The Wisbech connection

Turned out to be a nice day yesterday and a beekeeper who bought a couple of colonies off me two years ago needed a hand, so off to wisbech. All three of his colonies are huge, double broods, and they havn't been touched since autumn last year.
Took each one apart, tidied them up, marked a queen in one, moved the supers back on top with a queen excluder.
Returned home and still warm enough for me to go through the three colonies i have at the ryefield apiary.  All ok, smaller than i would like but in good order.

A good day

First inspection

Lovely day yesterday, about 18C and sunny.  Managed to go through the Surfleet apiary, 6 hives at the moment.  Moved the supers back on top of the hives and put the Q excluders back in.  All have made it through the winter, two are quite small and will go down to nucs on next inspection, one has brood on 7 frames and has fresh honey being stored already.  Generally a good day.
Judging by the numbers of bees in the air, i will be putting a couple of bait hives out next week,  early swarms i think might be possible.

Life in the apiary

Just when i thought spring was in the air, winter returns with a vengeance.  Little to do other than check and replace any hives low on fondant and continue to build nucs and hives for the orders coming in.  For me this is always the worst time of the year, very little going into the hives but the bees are becoming active and using up their stores.  Forecast is for better weather over the weekend and into next week.  I hope they are right

If only

Weather forecasters. 16C in my dreams or should i say in their dreams. it was overcast and cold but the girls were still flying.  Off to check the out apiaries today, the farm and surfleet.  Early orders for this years nucs and colonies is going well, not as manic as last year but at a more manageable pace.

Had a look around the general area yesterday, several fields of oil seed rape within flying distance and the willow has just started to show the white tails of the catkins.

Life in the apiary

The weather has turned mild, really mild, 16C tomorrow is the forecast.  it is very early in the year but a quick peek in the hives will let me know what to expect in the coming season.

The wild willow is all set to flower, and this will signal the start of serious egg laying by my queens, it always has from the earliest i have recorded flowering 28 January, to the latest 25 March.  It is a huge early pollen producer in this area.