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I took advantage of the fine weather yesterday to go to the branch apiary and do the First inspection of the year.  It was both urgently needed and at short notice thing so could not put out a notice to invite others.

I was fully expecting to find some of the colonies at some stage of swarming.

I was wrong, not one had made any preparations so that was good news.

The other good news is that I saw all 7 queens and was able to make sure they were all marked an clipped.

On one of the Sunday meetings, we will show members how to mark and clip queens, but we will practice on Drones.

The 7 colonies were at different stages.

One was doing very well and needed a second super to be added to give it space both for the number of bees and also the amount of nectar coming in.

Three were OK, starting to fill the brood box and getting into the super.  They will need a second brood box in a week or two.

One of these colonies has a queen from 2021 – so this is her 3^rd year.  This queen has a number of good characteristics which would make her a good queen to use for queen rearing.

Two were quite weak, about 7 frames of bees and 4 frames of brood.

The last colony was not only weak but had no stores, so I replaced one of the empty frames with a frame feeder to get some syrup into the hive.

The strong colony (#34) was very agitated at being opened and inspected.

If this behaviour does not disappear in the next two weeks, as the weather gets better, then we will have to requeen the colony using eggs from a different queen – the potential breeding queen mentioned above..

For the time being, we will proceed with caution by:

• Only to be inspected/manipulated by a very experienced beekeeper.
• Inspect at the end of a session when most/all members have left the site.
• Don’t open if adjacent allotments have people on them.
• Certainly not to be used for assessments or demos to students/visitors.
• If you are not sure then ask.

Dave

Four students from the Beginners course held in February 2020 visited the apiary today.

This visit had been delayed by 18 months by COVID and the lockdowns.

None of the visitors had ever seen inside a beehive before, so this was a first for them.

Oli Klemo and Mick Clarke did a great job of demonstrating a hive inspection and explaining to the students what was going on inside the hive.  Well done to those two for volunteering.

The students were very impressed by it all 😊

Please see our FAQ’s page to see the latest questions and answers from more experienced beekeepers

Dr Bill Crofts attended Wolston School to give a general beekeeping talk to the children in March

They were clearly impressed if the reaction of the teacher and thankyou letters are anything to go by.  Well done Bill!

“Oh Bill – what a fantastic afternoon – you were amazing – the children have taken on so much of what you told them – thank you so so much for your time, energy and enthusiasm with this afternoons talk about bees. They were so chuffed with the candles that they rolled and were able to take home with them with pride. An absolutely amazing afternoon spent with you – thank you so so much. ”

Bill later received an envelope in the post with a set of thank you letters the children had written.

Dr Bill Crofts attended Myton hospice in early March to give the residents an informal talk on beekeeping.

The talk was well received and Bill received  a nice email saying how interesting they found it, and how they would like a return visit at some point.