Part Eleven: Eagerly Awaiting Spring

Since Big Girl died, our focus is now solely on Kha-bee-si. She went into the winter with healthy honey stores, but we all know that things can change as the cold weather drags on. Last year, our early spring consisted of warm days followed by a handful of cold days. This gave many beekeepers a false sense of security, and a lot of colonies starved. I don't want that to happen with Kha-bee-si, since I'm not sure my heart could take another loss this year.

As I prepared to order winter patties, I overheard a customer speaking with Anne Frey, Betterbee's Head Beekeeper, about options for feeding their bees. She mentioned that feeding them honey is the best option, since that's what they prefer to eat. I was seriously kicking myself for not thinking of that! However, she also said it's a commonly overlooked fact in this world full of winter patties and sugar bricks. In that moment, I discovered the silver lining in Big Girl's unfortunate death: she had so much stored honey. On a mild day, I went out and fully dismantled Big Girl. I saw more heartbreaking scenes, like patches of brood a box below where I found the dead, small cluster. That broke my heart all over again. But I assembled a box with 8 frames chock full of honey on both sides of the frames and 2 frames with empty space for brood, surrounded by pollen. I put that box on top of Kha-be-si.

As for me right now, I'm sleeping better knowing our bees have a new, fully stocked pantry right above them, and room for the queen to expand and grow the colony. As the cold weather drags on and we get teased with more spring-like days, I'm hanging on to the dream of splitting Kha-bee-si into Big Girl's old accommodations, so that her hard work building comb does not go unused.

Fingers crossed that spring comes sooner than later!

Your Betterbee-ginner Beekeeper,
Quinn