Out and about?

After Church this afternoon I went out to the mailbox to get the newspaper (we have a newspaper slot under the mailbox). I was surprised to see a visitor sitting on the newspaper:

 

There was a bee sitting on the plastic, flapping her wings, and drinking from the puddle of water (I watched the puddle go down a bit). I paused for a moment, and noticed that indeed the temperature didn't seem so cold. I checked the thermometer, and it read 49 degrees, right at the point where bees can fly.

I walked out back to check out the hives, and sure enough I saw some activity:

There were a few dead bees in the front (to be expected), and surprisingly some bees flying in and out of the green hive. The brown hive had a bee at the doorstep, but I suspect it is just a visitor from next door, since I could hear no buzzing when I put my ear to the brown hive.

I was reading that it's good for the bees to have some warm fly days during the winter; they can relieve themselves outside the hive, plus they can get to some of the honey in the corners of the hive that they can't get to when they are clustered up tight on cold days.

Snow Day

This weekend we had our first notable snowfall of the season (there was a skiff of snow in October, but it melted quickly). I expect the weather to stay cold, so that means it's time to do some final winter work on the hives.

You can see in the picture that I still have the extra super on the hives. It simply encloses some (now empty) sugar syrup feeding jars. Now that the weather is cold, the bees stop taking the syrup, so I'll remove them. I still want to put a piece of foam insulation in between the top cover (the metal cover) and the inner cover. I also want to slope the hives a little more so that condensation runs to the edge - I'm not satisfied with the slant yet.

My wife mentioned a week or so ago that she went out and could hear lots of buzzing at the green hive, but almost nothing at the brown hive. Maybe the brown hive won't make it over the winter - we'll see.