Since winter is my downtime, I kinda dug the late spring….for a period of time. Been over it for a while, and now spring is here at last. The long winter took a toll on our bees, as it did nearly every other beekeeper I know. Heavy losses…we lost many colonies, although not so many in the city, where I imagine hives were more protected by the small backyards.
There were many weeks when we could not access the yards at all; there was simply too much snow and ice to navigate the alleys. Eventually we did Oxalic with a good foot and a half of snow on the ground (not where the yard above was, tho, this was up on the Nanaimo st hill)
Anyway, Spring is here now, and dog is my co-pilot. She contributes by jumping into the truck to eat the pollen patties and lick up the syrup. It’s a very important job…
And let’s end with a handy excuse as to why there’s been no posts since a year ago: