A few days later things were not so rosy. The hive was very quiet and bees were starting to literally drop out of the hive entrance on to the grass. For the next couple of days we monitored activity around the hive. Bees were continuing to drop out of the hive and looking into the entrance we could see that the bottom of the hive was covered in dead bees. Our hearts sank.

When we joined our local beekeepers club I had ticked the box on the joining form to say I would like a mentor. It was time to call for help. After recounting our sad story of the ailing bees we followed advice to conserve the bees energy by blocking up the entrance to the hive to leave only a small entrance and exit point thereby reducing any draughts, replaced the mesh floor with a solid one and provided some food in the form of syrup or fondant to supplement their foraging and limit the energy required to survive.

In the meantime our helpful mentor spoke to the local bee inspector who suspected bee paralysis, a virus with no cure that seemed to be rearing it’s head this season.

The weather conditions were not great for the bees either. The spring temperatures were very  variable from one day to the next with some very cold days.

The garden was lush with lots of new growth, we had swallows and a wren nesting in the cart lodge, baby blue tits squeaking in the nest box and a whitethroat had taken up residence on the ledge above the kitchen window but our focus was on the bees.