After a month of cold weather in December, finally on January 1st we had a warm day, with 51 degrees, overcast skies and the ground still covered with residual snow from a snow storm that left 7 inches the day after Christmas. There were yellow spots here and there on the snow and I was curious what they were - perhaps bee droppings? Sure enough, the closer we came to the hives, the more spots there were.
Bees defecate when they fly and this was the first day they had an opportunity to leave the hive. We opened up the hives, gave them some new sugar water, noted that they were very active and had been cleaning house, as there were many dead bees on the ground. Hopefully nothing to worry about. Also, the wind screen was still sturdy and in place.
It was amazing how many spots the bees left in the snow as they relieved themselves that day. The number of spots increased the closer to the hive we looked but they went as far as at least a couple hundred yards as well. If it weren't for the snow we would never have realized how difficult it must be for them to wait for good flying weather to exit the hive. Great job figuring out that's what the yellow spots were!
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