Thurs 10th May I finished my first inspections of the year. All of my colonies showed no sign of swarming until I got to the last 2 and I was about 15mins late for one of them by the look of the swarm on the farm house entry gate
I managed to catch them in a BB with 4 drawn combs and 8 foundation and brought them home. On Fri 11th it looked pretty full so I put a Q,ex on and a drawn super then went on holiday. Arrived back home on Sat 18th and had a quick look in. They have drawn all the foundation frames as well as filled and capped 10 frames in the super, and are way out of space, so I put a 2nd on. Our local weather pi$$es me right off year after year. Its certainly not the bees I have, they are amazing if they can do this in 9 days from a swarm. But to go from 8 months of rain and single figure temps to 18c in one weekend does my head in. I imagine what they could achieve with 12 weeks forage rather than the usual 6 which will be 4 this year.
Our association is begging for bees this year as there have been massive losses up here and many beekeepers have been wiped out never mind the newbees looking for colonies. IMHO the BBKA and our association really do need to rethink their training programmes on feeding and nutrition rather than a one fits all Southern approach they use. Both of them and the NBU are all so slow to react to change.
PS : The honey in the hotel was crap. It was the most tasteless I have ever experienced. Monocrop or sugar crop I have no idea but our multifloral honey is miles ahead.....................Don't undersell your honey, its an amazing product !!