Friday 28 March 2014

When the south wind doth blow..

We're off!
The wind switched from a cold north easterly to a warm southerly breeze at 1.00 pm today and out came the sun .... and the bees; hundreds of them!
They had been more or less hive-bound except for the occasional 'comfort' flight. Even so, I knew from a pile of wax cappings underneath the hive that lots of new bees had emerged over the the last 7-10 days and they would be curious to experience the outside world; today they had their chance.
Initially most of the youngsters were engaged in short play flights (see Biggles learns to fly) which ended with them resting on the hive roof, panting to get their breath back. But within an hour they could be seen 'foraging' on various flowers around the hive such as forget-me-not, grape hyacinth, pierus, rosemary and heather. I say 'foraging' because it was the half hearted effort of a novice that has yet to learn her trade. That's going to change over the next 24 hours because I can see the rape fields in the distance are turning yellow by the day. It's going to stay warm so by this time tomorrow a more senior forager will have found that rape and all those youngsters will get their flying directions. Then the nectar gathering will start in earnest.
It's time to put another box on the hive and with luck and good weather in 2 weeks time it will be loaded with of honey.

Saturday 22 March 2014

Who you gonna call?

Ghost Busters!
Something spooky is going on around the apiary; there are yellow ghostly figures gliding around before disappearing into the hives. Initially I thought they were some sort of exotic wasp, but its too early in the year and they were the wrong shade of yellow. Moreover, these things were translucent and seemed to glow....
One landed on the outside of a hive and I had to laugh. It's was just a worker bee that had been out collecting pollen. Usually pollen is neatly collected in pollen sacks on the back legs, but this bee looked like it had fallen in a bucket of yellow powder paint; it was covered. It could only mean one thing - the pussy willows are in flower.
Pussy willow produces masses of pollen at a critical time the when the colonies are building up, which is just as well because bees eat a lot of pollen - between 20 and 60 kg per hive per year!
Pollen contains proteins and fats required to raise brood, but it's not very appetising. So instead the bees store it in the comb together with a some bee-spit, and leave it to ferment. Various yeasts and bacteria get to work on the pollen and the result is a sort of 'pollen sauerkraut' known as 'bee bread'.
Bee bread builds better bees because its packed with vitamins, thanks all that microbial activity. Better still queens that are fed lots of bee bread lay more eggs - which means more brood, and more bees.
That's just as well because the oilseed rape is starting to flower in the fields around Flemish farm and I need all the bees I can get to bring in the spring honey crop.