Despite having an exceptionally strong hive going into the winter, my mom and I have concluded that our bees probably didn't survive our early cold snap a few months ago. While it's not uncommon to lose hives over the winter, it's an even bigger bummer when it's your only hive.
Yesterday we decided that we're going to take a year off from beekeeping as my parents have some fairly major renovation work planned for the area that the hives currently inhabit.
This will allow us to put some serious thought into establishing a long-term location for our hives; definitely a good thing as they were rather awkwardly situated in the middle of the vegetable garden. Good for pollination; not so great for plants, weeding, or harvesting.
We briefly pondered moving them to my house but we also have some fairly serious yard work in progress and would prefer to keep areas clear. Hive placement is not a decision one makes lightly.
We're pretty disappointed by our hive loss but it is sadly a fairly frequent occurrence of beekeeping in the Pacific NW. We look forward to resuming activities next year.
