Or it could be more dire. Winter food stores up until this point have been steadily declining at a gradual but predictable rate. What happens now when the queen is at full egg laying (brood producing) coupled with a growing workforce? Well, between increased consumption of ever more house bees and foragers, plus trying to feed thousands of larvae, the food stores decline can no longer be graphed as a straight line. Now it is a sharp spike upward!

Beginning now is when the beekeeper needs to remember to lift the backs of their hives. And on those pretty days when you get into them to ooh-ahh at their numbers and beauty, look and assess their nectar stores. December and January saw a full pantry with slow, steady declines, but brood rearing brings on food demands that dwarf the demands of fall and early winter.

And a final scare for you. It’s quite a curiosity that starved bees don’t slowly decline due to lack of food. No, for them, it’s the Three Musketeers: “All for one and one for all,” meaning they’ll go down together if they run out of food. One day they are all fed, the next, well…not.