Spring Inspection

What a lovely day.  I was going to do the last application of Hive Clean today anyway so I decided I might as well do my Spring Inspection.  This mean you have to inspect each frame of bees really carefully - looking for anything untoward like disease.  So you have to shake the bees off the frames into the brood box so you can have a really good look at all the brood, to check if they are all healthy.

All went well, Adele hive was grumpiest of all and I got stung on the hand a couple of times.  Everything looks health.  Some covered brood, larvae and eggs in all hives.  Didn't see any queens but they are obviously in there due to the eggs.  Connie had a queen cup of course.  They are our swarmiest hive having gone three times last year.  All looking good for the coming season. 

New year intensive Hive Clean treatment

The weather has warmed up considerably - 6.7 degrees.  I decided to start our first anti-Varroa treatment of the year.   I used Hive Clean last year to good effect on Adele hive and so we are rolling it out to all the hives this year.  I treated Beatrice first since I know we have a Varroa problem in that hive.  The bees were quite busy - quite a few on top of the frames.  Then Adele, the bees are quiet, all the bees are in between the frames.  There is lots of brace comb in Adele hive which will make the first spring inspection a messy business next month.   Then the cantankerous Connie hive who were complaining the moment I started to remove the crown board and erupted out of the hive - I ended up with quite alot of bee poo on my suit and gloves did the treatment and shut the hive back up but quite a few bees stayed with me and were flying around.  Eventually they all went home.  Next treatment on Saturday - hopefully the warmer weather will continue.

Bees in the snow

Unfortunately the bees decided to get adventurous today and came out in the snow.  I can only assume that they need to do cleansing flights.  Although it has been alot warmer today than the rest of the week it is still far too cold for bees.

 This is Connie hive and you can see the bees having emerged from the entrance immediately landing in the snow and being over come.

I was worried that this mean woodpecker damage but no and I suppose the woodpecker would have eaten the bees anyway.  Poor bees.

So New Season here we come......

So I realise it has been a long time since I posted but there has been nothing to report.  The bees are snug in there hives eating their honey and waiting for warm spring like days.

Today Suzanne and I met up to plan the start of the season and get ready for some Spring jobs.  Even though it was really cold we went out and hefted the hives and had a quick look.  All colonies and still alive and have stores - so far so good.

First job of the season is to do an intensive Hive Clean treatment on all three hives as soon as the weather warms up a bit.   We used Hive Clean last year to great effect and since I wimped out of using Oxalic acid on the bees this winter and Beatrice hive has a high varroa count - we need to get cracking on our varroa treatments.

The second big job of the season is to do a bailey comb change on Adele hive.  This is where you empty the bees onto all new frames and foundation, so that they start the season on fresh wax.  But you must feed them since you will have taken away all their stores with the old wax.  Wax making takes a great deal of energy and uses up alot of honey.

I have ordered new frames and foundation in the Thornes sale so as soon as that arrives we need to start using our haphazard carpentry skills.