Nice and sunny today

[nickdub]

Bees from all of my hives flying strongly in the sunshine today, so hopefully they have now made it through the winter OK. Felt like Spring in the garden for the first time this year, and there were quite a few wild flowers blooming along the lane.

[Thelma Sanders]

Ooh that sounds lovely, you have been lucky with the weather It's been grey and miserable all day, here.

[Greenleaves]

Plenty of sunshine this afternoon and felt pleasantly warm, nice to have the lighter evenings

[bario1]

Top notch weather here too. Saw my first bumble of the year.

[Baldy]

Yep - nice weather here - I've overdone it and am now taking a medicinal tincture. Big old bumble bee in the back garden too.

[Dead Dogs]

Top notch weather here too. Saw my first bumble of the year.

Snap.
Sample for me.

[chris_m]

It's been a beautiful sunny spring weekend up here in South Cumbria too. Loads of crocuses and daffodils flowering in my garden now, along with the hyacinths and the earliest of the tulips. I've seen quite a few bumbles around too, certainly two, possibly three species I think.

Bit of a frost this morning and a good 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch of ice on the bird bath but the heater I've got in the greenhouse kept the worst of it off for the young plants in there, I've turned the thermostat up a bit just in case.

[veggiechicken]

One evening last week, in the kitchen, I heard a noise like a chainsaw or lawnmower starting up. This was followed by a "plop" onto the worksurface and I spotted a huge bumble bee crawling around. Whether she'd hibernated on top of the units, I don't know, but she seemed quite happy to be helped towards the garden where she zoomed off into the distance.
Lovely seeing the bees again.

[bikermike]

saw bees out here today as well. big round bumbles and a few hive bees. not much for them to feed on though apart from some battered daffs and daisys and dandelions.

(do bees really feed on dandelions? I didn't attack a few on my plot just in case).

[chris_m]

Lovely seeing the bees again.

It certainly is - I'm hoping the Tree Bumbles will take up residence in the bird box on the side of my shed again.
It's right by my raspberry patch and they pollinated the flowers beautifully last year.

[nickdub]

Yep, dandelions are v popular for nectar and pollen.

Quite a few bee-keepers feed syrup at this time of year, because of the dearth of early nectar flowers.

[burnie]

We have nice and sunny after a frosty start, might go fishing on the local beach this afternoon.

[nickdub]

Spoke too soon on my hives. Went to check the last pair and one had died out - the cluster had got isolated from the stores in the last cold snap I think. So I've got 6 left - 4 of which were established colonies, and 1 loss which was one of the 3 swarms from last year.

I always feel saddened when this happens, though the attrition rate for unaided swarms is much higher of course

[Madasafish]

Sorry to hear of your losses Nick. Unfortunately the fluctuating temperatures appear to have killed a lot of hives - one of the bigger suppliers of nucs reported he had orders for 240 in 3 days last week.

I faired reasonably: all 8 large hives survived strongly , lost 2 out of 4 five frame nucs and 1 out of 4 mininucs.

Some pictures of bees bringing in pollen : grey (snowdrop? still out here) and yellow (crocus) and the pussy willow is just coming into bud..

I fed fondant in Feb and early March and pollen substitute just now in preparation for more cold weather.

[nickdub]

Well done with your hives - the photos are lovely - I can and do spend hours watching the bees bringing in pollen.

Not sure about the grey BTW - certainly no snowdrops left in flower round here.