First real work of the season

We had a lovely day yesterday, there was not a honey bee in sight but we did manage to make it to one of our new apiaries to set up the first nuc boxes ready to make up 14×12 nucs.  All we need now is some nice warm weather and a bit of sunshine and of course mated queens would be really helpful!!

This winter seems to have been so long; I can’t actually recall having not opened hives in April before. I am sitting here now looking out of the window and its raining again, even the dog looks glum when we go out for walk – come on sunshine break out and make us all smile.

I spoke to one of the farm owners this morning, he said the weather has set them back 5 to 6 weeks, the spring OSR (oil seed rape) has not been planted yet, if the weather does not improve it may not be worth sowing it!!

One good thing I did see yesterday was my first dandelion of the year, albeit a little late, and it really did make me smile – I actually stopped and took a photo…  What a beautiful sight 🙂

So the season for us as bee farmers is about 3 weeks late and the first lot of mated queens that should have been ready this week are delayed.  Most of our customers are pleased because they too can’t open their hives.  Temperatures are slowing rising so hopefully next week will be a different story.