After a little over 3 weeks (I think), the bees finally were given a pass to take a Bathroom break today. The temperatures made it into the lower 50’s, although I saw them milling around the landing board and doing cleansing flights in the mid-40’s this morning. Basically, the little wenches have been in a tight ball, staying warm, for 3 solid weeks. Since they do not use the bathroom in the hive, they had to hold it the whole time! As my wife might say, that sounds awful!

At any rate, both hives had some activity, although Hive 1 was clearly stronger this time. To begin with, it’s outstanding to see that both hives have live bees. I could be off, but I believe that my risks are decreasing substantially now. The bees are starting to ramp up for the coming nectar flow and I just need to help them get through this last leg now.

On Sunday, the temperatures could hit the mid-50’s, so I plan to break the hives open and find the clusters. To date, neither of them have appeared to make much a move into the upper deep. I wonder if the Sunday check will show something different!

To finish this journal entry out, I actually painted 4 Deeps and 1 screened bottom board today. With the weather, I am hoping to work on a few more tomorrow and get everything back into the garage before Monday’s rain. My experience with paint, rain and these temperatures has been pretty bad (I have had painted, outdoor fences long before I had bees!), so the plan is critical. The good thing is that I learned a lesson from last year. In 2009, I didn’t get around to painting the things until April. In May, when I started to use them, the paint was not really dry enough and the bottom boards and the deeps stuck to one another. This year, I expect the results to be much different!