The first thing I saw yesterday as I opened my tar papered hives was this furry little friend, who seems to have found a nice dry place to overwinter. He had some lady friends with him too: I went to fix a mistake – I had forgotten to make a vent hole at the top, so I had to open the hives and replace the inner covers with vented ones that Ken is kindly letting me borrow. All went well at the first hive, very sleepy/cold bees, no movement. The hole-making went beautifully, as you can see below: That was the easy hive. I saved my biggest meanest hive for…