May 12: Hives Need Checked

5/12
Past two days have been cooler. I checked the hives tonight, and I was surprised to see some bees (not many) landing with pollen at about 7:00 pm in the low 60 degrees.

I checked one of my books:

• 93-94 degrees is the temperature the bees maintain in the hive by fanning their wings.
• At 61 degrees, drones can't fly. (They're worthless anyway.)
  
• At 57 degrees, the cluster (big ball of bees) forms to keep warm.
• At 50 degrees, brood(baby)-rearing stops and workers cannot fly.
• At 42 degrees, bees cannot move because their muscles aren't hot enough.
• At 40 degrees, bees will die if alone and not in the cluster
• 
  

I came across pollen.com and downloaded a gadget that shows me the pollen counts for each day. I think I can extrapolate that on high pollen count days, there will more sources of pollen? I posted the question on the Bee Forum. It also will tell me when Jenny is most miserable. :-(


Interesting fact:
"Honey bees will tap about two million flowers and fly 50,000 miles (80,000 km) to make one pound (454 g) of honey."