Yet another bad spring.  Colonies that went into winter in poor condition came out worse, with many reports of bees covering just a couple of frames.  By the end of April many of these small colonies showed some improvement and we had hopes that they might do well given time, but the constant winds from the east and northeast during much of May have held everything back.  Strong winds from this quarter are always bad for bees with the cold, dry winds turning off nectar production, whilst at the same time wind-pollinating the oilseed rape so that it goes over before our bees can take advantage – a double whammy!  What does June hold in store for us I wonder!

Through most of May there have been few swarms, although some colonies built queen cells – and then tore them down again.  The warm weather on 29 May brought a sharp burst of swarms and this may continue – so I hope that you have all read last month’s newsletter.

Do you have empty brood boxes where colonies died out last year?  If so, I hope that you have sterilised the good combs with acetic acid and blowtorched the boxes so that they are ready for re-use.  Any unoccupied comb is now at great risk from waxmoth, so if you do not want to lose it you will have to get it covered with bees fairly quickly.

Any honey from winter rape will need extracting now or it will soon granulate.  However, if your crop is so poor that it is not worth getting out the extractor, then it may be better to deal with the granulation at a later date.

If you remove any spring crop, do make sure that your bees have some stores left.  If the weather takes another downhill turn then it will be easy for colonies to die of starvation if the brood box is full of brood and all the supers are removed.  The biggest die first!

Peter Edwards 30/05/2008