Monsoon

I started my beekeeping in lovely sunny weather about 7.45 am. The bees were flying and well behaved. I had to abandon my inspections in monsoon rain, thunder, lightning, and huge hail stones just a few hours later, the bees not surprisingly very unhappy. No wonder they are struggling to get any food.

Wet Weather Worry Continued

Then there is the problem that virgin queens cannot get mated , or properly mated !!

Wet weather worry

The continued wet weather is of growing concern; colonies are beginning to run short of food. The low temperatures and lack of sunshine means little nectar yield from plants for the bees to forage. Whats more the weather is preventing proper colony inspections and the bees seem more defensive (not surprising given they have little food and are being disturbed in less than good conditions).

Nothing Better

I may have said before but it's worth repeating; there is no greater thrill than to see a new queen, mated and laying well. Today I saw several following artificial swarms done last month. :-)

Magic!

Having been given royal approval to go check my colonies today, following an awful weeks weather which prevented any inspections, the weather and the bees were just magic! A warm sunny day and the bees were in fine fettle, I was able to lose myself with my bees and check all colonies on my main sites; somewhat a relief after not getting out all week. It was summer today!

Aqua Bee Keeping

I have devised a novel new form of bee keeping: my inspections tonight at one apiary site were carried out wading in water! Fortunately my hives are all on stands well off the ground. The lovely British summer weather (heavy rain all week) helped me in creating this novel format.

Drought!

Ever since some one said there was a drought and a water shortage it has rained and rained and rained and rained ad infinitum!!
Have we screwed up our climate?
This IS the wettest and worst season I have ever encountered, to date.