It is so nice to finally have something to post about! After a long winter with not very much happening (bar some oxalic acid treatment in December and an excellent candle making course with Robin - see separate post), my bees seem to be waking up again.
I have been hefting my hive every couple of weeks from mid Jan and had noticed last week that it was definitely lighter. Liam bought some fondant from the bakers in Frome (who immediately asked how many hives we had - he must have suspected something!) and we put it in the hive on Thursday. Up until then, we had seen no activity whatsoever around the hive - no flying bees, or visible guard bees etc.
This continued until Sunday when I went to check again. In the morning - nothing, despite the fact that it was a reasonably sunny day. I lifted the roof and inspected the fondant and was reassured to see they had taken some and seemed very busy in the hive at least. Later that afternoon I glanced at the hive and saw not only bees flying but about 20 bee corpses in front of it. It looks as if they had suddenly decided a spring clean was in order and had chucked out all the debris? For the first time since November, I could also see guard bees at the entrance and a few bees flying.
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Interesting to see that you don't use Mouse guards in the UK.
ReplyDeleteHere in autumn it's normal to close the entrance with a metal guard with a series of approx 3/8 inch holes to prevent mouse intrusions. Can't actually tell how big your restricted entrance is, however it is more normal if using a restricted entrance like that in winter to have the block turned the other way up. The purpose of that is to try and make sure that the entrance doesn't get blocked with dead bees as can happen if the entrance is flush with the bottom board.