Thursday, March 13, 2014

Are The Bees Clustered?


I sure hope the bees went into cluster again after this nice warm weather.  

  10
OBSERVED
Hi 49.0°
Lo 30.0°
Precip (in)
0
  11
OBSERVED
Hi 53.0°
Lo 38.0°
Precip (in)
0.13
  12
OBSERVED
Hi 40.0°
Lo 9.0°
Precip (in)
0.76
  Today
Hi 15.0°
Lo 6.0°
Precip
10 %
  14
Hi 48.0°
Lo 31.0°
Precip
10 %
  15
Hi 38.0°
Lo 18.0°
Precip
20 %
  16
Hi 25.0°
Lo 13.0°
Precip
20 %
  17
Hi 30.0°
Lo 21.0°
Precip
10 %
  18
Hi 38.0°
Lo 31.0°
Precip
10 %
  19
Hi 43.0°
Lo 26.0°
Precip
50 %
  20
Hi 37.0°
Lo 21.0°
Precip
40 %
  21
Hi 38.0°
Lo 24.0°
Precip
10 %
  22
Hi 43.0°
Lo 31.0°
Precip
30 %

When the temperature gets above 40 degrees the bees get a chance to go out of the hive and relieve themselves.  This is something they won't do in the hive and if winter is very long and cold the bees can get a form of dysentery (called nosema) from it.  It makes beekeepers happy when the bees get some warm-ish spring days.    

Yesterday and earlier this week the weather got warm enough for the bees to go out (hurray!), but then yesterday the temperature dropped from a high of 40-degrees to a low of 9 degrees!  


Bees In Cluster
Source

Winter cluster is when the bees get into a ball inside the hive and the outside bees rotate to the inside and vice versa.  The temperature inside this ball of bees has been measured up to 95 degrees!  If my bees didn't get into cluster, its very possible that they froze to death.  Tomorrow's high temperature of 48 degrees will tell.  It the bees are alive they should be flying or crawling around near the hive entrance. 

 This would be a good time to say a prayer for the bees!



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3 comments:

  1. I hope the bees are all right. Interesting how the weather affects every living creature in some fashion or another.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope your bees clustered up nice and tight to stay warm!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll hopefully see them today!

    ReplyDelete