Torn between lovin the warm weather but knowing we need sugaring weather!

At this point we are about 3 barrels shy of our normal production of maple syrup.  We are not alone however.  Alot of the maple producers have only made a fraction of their usual amount of sweet Vermont gold! 
Last year's season was outstanding.  We made by far more than we have ever made and so did everyone else.  We even heard rumor that the bulk buyers still had stock maple syrup left over in their warehouse so perhaps this is not a bad thing that we all (or most of us) have made less.  I must be like milk pricing, supply and demand.  The cows giving milk out there, makes it less valueable because it is so abundant.  However, don't quote me on that, I'm certainly not an expert at the agricultral dairy affairs.  Just my personal thinking.

Last week our temps were 60s this week, 20-30s.  The sap hasn't started to run until late afternoon here.  Thus Larry held off boiling until this morning.  Everything is froze up tight in the lines.  With the forcast of today, I'm not sure they will unthaw until tomorrow.

Yesterday, I went into the one remaining beehive that survived the winter.  They are doing very well, very active.  We started feeding them sugarwater last week and giving them pollen patty.  I had completely unwrapped them from the winter, worried they would sweat and get disentary.  Yesterday I wanted to remove the glass bee feeder I had inside their hive, worried it would freeze in there.  When I opened the box a gust of wind came up.  They did NOT like that.  I was only wearing a hoodie sweatshirt I'd tied around my face.  I quickly cinched it up so only my eyes were visible.  Still they were out like guard dogs!  Flying into me to warn me.  I forgot about my sleeves being a bit loose and sure enough a couple found their ways up into my sweatshirt.  Ugh!  I frantically put the new full plastic jar in the empty glass jars place and got out of there!  I closed them up quickly and walked away as carefully as possible.  Flicking them off from my clothing and around my face.  Then right there out in the open, I stripped off my sweatshirt wrong side out to locate the culprits that had gone inside.  Good thing we have no close neighbors to have caught that sight!  Last year, 2 hours after being out of the bees I got stung by a bee that I was unaware of inside my sweatshirt.

Hard to tell why we lost the three other hives of bees.  So many factors go into their survival.  Even the pros lose their bees on occasion.  Those three were weaker by far entering into the winter than the one that survived, not nearly the amount of bees.  And then you've got the fact that November was unseasonable warmer, longer.  I knew the bees were not into dormancy as quickly as they had in colder years, so they could've eaten all their supply more quickly than the other hive since they didn't have the numbers to keep the colony "body heat" within the hive.  Who knows?!  I'm glad for my pocketbooks sake that we atleast had one very healthy hive survive.  Our honey supply is starting to get low, hopefully we have enough until harvest time.

Enjoy the weather, this is Vermont, blink and it changes!