If you go down to the woods today
Inexorably, as the earth's axis tilts, the days are getting longer … and warmer. The morning frosts have largely disappeared, the fieldfares and redwings returned to Scandinavia, and the oystercatchers are noisily squabbling over territories in the soggy meadow by the burn.
Single-digit daytime temperatures are replaced by double-digits, with the occasional day reaching the balmy low/mid-teens in the sun.
And it's on these warmer days, when you visit your apiary, you realise how rapidly colonies expand at this time of the year.
Although there may not be agreement on whether spring has started — meteorologically it starts on the 1st of March, but astronomically it won't be here until the 20th {{1}} — the bees are busy making preparations to exploit the seasonal increase in nectar and pollen availability and, in due course, for swarming.
The diutinus (long-lived) winter bees are gradually being replaced by new brood as the queen increases her egg-laying rate. 'Changeover day', the date when the colony population stops decreasing, and starts increasing again, occurs around this time of the year {{2}}.
Rearing all those new bees requires lots of protein and carbohydrate. On good days the bees will be out foraging; around here that's mainly on the abundant gorse and willow.
However, not all days are suitable, and on these the bees dig deep into their stores.
This is the time of the year when colonies can starve to death in a matter of days.
An apparently strong colony at the end of February can be moribund a week later if the weather is poor, or forage is limiting.
It's a tragic site. You open the hive and almost all the bees are dead, with just a few pathetic stragglers tottering about weakly.
It's too late to save them.
Having got the colony through the worst of the winter, you've lost them when you're within sight of the finish line.
Fondant top-ups
All that tragedy is avoidable by ensuring the colony has sufficient stores, and supplementing them with fondant if there is any doubt.
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