Peter wrote: "we are already starting to find swarm preparations in
some hives - incredibly early for this area."
A friend near Cambridge has taken a large swarm and lost one also. I
found, here in Dorset, an empty hive that I was tidying up had bees in
a few days ago. When I examined it I found insufficient comb for a
colony to have overwintered; fresh comb followed the slope of the hive
which was askew. There was sealed brood, including 1 drone cell, which
I uncapped to look for Vd and found it still at the pre-pupal stage so
I concluded that that swarm had moved in at least 10 days earlier ie,
during the first week in April.
In over 35 years of beekeeping, the earliest swarm I have been involved
with was 24th April and the latest 4th September. The graph has a very
sharp peak in the 3rd week in May.
So this year is already uusual and should prove interesting.
Chris
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