Spring Forward

Spring is here! We've had a few days warm weather over here. The frogs have started hopping towards the ponds for their annual swinger pool party and the bees are flying again! This is quite a relief as it means my bees are still alive and, possibly more importantly, it gives me something to write about.

There's been a few dead bees appearing on the landing boards where the winter survivors have hauled out the dead and I've seen a few undertaker bees flying off carrying dead bees away for disposal away from the hive. They look quite dramatic flying towards you with a cargo the same size as themselves, you'll just have to trust me on that though because I couldn't photograph any with my phone's camera not being up to the job and the chance of one flying by as I'm waiting would be pretty slim too.

They're also going for cleansing flights. A 'cleansing flight' really means going for a fly and having a dump away from the hive. Bee crap is yellow and has, believe it or not, been mistaken for chemical and biological weapons and fallout from power stations. Haven't seen much of it myself tho so it's probably falling on the garden and winding up in the soil -that or it's falling on someone elses property. :-/ Apart from causing the odd political furore and leaving yellow dots on cars it's not a problem. If there's a lot of it on the hive landing boards it could be an indicator that the bees are ill but no suggestion of that at the moment.

As well as slinging the dead and crapping who knows where the bees have also started foraging. A while ago I planted a small prune tree in the garden, it's a strange little tree having shown no inclination to actually grow since it was planted but it does seem to be permanently flowering. It's just a few metres from the hives and I thought the bees would be hitting it's pink blossoms for nectar and pollen, but evidently I don't think like a bee because they're ignoring it completely and bringing back an orangey yellow pollen instead. I don't know wher they get it or what plant its from, maybe early daffodils -your guess is as good as mine, but the important thing is they are actually bringing in pollen which is their protein source. I assume they're bringing nectar back too but both hives also still have some fondant above the crownboards. There's stil some freezing nights at the moment so I'll leave it in place for now and remove it when those are behind us.

Here's a short phone video of the entrance to Hive2. It shows the bees coming and going through the holes in the mouse guard. Right at the beginning you can see a bee with full pollen baskets run straight into the hive.