- Joined
- Sep 5, 2017
- Messages
- 1,018
- Reaction score
- 249
- Location
- West Wickham/ N Kent BR4
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
My 1 hive was late getting queen-right, last October, and went into the Winter with small brood and I was guessing it was 50/50 if they'd make it.
I've left them alone just examining mite drop and vaping a few times.
I figure if I open up there's little I can do to help, so leave bee.
During mid-late Feb good wether here in Kent I was feeling fairly good about the forager numbers and 20-30% of incoming forage being pollen. Last week it seemed there were less foragers than I'd like so I did a few counts. In or out flights were clumpy but typically I saw 10-12 foragers arriving per minute and that seemed fairly consistent.
Does that give any idea of the number of foragers in total? Amount of brood would be unknown but I am assuming not huge, but some... The cappings zone on the BB was only tennis ball size.
Now I think there are fewer, about half as many, and today feels sort of comparable weather. Not a good sign I suspect though I can hope there is a lot of (some!) new brood about to emerge and start training up etc. When would you expect to see new bees (in Kent) or do you have any already?
There is Neopoll available to them but they have taken very little, 10-20gr a week or less and only 1 -3 bees on it ever. A bit surprised about that but I did leave them plenty of honey in top super (they had made comb and stores layout rather wild and messy while queen-less and I decided to leave them to it, no excluder).
Since there is little more I can do to help I'm just in look & learn mode, and hoping they pick back up soon...
Any thoughts and advice?
I've left them alone just examining mite drop and vaping a few times.
I figure if I open up there's little I can do to help, so leave bee.
During mid-late Feb good wether here in Kent I was feeling fairly good about the forager numbers and 20-30% of incoming forage being pollen. Last week it seemed there were less foragers than I'd like so I did a few counts. In or out flights were clumpy but typically I saw 10-12 foragers arriving per minute and that seemed fairly consistent.
Does that give any idea of the number of foragers in total? Amount of brood would be unknown but I am assuming not huge, but some... The cappings zone on the BB was only tennis ball size.
Now I think there are fewer, about half as many, and today feels sort of comparable weather. Not a good sign I suspect though I can hope there is a lot of (some!) new brood about to emerge and start training up etc. When would you expect to see new bees (in Kent) or do you have any already?
There is Neopoll available to them but they have taken very little, 10-20gr a week or less and only 1 -3 bees on it ever. A bit surprised about that but I did leave them plenty of honey in top super (they had made comb and stores layout rather wild and messy while queen-less and I decided to leave them to it, no excluder).
Since there is little more I can do to help I'm just in look & learn mode, and hoping they pick back up soon...
Any thoughts and advice?