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Well it's not just me then, had a call from the guy I share the allotment apiary with saying there was a swarm about 10 foot away from the apiary. Definitely not from mine and looking at them, definitely not his either. we've got a prime suspect, though there are more than few other colonies around us that we know of.

By time I got there they were in a nuc, fanning like mad at the entrance while the last stragglers milled around. Looks like a good sized prime swarm and I dare say ...

I think my mentee got a crash course today of a wide selection of what can go wrong in beekeeping.

I got the first look at the colony down on the nature reserve and as soon as we opened it up I had a sinking feeling. The box was absolutely packed to the rafters with bees and, sure enough, sealed queen cells. I'd guess they must have gone almost a week ago judging by the lack of eggs and almost total lack of larvae in Brood laid across 9 14x12 frames in total. Everywhere there wasn't ...

Been doing a bit of a trawl across the UK based forums. I know there are far more detailed surveys probably in the offing but I thought it'd be interesting.

285 Full Sized colonies counted, 38 lost (13.3%)
23 Nucs Counted, 6 lost (26%)

Total %: 14.2

Done no geographic split at all, simply trawled various UK forums for posts and threads reporting winter losses and attempted to make sure that posters on various forums aren't double counted.
...

I know it gives me a good excuse to indulge in a small *ahem* glass of Talisker before bed, but sod off winter, I'm bored and I miss my bees.

I've spent my life savings on the Thornes sale on kit that I might regret buying come spring. I've done all I can do, it's now up to the ladies to get on with it.

Hurry up spring.

So the first talk is over an done with. Not quite the Steve Jobs of the beekeeping world just yet, but overall I think it went rather well.

The plusses:
Having tried very hard to avoid "death by powerpoint" I think I succeeded. I had several comments that the slides were helpful, clear, well presented and helped the talk rather than overwhelmed it.

Once I hit my stride things did flow together reasonably well. The slides didn't fit point for point ...