Spring bees

We'd been meaning to do a Spring inspection of the beehive since Spring began, but first I was sick, then the weather was too windy, then we were too busy. So it's late Spring before the hive got a look.

First thing I saw on taking off the lid was that all the frames were full of capped honey. We only had four spare wax foundation sheets! So I removed four frames and left the rest for another day.

Then I thought I'd better have a look at the brood. Unfortunately there isn't much friction between the base board and the hive stand, so every time I tried to jamb the hive tool between the bottom boxes, the whole hive tried to slide away. So I put that aside for another day too.

So much for allowing the colony to swarm causing it to be weak and not produce honey.