What the buzz is going on?
Now, like us you may have experienced fog, sun, rain, wind and hail in a 12 hour period yesterday, which is quite the contrast to the break in the weather we had last week. What does this mean for the bees? Well, with a short period of warm weather it could mean that your colonies are brood rearing already - Queen laying and increased food consumption may have been triggered.
With temperatures decreasing over the next week, we recommend feeding with fondant or syrup until normal flying weather resumes. As it is still not the ideal weather for carrying out inspections, hefting your hives is a good way to judge on how much feed is needed, if your hives feel light, feed immediately. A typical emergency feed would be fondant or a protein feed, around 1-2kg per hive and then reassess the situation in a few days.
Cold nights and windy days leads to minimal foraging, so adding a pollen substitute isn't a bad idea either to help give you colonies a boost and some added nutrients they may need.
