Woodpeckers, mud and deadouts....Spring has arrived!!

[sean-a]

Was a lovely sunny day in Warwickshire yesterday, so went to have a look at a couple of sites.
Bees are down a farm track and along the edge of a field, sadly the mud got the better of me, and I needed the farmer to give me a push out.
I had a couple of swienty hives that had been battered by woodpeckers, big hole at the top of the broodbox and another couple towards the bottom.
It had a wooden super on it and the bees were all in there. The other hive was dead, quite a small cluster, but no stores at all.
Managed to make up a solid broodbox from the two and reassembled the hive.
The other hives were flyng well, but added some fondant to them all. No signs of woodpeckers on those.

Onto another apiary where there were only two hives.One was booming the other very quiet!
Opened up and was another deadout but had loads of stores, in fact I wonder if the brood box was too full of honey.
Added a couple of kg fondant to the other hive, just in case.

 

[Ely]

Second winter will be here shortly to batter all of the daffodils back down. Don't worry. Night time and early morning temperatures are still very much winter