First Inspection of the Season - Hive Two

Hive Two is my original hive and has always been very strong. They came through winter very well, considering I haven't touched them for at least 4 months (maybe thats why they come through so well...?)

There was very little dross on the base board and only 6 frames that had any significant rouge comb on. While inspecting the bottom box I came across brood on the 3rd frame in (from the sunny side) but no evidence of recent queen activity down there. There were also a couple of frames that looked like they were almost ready to be capped which is also very impressive for this time of year.

I inserted a drone frame as part of my varroa control strategy. This is earlier than I though I'd be able to but as there were plenty of drones around already I decided to give it a go. In my next inspection I'll try to move the queen into the bottom box and place a queen excluder on to keep her there. This will keep the brood contained and limit the mites options.

Brood, lots of it

The second box, which is full depth as is is the first), also had good honey and pollen stores. There were several frames with significant numbers of eggs so the queen is obviously healthy and active. There were also two sides fully covered by brood.

The third box is a three quarter and had some nectar but nothing else of interest.

Removing center of base board

Varroa seems to be non existent in this hive at present, which is very encouraging. I had expected to have to treat. I've only visually inspected for varroa by breaking open drone brood and eyeballing the workers so there could still be a significant population.

The finished baseboard

My local hardware store sells 3mm galvinised mesh so I bought a piece, but the center out of my bottom board and replaced it with the mesh. This will make monitoring the varroa population much simpler as I won't have to disturb the bees to do it. It also means that any mites that fall of the bees (or are groomed off) will fall out of the hive and not be able to climb onto another bee.