With spring having sprung straight into summer and hitting 30 degrees on our wall thermometer, it was definitely time to spring clean the bees. Anything over about 13 degrees is enough for the bees to fly and about 20 degrees sees you safe for frames to be exposed to the elements for a few minutes whilst changing over brood boxes and cleaning the hives.
A spring clean is very important for disease prevention after a long winter when the bees have not been out much. Fresh boxes flamed with a blowtorch and frames checked over, replaced every 3 years and scraped clean, makes management so much easier and just feels right.
Sadly, as we suspected we lost one of our 6 hives. it was attacked by wasps in the autumn and despite all you do to help them they just seem to give up. So we went into winter knowing that they were weak but hoping they would make it. Give it a few weeks and we will be able to split a strong hive and make the numbers back up. As I cover in my beekeeping talks it is vitally important to keep numbers of colonies up given the effects of varroa on wild colonies.
It feels good to be back out playing with the bees, and with 150 acres of borage behind us it should be a good summer.