First inspection of the year

My patience has paid off and the weather has suddenly become more like summer than spring! The last couple of days have been really warm and I decided to have a look at my bees yesterday, just after midday, when the temperature was about 17 deg C.

I got suited up and went out to the hives. First of all I watched for activity at the hive entrances and was pleased to see quite a few flying bees bringing in pollen. I managed to photograph a bee coming in laden with bright yellow pollen, which was possibly Willow.

I also saw bees bringing in bright orange coloured pollen, which could have been Dandelion. Armed with my smoker in one hand and hive tool I approached my first hive.On lifting the roof off the hive I was confronted with a mass of bees on the top bars of the frames.

I opened up the hives, took out the dummy board at the back of the brood chamber and quickly went through the frames, prising them apart and peering down between them to see what was going on. I had given this hive some fondant over the winter because I thought that they really had not taken down enough syrup in the autumn. The fondant was all gone and looking through the frames there really was not very much left in the way of stores. I considered giving this colony some light syrup, but decided against it because the weather forecast is good for the next week or so and the bees should be able to find sufficient forage. The bees were very calm and well behaved and I barely needed to use any smoke. I did notice quite a few dead bees lying on the mesh floor of the hive, but I assumed that the undertaker bees would dispose of them in due course.

Working my way through the brood chamber I found the brood nest. I lifted a couple of frames out one by one to have a quick look. To my delight I saw eggs, larvae and sealed worker brood, and I saw the marked queen! I carefully put the frames back and put everything back in place and closed the hive up.

On to hive number two - this is the one I was a little worried about and it is also my "best" colony from last year. Sure enough, on removing the roof there were very few bees on the top bars of the frames. I proceeded with the inspection and to my great relief found that there were plenty of bees in the hive - they were all hiding lower down on the frames. I worked my way through the hive and again I found eggs, larvae, sealed worker brood and I even saw the very elusive unmarked queen! Again the bees were very quiet and a joy to work with, and I was glad to see that this hive still had plenty of stores left in the form of sealed Happy days - two out of two so far!

And so on to hive number three. There were certainly plenty of bees in hive number three, but as soon as I opened up the hive I noticed the presence of drones (male bees). How odd! I worked my way through the brood chamber and found the brood nest. I saw eggs, big fat larvae, and sealed drone brood (easily identified by the highly domed cappings)There was no sign of any worker brood anywhere!

I clearly have a drone laying queen. I went through the frames carefully and found what I believed to be the offending queen and squashed her. I closed the hive up. These bees were much more aggressive than the first two hives. I was glad that I had (hopefully) found and killed the drone laying queen and decided to requeen this colony with the reserve queen I had in my nuc....or so I thought!

To my horror, when I opened the nuc up I found no eggs, no larvae, no brood and no queen! There wasn't very many bees in the nuc. The queen had obviously died or disappeared over the winter. This was going to make saving hive number three much more difficult!

The most obvious thing to do is to unite hive three with one of my good hives, but having thought about it (and slept on it) I'm very reluctant to do this. I tried to requeen hive three twice last year, and it would appear that they killed both new queens because they had a poorly mated queen of their own in residence, who had now turned into a drone laying queen. I think I found and killed her, but I cant be 100% sure and I do not want to risk uniting this colony with one of my good colonies in case they kill another good queen!

Requeening really isn't an option at this time of year simply because there aren't any mated queens available, and there won't be until May at the earliest. As I see it the only chance I have of saving this colony is to give them a frame from one of my good colonies containing some eggs and young larvae, and let them have a go at rearing a new queen. However this is pretty much a last resort and only has a slim chance of succeeding, and it has the disadvantage that I'm going to weaken one of my good colonies by doing so.

If anyone reading this has any other suggestions as to how I can save this colony then please let me know!