Firstly, I have to apologise for the lack of posting recently. Although things have been quiet on the bee front as you'd expect at this time of year it doesn't mean I am sitting twiddling my fingers.
Our weather (along with that in the UK) has been described as Arctic over the last few weeks although I'm not sure how accurate that description actually is. Either way, the temperature hardly rose above freezing for about 3 weeks and with the clear night skies meant it fell to minus 10 or so. We're talking Celsius now. The cold air has now moved away for the time-being and it felt like Spring today as I got around to some long-awaited garden maintenance. I love this time of year when you can start planning those jobs that you need to do like ordering seeds and deciding where your fruit and veg are going this year.
The bees were out flying over the weekend although, to be honest, they just appeared to be coming and going so I assumed they were out on cleansing flights and bringing in fresh water.
We have our local beekeeper's lecture this week about Apimondia 2009 - the international beekeepers' conference which was held in southern France this year. The talk is being given by one of the national beekeeping celebrities who frequently appears on the radio with his tales of wildlife and beekeeping. Looking forward to it and to hear of what's happening around the hives in the county.
I got a few vouchers for a beekeeping equipment store at Christmas and I went a bit mad ordering stuff for the 2010 season. Anyway, the equipment arrived this week and I now have even more to occupy me in the evenings making up supers and frames. One of the new pieces of hardware was my first Top Bar hive so that's going to keep my out of trouble for a while anyway. Watch this space! TBH's still seem fairly new here so I am going to have find someone with more experience than me!
Changing the subject, it's only another few weeks left to get fully fit for our ski trip which we're really excited about. For anyone who is wondering, I won't be appearing in Vancouver at the Winter Olympics - ha ha ; )
