E-training blog

March in the Apiary

Main Actions
On a warm day observe the entrance for activity and pollen going in, this can be an indicator of brood & therefore a laying queen.

Inspections
Probably leave full inspections till late March or early April unless you have an urgent reason (geographical variation) or if weather warmer than average, even then keep it brief.

Feeding
Stores can be running low especially with an expanding colony and limited forage.
When adequate forage available take off fondant
If feed required 1:1 syrup can be used
Pollen patties an option but needs maintaining 

Pests and Disease
Remove mouse guards when main frost risks have passed
Check Varroa levels

Equipment
Find your Queen excluders and have other kit ready to go.
Be prepared with kit to house upcoming swarms and perform artificial swarms (splits)?
Do you have at least double the kit for your current number of hives?

Hive configuration
Did you put a super under the brood box for the winter? Think about the best time to reconfigure the hive

Other
Losses can still be high this month. 
Winter bees are dying off now and hopefully being replaced 
A failing queen or disease may mean the hoped for build up never happens
Stay vigilant for any yellow-legged Asian hornet queens 

February 2026

This is a hazardous month for our colonies and without opening up the hive we can’t know for sure what is happening inside. Resist the temptation -but observe from outside. Despite the constant rain recently my bees have been flying out during sunny spells.

The amount of daylight is increasing every day even if the ambient temperature continues to take dips. Some workers may be tempted to make foraging flights in addition to ‘cleansing’ and removal of dead bees. If they bring in pollen, this may fool the queen into an early start of egg laying. The worker bees then must look after the nursery and this can lead to the rapid depletion of stores. Look at the varroa board to see if uncapping debris is accumulating.

Heft the hive to see if the colony needs feeding. This is a bit of an art rather than a science. Can you really remember how heavy that hive was when you last hefted it?

If there has been no activity at the front of a hive on a mild day when the sun has warmed up the hive entrance, alarm bells may be ringing. This may be the exception to the rule of leaving well alone. Lift the roof and look for evidence of activity. I leave a piece of perspex over the hole in the crown board to look through. The bees may of course have clustered away from this source of colder air. If you have first inspected the varroa board you will know where the cluster is. Quickly lift the crown board – are the bees where you expect them to be. If all is quiet, have a sniff. Any unpleasant smells may indicate a problem. Perhaps the smell of mould or worse still a smell like acetic acid which catches your throat like vinegar. You need advice!! More than I can give here.

Jobs for the month

Now is the time to check that stored supers have not been infested by wax moth. I have recently joined a Men’s Shed and made a cover for my stack of supers. Hopefully this will not blow off like the last lid.

If you have not already done so, get the blow torch out and clean up the corners of the boxes. If there is wax damage on frames then remove all signs of the moths. Better still, remove the frames from the box.

November

From now on it’s best to leave the bees to their own devices. They will not be making many flights out of the hive except if there is some late pollen available eg Ivy flowers.

With all the wet weather we had in October I have a feeling that my bees may not have stored sufficient pollen and nectar for their survival for the next four or five months. I will be feeding them syrup (eg Ambrosia) for another few weeks until it is too cold to go outside without a sweater on. Feeding syrup is OK as its water content is about the same as honey; whilst feeding your bees homemade sugar syrup contains more water than the bees can handle at a time when the colony’s workforce is being depleted. The syrup can go mouldy and is useless for the colony.

October – Winter Bees & Varroa

WINTER BEES Between August and November the queen will start to lay eggs that will develop into winter bees. By the end of November all the bees in the hive will be winter bees. These will take the colony through to spring and are sometimes called diutinus bees from the Latin for ‘long lived’. They will live for up to six months. The winter worker bees are physically distinct becauseof their enlarged fat bodies. This has a special function of producing large amounts of a protein called vitellogenin. This egg-yolk like protein is added to brood food which enables bees to live longer.

These bees will only develop into healthy long-lived bees if there is enough feed available during their development and that they have not been weakened by Varroa.

TREATING FOR VARROA There is much written about treating bees for Varroa and different methods come into favour and then dismissed. Some beekeepers completely disparage the use of chemical treatments in their hives, relying on the natural ‘hygienic behaviour’ of their particular breed of honey bees.

The management of varroa is an all-year activity. The aim of treatment is to keep the level of mite infestation to a low level where harm to the health of the colony is kept to a minimum. It is arguable that treatment at this time of year is the most effective time since the size of brood is reduced. 

The first thing to be done is assess the level of varroa infestation you have in each colony. Only then can you decide what needs to be done. Put the varroa board into the slot at the back of the hive floor and leave for a few days – no more than a week. It can then be inspected to see the level of varroa infestation. You can then decide on whether treatment is needed. If you can count 10-30 mites then action is needed – now.

More on Varroa and its treatment – Lynfa’s podcast

Also read Kirsty Stanton article – Varroa management in honey bee colonies, page 32 Welsh Beekeeper, Summer 2024.

Next time: DOC discusses Queen excluders and mouse guards

Honey Harvest

This is the best time of the year – the time we find out whether our husbandry has helped or hindered our colonies to prepare enough honey for us to remove a good harvest of honey whilst leaving enough to see the bees through the winter. After all that’s why they are storing the honey.

In mid August Martin removed the full supers from the apiary’s hives after first inserting a clearing board to remove most of the workers from each super. A task best done with two people as there is much lifting of heavy boxes.

On Sunday 17 August we held the first of two training sessions at the Gower Honey Cooperative’s honey room in the kitchen of Llanrhidian Village Hall. DOC gave a short talk about the need for hygiene at every stage of the process from removal of the supers from the hives, transporting to the honey room, extraction of the honey from the frames and the ripening of the extracted honey (allowing the honey to settle with air bubbles and flakes of wax rising to the surface).

On Sunday 31 August the Hive to Jar process was completed. The honey is ready for sale at Llys Nini in support of RSPCA fund raising.

Inspecting your hives

I can’t improve on the NBU’s advice – so here it is.

 Before inspecting, familiarise yourself with the differences in appearance between healthy brood and diseased brood. Consider bringing a smartphone with you into the apiary to assist with identification.

• Wear a clean bee-suit and have a lit smoker close to hand. Make sure the smoker is placed in a safe location away from meltable items such as polystyrene, or dry vegetation that might catch fire.

• Inspect the ground outside the entrance and the removeable Varroa floor (if inserted) for signs of dead/diseased bees or brood; the nurse bees will remove some of them from the hive (Figure 22).

• Remove the hive roof and place it upturned on the ground behind the hive, close to where you are working. Place it so that it does not block your exit route or constitute a trip hazard if you need to leave the hive for a moment.

• If there are supers on the hive, place them on top of the upturned roof. Keep the crown board over the supers to prevent robbing.

• Be gentle when prizing the boxes apart, banging or bumping them will aggravate the bees.

• Remove the queen excluder and check the underside for the queen. If she is present, place her back into the colony, or into a queen-cage for safekeeping for the duration of the inspection. Place the queen excluder upturned on the supers.

• If you have two brood boxes, place the top brood box above the queen excluder on the supers while you inspect the bottom box (the queen excluder will prevent the queen from escaping from the underside of the brood box).

• To begin inspecting a brood box, gently remove the outer most frame (or dummy board) closest to you, being careful not to roll the bees against the side of the box as you lift the frame out. Check that the queen is not on it before putting the frame aside so that you can operate inside the brood box.

• Use your hive tool to gently prize apart frames that are stuck together. A gentle approach is recommended to prevent aggravating the bees. Examine each frame in series, one at a time, placing it back into the box in the same orientation it was in when you took it out; but leaving space to lift out the next frame without rolling the bees.

• Methodically examine one frame at a time. When you find a frame of brood, it will be necessary to shake off the bees if you wish to inspect the brood. This will allow a thorough examination, to look for signs of disease and to find swarm cells.

• To shake off bees hold the frame by both lugs, lower the frame one third the way into the hive and give the frame a sharp downward jolt into the hive, being careful not to bang it against the box or other frames. It may take some practice to do this in a way that clears most of the bees from the frame.

• Check that all stages of brood are present. If there are no eggs and young larvae, this indicates a problem with the queen.

• Carefully check that the brood cells look healthy. Larvae should be ‘C’ shaped and pearly white and capped cells should be dry and biscuit coloured. Read the foulbrood advisory leaflet to learn more about brood diseases.

• Check the frames for signs of queen cells. It is important to learn the difference between swarm cells and emergency queen cells and act accordingly.

• Consider photographing anything that you are concerned may be abnormal. You can study the photos carefully indoors and show it to a mentor if you have concerns.

• Continue until all frames have been examined and gently reassemble the hive. Do not forget to return the queen to the hive if you have caged her during the inspection and to place the last frame (or dummy board) back into the hive so that all the frames have the correct bee spacing. Be careful to replace the queen excluder back in the correct orientation.

June Gap & Swarms

You may have heard about the June Gap – this refers to the period after the end of the flush of Spring blossoms and the beginning of later flowering trees and plants. The so-called “gap” will vary from place to place according to the local micro-climate and soils; and from year to year. The beekeeper needs to be vigilant: not only surveying the local landscape and gardens but also recognising what is happening in each colony. At the end of May I found two colonies that were falling very low on stores of nectar so have already given them a boost of liquid feed. Whilst at the same time, a mile and a half away at home I have a colony with a super nearly full of capped and uncapped honey.

At the same time as possible dearth of food, I have been looking out for signs of swarming and started to consider taking preventive action. Swarming is the natural impulse for a honeybee colony to reproduce by splitting itself in half – or as beekeepers say ‘losing half their bees’.

There are several actions for the beekeeper to take if he or she wants to keep all their bees.

  • Make sure that there is sufficient space for the burgeoning colony to develop. The Queen needs space to lay her eggs and can’t do so if the brood box is full of stores – add a super either as an additional brood box below the existing brood box [to give more space of laying eggs or above the Queen excluder to take more nectar and honey.
  • Check for Queen cups and Queen cells. Don’t unthinkingly destroy all the cups and cells. First, the bees will start rebuilding them as soon as you turn your back. Also it may well be that the colony has decided that it needs a new Queen ie supercedure.
  • Make a split. Read Wally Shaw’s booklet An Apiary Guide to Swarm Control.

Jobs for the month

  • Weekly inspections – looking out for Queen cups and cells
  • Check for disease – European Foul Brood has been reported in the Neath area
  • Check for level of Varroa infestation
  • Consider whether you can take off a Spring honey harvest

Guidance

NBU guidance on Varroa

May bursts onto the scene

The spring blossoms have been and gone. The first two days of May have been like summer. Indeed at 15:00 the first swarm of the year (for me) arrived in my garden. The previous day I had witnessed a lot of activity around the stack of boxes just on the other side of the fruit cage to my single hive at the top of my garden. Hardly worth the name of an Apiary though I have had three hives there in previous years.

As the brood box was stacked between two supers and the bees were exploring a hole in one corner of the brood box (should have repaired that by now) I twisted the brood box so that entry under the corners would be easier. I did not have time to move the brood box onto a stand and floor last night as I twisted my back doing this manipulations without my suit on (always a mistake). So this afternoon I had to watch helplessly as the swarm took up residence in the wrong place.

This is a timely reminder to continue the weekly inspections I started in April. I was lucky to find that all five colonies had survived the winter without the ravages of moth wax which many beekeepers suffered last season. The colonies were Queenright, evidenced by the biscuit coloured sealed brood. No queen cells.

Now in May the likelihood of swarming is increasing and it is important to check your hives regularly for the early signs of swarming. And don’t forget to be keeping a lookout for the health of the colony.

Spring feeding

I’ve just taken off all the feeders in my apiaries and rearranged any remnants of fondant so that the bees will clear this away. No inspections yet but I sneaked a quick view when treating for varroa, dribbling Varoamed up and down each seem where the bees were visible. I’ve not tried this treatment before and used a tray of Apiguard in one hive so I can make some sort of comparison.

Making an inspection of the activity at the hive entrance will give you some guide to the activity going on inside the colony. It’s difficult to tell whether bees are returning with nectar but it is a wondrous sight when they return with bulging pollen bags on their hind legs. This may be an indication that the Queen has started laying and there are pupae to be fed.

My aim in feeding is to give the winter bees the energy to go out foraging as well as feeding the emerging workforce. Lynfa Davies offers a word of caution, because you don’t want to trigger too rapid a growth. She says that this can result in colonies swarming as soon as the weather warms up.

If you live in or pass through the countryside keep your eyes open for the flowers that are emerging. Blackthorn is the first to show in my part of Gower and on the hills by me there is plenty of gorse which honeybees use their magic to make them explode in a cloud of pollen as well as the steady working of catkins of various sorts.

Spring Equinox

The headlines announce that this Spring Equinox is the warmest since 1972. As a human this seems good news with the threat of a late frost diminishing, lighter evenings and the first blossoms on Blackthorn. For honeybees it is just another day.

Some YouTube beekeepers talk fulsomely of bees welcoming the equinox and longer days with increased activity; but there are no sudden changes caused by increased light. What really affects them is warmth and the appearance of Spring flowers full of pollen and nectar. As the winter bees make foraging flights for the first time in many months the Queen is triggered into laying new brood which will become the new generation of 2025. The old winter bees will straggle back to the hive with their loads of nectar and pollen for a few more weeks and then they will be declared redundant as their places are taken by the new generation. April will see a spectacular increase in the number of bees in each colony and activity in each hive will be positively buzzing.

Have a good Spring!