iN VIDEO: Healthy bees already bringing pollen to hives in Kamloops

Murray Willis is an experienced beekeeper in Kamloops who manages more than 50 hives of his own and his bees are already busy collecting pollen this spring.

Beekeeping can be a tricky endeavour because the hives are prone to cold weather events and mites.

Murray’s bees are healthy this spring and he lost less than 10% of his hives this winter.

“My bees overwintered pretty good this year,” he said. “They are winter bees and are bringing in pollen to feed the queen so she can lay eggs to make worker bees for the summer.”

He said smaller bee keepers in the Thompson-Okanagan region have generally fared well after a warm winter, but he’s hearing some commercial bee keepers have suffered high losses.

“Commercial bee keepers do things differently while the smaller guys tend to take more care with proper feeding and treating mites,” he said. “They feed them sugar water in the fall and hope they make it, and they move them around more to pollinate crops, which stresses the bees.”

Last week, Murray took a video of his buzzing bees bringing pollen into the hive, looking like Michelin men with great gobs of pollen on their legs.

“The first pollen comes from willows and maples and is a light tan colour,” he said. “Now there are buttercups and crocuses and others blooming.

“This spring we had enough rain to make flowers.”

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