Time to remove and add honey supers

Its Saturday, weather does not look great. Overcast and windy. However this is England and we should not be surprised by now. I tell people most of my beekeeping is done in either the rain, at twilight or sunset and not by choice. Sometimes you just need to inspect your bees and you know if you don't they could swarm, starve or they need more room, time to re-queen, add clean frames etc. 

So I'm off to inspect a few sites. Lets hope this hot sticky weather has benefited the bees. This is the perfect weather condition for nectar production. flowers rely on a few factors, heat, humidity, moisture & little or no wind. If these conditions are met, flowers are able to yield nectar. So on Hot dry windy days, it looks and feels great, but your bees are flying around in search of nectar that just is not there. They end up eating their honey stores to create the energy they need to fly miles in search of nectar. They end up consuming more honey that they can gather. June time is a perfect example. There are thousands of flowers to see, yet there is a gap in the nectar production of those nectar producing plants. They have been pollinated and have fulfilled their biological task. So not much nectar is about at this time of year.

Hence you will notice your bees are a bit more touchy then usual, perhaps signs of robbing in their frustration to try and find a food source. Remember prior to this time the flowers were flowing with spring nectar and your bees were in full swing. Now its like a tap has been turned off and all those foraging bees have nothing to show for their hours of flying around and searching. You would be frustrated too!