I had given them sugar candy to help them through the winter months, and if anything thought hive 1 had more bees inside than hive 3, but the bees in hive 3 were more active, nipping out on any sunny days throughout winter, whereas hive 1 was in lock down.
Anyway, by the 10th of March, when it was warm enough to check on them, the difference was clear - hive 1 had not even managed to eat the sugar candy, and the bees were gone with only a few stiff corpses remaining - whilst in hive 3 the sugar candy had disappeared completely - the plastic wrapping licked clean - and the bees were busy zapping in and out collecting early pollen.
So I've lost one swarm each winter over the last two years. However as hive 2 was already empty last year, last summer I ordered a new swarm from the Bee School. Yesterday was collection day - I drove over early in the morning, loaded my hive, with the swarm inside, carefully into the back of the Kangoo and brought them home - must say, I've never slowed down quite so much for the bumps -"sleeping policemen" - on that road as when transporting a hive and maybe 40,000 bees - but fortunately nobody was following me to observe my slow progress !
Once home, after 30 minutes to get over the transportation, I opened the hive entrance - and got stung - serves me right for not kitting up for that - but as they say - no gain without pain.
Today I did kit-up and checked inside the hive, all looks good - I moved some of the unbuilt frames which had been used as packing and put the occupied frames back in the arrangement they would have been in their small starter hives all last summer. Also gave them some sirop in the feeder tray, mixed with warm water, and with a few twigs scattered in the tray, so that any bees that get too deep in the sirop should be able to crawl out.
Was happy to see some foragers returning to the hive with pollen packed on their legs - they must have found my neighbours Mimosa, or something else in flower.
I now have one empty hive, awaiting re-painting, hive 2 with the new swarm of Buckfast bees - which are stripey orange and brown, and hive 3 with local black bees. Buckfast are meant to be less aggressive, produce a lot of honey, but also need a lot of provisions, whereas the local black bees are a bit more aggressive, a bit hardier, and maybe produce less honey. Well, they did survive the winter, so that's in their favour! - have to see how the season progresses - will let you know if they live up to their reputations.