If they have enough honey, they can keep themselves from freezing even in the harshest of climates.
Moving a hive is tricky. First, bees are very set on the exact location of their hive as they orient themselves to the exact location of their hive on their first flight. It is said you can only move a hive less than three feet or more than three miles. There are ways to encourage to bees to reorient themselves when a does have to be moved. Furthermore, if you were to take the hives inside, they would think it was spring or at least think the weather was warm and some would leave the hive for cleansing flights. Some might even leave to forage.
Beehives do survive in harsh climates, but they need food.
Beehives survive winters covered in s
To my knowledge, you can move a hive between 18-24 inches a day otherwise, like you say they have to be buttoned up and moved over two miles away and left there for a few weeks before “coming home” to their new location on the keepers property.
So at the end of the honey making season you should not collect that last batch of honey?
If they have enough honey, they can keep themselves from freezing even in the harshest of climates.
Yup. But in a never ending winter like this one, the poor little critters go through their entire food store long before it warms up. Where I am, we just got dumped on by another huge snow storm. The poor robins came back too soon and are absolutely frantic trying to find food. By the time this latest snow melts, I suspect they will all be dead of starvation.
Covered in what?