A lovely sunny day today, so I biked the seven mile round trip to my out apiaries.
Flying bees at all three hives. Some had bright yellow pollen from (probably) crocus.
I checked their food when I did the (late) Varroa oxalic acid treatment a few weeks ago. There seemed to be a lot of fondant and ivy honey stored, so I didn't feed.
I'm really relieved. There is still a chance that their numbers will dwindle before they can get on will raising this year's brood.
The catkins are getting ready to flower - so pollen should be along very soon.
I've never used a substitute for pollen - I need to learn more about it.
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Dear Stephen Corsham,I wish you succesuful and prodactive years in future time,I hope sunny days will go on next time.,yours sincerely.
ReplyDeleteHve you heard about the co-op's urban bee keeping experiment?
ReplyDeletePS So glad the news is still good. We've been joined by bees in the garden this week. They've been lapping up the crocus pollen :)
ReplyDeleteİlhami Uyar
ReplyDeletethank you for your best wishes.
Stephen
VP - yes, I have heard, but I don't know the details.
ReplyDeleteSounds good!
Glad your crocuses are more than just pretty faces :-)
Steve
Great Blog.
ReplyDeleteYour bees are beautiful! What great color variation. What strain are they Buckfast?
Great job... And good luck fighting the verroa! I'm doing the same here in the states!
Mark, glad you like the blog. My bees are "mongrels" from local swarms. They look quite black, which is a good sign that british black bees are part of their make-up.
ReplyDeleteI hope your queen-rearing is good this year. I plan to try it for the first time, but not by grafting, just taking whatever swarm cells they make and raising those in apideas.
Great blog.Keep up with your postings.
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