Long time no bee

Well it has once again been a long winter's break for me and beekeeping. I have had to find other pass times like snowflake cutting, visiting relatives and getting under my wife's feet. I didn't really blog much towards the end of last year either to be honest. I found last year an extremely challenging beekeeper year. The summer was terrible for the bees here and for the first time I have seen the queens stop laying. I was checking hives and finding no eggs and thinking they had gone queenless. A few combs further on and there her majesty would be. It is the sort of year that tests your principles as a natural beekeeper. I found myself relenting and giving a little top up feed towards the end of the year. Nonetheless I was expecting the worst coming out of winter. This weekend has been the first signs of spring in North Yorkshire with temperature actually reaching double figures for C. The sun seemed a little dazed and confused by the whole thing but managed to burn through the haze and put on a good showing.

I popped over to the hives yesterday lunchtime  and not a bee could be seen flying. I had been to the association apiary (nearer the coast) earlier in the day and all hives were flying strong. I lifted the top covers of my quiet hives and had a look at the small fondant blocks I had put on in February (I lost several colonies to starvation in Feb last year). None of the fondant had been touched and there were no bees in there *sigh*. In the kenyan top bar hive I pulled the follower board back expecting the worst and out came some bees wondering what the hell I was doing. They had made it wooooooooo! Well I was one for three (I understand this is an Americanism and I realise now I am entirely unsure whether this is the correct usage *shrugs*). I checked the next hive and the same start of fondant untouched and no apparent bees, but when I open them bees aplenty. I could not believe. All three of my hives had made it through winter and had shunned my fondant and made it through winter on honey fumes. Well done girls, well done.

This post is a little light on media so here is a really cool timelapse from national geographic.

https://youtu.be/f6mJ7e5YmnE?list=PLGsVoZfcQfN5TlrzSA_3fVVMVn2qPv1Ve