We are back in business. I have been lucky enough to be given some bees by my association, as a member has given up. I am feeding fondant to get them through the last of winter and can't wait to open up and see what is going on when the weather heats up.
00:02
Welcome back to a Beekeepers Diary podcast. It is the 28th of February, a couple of weeks later from my last episode and quite a lot has changed since I last spoke to you. It's a windy.
00:19
Definitely more spring-like, a bit warmer. Skylarks are singing.
00:28
nice spring wildlife sounds but in the last two weeks I'm now back in business with bees. As you know my last episode I discovered I'd lost my colony due to queen failure. Last few migrant red wings flying over I don't know if that came out on the microphone. Not quite made the journey back to Scandinavia yet. It's nice to hear them zooming around.
00:59
Yes, so em I'd lost my bees due to queen failure presumably in the autumn, so there were no spring bees to take over unfortunately. But in the meantime I was contacted by pretty much the person that keeps my local beekeeping society going.
01:26
Big respect to Diane. She's the cog that keeps my society moving without her. I think it would probably grind to a halt, but she's indefatigable is the only way I can describe it. So another member had decided to stop keeping bees over the winter. Somewhat quite local to me as it goes.
01:49
em and Diane had gone and rescued these bees back to her home apiary, where she's got about 13 or so colonies there and not keen to keep expanding. So she offered me these bees. So I went over late in the evening last Sunday. She kindly taped the boxes together.
02:17
and put some foam in the entrance for me. So my wife and I lobbed the bees in the boot of my car and took a gentle drive over to the apiary here and put them in place last week. They felt quite light, so I did some baker's fondant on top to tide them over as it's still nothing to forage here really other than the odd bit of early pollen. So I put a kilo of fondant on top of the
02:46
uh colony last week and I've come back today they've eaten a good two-thirds of it already and are out flying in this weather so just in case I've added uh another kilo on top to tide them over because I don't want them when the bees are expanding at this time of year very very quickly they can starve you know in days so
03:14
I've given them that bit of comfort for myself really. So I know they've got at least a kilo and a half, probably kilo and a third of fondant on top. And currently they're in the same size frames that I use commercial is the name for the size that I keep.
03:35
So I've got a brood box of commercial and on top I think em because that brood box was perilously light when Diane went and rescued these bees she had a spare super of some em honey frames that she's put on top and then I've got my fondant on top of that so come in a few weeks time I'll have to configure them how I would prefer. uh
04:01
and transfer them into my poly hives. They're in traditional wooden boxes at the moment, which I'm not very experienced with. I generally use my poly hives, so I'll transfer them over once the weather's warmer and we can do our first inspections and see exactly what on earth is going in there. I think the queen I'm told is Ligustica, an Italian queen. I'm normally used to buckfast.
04:28
mixes so we shall see. It nice to compare and how they differ. I don't know how old she is.
04:37
be at least last season's and I don't know the bees temperament etc so we'll be on a little journey together providing we get through the next few weeks. Often these last few weeks of spring are the most dangerous because the colony builds up so quickly and you know you've got to keep an eye on those stores levels because they can expand beyond their stores very quickly. em Yeah so fingers crossed we get through the next few weeks.
05:07
Not through the woods yet.
05:10
and yeah, see where we're at. I found I was having a look at my stats on this podcast and I've been listening to, I think I'm up to 144 cities now, it's ridiculous. So welcome to all of you from around the world that are listening into my ramblings every now and then. I have got an Instagram for this.
05:32
podcast, Beekeepers Diary podcast on Instagram. I sometimes post pictures and videos from down the apiary so you can have in your mind's eye what's going on if you fancy checking it in. And yeah, nice to have you. Thanks for listening in. So yeah, I'll leave you with that for now. So good news from the apiary as opposed to bad news from the apiary. My last episode.
05:56
and hopefully this will be the start of season three of the podcast and you are all welcome. See you later.