First warm days of 2013

Friday was warm. About 18C (65F). So it was a great day to check on my hives.

I dropped in first on the two hives I have at the Botanical Gardens. As I hope you can see from the video both hives were very active and the bees were even bringing in some pollen; probably Witch Hazel.

Next stop... home and my hive in the back garden was similarly active. The two hives that are just down the street (these were "weak" going into the winter) were also buzzing! I was a little surprised to see how active they were, but I have to say I'm really happy about them! These three hives of bees had also found some pollen, but this time there was some yellow in with the grey.

Finally, my last stop, was my porch and my observation hive. This was hardly active at all and I only saw one or two bees flying. That was it! I guess given this was the smallest hive (and was given the least amount of autumn feed) it probably has the smallest chance of making it through winter. However, on Saturday morning it seemed to be much more active, so I do hold out some hope it will pull through as well!

It's great to see my bees again. I'm beginning to get very excited about the new season of beekeeping!