Spring

Spring brings a burst of new life, energy and expansion. Like the plants, a colony awakens to partake of new resources and channels it’s activities toward swarming, which is the colony’s way of propagating itself.

A natural beekeeper follows this progression:

• unwraps hives
• feed hungry hives
• provides water
• revitalizes equipment
• manages comb

Unwrapping

Beyond food, warmth is almost everything to a spring colony. At some point, the winter wraps, which insulated a colony from winter wind and cold, inhibit spring’s warmth. It’s time to get the wraps off and let a little warmth in.

Once the hives are unwrapped it’s easy to access hive:

• activity
• weight
• equipment condition

Feeding

Food, water, and warmth demands are greatest in the spring:

• brood rearing ramps up
• clusters break
• normal hive activities resume
• forage is limited
• nights are still cold

Insuring that hives have enough feed is the most critical spring activity a beekeeper must do.

Need to feed a hive? Check out the feeding page.

Water

Honey is not the preferred food for either brood or bees. Nectar or diluted honey is what they want. And it takes water to:

• prepare brood food
• maintain broodnest humidity

Bees recycle hive condensation but that’s usually not enough. Foragers take great risk gathering water:

• during bad weather
• from marginal or inappropriate sources

So make it as easy as possible for the bees and prevent future hassles by providing a water source that’s:

• nearby
• warm
• clean

Equipment

Winter is tough on equipment. Spring is a great time to switch out damaged equipment. There’s:

• less weight
• fewer bees
• can be added with feeding or comb management

Comb

Spring is a great time to do most comb management chores:

• there are fewer bees
• more empty comb
• causes less disturbance
• most time for the bees to recover

-bW