I hope all your plants survive through the snow Al. I know all about 'swatting sesaon' here in Scotland where the midges all use pneumatic drills - or at least it seems that way!!!
Snow is good the more the better. Acts as insulation and the ground the plants roots are in doesn't freeze. :-D Al
7:58AM 2-15-07 0F, feels like -14, 71% humidity, wind WNW @ 9MPH The sun is out now. Kare and I went out yesterday and had a nice Valentine & Anniversary dinner then did a bit of shopping. Traveling the east & west roads we discovered why many schools were closed yesteday. Some had drifts across them as deep as a couple of feet. Many where the fields to the north were open and no deep ditchs had slick patches all the way across them. Not to fear The country Cadillac takes every thing in stride and delivers us to our chosen spot. TS :-D Al
7:50AM 1-16-07 9F, feels like -5, 72% humidity, Wind WSW @ 10MPH Sun is riseing.Hold the fort the snow just started falling. Just stood at the living room window and watched 8 deer go marching by, heading for the thicker stuff in back of us. There are also some north east faceing hills back there which will allow the deer to lay in the sun shine and have the hill block the wind. TS :-D Al
Febuary 17th 2007. Didn't take the time yesterday to look at the weather station as we were up early to go to the 69th SEMBA bee conferance. Was a very good conferance, much learned, met friends we haven't seen since last year. I even won a door prize of 3 queens. I did glance at the temp as I went out the door to feed my doggies. It was 14F 8:19 2-18-07 9F, Feels like -3, hunidity 72%, wind NW @ 9. Deer laying in the pines across the creek again this morning. It is snowing also. :-D Al
8:06AM 2-19-07 12F, feels like -2, humidity 68%, wind SSE @ 10MPH. Cloudy, a warm up forecast for the end of the week. Maybe even enough to melt all the snow. :-D Al
You must have been so pleased to win those three queens Al. Hope they survive. Sounds as though you're getting plenty of the white stuff and low temperatures. We've got rain but it's quite mild.
8:07AM 2-20-07 31F, feels like 21F, humidity 82%, Wind WSW @ 6mph. Wow the cold spell has snapped. Yesterday was rather on the windy side too. Forecast for the remainder of the week is for temps to run in the high 30's and possiably into the 40's. All the ice and snow on the honey house roof slid off during the night. It is a steel roof. eileen, :-D Yes I was happy to recieve the 3 queens as we will once again be splitting our strong coloines when the night time lows are in the high 40F range. Splitting is basicly just deviding the colony in half and adding a new queen to the one that is queen less. Last year we bought 17 queens to do this. :-D Al
Temperature here for the last week in alberta Canada has been -25. With 5 feet of snow. Of course I am in the Canadian Rockies. But, it sure is a site looking through your kitchen window and there standing in front is a Big Bull Elk with the biggest antlers ever with steam comming out of his nostrils and in the background is the mountains. How lovely is that.
8:18AM 2-21-07 12F, feels like 7F,humidity 70%, wind S @ 4MPH Was foggy earlier but has now cleared to a sunny start to the day. 17 deer marched down along the creek going to the back. The younger ones like the warmer weather as they were frisking around. A couple would run ahead then run back jumping around along the way. Yesterday afternoon the bees were flying about here at home so we took a peak at the colonies that didn't show much actitive. Of the 30 colonies here at home we found that 7 had not made it at first glance. I'll be taking those colonies apart today if it gets warm enough to see if I can see why they didn't make it. We also checked a near by yard and found all 5 there still alive. We are planing on checking the rest today if it warms to the point the girls are flying. Lots of potty stains in the snow so that tells me the girls have bee unable to fly for a while due to the cold. A bull Elk in the yard. Wow I would have gotten a picture of that for sure. Sounds like a beautiful picture too. Al
Al, I'm just loving these photos! Are those purple columbine? I've never seen that color, it's gorgeous!
8:07AM 2-22-07 34F, feels like 23F, humidity 72%, wind W @ 20MPH. Yesterday it got warmer as the day went along. My recorded high was 46F.We checked 50 of our 60 colonies of bees and found 12 that didn't make it thru the winter. Taking the hives apart to try to figure out why led me to think they just ran out of food. Most didn't have any honey left. The lack of food was due to the monsoon like rains we started having in the middle of Sept till the first week of Jan 07. Yes we fed sugar syrup but they had to mostly use it as fast as we applied it because it wasn't warm enough for them to reduce it to honey. We have 10 colonies to go but the checking is on hold as the day is supposed to get colder as we go along with higher heat sucking winds. Netty, yes that is a Columbine I believe it is called a double blue. thank you. :-D Al
Sorry to hear you lost some colonies Al. I suppose it's highly improbable for all colonies to survive the winter or I am mistaken?
Before the Varroa mite I am told winter losses most years ran at about 5%. Since then It has risen to 20% for Northern bee keepers. I am not sure where the lines are drawn between northern and southern or eastern and western. I am not good at math but if we were to find the rest of the colonies alive we would have 48 left of 60 which reduces to 12/15s. Need to call my daughter to change that to a decimal which would give a present. Canadians just east of us have had good luck the last 15 years and experince a 2% loose on adverage. :-D Al
