Brood rearing will often restart this month and will place extra burden on the colonies winter reserves. If there is a suitably mild day, check quickly for remaining honey reserves and if necessary be prepared to feed sugar or candy.

With brood rearing commencing again, the mite load within the colony will start to increase so this is a good time, if you haven't done so already, to check your mite drop. Heavy infestations will require a spring treatment of the colony.

In some areas the first of the spring bulbs are flowering so as the new seasons pollen loads return on workers, to allow them unrestricted access, any mouseguards fitted should be removed.

Whilst things are still reasonably quiet, make the most of the time to put together new frames and hives. Beginners, this will be covered on your beekeeping course but for reference see the pdf file below, Assembling Hives and Frames. As they say, anyone able to put together any IKEA flat pack furniture should be able to manage assembly of flat packed beekeeping equipment!

Assembling hives and frames

By now colonies should be showing signs of early spring activity. Queens should be laying patches of eggs in the warmth of the cluster and workers will be increasingly going on cleansing flights. On the milder days, workers may also be seen bringing in pollen from early flowering plants like snowdrops, crocuses and winter heaths.

Around the middle of the month, carpet squares should be put on top of the crownboard and the varroa trays should be inserted under open-mesh floors to minimize heat loss from the cluster. This will go some way to assisting the early brood rearing that should have begun.

Every three or four years, during a spell of cold weather, if the outside of the hives’ are dry, they can be given a coat of liquid insecticide-free preservative. Choose a cold, windy day when few, if any, bees are flying, BUT BE CAREFUL as most ‘safe’ products remain harmful until dry.

Regular checks of apiaries should be carried out to ensure that any surrounding fencing is stock-proof, no vandalism has taken place and there is no damage to the hives.

Each hive should be hefted to check on the quantity of food stores remaining. Check for the following signs at the hive entrance. There should be a considerable amount of fine wax particles from the uncapping of stores. If large pieces of wax are on the alighting board, you may have a mouse in residence! Spots of faeces may be evident on the front of the brood chamber. This can be caused by the bees’ over long confinement due to severe weather, therefore preventing cleansing (toilet) flights. It may also be dysentery caused by fermenting stores or Nosema disease. (Nosema is treatable, so if you see signs of dysentery, have your bees checked).

If the weather is mild enough and bees are flying freely, bringing in large pollen loads and you can detect warmth when placing the
back of your hand against the crown board, then all should be well.

If there are fewer bees flying from one hive compared to others in the apiary or no flying bees at all, a quick check can be made by raising the crown board and having a peek inside.

Hive ‘inserts’ should be checked for the presence of varroa, pending possible treatment early next month.
Once the weather is good enough, each hive should be lifted off its respective mesh floor / floorboards without disturbing the brood chamber(s) or crown board, and given a clean floor for the new season. In order to conserve heat, an entrance block with a narrow entrance should then be put in.

Bees which are short of food must be given food, spring syrup fed using a contact feeder (see Bee Health)

*Miller or Ashforth feeders are unsuitable for early feeding because the bees will not go up over the cold ‘weir’ to reach the syrup*

This month bees will be collecting nectar and pollen from flowering currant, dandelion, willow, cherry, gorse and blackthorn, leading to rapid colony build-up. Continue to monitor the food supply and the mite drop on the hive inserts.

On the alighting board, or outside the hive, hard grey old pollen pellets the size of a cell may be seen. If crushed between the fingers they will break up and show layers. Sometimes a trace of colour might still be visible. The  appearance of old pollen pellets is a good indication that the bees are expanding their brood nest.

Chalk Brood mummies may also be observed at the hive entrance. These do not crumble into layers, they are usually smaller and flatter than pollen pellets and are often recognizable as poorly developed pupae. Chalk brood can appear if bees have wintered in damp conditions and can be seen in nuclei which are short of bees. In other words, where the bees have been under stress. Some strains of bees are more prone to it than others. If widespread, chalk brood can hinder colony buildup.
Apiguard encourages hygienic conditions within the hive and may reduce the occurrence of chalk brood. In severe cases the colony should be requeened from a different strain and any badly affected combs replaced with acetic acid sterilised combs.
 
If you need to treat for varroa in spring, it should be carried out before the hives have honey supers added. Do not use Apiguard or any other thymol-based treatment prior to the honey flow as its odour can remain in honey for some time.

Towards the end of April or when the sun is warm and there is little wind, a first inspection can be made. The hive entrance should be gently smoked, then wait a few minutes before opening the hive in order to allow time for the  smoke to take effect. Gently lever up the crown board and give it a sharp shake above the open hive to dislodge the queen back into the brood chamber IF she has been driven onto the crown board by the smoke.
This inspection should be swift so that you do not chill the brood. The first thing I do at this first inspection is to find the queen. She is more easily spotted at this time because there are fewer bees in the colony and as there are no, or few, drones, she is the largest bee. She is likely to be found on a frame containing eggs in the top brood chamber. She might not be the queen which you are expecting to find. The queen that you saw during your last autumn inspection may have been marked and/or clipped, but a younger unmarked queen may now be in the hive, the old one having been superseded in late autumn.
April is the best time of the year to mark the queen. Use a ‘press-on’ type queen cage to mark her. When marking, ensure that you allow the paint to reach the hard surface of the queen’s thorax. If you only paint the thorax hairs, the paint will very soon wear off. Once marked carefully lift the cage a small amount but keep the queen in the cage until the paint has dried.

When looking for a queen, concentrate solely on that task. When found, and marked, you can leave her in the cage until you have carried out other tasks, so that you know her whereabouts.

The remainder of the brood chamber/s can now be checked quickly. It is important that you refresh your memory on the appearance of healthy, sealed and unsealed brood so that any abnormality can be given a closer examination. Check that there are nice areas of eggs and larvae also slabs of sealed brood containing few ‘missed’ cells. Continue to check for signs of disease.

Continue to monitor varroa numbers by checking the hive inserts and/or uncapping drone brood with an uncapping fork. Be careful not to kill too much drone brood or you may seriously reduce the drone gene-pool which will be available for queen mating later in the season.
Check that the colony has enough food to last it until your next visit.
Now is the chance to remove misshapen combs or combs clogged with old hard pollen and replace them with drawn combs, if you have them! If not, only replace one or at the most two with foundation. The renewal of three or four
brood combs per year helps to cut down disease. Finally, don’t forget to release the queen before closing the hive. Do not split the brood nest or you will give the colony a severe setback. Let the brood expand naturally.
Now carefully close up the hive and put an old carpet over the crown board. You need to keep the brood as warm as possible at this time of year.
And Finally, FILL IN YOUR HIVE RECORD CARD.

Swarming will be upon us by next month so you should now work out what you are going to do when you see your first queen cells.
It is no good to wait until you first find them you must have a plan to act upon when you do!

May brings the start of the spring honey flow from sources such as oilseed rape, sycamore, horse chestnut, bluebell, top fruit, etc. and in order to derive maximum benefit from these the colonies must be strong. Indeed, the beekeeper’s skill is in keeping colonies as strong as possible from May until August. We have no way of predicting what the weather is going to be like or how long good foraging conditions will last, therefore you must endeavor to maintain your colonies as strong as possible so that they can make the most of any flow. This means that you must deter or delay swarm preparations at least until the spring flow is over and exercise effective control over swarming if or when it comes.

Never open a hive unless you have a reason for doing so and have a plan worked out in advance for what you are going to do and have what equipment you may require at hand. In early May the colonies should be checked in order to see that the queen has not suffered any ill effects. There is no need to find the queen, just check for the presence of patches of eggs. There should now be drones in the hive. Bees work best when they have some drones, but you don’t want too many. Incidentally, drones do not become fertile until they are twelve to thirteen days old. Check that the queen has plenty of space in which to lay. A queen excluder and the first honey super are put on top. This super should be of drawn comb if you have it so that when the flow starts, honey will be stored in the super and not allowed to clog up the space in the brood chamber.

After a week of the honey flow more breeding and super room should be provided and as the season progresses, the colonies are checked weekly to see that there is enough super room and that swarming preparations are not being made. Make sure that there is enough super room for storage of honey and for the bees to ‘hang nectar out to ripen’ in spare cells.

If queen cell cups, with nothing in them are found, this is quite normal and it is a waste of time removing them. If the cups are being extended and contain an egg, or more important, a fed larva, then you must assume that swarming will take place soon after the queen cells are sealed on the ninth day after the egg was laid. Be careful cutting out queen cells make sure there are eggs present or you could render the stock queenless. If cells are removed they will probably be rebuilt the following week and you must remedy the situation using your chosen method of swarm control.
The queen cells which were found first of all will contain larvae properly fed from birth therefore they will produce the best queens and should be used if you intend to breed from that stock.
An artificial swarm is probably the best way to proceed if you are a beginner.

If you are lucky enough to catch a swarm hive it on foundation and feed it well. A swarm is one of the best ways of obtaining good drawn out comb from your bees! Good Luck!