OK so I have had a busy weekend. The weather has been truly horrible. It has rained now for pretty much every day of the entire year. It is 22nd February and I think we have had more than 50 days of continuous rain. Last week on one of the few non-rainy patches I went up the the bees to see if any of them were flying. There were a few which gave me some hope that I had managed to get some bees through the winter.
This weekend I have been playing with kit and trying to do some emergency feeding. First up my new hive arrived. I have been looking at hives and found the Technoset hives to be really interesting so as I do, I bought one to try it. My initial review is here. This has taken most of the weekend. I have built it played with it and explored, it is now up it in the apiary awaiting some bees.
Current status of the hives.
- Purple hive is very active and has been fed with some fondant that I found in the garage. Trying to add fondant to these without a suit was a painful experience. Remember “It is better to have a suit you don’t need than to need a suit that you don’t have!!!” I got about 10 stings to my face for trying to give them sugar!!! Luckily i am fairly immune by now so it was not too bad.
- Red and white hive has been fed with some fondant. Few bees in and out the front and they are bringing in pollen though god alone knows where they have found that in this weather!!
- Green and white Nuc is doing well and I have manged to feed this with some 1:1 sugar solution 1.5 L. As these build in the spring I will get them ready to go into the yellow hive that is now in place close to them.
- Green Nuc has been fed with some fondant but I will move this across to syrup when I can. They had a lot of mold and water in the feeder so I had to replace the feeder with a clean one. Many of the bees were on the underside of the feeder so to cut down on time and disruption I put these bees into the feeder and left it open with some fondant. When they have finished the fondant i will replace the bee restrictions and fill with syrup.
- Red hive has bees coming and going from the top. They have ingored the entrance and instead ghave made a hole in by the lid.
- Green Hive has bees coming and going from a hole in the floor board where the varroa mesh meets the polystyrene. Again they have ignored the entrance.
- Blue poly is completely dead with no sign of bees. I will transfer the green and white nuc into this hive when they are big and strong enough.
- Blue wood was completely empty and has been replaced on Station D with the Yellow hive.
- Both Red and white Nuc and and Blue and White Nuc are empty and awaiting swarms.
3 days in a row now of good weather, with 6 colonies for now is pretty good going. I will continue to feed them all sugar in the form of 1:1 Syrup where possible until the weather is warm and they have periods of 3 days in a row. Note: nectar doesn’t flow without at least 3 days in a row without rain.