2019 is opening with a deep freeze polar vortex in Iowa! Cedar Rapids is looking rather gusty in the intro image for this post. We've had a few rounds of snow, negative temperatures Fahrenheit, and a lot of time in the Bobcat moving the white stuff. Tonight the real temperature is forecast for -33F!!! The wind chills are calculated for something crazy like -40 to -60F. Watch out Midwestern peach trees!

The other day it was fortunately not quite so bitterly cold. We had another truckload of container inventory that needed to get up to the building, so I went out pushing snow with many layers of clothing to make it bearable. Here is the result of my Kubota diesel-powered project!

I thought I was going a little overkill on the snow pushing in order to make the semi driver comfortable pulling into the field headfirst, but he needed all the space to swing around. We still don't have a full drive put down for rigs that big, and some of those drivers get really nervous when leaving hard pack gravel or concrete. Luckily it was frozen plenty hard to make it safe for our winter delivery!

Because we're in Iowa, the temperatures will naturally skyrocket near forty for a few days, and then plummet back into the teens. Hold on bees! The decision to send a truckload of bees to California is feeling better and better. Hopefully I feel the same when I go back and visit them at the beginning of almond bloom! Best wishes to everyone with their fingers crossed for their snug honeybee clusters right now!

For those who know their bees' fate or plan to add colonies, we just put up the information for ordering package bees and nucs! Single-deep hives will be on the list soon as well!