Sunday 28 March 2010
Weather was settled at the beginning of the month - frost at night and sunny during the day. The wind was quite cold and temperatures did not go above 8ºC. The bees were fairly active when the temperature rose above 7ºC bringing in orange pollen. Since then temperatures have risen, but we have also had rain. At the beginning of the month we started feeding the bees sugar syrup, but on advice recently changed to candy as it's less likely to be stored. and (so we are told) is only used if the bees need it. Plenty of pollen being brought in.
One late afternoon a dozy bee was found by a open window in our house. She was captured in a jar and returned to the hive through the front entrance - she was admitted without challenge. We're still waiting for a thank you letter (or even a beemail)!
Thursday 04 March 2010
We started bee-keeping in May 2009 with one hive and a nucleus. We are complete beginners, living in a very rural area with no near neighbours, and will be keeping this Beginner's Diary with our successes and failures over the year ahead. First some background:
During 2009 we fed the bees with sugar syrup from time to time because of the awful weather. At the beginning of August we managed to do a hive inspection and found the bees had changed their queen by succession - regicide to you and me! We couldn't find the new queen, but she was obviously in residence as there were brood and eggs. In early September we applied Apiguard and removed the super (completely empty of honey; the frames had not even been drawn) and started the Autumn feed.
October came and we suddenly had over three weeks of warm sunny weather. The bees were extremely active so we put the super back on, but didn't think of putting the queen excluder back on as well (oh dear!). Over the three weeks the bees pulled most of the foundation in the super and filled about two-thirds with honey. We left the super on over winter and it is now nearly empty of honey as far as we can see from a quick look. Just to ensure the bees get through this month - the books say most colonies are lost through starvation in March - we have started feeding sugar syrup. Over the last few days there has been quite a bit of activity and we could see pollen being brought to the hive.
So, we are aiming to get the bees through March and somehow get a queen excluder back above the brood box before the queen starts laying in the super. Later, when it is warm enough we will try and find the queen and mark her. We also want to increase the number of hives by the artificial swarm method and by catching any passing swarms in bait hives. So there's plenty to do, and plenty of things to go horribly wrong!