Flying bees ???

The weather was just warm enough today for the bees in my stronger hives in the allotment apiary to be flying again.

This winter it seems that only my strongest colonies have survived. The smaller colonies and late swarms that didn't manage to build up their numbers up in time to build up good stores in the brood frames have not made it through the winter.

Fondant on top of the crown boards has been half consumed but the prolonged cold has prevented the bees getting to the food that isn't in the frames already. Or it was just too cold for a small cluster of bees to stay warm enough. Either way the critical mass of bees needed to be high for the bees to survive such prolonged freezing weather.

The small colonies that I merged with other bees do seem to be OK.

In the allotment Bill's bees near the greengage tree are by far the strongest colony and are flying much more than the others. Even in less than perfect conditions it always Bill's bees that have a few bees flying in and out of the entrance.

Snow, ice and frost

The winter so far (I fear it may not be over yet) has been colder than I have known it since I started bee keeping some fifteen or so years ago. Only in the last few days (since the first week of December) have the bees been out and about in any numbers and I know that some of my hives havn't survived the cold.

Out of the three hives at the UEA bluebell road site only Honey Stripe's large hive of three brood boxes had flying bees in it yesterday. The other two both had dead bees.

A lot of the hives at Old Costessy seem to have done better. The hive facing south and the hive on bricks were positively booming. One or two of the hives that looked lifeless did in fact have live bees inside but still in their cluster. I decided not the open any more hives there until the weather is positively warmer.

The four hives at Ringland all had flying bees and they still had plenty of fondant to keep them going.

So far so good

The bees were flying today and I checked all of my hives at Bluebell Road (Honey Stripe's bees were out in abundance) Old Costessy, the Allotment 83, Postwick and Thorpe. Those that were running low on fondant I gave an extra lump. Some of the bees were taking in pollen.

Willow(2)09 vandalised, Old Costessy, Postwick

It was a bright sunny day after days of wind and rain. A check of the apiaries was in order. Willow(2)09 at the Bluebell road UEA Permaculture apiary has had an unwanted visit. The bucket feeder was laying by the hive empty with it's lid off and the brood box had the crown board off. I put the hive back together and seeing the size of the wooden poles left near by I fear for the other two hives. I will now need to visit this site frequently throughout the winter.

The bees in the bigger hives at Old Costessy were taking pollen in. One hive there still had a box feeder on . I took it off and replaced it with a block of fondant.

It was getting too late to see bees flying at Postwick but the hives there seem to be OK and all had fondant.

Honey Stripes

I put a complete block of fondant on top of Honey Stripe's three brood boxes. I may now have to pick another nice day and remove the queen excluder that is between box two and three as I don't want the bees to move up into the top box and leave the queen behind.

I also put a block of fondant onto Willow(1)09's hive. There was still feed in the bucket on that hive because the mesh in the lid had got blocked with crystalised sugar. I transfered that sugar syrup to Willow(2)09's hive that had an empty bucket on.

Warm enough to fly

The bees were out in force today.

I visited the bees at the Bluebell Road, Allotment 83 and Old Costessy apiaries and all the hives had flying bees.

Long Stratton Swarm

One of the hives with a box feeder on was the hive with the Long Sratton swarm in it - at least there were in it. As the sun came out this afternoon after recent days of rain I thought I would remove the empty feeder from the top of the brood box.Whilst unsticking the two the brood box moved and was strangely light. It didn't take much of an inspection to see that the bees have gone taking all stores with them. More likely any stores left behind have been cleaned out by bees from other colonies, whichever way, the result was that the box was empty of both bees and stores.