You've no doubt guessed our bees did not survive the winter. The long and the short of it is that neither hive, the original hive nor the new hive from the swarm, built up past one box. Darned bees just wouldn't expand!! In light of this, I left them to their own devices for the winter. I could have tried to feed them, insulate the hives, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but I felt that if I did that, and if (by chance) they did survive the winter on only one box, I'd just be perpetuating bad genes next year. On the other hand, if they were somehow hardy enough to survive on one box without my help, then I'd be happy to try working with them again next year.
Anyway... they died...
I miss them now. They were so gentle. Perfect for my family for our first time beekeeping. I wish they would've cooperated more.
Here's a youtube video I put up of the cleanup last month.
And no. I didn't end up using the wax for anything interesting. There were too many dead bees mixed in and too much mold. I ended up throwing it all out.
New posts will be coming soon. I'll, obviously, put up some new posts about installing our new packages of bees and what we're doing now. If I get time I'd also like to put up some posts regarding lessons I learned in my first year beekeeping, reasons why I feel I didn't fail at beekeeping, what I'm going to do differently this year, how much it costs me to build a Warre hive, and, maybe (just maybe) a chapter by chapter video synopsis of Warre's book Beekeeping for All (just maybe).
Until next time.
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