> more and over this spring I would guess past autumn was very important .

Here it was the combination.  As far as the bees were concerned we had a
year of winter; the weather fell apart last May and we have had very little
good weather this spring.
Queens failed to mate properly (if at all) last May and June, those that did
mate failed to build decent colonies in the 'summer', the autumn then
prevented them producing a good flush of young bees for the winter,  and
pollen was in very short supply throughout.

So small colonies with inadequate pollen, old bees and perhaps a dodgy queen
went into winter.  Perhaps those with properly mated queens would have built
well if we had not had such a poor spring - very cold and wet - but the
current situation is grim and certainly the worst in living memory.
Losses of 75% or more are not uncommon.  It will take a long time to recover
as there are so few decent colonies that can be split at the moment - many
are really just nucs.

Oil seed rape is just coming into flower, but yesterday's max was 15C with a
low of 5C last night.  Today there is a cold wind blowing and we are asking
ourselves whether last weekend's 'heat-wave' was our summer again.  Another
year like the last one will finish many beekeepers.

Best wishes
 
Peter
52.144442, -1.503509

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html