Trog

  1. Tales from the Hive ... yet more

    Mitzzi landed heavily on the alighting board, compound eyes streaming. At least she wasn't coughing; that would be an evolutionary step too far. Pausing only to brush off an irritating fragment of volcanic dust, she rushed in to see the queen. "It's pretty bad out there. I wonder if we should ground all flights for the day."

    "Hmmm", said the queen, thinking that now she'd got into her stride with the egg-laying she didn't really want to have the pollen and ...
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  2. Trog's Blog 6 - Happy Days!

    The Press, ever eager to give us something else about which to worry, has been full of speculation that small birds like wrens, coal tits and goldcrests may have succumbed to the cold winter. I was quite worried about my resident 'stable wren' who had been noticeably quiet. Yesterday, however, as I went to let out the hens, there was an exuberant burst of song from an accomplished twitterer and there he was!

    Although it was still too cold to take a look at my bees, a friend's garden ...
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  3. Trog's Blog 5 - Sitting on my Hands

    Yesterday was a lovely day. The sun was shining, there was little wind and the bees were all over the willow flowers. Gorse was in flower nearby and many of them would certainly have been there, too. All four colonies were flying well.

    So, why did I not dive in straight away for the first spring inspection? Answer: because I didn't need to! The weather's been pretty poor so far this spring and is due to be dreadful for the next few days. Why demoralise the bees on the first ...
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  4. Tales from the Hive ... continued

    Mitzzi stretched her legs one by one and extricated herself from the overnight cluster. Grabbing a quick snack on the way, she headed for the entrance. According to the rota she was on guard duty this morning and, truth to tell, she wasn't really looking forward to it. She could feel the freezing outside air even before she reached the outer frames.

    Arriving at the entrance she found a small group of bees – her fellow-guards – huddled a few inches from the landing board. They ...
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  5. Trog's Blog 4 - floored!

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ID:	140At last! Sunny, dry, nearly warm, and it was time to set their ladyships up for their spring expansion. Lovely clean floors all round and the old floors carefully stacked with their debris ready to be sent off in the post.

    This winter we experimented with polystyrene insulation above the crown boards for all, and dummy boards and polystyrene in place of unused comb for the two nucs. We couldn't have known just how severe the winter would be but the experiment ...
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