Cold spell inbound.

[pete darbyshire]

Got called to a swarm on good Friday. Only covers 3 frames in a nuc but has a queen, unmarked, probably a wild colony. So, quarantine, feed and treat and see what happens. It was on the side of a skip.....hope that's not an omen.

 

[Firefly]

You have sweet chestnut, I have OSR (don't mock it - many customers love it), others have Himalayan Balsam.

I also have OSR, and I like it - it sets to a nice paste, not to concrete as some claim. Maybe there's an admixture of other nectar that moderates it a bit. It does provoke April swarms though. I keep local mongrels and for historical reasons I think there are a lot of Italian genes in my area. OSR flowering has started in our area, but they will not get much if it stays this cold, and less and less is being planted since the neonic ban

 

[madasafish]

Light swirls of snow this morning, 3C and 25-50mph winds.
Not a beekeeping day or week.
Fortunately the apple blossom is not yet out (nearly!) as we are forecast three nights of frosts down to -3C. Pretty much every year has restricted apple/pear /plum yields due to late frosts destroying blossoms.

 

[StephenT]

Just gonna have a couple of days with daytime temps below 10c here although low night time temps for a bit longer. Am certainly getting twitchy about the advanced state of one of my hives and have been busy reading up on JBM's Demaree sticky and subsequent threads.

 

[gregior]

Well the cold has certainly arrived,max of only 6 here today but there were still a few venturing out for water,not sure how many made it back. Looking at the latest forecast well below average temps for the next 10 days at least and some very cold nights.