I walk through countless snowballs to feed you.

(Pear flower body, written on February 15, 2015)

Actually, feeding you is the same as not feeding you,
BIP says that if you feed honey, they will die more.

But I am kind

if I feed,  I just tried my best
Although i know
I am not god

Tears were frozen on my face
Is it too cold?
Or because most of you are dead

I walked through the knee-high snow to feed you

I leave an old honey at home to feed so many of you

Pesticides are increasing, flowers are decreasing

Climate is changing, viruses are rampant

Parasite singing on you

And these

It’s all the reason why I need to feed you
My 180,000 honeybees Shiver in the cold wind.

Feeding? Still not feeding? This is a problem for beekeepers in our north. A recent study by Beeinformed.org (BIP) says that if bees are fed in winter, the mortality rate is actually higher! This is quite interesting, but maybe because feeding with honey (usually taken from dead bee colonies) may transmit microsporidia, American larvae, etc.

The student told me that our bee colony would die because it was too cold and the bees had no chance to seal the cracks between the beehives with propolis. But yesterday, I still fed my bees. Winter is long in Michigan, and it snows in November, and sometimes it still falls in April. So it takes 5-6 months for the swarm to have honey to eat. It is usually 80 pounds per group (one pound = 454 grams = nine or two). However, sometimes the judgment is wrong, or the bee eats fast, so it may be checked once in 1/2 month. If there is no honey, use the honey from the next dead group, or make a sugar board (introduced next time), and some people are directly at Put white sugar on the newspaper or use marshmallow. Anyway, when it is 5-6 degrees outside, liquid syrup cannot be fed to bees.

Of the eight bee colonies in the first hive, four are still alive. The bee mass has reached the top, indicating that the food is almost gone. Winter bees are slowly moving upwards, so if it is too cold outside, sometimes there is honey on both sides, and the bee group is too small for the honey on the side, or it will starve to death. If I don’t give them food they will definitely starve to death. It might be better to give them a sugar plate, but now it is much simpler to give them the honey spleen from the dead bee colony.

In the laboratory apiary, 2 colonies of 4 colonies are alive. One of them is the core group of single boxes! Normally, there are two or three boxes, because it takes about 80 pounds of honey to bee for 5 months in winter

The worst apiary is that 3 of the 13 bee colonies are still there. Half are too weak and should merge into a strong swarm in September (at least 40,000 worker bees). The other half of the swarm are starving, and they don’t have 60 pounds of honey.

So, a total of 25 groups, only 9 alive. I plan to provide them with pollen substitutes in 2-3 weeks, and it can be one of 25 groups. I need to buy 10 ~ 15 cage bees to bring the total number of bee colonies closer to 40. This year’s cage bees cost $ 105 for two pound bees.

I should feed the bees better on Saturday, it is 4 ° C that day. But there was a Michigan Beekeepers meeting at that morning, and then I got off work at 5 in the afternoon. Sunday bee feeding was originally 2 degrees. When I finished feeding, the temperature was 0 degrees. When I got home, it became minus 3 degrees! (Only 10 minutes! I don’t know why the temperature dropped so fast).

If I don’t feed them today, I estimate that there will be 2-3 colonies alive, but there is no control group that does n’t feed, so in the end it ’s useless or no data. Anyway, my heart is kind. It will die if I do n’t feed, but it also may die if I feed, but at least it is possible to live.

1. The entrance to the laboratory hive. It seems that I drove my own car that day. No one pushed snow inside, so walked in, about 0.5 kilometers.

2. Laboratory Hive.

3. Dead bee colony

4. Simon Apiary, 1, 2, 3, 6 are dead.

5. This colonies is not big enough.

[The above is the situation in 2015. Most of them died after being fed! Checked at 12.20 this year, there are 16 groups, and all of them have added the honey of the dead group. I thought at least 10 groups were okay. As a result, 1 group is left! The other weak one should  die. and so. . . It seems that they will die regardless of feeding or not feed!

Looking forward to getting rich that they can overwinter in indoors! The temperature needs to be controlled at about 8 degrees (this requires heating and cooling), and then there is a carbon dioxide detector. When the concentration exceeds a certain amount, the outside air is passed in, and then there is no light to enter during the day. Isn’t it expensive?