Hot stuff

I visited my bees yesterday full of trepidation as the colony did not have the greatest start to the year. It was very light on stores in February and, though I fed them, I wasn't sure if I'd done it quickly enough. Then the weather was very bad, snow at Easter, and I wondered if that had meant they had not had time to get out and forage for the baby bees being born. Finally we've had a report of EFB at the apiary and I feared they might fall victim to that.

Of course, the bees have confounded all my fears. I had a good look yesterday following a week or so of good hot weather and found a colony in rude health. Of the 11 frames, 2.5 were all stores and the rest were brood - most of it capped. I'm going to have to give them lots more space to head off swarming as soon there will be no room for the new emerging brood.

Plus my queen is in her second year so is more prone to swarming than last year - I think I might have to dust off my other gear and start those anti-swarm measures. Initially I think what I'll do is put in a super and let them clean that up and fill it. Then, once I've ordered more gear, I'll put in a fresh box of brood comb. I'm thinking about next year and I need to build up my stocks of that as I had to bin quite a bit of it this year because of wax moth infestation. I'm also thinking that what I don't really need is lots of honey - I have trouble getting rid of it every year so letting them use it to draw comb will use up some of it.

The main flow typically occurs over Wimbledon fortnight which is 23 June - 6 July. If I get them going now they should be well set up to handle that boom in nectar.