apiary news
Weather: very warm for this time of year – temperatures 16ºC – 20ºC. Still chilly overnight but perfect foraging weather.
Forage: Abundant blossoms out – Laurel, Quince and Blackthorn and dandelion and pear just starting.
Checked on Cyan and the progress of the Demaree – found lots of seared QCs – all small. Need to keep an eye on it to make sure it’s not going to swarm.
Weather:started to warm up with temperatures 12ºC – 15ºC. Still relatively chilly but lots of activity of front of the hives, so after looking under the roofs could see that they had all taken down the Ambrosia fondant. Chose a nice sunny, warm day and had a quick check.
Forage: Blossoms starting to appear – mainly Blackthorn
I’ll post updates to the intermittent activity I undertake with the colonies over Winter. The main items will be feeding with fondant and checking for woodpeckers that have visited in the past.
The weather in November and December was mild and the bees were flying on the warmer days until mid-November. January has started off very cold and wet.
Weather: very warm with temperatures 22°C to 26°C. Set to continue fine.
Forage: Rosebay Willowherb finishing, golden rod, hibiscus, Himalayan Balsam and Rubeckia
Activity looks to be slowing down, not much new stores coming into the supers. Will start to inspect fortnightly rather than weekly.
Apidea has a queen but no eggs and very few bees.
weather: temperatures between 20°C – 22°C. Much warmer and sunnier. Set to continue for the next 10 days.
Forage: continues with Ragwort, Himalayan Balsam, Rosebay Willowherb and Veronica
Colonies seem to be doing much better and there is still nectar coming in. The frames in the supers are starting to be capped, but I need to rearrange the frames to ensure that all get drawn out.
The Apidea that I made up from Flax has a queen that has emerged but very few bees. So decided to top up with more bees from Flax. They have drawn two of the frames and stored some nectar, Probably too early for the Queen to have mated