Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Bees and the warm autumn

Last week the hive in our garden, a self positioned swarm had pollen loads coming in, presumably from remnant Ivy flowers. Although if this weather keeps going for much longer we will have spring plants in flower and Rhubarb growing. We already have grass growing at a rate close to that of this summer (slow).
All is fine for the animals and vegetables, the leeks are growing well and the tunnel crops are developing quickly.
The bees though are a worry, warm weather means bees will be active and consuming honey stores possibly rearing young so eating into pollen supplies.
So what to do? Feed and potentially stimulate more activity or leave them and risk starvation? The answer I think is to check all and feed were needed, there may be some increase in activity but the coming cold weather will soon put a stop to that. we are going to get some cold weather aren't we?

3 comments:

farmland investing said...

Nothing to worry about with the bees.

Simon said...

Hi Phil,

Treated our bees for varroa / nosema and both colonies seem to be coming out of winter ok, despite the dire warnings from our local bee inspector.

On a seperate note, I tried to drop you an email but the address sent it back. Is it possible to drop you a line?

Thanks, Simon

Phil Moore said...

Hi Simon
my email was hijacked, apparently I was in Spain getting mugged and needed money to get home. Which was much more interesting than the reality of me on the way to the market in Shrewsbury.
This subterfuge resulted in my email getting blocked for a while. You could try again it should be working now.

Phil

the acid test fro the bees comes in March April when the affects of Nosema and queenlessness make themselves apparent, time will tell. Make sure they have plenty of stores so they don't starve during this mild weather.