April Inspection

I inspected mine yesterday. Touch wood, they have all made it through, but they look very lacking in bees.

How many frames of brood do you have on yours?

My best are on old nationals in my parents back garden which is very sheltered so I guess that has helped a bit. Those two have 4 and 5 frames of brood; others however on commercials are FAR less well off, only having 1 frame on each hive. They are in a more exposed position, which made it ‘fun’ to inspect on Sunday without the bees getting blown off the frames. Interestingly the deep nationals I have have faired better in the same location with the commercials, but they are in WBC shells so maybe the extra bit of insulation helped. I have one where I saw the queen but I think no brood at all, but then I was in a rush to put it back before the clipped queen blew off and I lost her.

I had a fair bit of white hard honey too, I figured it was the rape I gave back to them and got them to take down in autumn, but I guess it would have been Ivy.

The fun, interesting part of the weekend was that both the national colonies were bringing in some very blue pollen, I should have taken a picture really. It looked like this :

Blue pollen

and from a bit of research I think it is from :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_squill

given the colour and the time of year.