Weather: fine with temperatures between 16ºC – 18ºC, cool on the evenings
Forage: bramble elder flower and cow parsley continuing
Moved swarm in bait hive to River Mole apiary as well as old queen from Flax in 3 frame nuc.
Still nothing in any of the supers – very strange
Ordered 2 Buckfast queens as I’m not happy with how some of the colonies are performing. Will use 1 in Flax and decide whether to split Aqua or requeen Green
Weather: same as last week with temperatures between 15ºC – 18ºC
Forage: Bramble just b starting, elderflower, pyracantha – appear to be in June gap
Found lots of dead bees in front of 3 of the hives when I cleared the weeds. Not sure what’s happened,m could be poisoning as I checked for signs of disease didn’t see anything untoward. Some of the colonies appear to be shrinking in size – again not sure why.
Denim look to have DLW or DLQ – so united with Cyan on 5th June
6th June – captured swarm in bait hive – probably not prime judging by number of bees
Weather: fine with temperatures 15ºC – 20ºC.
Forage:Hawthorn, elderflower and cow parsley
Bees don’t seem to be doing very well, some colonies diminishing in size. Not bringing much nectar in, similar to reports from other beekeepers. Looks like we could be in for early June gap
Weather: continued improvement with temperatures between 17°C to 20°C stop no showers despite being in forecast.
Forage: chestnut, green alkanet, cow parsley, Hawthorn and elderflower just starting.
Finally got to inspect the honeydew colony at the river Mole apiary site and it’s doing well. Still have three colonies that I’m raising Queens in. Will be interesting to see what emerges!
Finally starting to see the Bees bringing in nectar and starting to store some honey in the supers.
Weather: improve slightly with temperatures averaging 15°C to 17°C. Plenty of showers and one very heavy thunderstorm.
Forage: chestnut, Hawthorn, lilac, green alkanet
The modified Snellgrove on blue hive isn’t progressing very well. May need to introduce frame of eggs to encourage queen cell building
Weather – more of the same – wet and cold. Temperatures not getting above 14°C. Forecast to warm up next week.
Forage: hawthorn, OSR, Apple, Green alkanet and lilac just starting.
Colonies starting to expand- still very early in the season. Will need to decide on where to put the new colony being created by Blue using the modified Snelgrove method which seems to be progressing well.
Collecting pollen from dandelion
The early Spring weather has been very poor – lots of rain and cool temperature. Only now – mid-April have the temperatures started to get to 15°C. I decided to feed all of the colonies with Ambrosia and most took down 1Kg and 2 got through 1.5Kg.
Nearly had a swarm with Cyan which is the largest colony – 2 capped cells but queen and eggs present. If I had left it another day I think it would have tried to swarm despite queen being clipped. Lack of space likely to be the main trigger.
Needed to move the colony at my out apiary to a new position. As it was around 20m I’ve brought it back home for 3-4 weeks and will then move it back to its new position. Have moved Honeydew to the out apiary as I wanted more colonies at a 2nd site as a backup.
Given the reports of queen cells also being found by other beekeepers I have put out my bait hive which is earlier than I normally would.
Deadouts: Emerald – was a strong colony going into Winter. Seems to have petered out with only a few bees on the frames. Lots of stores left.
Blue – lots of dead bees on the floor, none on the frames. Was alive early Spring and had taken 1/4 block of Ambrosia down.
Forage: Lots of blossom out, strawberries already flowering and dandelion in abundance.
