{"id":149,"date":"2026-04-04T16:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/?p=149"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:47:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:47:41","slug":"spring-2026-a-new-year-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"Spring 2026 &#8211; a new year begins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"the inside of a hive\" class=\"wp-image-145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG20260331111313-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Spring 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Winter is over (maybe) and spring has arrived.  In 2025 we finished the year with too many hives &#8211; more than I could really look after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> I took the opportunity to combine a couple of hives late in the year to reduce the number &#8211; but in late February it was apparent that 2 hives were struggling and were very weak. Both had subsequently died by early March. Never-the-less I was able to give a hive to a colleague who had lost one of hers (actually &#8211; I gave it &#8220;back&#8221; to her as she had given me the swarm during the summer of 2025 and I had re-homed it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then in late March I lost another hive for unknown reasons &#8211; I found all the bees dead inside. It&#8217;s unusual for all the bees to die at once and it didn&#8217;t look like starvation. I&#8217;m wondering if the bees got trapped inside somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway that took me down to 6 hives .. enough to be getting on with for spring 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winter is over (maybe) and spring has arrived. In 2025 we finished the year with too many hives &#8211; more than I could really look after. I took the opportunity to combine a couple of hives late in the year to reduce the number &#8211; but in late February it was apparent that 2 hives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apiary-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hottsfieldhoney.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}