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I had an e-mail from a friend kath last week to say that her colony was down to a few hundred bees and no queen. This was a nuc I sold her in July.
This afternoon I had another e-mail to say that she had had another look and there were only a couple of dozen bees but the queen was still there.
This was her first and only colony so I volunteered to rescue her queen to an Apidea.
I put a cupful of bees in an apidea from a nuc I have in the garden and brought it over. She opened ...

After 6 months of watching the cabin fever set in across the various forums where some exploded more frequently and spectacularly than others over the winter it's great to finally get out and up to my elbows in bees again. I've missed you ladies.

Despite the weather inevitably turning yesterday compared to all of last week, I opted to carry out a quick inspection of the two colonies on the allotment apiary. One in a 14x12 the other in a Double National.

The plan was ...

The temperature hit 16C locally at lunchtime - I keep an eye on the online live weather records from a network of amateur weather stations - so I set off to see what the bees were making of their warm day. Willow! You can't miss the early spring willow frenzy. They come back excitedly with huge yellow baggy trousers and heavily yellow-dusted undersides. Like on the cover of Ted Hughes' book. From an online Pbase gallery, a bee half way through pollen collection:

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A wonderful surprise when I stopped by at the apiary recently: Iain Lilly had made a bench for the shed. Thanks Iain! You can see it being put to good effect this afternoon.



Bill brought his electric saw and we cut up timber to make 9 hive stands, and Sean brought and fitted a timber skirt to tidy up the appearance of the shed.



The first ...

I think that I was counting chickens last year at this time, but that will not stop me doing so again. It looks like 6 have made it and two haven't. As the sun was out today I had a flying visit to the apiary at lunchtime and peeked under the crownboards. Three are fairly strong at 5-7 frames of bees and three are on the weak side (2-4). Most were taking in pollen and this time the pollen was mixed rather than only snowdrop. The snowdrops are still in flower here and there but some patches ...