In order to
change the positions of some of my hives I am going to have to take them to a
place 20 kilometres from here so the bees forget where
they are living at the moment. In a week or so, I can bring them back and put
them on their new stands without having them try to fly back to their original
position. It sounds a lot of effort, but bees are so good at remembering where
they live, you can’t just move a hive from one spot to another without losing
quite a lot of the older bees in the colony.
There is
another way of achieving the same thing and that is to place the hive in one of
our caves for a few days. With no reference to the sun for the time they are in
the dark, the bees become disoriented and can be safely moved to a new place. I
hesitate to use that method at the moment because the colonies are in full
spring build-up mode and need all the flying time they can get in order to
bring pollen in to the hive. Four days in the dark would not help them in their
efforts.
This week
has seen the arrival of the first two lambs of the year. Unlike last year, the
air temperatures are quite mild so no problems for them keeping warm.