skydragon
House Bee
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2009
- Messages
- 108
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Pocklington, Yorks, UK
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 4
On noticing that one of my hives had started eating through the honey in their supers, rather than bringing in more... I did a quick check on my other hives and found all of them had little/no stores. (One of the hives was packed with brood and bees but had absolutely no stores on any of the frames and was very light). A beek friend nearby also has exactly the same position on his hives.
It may be that other parts of UK are OK and that this part of the world (East Yorks) is suffering more than most with a spell of very dry weather followed by colder/wet weather, but the bees are obviously having a hard time in gathering stores. Bizzarely there seems to be plenty of pollen being brought in, when observing the bees at the hive entrance.
All my hives now have feeders on them.
Reason I post this, is that I had presumed that with it being only mid August that there would be loads of foriage available for the bees.... I'm pretty sure however that if I hadn't put feeders on them now, that they wouldn't have made it into winter.
I'm still fairly new to this myself, but for all you newbeeks out there, if you haven't already.... get a feeder on your hives/nukes now!! (It can't do any harm at this time of year).
It may be that other parts of UK are OK and that this part of the world (East Yorks) is suffering more than most with a spell of very dry weather followed by colder/wet weather, but the bees are obviously having a hard time in gathering stores. Bizzarely there seems to be plenty of pollen being brought in, when observing the bees at the hive entrance.
All my hives now have feeders on them.
Reason I post this, is that I had presumed that with it being only mid August that there would be loads of foriage available for the bees.... I'm pretty sure however that if I hadn't put feeders on them now, that they wouldn't have made it into winter.
I'm still fairly new to this myself, but for all you newbeeks out there, if you haven't already.... get a feeder on your hives/nukes now!! (It can't do any harm at this time of year).