It's almost the beginning of spring!

The queen should start laying more and more eggs, depending of course on the age of the queen, the number of bees in the hive to warm the brood, and the availability of food. But the summer bees are starting to take over from the winter bees, which will become increasingly rare.

Observations

In Bordeaux, the temperatures have been rather mild up to now, but the humidity remains high with all this rain... If the weather allows, you can make your first spring visit! But be patient, you still need to wait for several consecutive days with temperatures above 20°C and less humidity. We will see in the next blog how to carry out your spring visit and also how to record it in the free LinkedBee application to keep the information for future visits and the following year.

What are we doing on our hives at the beginning of spring?

Yesterday, we checked the hives to make sure everything was fine. It's time to enlarge the hive entrance, except for the weaker hives to avoid robbing. We had put candy at the beginning of winter and even in early January for one hive. We took advantage of this visit to check the consumption level of each hive.

A colony that has consumed little candy is usually a weak colony. Conversely, if there is almost no candy left, it is a sign of a strong colony. On our side, we put half a block of candy in each hive to finish the winter well. The season is full of promises!!

However, be careful of robbing weaker hives!

In Bordeaux, I think we can start stimulating egg laying with 50-50 syrup (about 100ml every two days) during the second half of March. We will also add a little apple cider vinegar to help solve dysentery problems.

For stronger hives, we also need to pay attention to the housing crisis!! It is possible to add a super to the hive. The trick is also to put a sheet of newspaper between the hive body and the super. So, when the bees need additional space and deem the temperatures high enough, they will start nibbling on the paper and colonizing the super. Don't forget to put the queen excluder! Otherwise, the queen may lay eggs in the super...

See you soon!