Well all my hives are still alive, our weather has been very mild for February, today I even got to see my bees outside since it warmed up enough for them to go on pooping runs outside their hives. This is a very different story from last year with my top bar hives. This year I am seeing a lot of little yellow spots all over the bee yard, last year this wasn't the case, this means they are able to get out to poop and back inside before it gets to cold. The hives also seem to be a lot drier then last year, defiantly an improvement using a vertical hive over horizontal.