Finally, nice warm(ish) weather has arrived here in Washington, DC. We decided to take advantage of it and pop open the lids of our hives to see what havoc the winter may have wreaked. We were pleasantly surprised to find two healthy, active hives! The upper and lower brood boxes had a lot of activity…both boxes were pretty full. A few of the outer frames on the lower deeps were not completely built out with comb, so we decided to flip the boxes, placing the top brood box on the bottom board and the lower brood box on top of it. It may not have been necessary to do this but we’ve heard that it can prevent swarming and will allow the bees to move “up” to fill in the empty frames. They would probably have done this on their own, but we decided to do it anyway. Hopefully WE haven’t wreaked too much havoc on the awakening hives.
This year we slipped a cover into the bottom board of each hive. Inspection shows dead ants, hive beetles (not many), and minimal traces of varroa mites.
Rose spreads diatomaceous earth under the hives in an attempt to control the hive beetle population.
AshHillApiary 