This winter has been unusually warm, resulting in the bees not being sure whether they should stay in cluster or get out and gather pollen and nectar. Both are available, witness the pollen loads coming into the hives on a sunny day – even when it is fairly cold. This is one of the major benefits of having “local” bees, in that they can cope with the local weather far better than the exotic imports from warmer climes of Europe, whether Central or Eastern.

The main source of both nectar and pollen at this time of year is gorse and snowdrops, shortly to be followed by the winter aconites and crocuses, though some magnolias (mainly useful for pollen, which is very important at this time of year) are flowering already. Daffodils unfortunately are not particularly attractive to bees, though they will be flowering in number shortly, with some already in bloom.

The fact that pollen is going into the hives usually indicates both that there is a queen and that she is laying, and this is what I’m seeing with my hives, especially the top bar hive – the bees from this hive are often busy, and in number, when others are not stirring, but whether it be the race of queen or the hive type I know not as yet!

I have taken delivery of some new items of equipment to enable me to produce more black queens from my queen rearing this year. I now have plenty of queen cages (to keep the emerged queens apart and to prevent them from killing each other – the rule is one queen, so if there are several in a hive they will fight each other to the death until there is only one survivor).

Also some queen introduction cages, which, as the description says, allows the introduction of a queen into a queenless colony. Without a cage to protect her, the queen would be attacked by the queenless bees because she does not have the same odour as they do – even though, without a queen, they would perish. You would think they would be grateful to have any queen if they are queenless and therefore doomed!

There is nothing much else to report in terms of real beekeeping as yet. I am still extracting ivy honey and recently made up a new batch of creamed honey. There is something about the flavour of the creamed honey which gets everybody’s taste buds going – mine included! I can’t see why this honey should taste any different or better than any other type of honey (apart from a hard set variety), but it does.

It must be something to do with its texture and the honey’s ability to reach or stimulate taste buds not reachable by other honeys. Anyway, it’s good to have examples of all three types of honey (four, if you include cut comb honey) and despite the season we’ve just had, I still have supplies of all types. However, no two seasons are the same, so we’re all hoping the coming season will be like 2014, when I had three harvest!

Finally, at this time of year the indoor tasks can take priority, especially with the amount of rain we’ve had over the past few months. These involve the refurbishment of hives and hive parts, the cleaning of old frames, the cleaning and processing of wax, visiting groups in the community and giving talks, and teaching some more aspiring beekeepers what they need to know to be able to start out in this craft.

Though there is only one of the two classes running that are normally scheduled for the Spring, I have had to take on 3 extra students – on top of the maximum I usually allow – which has resulted in an interesting mix of students (when was it ever any different?) and we are having a lot of fun at the same time as applying ourselves to serious study. What more can a hobby offer? It’s a winner in my view.

Colin Rees 01872 501313 colinbeeman@aol.com