Inspecting Hives during Unpredictable Weather

After three beautiful weeks of warm weather and happy bees, February brought cooler weather and rain. Lots of rain. My travels take me through several counties, and despite the rain, spring has begun nearly everywhere. In places with lots of concrete, the acacias and plums have started to bloom, and in a few wetland areas I see the teasing of swelled willow, poplar and alder buds. Eucs have been blooming for at least a week in most places, if not a month or more, depending on where your apiaries are. 

I rushed around in January getting supers on all of my strong colonies, and have not been disappointed in the resulting nectar flows. Looks like I’m on track with last year to harvest honey and begin populating my mating boxes the last week of February.
Unpredictable weather can make it challenging to properly inspect hives this time of year.  

Despite the weather, most hives are beginning to increase rapidly and may reach conditions where intervention could make a big difference in their well-being. Starvation can be a real problem for hives that may have grown so big in our January heat wave that a cold wet February could spell disaster for all those hungry mouths to feed. On the other hand, if you live near plants that begin blooming in January such as eucalyptus and acacia, by the time February arrives and the fruit trees and willows begin, you may soon find your hives are beginning preparations for swarming. 

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If the weather isn’t conducive to pulling frames for a full inspection, you can do an abbreviated inspection that can tell you most of what you need to know this time of year. Do this with hives that have a lot of activity around the entrance, especially when you see those looping orientation flights from new bees just learning to fly and navigate. Those orientation flights are a sure sign of population increase, and they’ll benefit from a quick spring inspection. Crack the seal between brood boxes and tilt the top brood box back to check the bottom edge of the comb for queen cells. Should you see even one, you know it’s time to do a proper inspection on the next warm day, and that it’s a matter of hours or days before the hive swarms. If you don’t see any swarm cells, then you’re good to go for another week or two. With the hive tilted this way, you can gently separate the combs like pages of a book to peak up into them and get a sense of colony strength. If all the combs are fully covered in bees and with capped brood and/or resources, it’s time to add more room. This inspection should take about 5-7 minutes total, with no need to open the top cover or expose frames to the cold. 

Once you’ve determined swarm conditions and whether you need to add another box or not, note the weight of the boxes. If it feels like the hive has less than about 30 pounds of honey, (approx 1 full medium super), and the weather will be wet and cold, then it might be time to feed. 

The best emergency food for bees this time of year is drivert sugar added to the top under the inner cover. Bees will ignore it if there is a nectar flow, ensuring the sugar won’t mix into your honey supply. The dry drivert will act as a desiccant to wick away moisture in the top of the hive.  

You might wonder why I didn’t suggest feeding the hive with a frame of honey from another hive. This is deliberate: sharing honey between hives is a risky business that will spread American Foulbrood (AFB) and other diseases. If you’ve never seen AFB in person, then don’t risk it- always feed sugar or syrup to be on the safe side.