At The Apiary

Tips for the Month:

• After extracting honey from a super, return it to (the same) hive over the crown board with the feed hole open. The bees will clean it out and it can then be cleaned up and stored for use next year.

• Store your cleaned supers outside with a board on the bottom of the stack and a cover on the top. Make sure they are bee-tight with no gaps for wasps or insects or mice to enter.

Tips for the Month:

As long as the bees are still bringing in forage, add supers, but don’t give them new foundation to draw out if you can avoid it, and don’t ‘over-super’ at this time of the year, rather encourage the bees to fill and seal frames already on the hive - you can remove sealed frames and store them somewhere bee-safe until you extract, and then fill the gap in the super with an empty frame.

Tips for the Month:

Mark newly mated queens with this year’s yellow marking.  Only mark queens once there is sealed brood present to prevent the bees from ‘balling’ and killing a queen whose pheromone is disturbed by the marking.

Tips for the Month:

Take a sample of bees for testing at the Nosema testing day on May 13th to ensure your bees are healthy.  30 bees needed- in a matchbox, recently dead or stored in the freezer. See our advice on catching bees.