I feel like I am on a huge learning curve at the moment and not making that much progress.
Regular readers will know of my bee dilemmas and may be wondering what I’ve done since discovering that my bees were on the verge of starvation?
Having given it all some very serious thought I have realised that my bees raised too much brood who needed copious amounts of honey, which used up all the stores so that the foraging bees didn’t have enough to go and collect more.
That and a few weeks of wet weather, which stopped the nectar flow and prevented my bees from foraging, resulted in the current crisis.
I’m still not sure whether I have lost the queen bee, but I have decided to give them a fair chance and have resorted to feeding them.
The change in their behaviour has been amazing, they are now zipping around in their thousands, bringing in more food.
The sugar syrup I have been supplying is being transferred to the honeycomb and concentrated into winter stores and the bees are busy once again.
The downside is that now they are fighting for their stores as the local wasps have smelled the sugar and moved in. It’s been a fascinating phase watching the bees fight back and with a little help from me, by placing wasp traps nearby and filling in some of the holes that have provided wasp access,
I think we are winning.
Ironically I am now having to garden in my bee suit to keep the wasps from stinging me!
