Bees have been moved into position last night in the middle of a 60 acre oil seed rape field. We moved them open, on 1 tonne nissan pickups in wet but mild weather.
I checked the hives today it was the coldest weather I have worked bees for a long time, all were OK but very short of stores, a symptom of our weather this year. I fed the worst affected colonies and will check the rest on Sunday.
We wintered some colonies on double brood some on single, the single were fine coming through the winter but have been more prone to running out of stores in a season like this. At this time of year the brood nest is expanding rapidly and stores are used up at a rapid rates, so a shortage now can be disastrous for a colonies development. So we will feed those that need it until we are able to put the honey supers on.
Its also noticeable that hives wintered in Hereford are significantly ahead of those wintered in Shropshire, perhaps next year we should be looking at wintering most of our stocks further south.
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