Climate Changes - Uncharted Territory

Spring appears to have stalled big time, at least in my area. The bees had built up at the end of March in the unseasonable hot weather. Then someone mentioned drought and April has been cold and wet. The bees have almost become confused with a lack of forage and swarming impulses put into a spin, some are swarming others kicking drones out! Stores have diminished and dwindled and feed has gone back on. The fields of Yellow Rape are glaring everywhere but it is too cold for the flowers to yield any noticeable nectar flow. The bees are tetchy (seems to be when the Rape is out) and protective of what little stores they may have. In my time bee keeping I have never come across this before. I really hope it warms up and dries up a little, and soon !

Starving!

The poor weather over the last 3 weeks has left colonies very short of stores. Indeed the majority of my colonies have still got fondant on and it is being eaten. One colony has thrown out drones, a sure sign of low stores.

Fields Turning Yellow/ April Showers

I inspected my colonies today, dodging the showers. As I travelled between sites the fields were clearly turning yellow, so the Rape is upon us. This may be a little early as some colonies are still building up, but that may not be a bad thing if broods swell on the Rape instead of having to load lots of supers on, to then dash around and extract before the stuff sets in the comb.
I was dodging April showers all day and it was so noticeable that as a shower approached the activity at hive entrances would suddenly stop; down would come the rain and as it stopped the entrances would come back to life again.