Apiary Temperature.

My contributions to the reading group today were Masefield’s “Reynard the Fox” (only half a dozen pages of it), and Peter May’s “Coffin Road.” Reynard has long been a favourite with a galloping rhythm reminiscent of Dr Seuss’ “A Fly Went By.” Thrillers are not my cup of tea but I was made to read it by a friend for its bee keeping content. Then it was on to see my bees as it’s now time to start their spring feeding and I need to make preparations.
 
Although the thermometer says it’s warm enough to open the hives, I wouldn’t dream of it with the cold wind that was blowing. I did notice that the temperature variation over the two weeks since I last reset the thermometer is a little startling. Anyway, bearing the wind in mind, I contented myself with delivering kit that would be needed over the next few days and weighing the hives to check how much food each colony has been eating over the winter. On was particularly light meaning that it’s been consuming a lot, not a good trait in our climate, it could lead to starvation in other winters so that is one queen that I won’t be breeding from this year. My intention is to raise two colonies for my own use and another two for selling on; the weather will be one of the variables determining my success but I am ever the optimist.
 
My apologies for appearing to be a Luddite and using Fahrenheit for measuring temperature, if it were a working environment I would be complaining myself; I’m quite capable of working in either imperial or S.I. units but in some applications I’m just more comfortable  with one set rather than the other. It’s an odd situation that only occurs with my generation; for example,I weigh about ten stone, where-as Jnr is 75 kilos. Why? Because he’s a judo player and used to compete at under 73 kg whereas, although I was a green belt judo player (not very good), I’ve never competed. Again, I feed my bees kilograms of sugar, because that’s how it’s sold to me (by law) whereas I harvest honey in pounds weight because the law demands that I sell it by the pound; the bitter irony is that I have to label it as 454 grams.