April 13th Inspection

It was a warm sunny spring day today in the mid-60s, so I did another inspection to see how my bees were doing. Even with what seems like a late and terribly dry spring, we now have dandelions and daffodils blooming and a few hyacinths remain. There are a few wild flowers also blooming and we've seen the forsythia blooming nearby. No tulips yet and no fruit blossoms yet.

The pollen patty that's been out there for six weeks now has hardly been touched. After conferring with Becky on this, we decided to remove it, apparently they now have enough pollen. The upper box still was quite heavy with stored honey. There were about 8 frames like this one mostly capped, but showing signs of consumption.

The bee population seemed strong, but not crowded. The middle brood box had several frames like this one with capped and uncapped brood. We didn't see the queen today, but it looks like she's been doing her job. There were also a few frames that were starting to fill with pollen and several bees legs full of pollen could be seen returning from the fields today.

We did our spring rotation today, moving the bottom brood chamber up and moving the middle one down. We left the honey stores on the top. We also removed two empty frames (from the north side) of the middle box and replaced them with two frames partly filled with nectar and honey that had been stored in the freezer since last fall.

Becky's new bees will be arriving on Friday or Saturday, so if the weather is cooperative, she should be installing them next weekend. Hopefully some of the fruit trees will be blooming just in time to greet them.