Tuesday 1 March 2011

Bees flying on the 1st March

The bees were flying well today and yesterday. The hum was so lovely to hear after it being so quiet all winter. Such a comforting sound like the hum of a warm summers day.
Bee hive
I photographed this bee on one of the Hellebore flowers. If you look closely you can see the pollen baskets on her legs are full of pollen . This is a good sign it means that the hive this bee is from already has an egg laying  queen .


Honey Bee collecting pollen
This worker is collecting fresh pollen to feed the young larva . They are fed on both honey and pollen .the honey provides the carbohydrates and vitamins  while  the pollen provides the protein .
Bees going into hive
Unfortunately I have lost one hive it was small. I had split  the strongest hive in two and with the wet weather summer during the summer they just hadn’t become strong enough to get them through such a hard winter. Or maybe the Queen was just not fertile enough.
The worst isn’t over yet I will have to check them to see how much food they have left to get them through to the early summer so they don’t starve. 

1 comment:

  1. update
    looked into the hives today 3rd hive still alive small but queen laying gave it extra sugar to help it through to the spring

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