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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 ...

Spent this afternoon with Alan Jones and Terry Clare. Alan is one of the NI Bibba reps and Terry is the grand wizard of the shadowy Bibba organization which also harbours miscreants like Roger Patterson and Steve Rose who post on the SBAi forum.
Terry wanted to see our new apiary site at the National Trust property and was well impressed.
They have fenced off a 40 by 40 foot area with 6 inch thick fence posts, two strands of barbed wire and planted a hawthorn hedge around it.
...

..for both bees and beekeeper.

Bees can run out of stores and the beekeeper is neither up nor down as it seems like winter has ended but it is still too cold to do much with the bees.

One thing I like to do in March is close bees down to an area which is optimum for heat conservation and brood rearing.
A colony over just two or 3 frames sitting in the middle of an 11 frame brood box is going to struggle at this time of year. Those who leave supers on are creating ...

Reports of the demise of the small colony in the garden were greatly exaggerated, it seems. They were out today and yesterday and I even saw some pollen going in. That pleases me, as this colony flew in from goodness knows where and has a native-ish look about it. Possible breeding stock. When last seen there was no life that I could see but I didn't disturb the fondant over the few frames in the middle. However I have lost another at the apiary, so I'm still at two losses out of 8. It was really ...