What have you done today bee-related?

[Alfred]

I had half a super capped but the rockstar colony helped themselves to it all before their failed attempt to FO on sunday.

Week off work
Fantastic break in the weather today -seized the opportunity
Planted approx 150 square metres borage seed.
Would have done double that but had to stop
One of the colonies that were previously on double brood ,now reduced to 7 frames (assume they'd already gone) decided to swarm right in front of us.

They chose a hedge ten yards from the starting grid.
Had a distinct feeling this was only temporary so I
spent the rest of the afternoon raking re-clusters out fron the twigs into a loaded polynuc.
A lot of trouble for some useless bees but its all good sport.
I think I got queeny in the box and left it up on blocks pointing at the final cluster that was too embedded to get at.
We will see.....

[MickBBKA]

I visited a friends apiary today and she has feeders on all 7 colonies, they look healthy enough now but still have no stored syrup, they are just trying to recover and make bees. I heard of more losses today from another keeper, I am struggling with the thought of whether to feed mine. I am checking every 3 days when I can because the colonies are so big they will just crash and starve if we get another prolonged period of bad weather and the forecast HERE is terrible, freezing east winds of death for another 4 days instead of rain now.
I shouldn't be striving to keep bees from starving in the middle of May. I really do feel like packing it up.

[JoJo36]

The weather forecast is not always right and from what it sounds like "things can only can better"!!
Its totally crap here too with rain pouring down at the moment as it did yesterday most of the day too!!
The weather forecast was showing great today and tomorrow just yesterday until about 9pm when all of a sudden it changed showing yet more rain!!
Sounds like everyone is in the same boat even the southern softies down south:)

[Alfred]

Things will improve Mick dont chuck it all away.

[AdamD]

The weather has been decent since the weekend and brood boxes are now full, and I even have a few supers on. A fair transformation compared to a week ago. However, wind from the North Sea is coming in and will do so for a couple of days.
I am making a couple of WBC floors for my colonies at home as some old ebay purchases are getting a bit ropey now and the last thing I want is for a leg to fall off when I've got 6 supers on top (little chance of that this year!).

[Bobbysbees]

Stuck my nose in my first ever split after fighting to get them to raise a queen and Happy Days they have eggs
Took the4m long enough.
The brood frame they got came from my nice hive which has now been split due to finding capped swarm cells grr.
With it being early ish in the season I'm hoping the splits do well but we will see.
My grumpy girls have at last settled down and even have half a super of honey, but if this bad weather keeps up I might have to pull any capped frames out and put the feeders on. I don't want to waste honey just cause of cold weather.

[Alfred]

They threw another caste

[NigelP]

Look on the bright side Alfred you now have lots of boxes with known swarmy stocks...even more fun to come next year

I went through my "bad girl" apiary this PM. Didn't manage to finish inspections as the they were mental today. Really really bad. I need to get this lot re-queened back to my non local queens ASAP.
Not an easy task in this poor mating weather.
The only plus side is there was some honey coming in. Better late than never.
High point of today was mate ringing me asking if I fancied moving a few hives onto 300acres of OSR just coming into flower other side of Malton....what would you do?

[Alfred]

Cant wait Nigel - its like playing Whack a Mole at the village fete
Next year Im not going to be so hesitant witj bad weather....

No -leave that osr - who needs a super tanker load of sticky messy gloop sitting in jars in the shed anyway

[MickBBKA]

Took 4 colonies to another new apiary with a fair bit of osr close by. Drove down a track then accross a field, set them on the stands and took entrance blocks out. It was so cold they never even came to have a look outside despite being bounced all over. Its so cold, windy, raining , please god, let it be winter soon.