Colony is alive!

[POPZ]

Having read about everyone else's colonies flying already and bringing in pollen (especially those east coast boys) I have been wondering when my ladies were going to wake up, if indeed they would, to the fact that we are moving into another spring.

Then, this morning I gave them some pollen substitute, just as a precaution. On going up for my usual midday inspection, was most suprised to see loads of the ladies flying with gay abandon. No idea why as it was a northerly wind and temp of 7/8C, not the best of days to come out and greet spring! AND some were returning with very decent loads of pollen.

So now I am a very excited bunny - just get them through the next few weeks and bingo, hopefully it will be blast off time.

How are others faring??

[Neils]

Mine are out, flying and bringing in pollen as of last weekend although I've not been up personally (tomorrow!). They had a good slab of fondant a couple of weeks ago so should be ok on that front and I'm trying to resist the urge to start fiddling with them too early.

Out of the three colonies on the site mine appears to be the only one that's made it through winter. The little swarm we got last year superseded every queen throughout the summer and I feel it's antics might just have been a little beyond our ability to deal with it and it looks like they've paid the price as a result. My colleagues hive is hanging on by a thread at the moment, but with apparently only a single seam of bees last weekend we're not too hopeful that it's going to do much of anything.

I was hoping to split from my colony this year anyway, but I'm going to try and get two viable queens if I can to save my friend having to buy in bees.

[Trog]

Mine were out and about, too, despite strong N wind and only 7 degrees. Would love to post the video but don't know what the url of a video on my desktop is and that's what's being requested!

[gavin]

Uploading to a video hosting site should do it. YouTube, but that will mean the whole world will find it easily (no bad thing perhaps). You could also put it at places like Photobucket: http://photobucket.com/

It might also be possible to put it on the SBAi web space and link to it there. If you wanted to try that then you'd need to email it to me.

G.

[Jon]

I made my first u tube upload last week and there is an option to set videos to private with a maximum of 25 viewings.

This colony was flying just before dusk but located considerably further south than Mull!
I intend to enter it in the worlds tallest colony contest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqgxBVeaqE

We have a forecast for 9c tomorrow so my colonies should be active

[POPZ]

I made my first u tube upload last week and there is an option to set videos to private with a maximum of 25 viewings.

This colony was flying just before dusk but located considerably further south than Mull!
I intend to enter it in the worlds tallest colony contest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqgxBVeaqE

We have a forecast for 9c tomorrow so my colonies should be active

That is so cool Jon - and I did not realise that Belfast had moved so far south!?
POPZ

[Jon]

I made my first u tube upload last week and there is an option to set videos to private with a maximum of 25 viewings.

This colony was flying just before dusk but located considerably further south than Mull!
I intend to enter it in the worlds tallest colony contest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqgxBVeaqE

For anyone interested, this colony is still going strong one year on.
I think it has been in continuous occupation rather than being reoccupied by a swarm.
It had a lucky escape in August as there were bricklayers working opposite and they blocked the entrance every day by inserting a stone. I took the stone out every morning when I went past.

I once watched a group of brickies at the bus stop amuse themselves by throwing stones at a hummingbird moving from flower to flower on a bush at the other side of the road.