Title Photo: Dismantled Smokers ready for cleaning.
This month we start our preparations as we see the bees get active on cleansing flights and collecting pollen.
I’ve several smokers which I use over a season, so about this time I take them apart, clean off all the tar and ensure the bellows are working efficiently with no holes!
Then I have to remember which bits have to fit onto each other.
When bees are busy on warm days, it’s a good time to spend a few minutes checking all is going well.
Takeout the Varroa slide and see what debris is dropping through and look out for brood cappings which indicates the Queen is laying successfully and young bees emerging.
If you see “bee poo” all over the outside of the hive like this picture above shows, clearly the colony has Nosema, a gut infection to which some are susceptible and in the early spring becomes very evident.
There is little you can do at this time of year but I note in my records not to breed from this colony and will remove all the wooden hive parts and replace with sterilised equipment probably in April.
The comb I will see how badly that is soiled and maybe do a Shook Swarm.
As the snowdrops and crocus bloom that early essential pollen will be gathered but as you can see in the following pictures the “ pollen load” gathered by these elderly winter bees is not large.
Give it another month and they will struggle to carry the pollen back.
Keep an ‘Eagle Eye’ on stores within the hive if in any doubt small lump of Fondant on top of the Queen excluder on top of the cluster will save the day until nectar and pollen from early wild plum, and black thorn start to produce.
But mice and other rodents are still trying to get into one of my weaker colonies struggling to get through the winter. See how they are chewing the woodwork and the metal foil I’ve used to reduce the entrance.
March will see some early fine weather they are predicting, so nearly time to take off the Woodpecker protection (below) and clean up the vegetation around hives before they get too active.
