www.warrebeehive.co.uk

                      Warre Beehives - A more natural and sustainable way to keep bees

It's sunny day in spring in the New Forest and time to take this season's first proper look at the bees. The apiary is on a fruit farm - perfect.  Right now I have two Langstroth hives and a Warré. Hopefully I can add more Warrés in future, but for the moment I'm busy building hives for www.warrebeehive.co.uk

I've visited the apiary already this year just to see what's going on at the hive entrances. Both the Langstroths have been pretty quiet, one especially so, which is worrying. But today's the first day I'll open the hives.

As I feared, one of the Langstroth's hasn't made it. All the bees are dead. There were plenty of stores, so they didn't starve. But last winter was the coldest we've had in the south of England for a many years, so maybe it was the cold?

The second Langstroth's survived and I've seen the queen, but the colony's not as strong as I'd like. Rather depressing as at the end of last season both hives looked great.

Now to the Warré. I won't open it of course. But what's going on at the entrance? Bees are going in and out and there's pollen too. I put my ear to the hive and hear that lovely buzz so all seems well.