Soon Bee Spring

We’ve been feeding the Honeydale bees on sugar fondant over winter. The sugar water we use over the summer promotes the wrong activity in the Queen, leading her to think there are plentiful nectar sources available, whereas sugar fondant closely resembles the honey the bees would rely on during the colder months. Ours started to feed on it after Christmas and with a few warm, sunny days lately, with temperatures rising to over 10 degrees, they’ve started to emerge from their hive. It’s encouraging to see they’ve survived their first winter at Honeydale and since there’s not much pollen or nectar around for them yet, despite the sunshine, we will be continuing with the fondant paste for the next few weeks, and will carry out our first hive inspection at the end of March, after which we’ll be checking on them once every 7-10 days.