gavin

First full inspection

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Nice to see Kelly, Francoise, Krystian, Rick, Carol, Bruce, David and Sylvia yesterday - and for their visit to coincide with an afternoon (just) warm enough to open hives at my apiary if not the breezier association one.

What did we find? Well tempered bees (better than the few opened last Sunday) and not a bit of hostility from any of them (the bees ... ). Plenty of pollen packed in around neat brood nests. Colonies varying from about 5 frames of bees with brood on 3, to 9 frames of bees with brood on 5 or 6. All have good areas of worker brood and there were just two drone cells seen in the entire apiary. The cherry plum is out and willow is coming in. The main sources for the spring, sycamore, oilseed rape, dandelions are yet to flower as are the great majority of fruit trees in the orchard. By the end of the main spring flow, if the weather is half decent, some should have filled a second brood box with bees. With the scarcity of oilseed rape fields this year I doubt that I will be getting much spring honey but let's wait and see.

So - I lost one out of seven semi-decent hives, plus one very weak one.

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  1. Jon's Avatar
    I was talking to someone yesterday who has bees at oil seed rape and he says it is running 2-3 weeks late this year.

    Your bees seem to be in good shape for a productive season.
    Mine were in far better shape this time last year although I should be able to get back to where I want to be by the end of the summer. I have about 8 which are ok and the same number of 'dinks'. All the queens are ok and laying normal worker brood, albeit very little in some cases. Surprisingly there were no drone layers after the poor mating weather last summer.
    I need to get a couple of cell raisers up to double brood strength asap to get the queen rearing started.
    My losses, which were mainly the nucs I was attempting to overwinter, were lost to dwindle rather than missing queens or drone laying queens.

    It has been a terrible winter for beekeepers in NI. losses seem to be heavy and widespread.
  2. gavin's Avatar
    I'm a bit surprised not to have drone layers too. Haven't checked most of the association bees yet though. I doubt that the association bees will have any at cell raiser strength until July from my last peek in. Most are in that category you named above. Yes, several weeks late for the rape here too but I wouldn't like to put a number on it.