This Month in the Apiary: April
- If this is your first inspection check the colony is queenright. Look for the queen or eggs
- Make sure the queen has space to lay, you may need to remove a frame or two of winter stores and replace with foundation
- If it is warm enough do a full health check , shake the bees of each frame of brood and look for for brood disease, do a varroa check ( use the BeeBase varroaachecker)and look for deformed wing virus
- If the colony is strong you could do a shook swarm to move the bees on to clean foundation or consider a Bailey comb change or start removing old frames or working them to the side for removal. and replacement. Change the floor
- Look to see if the bees are building drone comb or you see drone cells, this indicates you need to do careful weekly inspections to watch for queen cells
- Prepare equipment to be ready for swarms
- Be ready to put supers on as the colony builds to about seven frames of bees, to give the bees space to move in to
- Mark and clip the queen if this was not done in the Autumn , it has rubbed off or she has been superceded