How much honey does a hive need to survive the winter?  50 to 60 pounds in Virginia (equal to 7 to 9 full depth frames.) 

How much honey is in each of our hives?  25 pounds in two and 35 in the third.  Yikes!  Time to drop my snobbery and feed the bees.

On the bright side, each hive is still evaporating nectar into honey in uncapped cells near the top of the hive.  Presumably this must be aster nectar from the surrounding woods, since every other flower is long gone.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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