This is a special entry in Matt’s diary because, in March, Matt was able to give his bees their first full inspection of 2025! Would you like to hear how they’re doing?
On Thursday 6th March, Matt stepped outside into bright sunshine and comfortable temperatures of ~14°C. Giddily, he realised the weather was just right – he’d be able to spend time with his bees! So, he donned his bee suit and dashed to his hives.
Besides saying hello, his aims were to:
- Remove the nadired supers from underneath the brood boxes before the queens start laying in them.
- Confirm his strong suspicion that the queens had started laying.
- Check the remaining quantity of stored honey.
When he arrived at the apiary, he saw little black and yellow ladies flying all around him. Inside the two hives, he found two strong workforces. So far, so excellent!
Now, let’s get those nadired supers out of the hives.
They were more or less empty of honey stores and, thankfully, they were empty of brood too. Matt won the race against the queens – neither had begun laying eggs there yet.
Unfortunately, relief subsided into worry when Matt discovered a cause for concern in one of the hives: it has mould. It seems the sun doesn’t reach this hive as much as the other one, so it gets damp and ultimately mouldy. That’s not good for anybody’s health!
Ever the problem solver, Matt plans to lay a ground sheet beneath the hive to stop the moisture seeping in. And he plans to take home the damp and mouldy brood box to thoroughly dry out, replacing it with a fresh one.
This colony also appeared to have trouble removing deceased bees over the winter and quite a number had accumulated at the bottom of the hive, so Matt took care of it for them.
Now that we’ve dealt with death, let’s find out whether Matt was correct about the colonies raising new life.
Short answer: he was!
Matt found eggs, larvae and sealed brood in both colonies, which means both queens are back in action. Soon enough, the young will be fully formed and begin their lives as worker bees, performing all manner of tasks to keep the colony functioning. A highly important job at this time of year is foraging, foraging and more foraging because the food reserves have been rapidly depleted by the winter eating and feeding the babies to build up the spring workforce.
Since we’re on the topic of food, let’s check the honey supplies.
Oh dear. The overall stores were worse than Matt expected. It’s okay though, don’t panic, because he noticed the problem in time. He immediately provided the colonies with light syrup while it was warm, and returned with fondant when it was cooler.
Sure, there were some issues that needed resolving but both colonies are healthy and Matt was able to take action to get everything in shipshape. I’d say the very first inspection of 2025 was a success! Yay!
