the past few weeks has been a good time to check your hives. they should be pretty active with these warmer temps, at least making cleansing flights, and probably some brood production.
here are a few things to check:
overall hive health, a gob of dead bees on the bottom board means your bees have died off. check to see if there is any activity in the hive. possible causes tracheal mites/and or varrora mites. check to see if there is any indication of foul brood disease.
bottom boards, rotten boards should be replaced with new ones.
check for honey stores on overwintered hives, with the warm temps they will be using a lot of it. supplemental feeding with 1:1 sugar water will probably be needed, as well as pollen substitute.
check for brood production, carni's usually start in january maybe a little earlier. euro's will most likely have brood in the frames by now. check for good brood caps, they should be slightly rounded. if you have brood production already started then you should be reversing the brood chambers so that you position the frames with the queen and the eggs/larvae on the bottom and capped brood on top. remember, bees will work toward the top and if they have no where to go, they will prep to swarm and there goes all your honey for the year. reversing should be done every couple of weeks until the main nectar flow(when you see dandelions, the flow is usually on). with it in overdrive around the first of may.
get your honey supers ready. you dont want to wait until the last minute to build frames, supers, repaint, etc. you will miss the nectar flow and your bees will swarm.
if you have never kept bees, you should at least see what its all about. the local clubs have workshops to get most folks started. good luck.
here are a few things to check:
overall hive health, a gob of dead bees on the bottom board means your bees have died off. check to see if there is any activity in the hive. possible causes tracheal mites/and or varrora mites. check to see if there is any indication of foul brood disease.
bottom boards, rotten boards should be replaced with new ones.
check for honey stores on overwintered hives, with the warm temps they will be using a lot of it. supplemental feeding with 1:1 sugar water will probably be needed, as well as pollen substitute.
check for brood production, carni's usually start in january maybe a little earlier. euro's will most likely have brood in the frames by now. check for good brood caps, they should be slightly rounded. if you have brood production already started then you should be reversing the brood chambers so that you position the frames with the queen and the eggs/larvae on the bottom and capped brood on top. remember, bees will work toward the top and if they have no where to go, they will prep to swarm and there goes all your honey for the year. reversing should be done every couple of weeks until the main nectar flow(when you see dandelions, the flow is usually on). with it in overdrive around the first of may.
get your honey supers ready. you dont want to wait until the last minute to build frames, supers, repaint, etc. you will miss the nectar flow and your bees will swarm.
if you have never kept bees, you should at least see what its all about. the local clubs have workshops to get most folks started. good luck.
