November warmth

Yesterday I wandered out to just check on the hives. On November 2nd, it was 73 degrees!!! This is Michigan, after all, that is amazing! What I was checking for was to see that bees and only bees were flying in and out of the hives, and that they were not robbing each other. I found everyone behaving very nicely. There were bees flying in and out of all the hives, acting normal, no fighting or dead bees, so everyone was staying in their own hives and no yellow jackets were trying to invade.

We had placed Fran Galow's long hive out in the apiary empty to see how it acts in all weather. It did rain a lot last week - my rain gauge had two inches in it. Inside the hive there was a little moisture on the top of the front two inner covers, but no water in the body of the hive. We may do some tweaking to the lid to prevent that. We may also add a board to the top of the existing long hive so it doesn't have the same problem over the winter because it does have bees in it and the same style of lid, although it is oriented a different direction from the prevailing wind and precipitation.