Storm-tossed

While we have been cowering inside, sheltered from cycles of rain, wind and cold, the natural world has been getting on with spring as if everything was normal. This applies to apple trees but also to bees. It has been more than three weeks since we have had any conditions in which we could look at them in any detail. I was not too worried, as I thought they would be progressing slowly in these hostile conditions. Wrong!

We are up against travel deadlines, and it was now or never so, in the couple of hours when the weather relented from cold, driving rain to cold, driving sunshine, we undertook a bit of gale force beekeeping. There was no question of doing a proper frame-by-frame inspection - this was a quick look see; lever up a couple of frames, briefly; form a snap judgement on what they are doing and decide immediately what to do in response

The extent to which they have built up in numbers is remarkable, given the conditions. Weak colonies have become strong colonies and strong colonies have begun spilling out of boxes to be in places in the hive where bees did not ought to be! Trying to resore order, we have added boxes to double the available space for three colonies - I'll pop back tomorrow and do a fourth. That leaves only one that we left alone and will check out in ten days or so

If they are persuaded that expanding into the new boxes is a good idea, building the new comb and moving on to it, will keep them occupied until we can return in calmer conditions. On the other hand, if they have already got the idea that they are outgrowing their current accommodation and should swarm, they might not change course. There was no way we could investigate that today, or do anything else to be persuasive. Nature, as they say, will take its course