Why do winter inspections? What do you look for to see if a hive is in trouble?

Quick lift on hive and hive seems light No flight activity on warm days Put your ear to hive/check for life Excessive defecation on exterior hive surfaces Excessive amounts of dead bees Clogging entrance Front of hive Curiosity Conditions for performing inspections If sunny pick any day bees are flying If cloudy pick a warm day 40 to 50F Preferably with bees flying.

What if bees are clustered?

Generally stay out if clustered unless they are nearly out of feed If they are out of feed they will die You can get into the hive sometimes without disturbing the cluster Determine store situation View top of frames to see if there is honey in any of the frames Look at bottom of frames by tipping the top box up If there is a large cluster best extending into bottom box best to not lift top box splitting the cluster Mid-January you should have at least 6 frames half full of honey for a large cluster This is insufficient to supply honey for build up but will get you to first good flight days.

How to add honey:

Method1: Remove all frames without bees on them Frames 1 & 9 are box edges (positions 1 & 9) Inspect for honey Plan to center the cluster in the center of the box Replace empty combs with honey Replace combs only 1/8 to 1/4 full with full combs of honey Combs 1/2 full or so you can put in positions 1 and 9 Move the combs having bees to box center Best to have an equivalent of approximately 5 full combs of honey Move combs from another hive or saved comb 5 full combs is only 20 lbs (deep super) or 15 lbs (Western super) Bees will need more feed in March Emergency feeding during the winter Candy board feeder Make a 2" high rim around a piece of 1/4" plywood or 1/8" masonite Mix sugar, honey and water in the proportions of 25# sugar, 3.75# honey and 2.6# water Heat to 240oF (For you candy makers--just about hard ball stage is good) Pour mixture into rim Place on hive on top of cluster Feeding dry sugar Method 1 Place dry sugar above inner cover with a rim Bees will come through inner cover hole to feed on sugar

Method 2: Place 3/8" sticks on top box frames and lay newspaper with holes over sticks Pour dry sugar on newspaper Method 3 Block spaces between outer frames with aluminum foil Fill space above aluminum foil with dry sugar

Note that sugar candy and dry sugar require moisture for the bees to be able to use the feed. If no moisture is available the feed cannot be used by the bees.