New for Old

Spring is a time of rebirth, renewal, and regrowth in Nature, and this of course includes the honeybee.
Having survived the winter, bee colonies are now increasing in size, with queens typically ramping-up their laying rate to 1500-2000 eggs a day. At this time of year, some of these will be drones, the males produced to mate with virgin queens from other colonies. It’s also the beginning of the swarm season, when colonies make the decision to split with up to 40% of the bees plus the queen flying out to a new home.

April was an extremely busy month; the weather was perfect, and forage for pollinating insects was plentiful, so we received several calls to collect swarms.

New Bees and Newbies

It’s summer already, although I don’t know why this surprises me as every year I exclaim at how quickly time passes. The winter months seem interminable but as soon as spring is here it’s practically summer! I recently read a piece about how, in countries in south and south-east Asia, the New Year is celebrated in mid-April instead of January. This makes sense to me as January is a difficult month with limited hours of daylight and miserable weather; far better to celebrate new beginnings when everything is springing to life, the sun is shining and we can hope that things will turn out well.

Busy Buzzies!

Without a doubt, September is our busiest beekeeping month – there is so much to do! Don’t get me wrong, Spring wasn’t particularly idle; we had our work cut out managing swarm behaviour and ensuring our colonies were healthy and thriving, but late summer presents other challenges.

A Dadant hive ready to harvest

The bees are very aware of the equinox and reduced hours of daylight, so the race is on to ensure they have foraged for enough nectar to turn into honey for their winter stores. Of course, this is when we turn up, smacking our lips, ready to pinch this honey.