Now over a foot

Sorry for the crummy cellphone pic. I should go out and take better ones. But I just spent an hour snowblowing and shoveling. That's after doing the same at noon. And likely again tomorrow morning. We're supposed to get about 18 inches.

You may recall that I bought a snowblower from a neighbor in January but never got to use it. It's getting a workout now!

Oh, and as you can see, the hive is well-insulated. Inside there, the bees are clustered in a ball that also encompasses several sheets of comb. The bees on the outside are tightly packed together while inside the ball they're more loose. They vibrate their wing muscles to create heat -- a constant 98 degrees. They're heating just the cluster; the rest of the hive may be warmer than outside, but not as warm as the bees themselves.

As they consume their stores, the cluster will move across the combs, with bees on the outside passing honey to the inside. They should have plenty to survive the winter, since I didn't take any.