Bee Lore

I went to visit Faith – my last remaining hive – on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day.  This was the first time that I have opened her up this year.

The bees were flying well.  I took the bottom half-brood chamber  and placed it on top of the larger brood chamber.  The bottom only had half a frame of honey left – enough to over-winter the hive – though the queen is now in her third year – and as a local beekeper said “she is on her pension”!

There were three or four frames of brood – and signs of a laying queen with eggs on the edge of one of the brood patterns – however, the queen is not laying anything like as well as last year.

I managed to order two new colonies at the end of March – and am going to pick them up from a beekeeper about one and a half hours drive north this time next week.  So hopefully they will rebuild my apiary to allow me to get a reasonable amount of honey this year.

What a change from this time last year April when we had a very warm April and Faith already had four supers on her!  This April has been much colder – with frost on one or two mornings.

The blossom on the apple trees in the orchard where the bees are is just coming out.  So with a bit of luck the bees will start piling-on the honey in the next couple of weeks – weather permitting.

I also had  a neighbour ring me saying they had a swarm.  It was actually a very well-developed colony on which had benefitted from the central heating giving them a kick-start through the cold spring mornings.   Trouble is, the colony had not swarmed – it was thriving – and it needed a bricklayer to take out the bricks before the bees could be removed.  There is only one guy I know who is both a beekeeper and a bricklayer.  Perhaps I should learn to be a bricklayer!