Brr... it's cold.. Poor bees

It's been cold here, last month it was down to 18F overnight. I want to keep the bees alive so they start out earlier in spring. If the hive dies, I'll have to get another package/catch a swarm then the hive looses the earlier spring nectar flow. Which means less honey for them and none for me.


Here are a few of the things I did to try to help them survive to spring:

• moved hive to open ended garage to keep out of rain/snow/wind
• stapled tar paper around hive
• wrapped hive in old army surplus blanket and wrapped bungee cords to keep it close
• setup an automatic temperature sensitive power cord with a reptile cage heater to see if that helps. the power turns on at 35F.

The temperature sensitive power plug and heater: