At Last the sun is shining but it’s not warming up yet
It’s almost mid March and the sun is shining but after a day or two earlier in the month that
persuaded the bees to have a cleansing flight and start thinking of Spring we’ve had some very
sharp frosts at night. I lost a small colony in a Warré hive even though they had some candy, I
suspect that the number of bees was too small to keep warm.
I’ve just looked in a National hive in a neighbours garden where the bees were flying quite well ten
days ago, I had a quick peek in and they seemd to have enough stores with some full frames in the
Super directly above the cluster but today they are alll dead. They have starved to death
presumably because they didn’t move to a frame with stores in
when it was warmer. I thought that it might have been because
the queen had started laying and they didn’t want to leave their
eggs but I couldn’t see any. It just goes to show that despite
having plenty of stores very near to the cluster they couldn’t
seem to find it.
I have a Warré in my garden which has lost a lot of bees this
winter, judging by the amount of corpses on the floor, and they
too got some candy when the weather eased after Christmas.
The difference being that the cluster moved onto a different
comb when the weather was warmer and today they are busy
foraging, possibly for water, but small amounts of pollen are
also being collected.
The Warré in the photo is the July 09 swarm photographed at
the beginning of March. There are two and a half boxes full of
bees all getting ready for the new season.
Keeping in Touch
This Winter I’ve been setting up
different ways for those who are
interested in my bees and their
activities.
I started the winter with 3 National
hives and 11 Warrés in the UK and
1 Warré in France. If I had the
colonies I could place another 40+
Warré hives in gardens in the UK.
So I now have a blog at
http://newgenbees.blogspot.com/
where I can add bits about the
bees quite quickly. If you find it
interesting or have bees feel free
to add comments and
observations or pictures.
I also have a Linkedin Group at
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gi
d=2747834&trk=hb_side_g for
people who are ‘Friends of
NewGenBees and either have a
hive or are waiting patiently for
one. If your on Linkedin ask to be
connected
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