Spring feeding – you may wish to assist with feeding to give the bees a further head start. or if the weather doesn’t allow the bees out to forage. A 1:1 syrup is okay now
Spring cleaning – give the bees a clean floor, and entrance, Think about changing comb with a Bailey comb change or working old comb to the edge to remove
Varroa – Check varroa levels by putting a board in. Use the Beebase calculator to see if you need to treat
Do a complete health check inspection once a month; shake all bees off the comb and inspect every cell. Inspect every 7 days for swarming signs, Queen laying, brood pattern and stores. The temperature must be above 15C.
If you find charged cells, remove the queen on frame she’s on and place in a nuc or new hive on the old site. Move the parent colony to one side, remove all cells except one well charged one. ( artificial swarm)
Unite small colonies by the paper method. Remove one queen and leave for a week before consolidating boxes.
Make sure there is enough space for the queen to lay and for the bees . Once on 7+ frames of brood add a super– add supers as necessary. Once the first super has most frames with stores and several capped add second super. The bees need processing space, so don’t wait until the super is all capped before adding another.
Find and mark the Queen before the hive gets too busy. Clip to avoid loosing the bees if the colony swarm.

Watch changes in the weather, smaller colonies or those with less stores may need feeding.