The weather has still been fairly variable this month, only really warming up enough to inspect towards the back end of April but the bees are now finally starting to build up in numbers. One thing we have struggled with this month has been forage. The bees are very close to a number of oil seed rape fields in full flower, but it has just been a bit too cold for the bees to fly too far and for the flowers to yield sufficiently.

Here you can see a small section of frame where the bees are congregating round the edges to reach the food that they already have stored in the hive. You can see that there is sealed and open brood here too, which is a good sign. 

With the slow start to the month in terms of cool weather and little forage, we have seen that the bees have not really been able to draw out much new foundation yet.

This means some of the queens are struggling to actually find cells to lay in and we think that is why some of the cells have 2 eggs in. Other than that, the brood patterns are looking great.

We have also had the pleasure of seeing our lovely queens this month and have successfully managed to mark most of them. We don’t normally go looking for her as we don’t find it imperative most of the time to do so, however, it is always nice at the start of the season to find her to mark so that once the colony expands, we still have a fighting chance of spotting her.

Here are a few pictures of our queens this year:

The eagle-eyed among you will be able to spot some eggs in the bottom of a few of those cells.

May is always our busiest month, which we look forward to in many respects, but it is also the hardest, longest, and most demanding too! We’re hoping to get some lovely warm weather soon so that the bees can happily forage, build up in numbers and continue to thrive through the summer months.