Dear BeeFriends
The first reports of cleansing flights were seen in Bee List from the
beginning of February. At last our bees also got a few suitable days. My
distant Lithuanian bee fiend reported his bees had a first cleansing flight
on the 20 of March (only 5 C or 41 F) and later many bees returned with
bright yellow pollen. Our bees decided to announce the spring season in
Kaunas region (center of our country) on March, 25 after getting a warm air
gap from the southeast. My ladies had a cleansing flight last Saturday also.
There was sunny with 7 C (45 F ). Lithuania is a small country (about
300x200 km) but has great temperature differences in the area. Recently I
listened to weather forecast announcement for last night. The difference was
11 C degrees in the opposite sides of the country. The Baltic Sea has a
great influence to nearer areas. The sunny days are not often here
especially in winter. Thus the bee cleansing flights wave may continue a few
weeks in different regions.
This winter was warmer than usually with temperature jumping between minus
14 and plus 6 (7F-43F). Especially dangerous was November and first half of
December. We were warned by our Beekeepers Society of the danger to bees
starving this winter. If the bee hives are wrapped too much the bees raise
brood, use honey reserves and die. I followed the recommendations, didn't
use inner side foam boards but, regardless of it, worried about my bees
much. I missed the sunny "cleansing" day. Next day I visited my ladies the
sky was cloudy with air 4 C (39F). The side combs were filled 75% with food
and there were seen many bees under top cover. I gave them only some salty
water in the top feeders. In a 20-30 meter distance there is a quite shallow
streamlet flowing between grass. Now I'm calm, they should survive. Soon my
happy peace was broken by my bee friend, a new beekeeper having bees not far
from mine. He was excited and declared his one stock is starving. Really,
after checking the hive we found 2 side combs with many bees sitting on and
no food in. We decided to put in a last year reserve comb and to shake the
"starving" bees from the mentioned 2 combs on the new one. Well, done. As I
said the midday was whole cloudy, cool. The glasses were left at home. We
are both longsighted. My inner voice forced me to look to the second (from
the side) already empty comb. After a careful studding we had to recognize
that the comb was at least 30% filled with eggs. We returned it to the
former place. But we have pricks of conscience on account of the Queen. We
could drop her on the hive bottom together with the rest bees. Now the logic
action had to follow - to check the opposite side combs of the nest. The
opposite combs where untouched from the last autumn i.e. full of food! Well,
fear takes mole-hills for mountains. We didn't realize that bees could
winter not in the center of the nest. Or, maybe, it was a result of the warm
winter. We did not dare to check food amount in the center of the nest
because of a not suitable weather conditions. By the way, I realized later
that, probably, all his bees were not touched enough by sun and had no
cleansing flights. The opened hive bees started flying around, land on us
and made our white caps brown spotted. We couldn't get rid of them though
they were quite peaceful. It could be on account of the north side slope the
hives were situated.
Lithuanian beekeepers like to communicate with their counterparts in foreign
countries. Every year there are arranged visits to advanced beekeepers.
Recently we are invited to visit the apiaries in Poland and Check Republic
on the 1-5 th of May. The travel as usually is arranged by Gediminas
Olsevicius [log in to unmask] .
500 Litas (125USD) per person for a bus, hotel, excursions and breakfast /
supper meals. Everyone wishing to take a part is welcome.
Sincerely
Rimantas Zujus
http://rizujus.lei.lt/
ICQ# : 4201422
55 N, 24 E
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