First full inspections

The weather was warm enough (at last!) for me to start open up and inspect the bees.

What a mixed bag. From booming to nearly bust.

The hive on bricks at Old Costessy was booming and had brood on five frames in the brood box and had started laying in the super. It's the only hive so far that i've found to be on brood and a half. It's no longer on bricks as I've moved it a couple of feet sideways to station one where Holly's hive was.

Nearly bust was a hive in the allotment with an area of brood not much bigger than a fifty pence piece. The queen was there and marked green but what a sad little colony. They won't survive.

Tina, was still in her box and still marked yellow - but sadly there was no brood there and the few bees that are still there with her must be old and on on their last legs.

Most of the hives I inspected had old solid bases and most needed a clean up. I plan to replace them with new stainless steel open mesh floors in the next few weeks.

I gave a tray of Apiguard anti Varroa treatment to the hive at station three at Old Costessy and to the double brood box hive at the top of the row in Ringland. I didn't open up the other three hives at Ringland but they all had bees eating fondant.

All of the hives need treating with Apiguard now

Holly was dead in the middle of a cluster of bees in the brood box. I'm not sure why but fear it was the second spell of cold weather that finished them off. There was plenty of frames with stores in the brood box and a super with stores in above it and a block fondant that I did see them eating at one point. There wasn't much food around the cluster and fear that a large cluster had contracted to a smaller one in space where the stores had been eaten and they had to stay there too long. I don't know. There were certainly hives with thriving bees that seemed to have much less to eat than Holly's bees. Maybe she was already an old queen or the strain was just not hardy enough for the cold weather. I don't know.

Whatever, I still feel responsible for here demise as I do for all of the other colonies that didn't make it through the winter. I think I will try to build up bigger colonies and leave them with more of their own honey this year. Although a large colony can soon eat a lot of honey and will still need feeding. Those colonies that are on double brood boxes and were fed buckets of food early in the season seem to have done well. But even those are not as strong as the hive on bricks. It seems that some queens are just better than others.

New floors - box 5, Tina

I replaced the floor on box 5 today and moved the hive back a couple of feet onto a new level paving slab so that it no longer looks like a leaning tower. The floor was a bit of a mess and very wet on one side. No wonder the bees are on the other side.

I did the same with the hive next door (Tina's hive) replacing a solid floor with an open mesh floor.

The weather is gradually improving and I should soon be able to give the hives a full inspection.

Honey stripes moved

This is what Neville found when he went to sort out honey stripes.

I inspected the one brood he had left set up today. Honey stripes was still there.

George's bees didn't survive the winter so I have moved Honey Stripes to the safety of his back garden.

Honey Stripes hive attack

After two weeks away (last chance for a holiday until August) I had plenty of email to sort out that had accumulated whilst I was away. I was distressed to find one from three days ago informing me that honey stripes three brood box hive had been knocked over and that I was impossible to find in order to go and rescue the distressed bees.

On my immediate emergency visit I found that there was one box in place and a crown board with fondant on it and a roof in place. So Alex had found someone to help. There were bees in the brood box, although they were using a gap between crown board and brood box for an entrance. I'm now keen to inspect and see if Honey stripes is OK. If she is I will have to move her to somewhere safer ASAP.

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.

Clear skys

The sun was out this afternoon and the feeling that spring was not far away and that winter will soon be over did not seem unreasonable.

The bees in GW's old box (No 6) decided it was time to fly and were taking in pollen.

I Postwick I think seven out of the ten hives there may pull through.