We run a beekeeping enterprise currently about 35 colonies, we wintered 46 but lost two I think to viruses and another 10 to queen-less colonies or drone laying queens, this I think is as a result of the poor weather during the mating season last year. As queens have to mate on the wing a number of times, periods of poor flying weather will reduce the laying capacity of the queens the following season. This is not always obvious in the first year of the queen where she may lay well up to the end of summer only to fade in the spring of the following year.
In contrast to last year the bees seem to be about 2 to 3 weeks behind a "normal" year (if there is such a thing). We have had to adjust our expansion plans as a result but hopefully we will see a compensatory rapid build up once the warm weather does come.
Tomorrow we hope to be moving the bees to the Oil Seed Rape which provides the first serious opportunity for a crop. Because of its earliness OSR can be a fickle crop, the last two years it has gone over so quickly due to hot weather that we got very little honey, this year we are hoping for better things as development has been a lot slower.
The honey from OSR crystalises very quickly, so much so that it can set in the comb if not removed and extracted as soon as the flowers fade. Timing is all important when taking bees to OSR but it can give rewards in terms of an early crop and rapid build up of colonies.
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