We are finishing up wintering bees for the first time in East Texas!  For the last six winters, we shipped directly from Iowa to California to participate in almond pollination.  That mostly went okay, but it also involved shipping around a lot of equipment since a significant fraction of the bees didn't hold up well enough between December and late February to go in for almonds.  That meant we ended up combining the hives that were less than a six frame population, effectively raising our winter mortality in order to get paid for more colonies in California.  The combination of death loss and combinations annoyed me a lot, so we decided to ship to Texas in hopes of healthier bees and maintaining those weaker hives in a healthier winter environment instead of combining them.  Our region of East Texas usually has much earlier tree pollen and significantly warmer temperatures than we observe in the Central Vally of CA.  That all makes survival easier for the bees and permits them to start raising more baby bees sooner.

Despite the weird winter storms that went through the south and southeast with cold temperatures and snow falling on Gulf beaches, the bees are looking really good so far.  We will see them again toward the end of March and commence creating the new hives for the year!