Decimate - Terciamate - Exterminate!

Around 93,000 colonies of bees in the UK died last winter. That's one third of our entire honey bee population! This isn't decimation, it's three times more, it's tertiamation!
But it's worse than that. The British Beekeepers Association's survey only monitored winter losses to the end of March 2013, but many more colonies died in the really cold April/May period, including one of mine.
It's a disaster and more worrying still is that the surviving colonies are not building up fast enough. The peak nectar flow around here is between 21st June and 14th July when the bees forage on white clover and blackberry. It takes at least 4 weeks to get from egg to foraging bee. It's simple mathematics - there's no way there will be enough bees to get a honey crop this summer.
Instead I need to focus is on building the colony up so that it's strong enough to survive next winter. That, and obtaining more bees. There's the rub; colonies are so weak that we are not seeing as much swarming this year so there's little chance of picking up some free-bees. I need to have a plan B(ee)....
More of which later.