Traffic flows on the highways and by-ways of Nebraska skies. Millions of  Canada geese, Snow geese, White Fronted geese, Trumpeter Swans, Sandhill Cranes, Blackbirds, Robins, Bohemian Waxwings, wading birds, ducks and more ducks are flying overhead and then dropping down to eat grain leftover from last year’s harvest.  I also see Bald eagles soaring.

The Great Migration has started, and Central Nebraska is the place to be from February until early May.  Come, join us.  See photos by Photographer Don Brockmeier.

Buzz Savories’ bees huddle at the top of the hive box most of February because temperatures drop below 50 Degrees F, and they stay in until temps reach above 50 Degrees.  We seldom open their hive because of the chilly outside air.  I’m hoping they are eating bee candy and keeping warm.

1. Honey consists of sucrose and fructose.
2. Honey tastes sweeter than table sugar, so less honey offers the same or more sweetness and you’re likely consuming fewer calories. In cooking for example replace 1 cup of honey with 1 ¼ cups sugar.
3. When baking with honey, search and find a recipe developed especially for honey because simply replacing sugar with honey fails to account for the many properties of honey that differ from sugar, i.e. honey is a liquid, honey has browning qualities so oven temperatures need to be reduced.
4. Breads and cakes baked with honey as an ingredient stay moist longer than sugar sweeteners because honey is hygroscopic, which means it collects moisture from the air around it.

Buzz Savories bees are maintaining an interior temperature of 70 degrees F whereas Central Nebraska and beyond on the prairies temps dropped to minus 20 degrees F.  Nutrition during  frigid temperatures concerns beekeepers because the bees form a tight cluster around the queen and shiver their bodies to warm the air around the cluster.  The cluster stays tight until temperatures warm to 50 degrees F and above.

Bees will not travel even 2 inches outside the cluster to eat during these critical low temperatures.  Food can be 3” from the cluster, and they cannot access it. Bees can starve during these extremely cold temperatures.  The cluster travels up in the hive because heat rises, and the hive is warmer under the lid of the hive.

Beekeepers make a candy called Bee Candy and place it under the cover beside the cluster and within easy access for the bees.  

I cooked the Bee Candy earlier this month, and it is curious and interesting process.  I learned how to make the bee candy from Richard Homer and the video on his website – homershoneybee.com 

Here in the northern hemisphere when winter arrives and daylight shrinks, the bees form a cluster inside the hive; the bees maintain a cool resting temperature of about 70 Degrees F, and then the queen stops laying eggs.  The bee population is at its lowest before the Winter Solstice. As daylight hours increase, the bees increase the temperature of the hive to a brood rearing temperature of 95 Degrees F.  The increase in warmth spurs the queen to lay eggs.  She will build a small brood nest and gradually over the course of many weeks, the hive population  grows and by spring will explode and the hive emerges healthy and ready to gather pollen and nectar and begin another season.

(wintering bees facts was derived from Hive Tracks found at www.Hivetracks.com)