Late Spring!

 Looking through older posts, I see that I was doing splits some years in mid-April.  We had snow just the past two days, with a forecast showing a few days near seasonal norms but then turning cooler yet again.  Red maples are about to bloom and we've just found our first crocus bloom but things are definitely slow again.  

Hopefully, I'll be able to remove winter wraps sometime in the coming week.  I like the inch and a half styro I used this year.  I think it really helped with winter survival.  It allows the bees to keep a critical temperature in the hive without expending too much energy and using up resources.  I'll do it again.  Seems like some other critters like it as well, though.

As you can see, either an opossum or a raccoon was scratching away at one of the hives.

The painting below is one I did this winter of our club's field day last summer.  This was demonstrating a hive inspection.