I've had a lot of customers asking me if I was going to put bees in the observation hive again. As usual, the prior tenants of the observation hive died during the winter. Three times I've tried to overwinter bees inside the store, but it hasn't worked yet. One would think that a nice cozy 70 degree environment with an unlimited food supply would be just the ticket. Not so. I think one problem is the bees don't understand that it is cold outside. I had a lot of the bees fly outside during the first serious cold snap last November. Most of them failed to make it back inside the hive. Maybe I need to post a weather forecast near their exit to the outside. It would probably be more practical if I simply screened them in on cold or rainy days. I suspect there are probably additional reasons why they fail to over winter in the observation hive.
It has been my intention all along to restock the observation hive in the front window of the store. I just had to wait until all of the package bee craziness was over. Earlier this week I finally transferred a small nuc hive into the observation hive. It was a somewhat smallish hive, consisting of a little less than three frames of bees. That will give them a little more room to grow so I don't have to replace them anytime soon. This hive has a marked Italian queen. I've decided to christen her Cozette the First, after one of my numerous grand daughters. So far so good. Cozette the First is working on two frames of brood. There aren't enough nurse bees to care for any more brood than that. They quickly found the feeder and I'm seeing a lot of foragers flying.
