Winter Hive Check

Sometimes there's not much you can do in the winter for your hive except wait until spring to see if they made it. When temperatures are low the bees huddle together like penguins in Antarctica, the queen bee stays in the center to keep warm. The huddle is known as a cluster and if this cluster breaks the bees will die. Having a top bar hive, I can peak underneath and see the damage done by the cold and lack of food. Surprisingly, there are still live bees in my hive, a little tap on the side sends them buzzing. However they have definitely dwindled in numbers as you can see in the photo below.