Cleansing Flights

This has been a strange winter as far as temperatures go, and we’ve been bouncing between thaws and deep freezes throughout the season. On days when the temperature gets up to about 55 degrees, the honeybees will relax their tight cluster sine they don’t need to stay warm together, and they’ll leave the hive to fly around a bit.


These are known as cleansing flights, and it lets them stretch their wings and get a little fresh air for a bit while they can. Three weeks ago we had a day in the 50s — and with sun, to boot. The bees from our swarmed hive were out and about, enjoying the fine weather! 

There were no signs of life at the other hive, and it didn’t feel quite warm enough to open them up to have a look. The next time we have a day when the temperature is above 55 degrees, I’ll take a peek inside to check the honey situation. I’m not convinced that there’s enough food in either hive for a whole winter, but if the weaker colony has already died, I can look for any used honey stores to give to to the stronger hive.

Or, at the every least, we can replace the fondant to try to help them out until we have flowers again.

This is a good sign, though!

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