HAZEL !! OMG. It finished here mid January. Willow is just starting to open and Hawthorn is showing green tips. Our winters are far too warm here now and spring too cold. Had our first true frost of this winter on Mon night. So much flowering early due to warm winter but spring too cold for the bees to get to a lot of it, its March and the winds of death have arrived. Bees were gathering more pollen in Jan and Feb than now. I will be moving some colonies back to my inland apiary in a week or so, it was a game changer last year. Crab apple in full flower near me as well.
Some big patches of OSR around the county starting to bloom hard
Thankfully none in range of my boxes- I could do without that hassle at the moment.
Plenty of yellow pollen splattered on the landing boards keeping the corpses company so all seems to be going to plan.
Visited a client yesterday who was next to paddock with 72 single brood polys.
I didn't get a good look to see how many were occupied but I know they've only been there since Autumn.
The whole area was commercial fruit tree territory until around two years ago when most orchards were grubbed up.
Surely that's a lot of bees for what's left?