Snow and Frost

Another frost today... and on Monday too. It's been such a consistently cold four months in a row. The snow in December and January (we didn't really get any worth bragging about in February) looked good, but was indicative of what the season was like, even down here in the south of England.

So what affect has this had on the bees? I didn't bother them very much at all through those months, for fear of robbing them of the little heat they had manage to retain in their hive. The colony was not too large, so their stores lasted them well. They seem to be fairly local bees too, which means they are probably better equipped to deal with the colder weather than their European cousins; although all bees in the UK are now hybrids of varying amounts of the European and original UK honey bee.