Bee Diary - March 2013

Yesterday I went out into the snow to check my bees. In a normal March I would wait for a warm sunny day, don a full beesuit, light my smoker and check right inside.

 

 Right inside means just that. I'd take the hive apart and lift out individual frames of wax comb to see what's there. I'd expect the single queen in each hive would have been very busy and several frames would be full of eggs, lava and sealed cells where the lava metamorphosis into adult bees. These frames would be covered with adult bees, feeding the lava, leaning the hive, building the wax, returning with food or maybe just being there, keeping the brood nest warm. Seeing frames like this means all is well. The honey bee colony is building up as it should, so it can collect enough food to make honey, both to see it through the next winter and for me to collect.

 

Seeing frames like this means there is a good queen there. There is no need for me to see her, but I may be lucky. She's slightly larger, with longer legs and walks with more or a waddle than the other bees, all of them her daughters. She doesn't look a lot different from her daughters and doesn't like the light so often she hides. The first time I see her on a really good day, I pick her up and dob a little paint on her back so she's easier to find if ever I do need to. On a warm day in March, I do this quickly so as not to disturb them too much and as I put each hive back together I'd be looking forward to taking off the first honey crop of the year in April.

But back to this March. Normally I would never open up a hive in the snow. Normally there would be no need. This year is very different. Honey bees store enough food at the start of the winter to take them through to early spring when they can collect pollen and nectar from willow, snowdrop and other early spring flowers. With more food coming in, the queen is prompted to lay more eggs. This provides the worker bees the hive needs in the summer to collect the honey harvest. This year the winter has lasted so long, bees have run out of stored food and, not only is it too cold for them to fly, there is no flowers out for them to forage on. My quick peek inside yesterday was just to check they have some food. I've been feeding them for a few weeks now with a sugar fondant. All I was checking was that they still had some food and that they had found it. When it's really cold they cluster close together for warmth and would rather starve to death than walk a few inches to look for food.

Thankfully, all my hives had sufficient food. They should survive until better weather comes and they can fly again. But there was no sign in any of them that the queen was laying well. It takes six weeks for a bee to develop from egg to foraging. How will this delay affect the hive's ability to collect enough food in the summer? I will have no early honey crop this year. Will I have any at all?

After checking my bees and feeling grateful that they are still alive I checked my emails. There was an email from the government's National Bee Unit, Starvation Risk from Cold Weather - check your bees have food!

After last year's bad weather, honey bees are now in a worse position than they've been for a long time.

Find out more about beekeeping and way to help bees at www.bbka.org.uk

 

Or check this new blog for more on the plight of bees http://bees-make-honey.co.uk/blog/

This picture was taken in my garden a couple of days ago - before the heaviest snow!