Pete checked the bees yesterday and said that the bees from the Cherry Pie hive are still alive and working! This is a relief since we lost both of the other hives - again, for reasons unknown since there was plenty of food. One theory is that the Queen may have laid summer bees (life span of about 5 weeks) too late into the fall. As a result, there would not have been enough winter bees (life span of about 6 months) to get the hive through the winter - no matter how mild.
We watched the bees working over the weekend - doing cleansing runs and scouting. We substituted the sugar/syrup rich fondant for feeding when the weather turned so the sugar water would not freeze; that seems to be working quite well as the bees were all over it yesterday.
We've got two boxes of bees ordered for the Spring Beauty & Sunny Daze hives. We're beginning preparations on those hives so they'll be cleaned up and ready for new bees at the end of March.
