March/April 2003
John has been suffering the effects of long-term disability for some
time and by the start of 2003 things had come to a head and most of the
early months involved preparations for him to go to Southport hospital
for major surgery. This took place in May but understandably he was rather
too preoccupied to write diary notes during the first couple of months.
Paul has therefore written this.
The bees wait for no one however and needed looking after so on the weekend
of March 29th-30 we carried out our spring clean.
Hives 5 & 6 were very poor with not much brood. Our main hives 1,2
& 3 doing well however.
A feed of sugar syrup was added to the weaker hives to give them a pep-up,
and each of our hives received newly cleaned and treated brood boxes.
A feeder in place
Dad Strims the weeds
Dad cleans hive five while Paul sets about hive 1
The bees in hive 3 move from their old box to their newly
cleaned ones
By April 13th both of the weak hives 5 & 6 had recovered to be very powerful hives and supers were added.
Supers and queen excluders ready for the hives
All the events surrounding John's immanent hospitalisation meant that
we were not really spending as much time with the bees as we should. During
May when John was away we certainly paid the price!