I went into winter with 9 hives of bees, 6 Smiths and 3 Langstroths, and I managed somehow to get them all through into spring (I sold off my 3 Langstroth colonies in early April). Many of my beekeeping friends have lost colonies (some reports up to 100%, i.e. 16 losses out of 16, others up to 50%) and some of these are very experienced beekeepers so I am thankful that mine are OK at present.
I took 4 of my hives to the Oilseed rape in April and have extracted 35lb of honey so far. Although the weather has been bright and sunny, we have had a cold easterly wind for a few weks and I think this has curtailed the honey production, as I would normally expect more than this from 4 strong colonies.
One of the problems with taking bees to the Oilseed rape is that they buld up quickly and this inevitably leads the bees to begin swarming preparations. I found Queen cells in 3 of my OSR hives so I have removed the Queen from each hive, along with some bees and brood, and left 1 sealed Queen Cell. If all goes well and the new Queen manages to mate I should have new laying Queens in about 2 more weeks.
QUEEN REARING
As there are many colonies dying (both feral and managed) I have had a go at rearing some Queens, as this seems to be the only way to get any increase this season. I removed 10 sealed Queen cells from a couple of hives and then split one of my other hives I keep at home, to make up 8 mini nucleus boxes. Each mini nuc was given a sealed Queen cell and transported 4 miles away to my friends apiary where the emerged virgin Queens should mate with his drones. I’ve never done any Queen rearing before so I will be interested to see what happens.
Will be checking out the mini nucs and my OSR hives tomorrow, weather permitting.
