A Novice Beekeeper - March Diary

I am a relatively new beekeeper. I took the introduction to beekeeping course last year with the mid-Kent beekeepers, and I took delivery of my first bees in July which is quite late in the year. I keep the bees at the bottom of the garden in an old fashioned beehive known as a WBC Hive - this is the pagoda style, painted white with a metal covered roof. Yes it would be lovely to have some honey this year, but my main aim is keep a healthy colony of bees.


I fed the bees lots of sugar syrup in the autumn to make sure the colony grew large enough to survive the winter with plenty of food stores. I also treated them against disease - The winter bee lives much longer than her hard working cousin the summer bee, six months as compared to just six weeks and parasites have much more time to take hold in the hive. Also the colony needs to maintain its warmth in colder months and needs to be large enough to generate this heat by clustering together.

I am pleased to say that now we finally have some warmer weather, I have seen bees flying around the garden and a few joined me in the greenhouse today. Rosemary is beginning to flower and is very popular with the bees, although the plants have taken a beating in the winter cold. I have planted spring bedding and bulbs in the kitchen garden to help provide some early nectar for them.


I am hoping not to have to open them up too often and leave them as much alone as possible (yes I did get stung last year)! The main task is to provide the bees with the room they need - by adding extra layers to the hive - and to prevent them from swarming - although I now have a second hive, which is empty so an early swarm wouldn't be too bad (as long as they didn't disappear completely). Some beekeepers keep an empty hive to tempt a swarm to settle. Bees are in short supply this year due to the increase in new beekeepers looking to establish their colonies and last year hive equipment was in short supply.

The queen should be laying eggs and raising young to replace the workers which have overwintered and who will now be nearing the end of their lives.

You might not know that all the worker bees are female and yes - are responsible for all the food gathering and young rearing in the hive. The Drones - males - are produced in small numbers and their only job is to mate with a new queen. They are usually kicked out of the hive in the autumn by the workers to die in the winter cold.