gavin
First full inspection
by
, 21-04-2013 at 03:56 PM (5186 Views)
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.