Venturing into the Bee Yard

As the possibility of another huge snowstorm looms, Liam and I were curious about how our honey bees are faring.  It is obviously much too cold to open up the hives to check but I did venture across the ditch and into the bee yard to see if I could glean some clues based on how the hives looked from the outside.

As far as I could see it is so far, so good.  There were no telltale signs of colony collapse, like huge piles of dead bees in front of the hive entrance or destroyed hive bodies.

There were several dozen dead bees scattered on the snow's surface throughout the bee yard.  Ian suggested that it might be a good thing seeing as they are on top of the snow as it might mean that the colonies were alive at the last snowfall, which was only a week or so ago.

At this point it is anyone's guess whether our colonies survived.  I really should put an old stethoscope or an infrared attachment for my iPhone on my Christmas list next year to help me hear/see what is going on in there during the colder months.  Anyways, here's to hoping that our best guess is correct and that our bees are still alive.  If they have made it through this much of this very long, very snowy winter, what is one more blizzard?