In this episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping, Laurence Edwards of Black Mountain Honey conducts a rapid, comprehensive spring inspection of nine Buckfast colonies at the River Apiary, an apiary surrounded by abundant Himalayan balsam that supports deep brood rearing. He walks through each hive, noting the number of frames covered with bees, the amount of fondant each colony has consumed (ranging from 4 to 10 kg), brood strength, and the presence of mature drones. Based on these observations he removes the fondant, installs queen excluders, and adds supers where colonies are ready. Edwards discusses the delicate balance between feeding, preventing starvation, and avoiding premature swarming, especially with the fast‑acting Buckfast genetics. He highlights the upcoming nectar flow from wild garlic, dandelion, and bluebell blooms expected from late April through early June, and stresses the need for ongoing monitoring of swarming tendencies. The video ends with a summary that all nine colonies entered winter strong and have emerged into a robust spring apiary, ready for a productive honey crop, while acknowledging the constant management trade‑offs.
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Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. We are at the River Apiary today and we're going to do the first inspection of the year down here, and I'm going to give you a snapshot of every single one of the colonies down here. So we've got 9 colonies down here at the River Apiary. They went into winter very, very strong. We've got tons of Himalayan balsam down here. That's why we picked this apiary. Lots and lots of Himalayan balsam. They rear brood really, really deep into the season and they go into the winter strong. So I took 9 colonies in. I'm going to show you every single one of them in this video, show you how many frames they're over, show you how strong they are, and show you how many of them I managed to get through the winter. So it's about the middle of April at the moment. It's been very, very cold. It's finally warmed up. I'm not going to pull any frames out in this video. Quick snapshot of every single hive. See how many frames they're over. They're out today foraging on the wild garlic, on the dandelions, on the bluebells. Really nice weather forecast over the next few days. I'm here cleaning up the boxes, taking off any fondant feed, putting my queen excluders on, getting the supers on. I thought I'd just do a really quick video just to show you the state of the colonies down here. I'm going to do this for every single apiary, tell you how many colonies I've lost, show you the strength of them, and just give you a general update as to how the colonies are getting on.
Here's the first colony. Tons of bees up in the feeder as well, covering all of those frames, ready to go for the season.
Lots of brood down in this one as well. Really, really good to see. So a nice big strong colony to start.
So I'm just putting this one in here for, for comedy effect.
That is 4 big bags of fondant and they are all empty barring that tiny little bit in the top.
You lift the box up, there's no weight to it whatsoever. So not only have these bees had 4 packets of 2 kilograms of fondant, they're still wanting more.
So if I'd have come in and missed that first batch, they'd definitely be dead. Buckfast, you really do need to watch them early in the season because they just power through all of those stores and they just want to be getting on with it.
So, uh, good to see, and they're in a really good position for me now.
But it just goes to show 8 kilograms of fondant these ones have had, and that's what's needed to get these ones through.
So another nice colony here, you can see tucking into that fondant, making good use of it. Probably about halfway through it, and they've only had that for 4 days, so, uh, really doing well. Over 7, maybe 8 frames of bees, really nice temperament.
These guys are definitely ready for a super, so we're going to clear these guys up, get a super on them straight away.
We're going to take that fondant off now because there's enough weight in the box and the flow is starting to come in.
So you can see that nectar coming in, it's time to get that fondant off, get the queen excluder on, get the super on.
So this one here, a bit of a weaker one in comparison, but still over 9 frames, can't argue with that at all. Not taken down anywhere near as much feed, box is a little bit heavier as well, so I could have probably done without that last slab there, but I don't get around to get these colonies enough.
Uh, to risk them burning through that fondant.
As you can see from the other ones, they've taken it all down and the boxes are light. So as always with beekeeping, it's a bit of a guessing game.
This one here probably put a bit too much fondant on. They could have done without it. Nice big strong colony though. Fast forward a couple of weeks, these are going to be well and truly up in the super.
So another big colony here. You look underneath, you look at all those bees, they're not fitting in this box at all. These have had 4 and a half slabs of that fondant, so nearly 10 kilograms of fondant.
They've turned it into bees, which is what I want them to do. And these guys have done even better than that. They've not messed around and they've not turned it into, into wax or combs in the feeder. They've, uh, they've managed that space for me quite well. So these are primed perfectly for me to give them a little bit of a clear out, take that fondant away, making sure they've got enough food. Queen excluder on, super on, and then hopefully next couple of weeks we'll get a flow going and they should be really good. Yeah, I think that's a good plan. Just to point out though, look at all those drones.
Really, really mature drones in here.
They're not just emerged the last couple of days, they're nice big chunky mature drones and they're all over the place. So this colony here, really, really strong, bodes very well for the season. So this is the problem that you have, and this is what I'm going to talk about in a separate video.
But as you can see here, the bees have drawn loads of comb Up in the feeders, and they've not done this because I've given them excess fondant, because the boxes are really light. I think if these bees didn't have that excess fondant, they would have died.
At least that's the risk, and that's how I've managed it.
But you can see there's a lot of bees in here.
They're really, really running out of space, and it's only now that the temperature's got a little bit higher can I worry about actually dealing with this colony. So keep an eye out, it's going to be a separate video on how I manage a colony like this. What you need to do to get these guys back on track. But they're strong, that's the big thing.
They're booming at the right time of the year, covering all the frames there, and they've got some space up in the feeder as well. So that's the risk, and like I say, we'll cover that in a separate video. But nice strong bees, middle of April, these guys are definitely going to be box fillers.
So another really strong colony over all 10 frames there, pretty much finished all their fondant. Didn't take quite as much as the hive next door, But still, they are raring to go.
It's great to see the colonies this big and strong. These are on 14 by 12 as well, so give them, give them a couple of weeks, let a couple of those big frames of brood emerge, and these are going to be box fillers.
And the final colony, they have also taken 8 kilograms of fondant. So we're not talking 1 kilogram packets here, these are 2 kilogram packets, and they've had 4 of them, and they're empty.
Every single one of them is empty, and they're covering all of the frames in the box.
So, as with all of them, this is the last one. They're they're very very similar in this apiary. You'd normally get a little bit more variance between them.
They're all strong. They're all ready for supers. And now we've got the weather, we can take all of that feed off all of the packets, give them a really good clean, get the queen excluders on, get the supers on, and hopefully we'll get a really really nice spring crop.
So there we go. We took nine colonies into winter. And we've got 9 really, really strong colonies coming into the spring. Couldn't be much happier. Doesn't always work like that. This is pretty much a perfect apiary. They're all really strong. They're strong at the right period. Lots of brood. I pulled a couple of frames out as well. They are at the perfect place to take advantage of the early spring flows. So anywhere around last week of April here, all the way through to about the first week of June, we get a good 5, 6 weeks of flows down here from the wild garlic, the dandelions, dandelions and the bluebells. It's a really, really nice mix of honey that comes from this apiary, and the bees are going to do very, very well here. I will need to keep an eye on these guys though, because some of them here, they're very, very close to swarming. It's touch and go always this time of the year. Do I leave my fondant on because there's not enough stores in the colony and it's cold and they can't get out to forage? Or do I put the supers on and then worry that they're going to starve? So it's always a little bit of a balancing act. You can see in those colonies there that I've left it too late to put the supers on here, but I'd prefer to be in a situation where they've drawn a little bit comb and a little bit of brood up in the feeder space and they're still alive, then put that queen excluder on too early, put the super on too early, have no way of feeding them, and then with the Buckfast genetics, they can just starve out really, really quick. So I always err on the side of caution when I'm looking at that. So that's it for the video. As always, thanks for watching. Please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.
