We received the following question this morning and thought it would be a good idea to answer it here.
‘What do you have to do when spring comes for your bees? It was my first winter with my bees?’
Bees are resilient and can’t wait for the spring to arrive so that they may begin to forge for pollen, nectar, and water. In fact, just last week, our area began to hit the 70’s as our daily high and the bees are out and about.
The following list is what we do when spring comes. We are in the process of going though this list, but not yet removing winterization because we fear there may be a cold snap yet.
What We Do In The Spring:
- Examining, cleaning, and storing hives that did not survive winter (dead out hives),
- Remove hive winterization on surviving hives,
- Reversing hive boxes so brood is on the bottom,
- Replacing old, dark comb frames with new frames and foundation,
- Installing new bees, if any,
- Feeding bees that are short on stores,
- Assessing the health and productivity of the queen,
- Monitoring the colony for potential swarming,
- Setting up swarm traps to capture new bees,
- Moving hives to new locations,
- Checking and treating for varroa mites, and
- Adding honey supers.
Do you have a question about bees and beekeeping? Send it to us at Steven@TheCopperTrinity.com