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Pollen collecting

Today 1/22/18 three hives were bringing in basket after basket of dark brown pollen most likely left from last fall.  It was like a super highway of activity, every forager fully loaded.  Three hives, an occasional bee was coming in and out but not like the other three.

 

Looks like I'll need to do a brood check soon.  How things are going in your hives?

I can't say I notices huge amounts of pollen.  My neighbor and I were too busy yesterday cleaning up dead outs.  I did see some pollen coming into my stronger hives at home.  They also have pollen substitute patties on because I am making a deliberate effort to crank up early brood rearing in these hives.

hope You didn’t lose to many Rob. Three of my four hives looks good. One nuc is  ok , would like to see more bees in it, but it’s still going. Haven’t seen any pollen being brought in yet .  If I get these four through the winter I’ll be happy. Waiting on those warm spring days. How many hives did you lose Rob?

Between 3 locations, I am cleaning up 10 deadouts.  Most were May or later swarms that never built up, but a few were surprises.  While some folks are not seeing high losses, a number of keepers are seeing the same high losses that I am.  I'm hoping to hold down the number of hives this coming season and attempt to manage them a little more intensively.

 

That being said, and getting back to the original post, I did see bees bringing in pollen at my home hives yesterday--even though they have pollen patties above the clusters.

 

 

Heavy loads of pollen started coming into my home hives yesterday, and pollen loads increased this morning before temperatures started to drop.  With increasing brood/brood rearing, I'm going to keep a close watch on foodstores until the nectar flow gets strong.  I don't want hives to starve now that I have gotten them to his point in late "bee winter".