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Full force spring

No prizes for guessing what pollen this is disappearing into the hive to feed the brood!
(But you can guess in the comments section anyway!)

With temperatures at last becoming spring-like, a second full inspection of the bees has become possible in Hampshire, southern England. All the colonies look healthy and varroa mites aren’t obvious — but some are bound to be there. The colonies, regularly treated in alternate years with Apistan and Apiguard, were treated last season with Apistan since there is as yet no obvious sign of resistant mites in these colonies.

All the colonies came through winter, so there has been an embarrassment of riches 😉 To cut down a little, one colony was given to another local beekeeper and one was united with another existing colony because although it was very healthy, it was just a little too defensive for so early in the year.  Today, the united colony under a new queen was in perfect temper. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a queen exerts her influence on thousands of bees!

The united colony is of course bursting with activity and was the only one to show new comb building. This has been the slowest spring in my beekeeping career!

Vita’s guest beekeeper blogger

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