Today’s Run:  2.62 miles (broken toe  🙁

Today we tucked the bees in for the Winter.  So, our 100,000 some odd bees are all snug in their beds for the season.

We have to feed our bees throughout the Winter here in Mississippi.  Our bees spend a great deal of the Winter flying!  If it is 50 degrees or more, the bees will be out foraging and in the months of December-January there are not many flowers in bloom.  So, we feed.

Today was a hive inspection, just to make sure all was well.  It was.  The day was a bit chilly and when we opened the hive, the bees were in their ball.  See, when it is cold, the bees all gather together in the hive and form a “ball”.  They, for lack of a better term, buzz, generating heat in the hive so they do not freeze.  And, just like geese take turns leading the V formation, the bees take turns being in the toasty warm middle of the ball and then going to the colder outside of the ball.  They rotate.

So, now that we were comfortable with the knowledge that the bees “are doing their thing”, we placed four sheets of bee patties on the top bars of the hives to get them started with a food supply for when the stored honey runs out.  We will check that supply regularly throughout the Winter months.  We do not want our bees to go hungry!

So, the bees are all tucked away for the Winter and I do not know if with those new bee patties we placed in there if they will have visions of sugar plums dancing in their little bee heads…