After a frantic 2 weeks of watching the weather, I finally managed to get to the apiary and feed the bees!Its either been windy and sunny, still and rainy, foggy, or gales, sleet,snow and rain, so I’d been avoiding going up to see them in case they all blew or washed away! However, it seemed nice enough today (and with bad weather forecast for the weekend).
Put 5l of 1:1 syrup on Poly, in the new [jumbo rapid feeder](https://secure.thorne.co.uk/popup/health23.htm “” ) from Thornes, which looks pretty decent (having first drilled a hole in the crownboard to accommodate this new feeder). Within a few seconds the bees were up in the feed cone having a nosy (presumably because I had to take off the sugar bags which they’d previously been feeding on, so they knew something was different). They’d taken down about a third of each sugar bag, so I’m happy to say they must have done well with their own stores over winter.
The cluster was looking quite small, but due to the cold they were well pushed down between the frames, so its difficult to know how big a ball they actually are.
I also took off the mouseguard and swept the doorway of the usual collection of dead bees. Here’s hoping that spring finally arrives and I’ll get a chance later this month to have a proper inspection and look for eggs and larvae!
Todo
Extract the honey from last year’s supers
Top up feeder if its all taken down
Check for egg-laying queen
