thedeaddiplomat
House Bee
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2009
- Messages
- 498
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- cornwall
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- sadly, no more!
Remember the cold snap a week or two ago? Well, we went and put our hives straight for the winter then (supers under brood boxes, removed ekes and feeders, bricks on roofs so they don't blow away, all that sort of thing). Bees appeared fine, and ready to settle down!
A beautiful morning here this morning - blue skies, calm and 16 degrees. So we just popped up to check that the recent gales had not caused any damage. No intention of opening them up and causing any disturbance. Bees flying around like it was OSR season! They were everywhere and they were hyper!
Most of me feels reassured by this, because I know they have plenty of stores, and I know the colonies are fit at this stage.
But I have a newbeek question. Are the bees I saw flying today likely to be winter bees? Or are the winter bees more likely still to be in brood form? If the winter bees are flying now, is this likely to tax them to the point where they might not survive into the new laying season?
I don't suppose I should be worrying anyway, since there is little I can do about the situation - and I guess the bees may know more than me about these things. But perhaps some of our experts have pearls of wisdom to offer?
A beautiful morning here this morning - blue skies, calm and 16 degrees. So we just popped up to check that the recent gales had not caused any damage. No intention of opening them up and causing any disturbance. Bees flying around like it was OSR season! They were everywhere and they were hyper!
Most of me feels reassured by this, because I know they have plenty of stores, and I know the colonies are fit at this stage.
But I have a newbeek question. Are the bees I saw flying today likely to be winter bees? Or are the winter bees more likely still to be in brood form? If the winter bees are flying now, is this likely to tax them to the point where they might not survive into the new laying season?
I don't suppose I should be worrying anyway, since there is little I can do about the situation - and I guess the bees may know more than me about these things. But perhaps some of our experts have pearls of wisdom to offer?