Bees Not Looking Good

Things aren’t looking good on the bee front. They didn’t do too well over the summer – we lost some swarms, one colony straved to death and other colonies failed to re-queen so we went into the winter with just one strong colony and one weak colony.

I’ve just been out to feed them and the roof had blown off of the stronger colony. It wasn’t completely off but it had shifted by an inch or two so there was a gap on two sides of the hive exposing the bees inside to the cold and wet. I had a quick look inside and the bees seemed OK, they were still there and were getting a little agitated by my presence which is a fairly good sign. I fed them with lots of fondant and made the hive weather-tight again. Hopefully they’ll be OK.

The weaker colony didn’t look so good though and there wasn’t really any life, What few bees I did see were dead and I’m fairly certain that the whole colony has died. The frustrating thing is that we tried to feed them in the autumn with sugar syrup but they just wouldn’t take it. So it looks as though they may have starved to death with a whole jumbo feeder full of sugar syrup just above their heads.

Maybe we should put in an order for at least one nuc of new bees for the Spring.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.