April 8, 2010 Earlier I said that the plants seemed to be about two weeks or so behind in their blooming schedule.
That's no longer apparently true.
In most years, trees and other plants usually seem to bloom in an orderly sequence. This year, they appeared to be starting on this sequence about two weeks later than in previous years. Now the situation has changed again. The plants, and most trees in particular, are blooming right now, all at pretty much the same time. For my bees, this has caused a pretty good nectar flow already.
Most of my colonies have at least one super on, and some are getting close to needing another. Now is not the time to crowd the bees, unless you want to watch swarms leaving. Remember the queen needs plenty of room for the brood nest (Her laying activity is going wide open throttle right now.), and the bees still need cells for nectar processing and honey/pollen storage.
Most colonies should be ready to draw comb on new foundation now. It never hurts to have extra frames of drawn comb around. A frame or two of capped honey in the freezer is also nice to have if you need it later.
If you are planning to make or sell nucs or splits, be sure you will have queens available for them. A lot of the package bee/queen producers in the south are sold out for this spring
already. If you have not ordered your queens or packages yet, you'd better do it today. If there are bees available, finding them is likely to be tough. Expect to do a lot of dialing and holding. Local Kentucky queens will not usually be available until the middle part of May. You might have some luck by watching the website posts on KSBA web page (Look in the "Links" section on the left side of the page.).
I hope you are all doing well and having fun with your beeyards.
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