Could your bees be using stores faster than they can replace them?

A colony keeps using food whether the bees are flying or not.

When weather restricts foraging, nectar conditions are poor or useful forage drops away, the balance can start moving in the wrong direction. Bees are still consuming energy, but less is coming home.

Apiary Forecast calls this Stores Pressure.

It sits within Forage Outlook and helps show when conditions around an apiary may be putting increasing pressure on colony stores. If you also use Colony Management, Apiary Forecast can combine that wider picture with your own colony records to help you keep a closer eye on individual hives between inspections.

Open Forage Outlook

Why stores pressure builds

Poor intake doesn’t always mean there’s no forage. Sometimes plenty is flowering, but rain, wind or cool conditions make it difficult for bees to collect enough. At other times, flying conditions are perfectly reasonable but nectar support itself is weak.

A few poor hours probably won’t matter much to a strong colony with plenty in reserve. Several difficult days can be different though, especially when brood rearing is high.

That’s why Forage Outlook looks beyond today’s weather. It considers recent conditions, forage support and whether bees have had any practical opportunity to bring useful carbohydrates back to the colony.

Spring can catch colonies out

Spring is a good example of this. The colony is expanding, brood rearing is increasing and food demand is rising. At the same time, UK spring weather can still produce long spells when useful foraging is limited. Rain. Wind. Cold.

The National Bee Unit advises beekeepers to keep a close eye on stores during this period, while BBKA guidance also warns that apparently mild weather can increase colony activity and consumption without necessarily providing enough forage in return.

So seeing bees flying on a pleasant March afternoon doesn’t automatically mean the colony’s food position is improving. It just means they’re flying.

From apiary conditions to an individual colony

Stores Pressure describes what’s happening around the apiary. Your colony records add the part that weather alone can’t provide.

When you assess a colony’s stores during an inspection, that gives Apiary Forecast a real starting point. If Stores Tracking is enabled for that colony, the system can then use subsequent conditions and recorded feeding to help follow how that position may be changing between inspections.

This produces a Stores Position for the individual colony, using the information you’ve actually recorded rather than assuming every hive in the apiary started in the same place.

A large colony with a lot of brood can have very different demands from a small nuc beside it. 

Stores Position between inspections

Depending on the information available, Colony Management can show a Stores Position such as:

Plenty
Adequate
Getting low
Low

That gives you something more useful than a note by itself from the last inspection.

And, if conditions have been poor since you last looked, the position can help draw your attention back to a colony sooner. If you’ve fed the colony and recorded it, that becomes part of the picture too.

It’s particularly useful when you have several colonies and don’t want to rely on memory to remember which one was already starting to look light.

Hives Today brings it together

This is where Hives Today becomes really useful. Rather than opening every colony record one by one, you can see which hives may deserve attention sooner.

If a tracked colony’s Stores Position is moving towards Getting low or Low, that can be displayed alongside the other things you need to know about the colony.

You can then decide what to do with that information. You may want to look back at the last inspection, check whether feeding has already been recorded, heft the hive or plan a closer look when the weather allows.

That’s a much more practical use of the forecast than simply telling you that it has rained for four days.

Hefting still has a place, of course!

None of this makes traditional checks redundant. Hefting remains one of the quickest ways to get a practical feel for colony stores without opening the hive, particularly when the weather isn’t suitable for a full inspection.

Both the National Bee Unit and BBKA recommend keeping an eye on hive weight and stores through periods when colonies may be vulnerable.

Stores Tracking gives you a way to know which hive to check first.

Nucs and smaller colonies

Smaller colonies deserve particular attention because they often have less reserve to fall back on. A nuc or recent split can be sitting in exactly the same weather as a large established colony and still have a very different stores position.

BBKA guidance highlights the need to monitor smaller colonies during forage gaps and poor weather for exactly this reason.

This is also why Apiary Forecast keeps the environmental signal and the colony record separate. Stores Pressure may be similar across the apiary, but the significance of that pressure depends on the hive.

After taking honey

Stores are also worth reconsidering after removing a crop. A colony that looked comfortable before supers were taken may have a much smaller buffer afterwards. If that coincides with a forage gap or a spell of poor weather, the situation can change surprisingly quickly.

The National Bee Unit advises beekeepers to think about what remains after honey is removed and whether the colony has enough to carry it through to the next inspection.

This is exactly the sort of situation where recent weather and forage information becomes very useful indeed.

What should you do when Stores Pressure rises?

Usually, the first step is simply to pay attention. Look at what you already know about the colony. Check the most recent stores assessment. Consider the size of the colony and how much brood it’s supporting. If appropriate, heft the hive or inspect when conditions allow.

A rising Stores Pressure signal isn’t an automatic feeding instruction but it is a prompt to check whether the colony is coping.

Weather outside, information inside

Stores Pressure and Colony Stores Tracking work best together because they answer different parts of the same question.

Forage Outlook shows whether weather and forage conditions are making it difficult for colonies to replace what they’re using.

Colony Management adds what you’ve actually recorded about an individual hive.

Hives Today helps bring the useful bits to the surface for you.

That gives you a more informed view between inspections without pretending that a weather model can see through the side of a brood box. Which it can’t, just in case you were wondering.

Check Stores Pressure for your apiary

Stores Pressure is included within Forage Outlook. Members using Colony Management can also record colony stores, feeding and biological information and use Stores Tracking to follow individual colony Stores Position between inspections.

Open Forage Outlook

Open Hives Today

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Further UK guidance

National Bee Unit: Feeding Bees, Sugar
Best-practice guidance on supplementary feeding, nectar dearths, replacing removed honey and ensuring managed colonies have sufficient stores.
https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/assets/PDFs/3_Resources_for_beekeepers/Best_practice_guidelines/BPG_7a_Feeding_Bees_-_sugar.pdf

British Beekeepers Association: The Beekeeping Year
Current seasonal guidance covering hefting, checking stores, forage gaps, smaller colonies and preparation for winter.
https://www.bbka.org.uk/the-beekeeping-year

British Beekeepers Association: March in the Apiary 2023
Particularly relevant to Stores Pressure because it discusses rising brood demand, dwindling stores, unreliable spring forage and the way warmer weather can increase food consumption before forage improves.
https://www.bbka.org.uk/blog/march-in-the-apiary-2023