The Germans came out

This is what the German Carniolian bees have been waiting for - a day that was warm enough for them to fly and find the snowdrops open to welcome them in. We even had some sun!

I spent most of the afternoon in Old Costessy taking to bits the hives where the bees had died and beginning to sort them out. I have lost bees at station 1, 2, 4 and 5 so far. Not a pleasant task

Old Costessy

It was just warm enough, although not sunny, for the bees from the strongest hives to be flying today. I can often check the hives without flying bees and see live bees by removing the roof where I can see the bees actively eating fondant.

The one hive left on the student's allotment had flying bees and a virtually untouched block of fondant.

There were three swarm queens at Old Costessy last year before the winter arrived. I've lost two of them so far. All losses hurt but the hardest loss today was to find no flying bees in Holly's hive. I have lost both Holly and Cherry in Old Costessy. There were live bees in Holly's hive the last time I visited and they had eaton three quarters of a block of fondant. I was expecting them to pull through. The last few weeks of cold weather have as bad if not worse than earlier in the winter.

Only one hive had live bees but was out of fondant - but there's no shortage of fondant at Old Costessy at the moment.