Peebels
New Bee
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2009
- Messages
- 68
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- North Chesire/South Manchester
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 3
I took on a full and very well establish colony of bees in autumn last year. I slightly unconventional start to beekeeping I suspect, but I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity at the time. I think I had chance to look in on two occasion before closing up for winter. All winter I have been worrying and fretting over how much stores they would have left and if they would make it!
I popped a Pattie on a couple of weeks ago when it was mild and only saw a few bees, and there have not bee that many flying on the mild days. Consequently I was starting to suspect that they were either very depleted, or dying off. Yesterday was quite warm so we had our first inspection, and there where loads. Easily covering 7 frames, and the stores look hardly touched at all, I expected to see lots of empty comb, but most of its still capped over. We even saw the queen.
Not sure why im sharing this, I was just very excited and pleased with it all, especially since I would like to split at the end of April/beginning of may. Just wish I had taken some pictures, maybe if I had you guys could have given me an idea as to what type they are?
I popped a Pattie on a couple of weeks ago when it was mild and only saw a few bees, and there have not bee that many flying on the mild days. Consequently I was starting to suspect that they were either very depleted, or dying off. Yesterday was quite warm so we had our first inspection, and there where loads. Easily covering 7 frames, and the stores look hardly touched at all, I expected to see lots of empty comb, but most of its still capped over. We even saw the queen.
Not sure why im sharing this, I was just very excited and pleased with it all, especially since I would like to split at the end of April/beginning of may. Just wish I had taken some pictures, maybe if I had you guys could have given me an idea as to what type they are?