Weather: much improved and temperatures have risen to 14ºC – 17ºC. Chilly in the evenings but no frost so far.
Forage: Blackthorn, Cherry and Laurel now out.
With improved weather the colonies have started to expand and work the supers. Notably Cyan has doubled the amount of brood in just 1o days! Decided that I needed to perform a Demaree as it was running out of space and too early to split as there were no drones around.
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
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
Weather: Temperatures 17ºC -22ºC but with lots of rain and heavy showers most days. Set to improve.
Forage: Ragwort, Buddleia, Rosebay Willowherb, Himalayan Balsam, and Golden Rod just starting.
Not sure what’s happening with the Flax colony. There were sealed QCs, torn down QCs and 1 charged cell. But there also appears to be eggs and larvae. The sealed QCs don’t look to be viable – candled one and it had a small undeveloped larva. However, decided to make up and Apidea with the other one. Left bees in for 2 days, but most have left and probably returned back to Flax. So perhaps the Buckfast queen is still present but took time to come into lay?
Supers being worked and starting to get filled up.
Weather: changeable with showers, temperatures 17°C to 20°C.
Forage: Buddleia, Ragwort, Rosebay Willowherb and privet
The quen from Flax that I banked and stored in cyan perished. Not sure if she starved or was killed, but from the state of her looks to have happened early on..