Wintertime is generally a time of rest for me as an urban farmer. It’s when I let the garden go wild and fallow so it can replenish itself. The chickens lay a lot less when daylight hours wane; my morning chores become the singular task of feeding them. The beehives, too, are closed for the winter, because air temperatures are too low to safely do inspections. Bees keep their hives at ninety-five degrees to protect their brood (which they lay year-round in California), and even when they don’t have brood (in colder climes), you do not want to chill them.

But there are years when wintertime requires vigilance. It’s time to help the soil replenish when I’ve planted crops known to be particularly hungry, like corn. That is when I spend a portion of the winter rotating compost into the beds or when I build a hugelkultur bed. And this past drought year, the bees suffered due to lack of forage. They never built up the honey reserves to get them through the winter, even though I did not harvest any honey in consideration of their stores.

I knew that I would have to feed my hives all winter.

A few years ago, one of my hives starved. It was a hive placed on Sonoma Mountain in a rural area that was not easy to access on a regular basis. I didn’t do the last check before wintertime, and by the time I visited, the temperatures were so low that I couldn’t inspect. I also didn’t have my infrared camera then, so I couldn’t do a cursory check to see a heat map that would indicate where the bees were in relation to their honey. In the springtime, I approached the hive. From a distance, I saw no bees at the entrance. I knew it would be bad news.

When I opened up the hive, there was stillness and silence. All the bees were dead. I inspected thoroughly, trying to diagnose cause of death, with the intention of learning from my mistakes. There was dead brood. There was empty comb around the immediate circumference of the brood; they’d eaten that honey. A pile of dead bees lay on the bottom screen. At the perimeter of the hive there was capped honey.

In the differential diagnosis of a dead colony, we always consider varroa mites and disease, a common cause of what is called colony collapse disorder. But there was no mite guano in the comb. There were too many dead bees on the bottom board within the hive. The mite count had been low, too.

It became clear that the bees starved. Which hurt my heart.

They had, in the coldness, eaten the honey in the immediate perimeter of the brood. But the rest of the honey was too far away for them to eat without chilling the colony. You see, bees spend the winter clustering together. They detach their wings and buzz their bodies to create heat. They take turns being at the edges of the cluster and rotating to the center. It is paramount that they keep the hive warm and will not break the cluster to eat or forage. If the hive is distressed, the cluster becomes smaller. And as it becomes smaller, it becomes harder to keep warm and there are fewer foragers to collect any nectar. And if the honey within the hive is far away, they cannot reach it as a result.

It is important to keep plenty of honey stores for the winter but also to position them close to where they will cluster. It is important, too, I learned, to confirm this before cold weather. And it is important, if they do not have enough honey stores (about a box of frames for a colony that has two boxes of brood), to ensure that they have food throughout the winter and that it is accessible to them. If there isn’t enough honey, you have to feed them sugar water (in areas where it will not freeze), fondant (in areas where temperatures are freezing), or winter pollen patty.

Never again would I allow a hive to starve. And never again would I keep a hive where I couldn’t access it on a regular basis.

In my backyard, I have four hives of varying robustness this winter. Two of my hives, which I’ve named Minas Tirith and Blue Nun, have two boxes of brood and an additional empty box on top, partially full with honey. The other two are tiny; Edoras and Fangorn are one box of brood, with just a couple frames of honey. On dry days, the bees fly out to forage. But as the weather gets colder, fewer bees are able to do so.

On dry days, I go out in a bee suit (the bees are especially cranky and defensive on cold days), and open up the lids. I place winter pollen patties (which unlike summer pollen patties have less protein (which encourages brood rearing) and more sugar (for quick sustenance)) on the top frames as quickly as I can before I close the hive.

I’m preoccupied this winter by the health of my bees. Of not letting them starve. Of seeing them through the winter. This is bee management, intervention to help the colonies.

It has been a hard year for so many. The climate is changing. The icebergs are melting. But my bees will be okay.

My friends, too, have fed me through the years. Have seen me through hard seasons. But so long as we have each other and take care of each other, we will be okay.

I am trying hard to believe this.