee house right here that's all in place and ready for
the spring and there's nothing living in it so we're not worried about that but
we put them out early and this is basically facing east from my house we
have snow just coming down constantly and right now it's about 11 degrees but
there are some real cold spots in every direction we just see deep snow in fact
the main city near where I live has declared a state of emergency for the
entire past week and they called out the National Guard
those guys were out there shoveling snow for people but that emergency has been
lifted and it's time to get outside and see how the bees are doing a lot of
people like to walk up to their beehives and knock on them to see if they can
hear bees humming that's not what I do and I'm gonna demonstrate how I check on
my bees to see if they're alive without pulling lids and without sweeping the
snow off just like with this blue spruce tree that's protecting these birds from
the weather snow is an insulator and that's why when snow piles up on my
beehives I leave it there beehive number eight I've shown this in a lot of videos
here this has my largest colony in it and has more boxes on than I normally
leave through winter and that's because they filled it with honey so how can we
tell looking at this hive if the bees are alive do we look for vent holes
look at these colonies they are all covered in snow now instinctively some
people like to come in and sweep the snow off but don't do it snow is an
insulator and if you think your bees have died it does not help if you sweep
the snow off and pull covers to look inside to see if your bees are dead or
alive if they're dead they're dead but if they're alive and you pull the covers
off you expose them to extreme temperatures and you will definitely
kill them off so just look at this blanketed snow area here some people
knock on the side of the beehive and they listen to hear them hum that's put
that puts them into an active state and they start moving air around the bees
are in a state of torpor they are clustered and I'm going to show you an
instrument that allows me to look at the high from the outside and see where that
cluster is and any rise in temperature is going to be evidence that the bees
are still alive
now here we are with the thermal imager the FLIR c2 and look at the hot spot if
you look at the right it shows the entire range of temperatures out here from
minus 0.6 all the way up to twenty seven point three or twenty-eight and that
hotspot right there is the surface temperature of the box which means that
if they're at 28 and 29 on the surface the interior has a living cluster of
bees and they are keeping themselves warm let's look at colony number four
here which has an insulated top cover it also has that upper vent hole and the
landing board you can see is covered with snow
so let's look with the FLIR here and we can see the cluster is pretty much
concentrated in that center box and you can read a surface temperature of 27 or
28 degrees and in the range here it goes all the way down to 1.9 degrees
Fahrenheit so again not only are the bees alive without touching the colony
but we know that the cluster is basically in the center which is great
because that's where all the honey is now we're looking at box number six
which is deeply embedded in snow and you're looking at a flashing light
that's on the upper right there the box and that's for predator protection now
these beads are clustered down low so you can see that just above the snow
line there they have temperatures that are up into the 20s also and again we're
not reading interior temperature we are reading surface temperature of the box
so if these boxes were heavily insulated this method wouldn't really work
so now box number three these bees are clustered up near the top and there is a
top vent there and again this is an insulated cover we have colonies out
that have wooden covers and insulated covers so that we can compare and see
how well they make it with each in my apiary there doesn't seem to be any
rhyme or reason to which colonies survive or don't
based on covers but we're just insulating them again you can see this
colony is alive they are concentrated in the upper third there just under the
number two and they're doing well now let's look at
my super colony these are my top performers and they're out here by a
Colorado blue spruce tree and you can see that the snow is just loaded and
they are anchored to the ground by these straps so let's pull the FLIR up here
and they're basically in the center just above the snow line there you can see
the temperatures are hottest and I think they go all the way up to 30 something
on the surface and this these boxes are just chock-a-block with bees so they are
clustered they're alive and the surface temperature is higher
than the environment that lets us know that they're alive and remember they
don't heat the entire interior of the colony the Box beehives that are larger
are not heated throughout they're just heated in the cluster and that allows
the bees to rotate out to the perimeter of the cluster so as they get cold they
migrate back into the center and they're replaced so the bees are insulated by
bees
again we're just looking at a landscape here we have as I said set records for
snowfall and when we have more coming this weekend so if you're like me the
first thing that comes to mind when you get these big storm systems is how well
the bees are gonna make it and so far so good we left lots of honey on these
colonies and I'm looking forward to them making it through to spring and of
course I'll give you updates when that time of year comes around and we'll see
how they fared this little shed is where my observation hive is located and they
are alive as well they have two-inch rigid foam board
insulation on the surfaces of the observation hive and the little vent
through the side was not showing much of a temperature increase but I'm confident
that those bees are also making it and there again this is my orchard bee or
mason bee box we have several of these out this year and we'll be updating
those in spring and showing you how the mason bees come and go
thank you for watching my video I hope that you will consider not knocking on
your beehives and disturbing them to discover if they're dead or alive find
another method and don't pull covers in the winter time thanks for watching and
I hope you enjoyed this video