Last weekend, the 12th April I managed to at least open all my hives, only really had time to make sure a queen is present force her back down into the brood box and return the excluder. Glad to say all queens present and with capped worker brood in all colonies everything seems to be in a good starting place for the beginning of the season.
I am constantly baffled as to how two colonies, side by side, almost identical going into the Winter can be so different in the Spring. In a two of my apiaries one of the colonies is already on nine frames of brood, the other on just three. The OSR has just started to flower so colonies need to be at their strongest to take advantage of it and three frames of brood just doesn’t cut it. As soon as drones appear (no drone brood yet), I will breed some queens as replacements for the weakest colonies, as usual, no panic this year as I have decided not to produce queens for sale, and I will not be taking on any teaching this year either. That was a decision I made at the end of last season and considering what’s happening in the world right now seems fortuitous.
