What a mixed spring and summer. The poor bees didn’t know what was happening. We had a totally dry glorious April but then an appalling May.
No rain means no nectar.
Cold and wet in May means no foraging
Like everyone else I spoke to, every hive made swarming preparations. Fortunately all bar one was able to be prevented. This did mean however that I had a preponderance of nucleus hives with one year old queens and lots of production colonies waiting for virgin queens to mate. Mating seems to become more problematical year on year. Four queens failed to return and one is already becoming a drone-layer.
Also, the number of swarm calls I took meant that I had three swarm hives on the go, being added to with each successive swarm.
No oil-seed rape was within flying distance and at the other end of the season there was no borage or echium. The harvest was well below my target and consisted of a veritable assortment of forage.
Saffron Walden Beekeepers ran some General Husbandry training on Zoom where I did a talk or two and I also had one beginner in the apiary as an apprentice. I did three garden meetings which constituted a new record as none of them were rained off.
The wet supers are been licked clean and the last colony-unite is in position. I’ve been given a bundle of past Financial Times which I think are the only paper left in broadsheet format; ideal for paper-unites and padding between winter-stored supers.
175 acres of Buck wheat has been drilled between the rape which is just over the hedge. I was hoping for a crop from this but it was too thin on the ground and the ivy was strongly calling.
Feeding this year will be a mix of Apikel and the honey-drainings from the nine extraction days.