A first proper visit of the season to the apiary - delayed somewhat by the horrible weather over the last 10 days. All of the hives are still alive and well, though greatly varied in their size and busyness.
Going into winter, only 1 of the hives had an unmarked queen, but today 2 of them had unmarked queens. Both of these colonies (Violet and Zuri) were quite small and not that busy, implying a spring supersedure with a queen who’s now a few weeks behind the others in terms of laying (we have had plenty of drones around to facilitate this). Since these are new queens, they get new names - so they are now Amelia (was Violet) and Beth (was Zuri). Beth was the weakest so had an extra feed.
Willow and Yasmin were both very busy - too much so in Yasmin. Having left an eke and some fondant on for them, they’d utilised the space to make some beautiful brace comb, which sadly had to be torn down. Fortunately it was mostly empty, so I wasn’t having to throw away large amounts of brood.
All but Beth now have a super on as well, since the fields across the way are all planted up with rapeseed, which is just showing its first hints of yellow. This will no doubt be a challenge, but hopefully a profitable one in terms of honey yield!
