{"id":15786,"date":"2014-03-05T14:04:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T14:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15786"},"modified":"2014-03-05T14:04:44","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T14:04:44","slug":"spring-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/03\/spring-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the mercury rising – into double figures at least, light winds and almost some sunshine, I thought it was time that the bees should start flying.<\/p>\n

The temperature in our garden peaked at 10.9\u00b0C today, but the sun\u00a0didn’t quite make it out properly. However, I took a quick glance at the hives and sure enough, there were bees out and about from one of them. They were however taking an unhealthy interest in the back of the hive, not the front. There were no bees coming and going from the other hive either so I wanted to take a look to see what they were up to.<\/p>\n

I have looked in on the bees quickly a couple of times over the winter whilst topping them up with fondant, but today I wanted to take a slightly better look. I would still only be a quick look so as not to disturb them too much at this critical time of year. However it would be good to get an idea of the number of bees present in each hive and an idea of their activity levels and today seemed like the ideal day to do that. The fact that one hive had bees flying around and the other didn’t had me a little worried too. Had the bees in the second hive died? I hoped not.<\/p>\n

I donned my bee suit and wandered down to the bottom of the garden, taking a look at the clumps of Crocus flowers as I did. I’d hoped to see bees on them\u00a0because if they were out flying they would be in need of some sustenance, but there wasn’t a bee in sight here.<\/p>\n

\"Crocuses\"<\/a>

Crocuses<\/p><\/div>\n

At the hives, the situation was still the same. Lots of bees flying around the back of one hive and no bees to be seen around the other. I watched them for a while and noticed that they seemed to be investigating the bottom corner of the hive where the brood box and floor come together. The hive itself is looking a little worse for wear after surviving a very wet welsh winter and it looks as though the whole thing may have warped. This warping appears to have opened up a little gap in the corner of the hive\u00a0where the bees can just about come and go. There wasn’t much I could do about this now, but once the weather warms up properly and we do our first full inspection and clean off the floors etc. it might also be worth trying to change the brood box to one in better condition.<\/p>\n

\"Weathered<\/a>

Weathered hive with bees investigating a gap at the bottom<\/p><\/div>\n

I left these bees to it and decided to look in on the quiet hive first, crossing my fingers as I did so, hoping that there were still living bees in there. I first had to remove the heavy breeze block from the roof of the hive and untie the straps I had lashed them down with. This had all been added just before the huge storms<\/a> hit and had done the job of keeping the hives upright whilst being battered by the strongest winds we have recorded here.<\/p>\n

It didn’t look too good as I removed the roof and insulating crown board as there was no sound coming from the hive and no sign of any bees. Once I removed the next crown board and exposed the super though things didn’t look too bad. Inside was a fairly large cluster of bees all packed in tightly. They weren’t up to much and\u00a0didn’t even send out a welcoming party to me, but they were close to some fondant I had put in earlier in the year and all seemed OK. As they were so quiet I\u00a0didn’t want to disturb them too much so just left them to it and closed the hive back up. As long as they have enough in the way of food in there then they may be better off remaining in a tight cluster and not flying for the time being. There\u00a0isn’t much out there for them to forage on at the moment\u00a0after all.<\/p>\n

I then took a look at the more active hive and the\u00a0contrast was huge. As soon as I took the roof off bees were bubbling out of the hive to ‘greet’ me. There was a distinct buzz emanating from the hive and an air of excitement. Once again I\u00a0didn’t probe too deeply into the hive but there seemed to be quite a large colony in there and they were all fairly active. There was also still some fondant in there for them to feed on should they have run out of honey stores, so once again I’m hoping they are all OK.<\/p>\n

\"Bubbling<\/a>

Bubbling Bees<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m now wondering whether or not to start Spring feeding\u00a0the more active colony with some sugar syrup?<\/p>\n

It may be quite early but we haven’t really had a winter this year, just a prolonged autumn. It could of course still get cold yet but if the bees are active they are going to need some food. However, feeding them too much now may only encourage them to become more active. That will be fine if the weather continues to warm up but may spell disaster if we have a cold snap. Similarly, feeding now may encourage a rapid build up of bees early in the year which will then promote swarming in late Spring. That may however be a good thing as it would be good to increase the number of colonies we have this year so some swarming will be necessary.<\/p>\n

However, that is getting a little ahead of ourselves as we still have to get them through the rest of the early Spring which in our experience has been the most fraught time. They’ll no doubt keep us on our toes, but at the moment we do at least still have two colonies of bees at the bottom of the garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the mercury rising – into double figures at least, light winds and almost some sunshine, I thought it was time that the bees should start flying. The temperature in our garden peaked at 10.9\u00b0C today, but the sun\u00a0didn’t quite make it out properly. However, I took a quick glance at the hives and sure...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1312,"featured_media":15787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[672],"tags":[1517],"class_list":["post-15786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beekeeping","tag-beekeeping"],"yoast_head":"\nSpring Bees - A Simple Life of Luxury<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/03\/spring-bees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spring Bees - A Simple Life of Luxury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the mercury rising – into double figures at least, light winds and almost some sunshine, I thought it was time that the bees should start flying. 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