gavin

Had a look today as it slightly warmed up at lunchtime and I was wondering how they were after near enough a fortnight of cool weather. Not bad. They still had stores - although a couple at the association apiary needed a little bit of something to keep them going. My apiary is blessed with greater shelter and with lots of pear trees in flower now. So they were bringing in oilseed rape (nearest field just over 1 km away) and pear plus a little dandelion. As usual the colonies differed. A couple were really going for the OSR and some didn't seem to be. The local sycamore trees are also in flower so they are probably on them too and the first flowers are out on the horse chestnut nearby.

One of them was given a second brood box a fortnight ago. They're using some of it but haven't really got going on it yet.

Then the thunder and heavy hailstorm sent them and me scuttling for shelter. Weather doesn't look too great for the next week or two.