Spring Clean Up

Spring Harvest

Spring a have finally made an appearance. The days are warmer and all the snow in the yard has melted. Some of the locals mentioned their bees are pulling in pollen now. (oh how i miss watching my bees do that) A few days ago i got up the nerve to pull the hives apart. I knew they were dead but i was putting off having to see them. It was a warm sunny day so i went out armed with what i needed to take them apart. If you remember, before winter set in we prep-ed the hives as if we were moving them. Since there was a chance our motel sale would go thru and we would have to load up everything and move. So James had strapped all the boxes together so they would shift while driving on them back roads to our house. Anyways i had to unscrew all the boards which took a bit to get them apart.
Once the attic box was gone, it exposed the candy board, there was a small cluster of bees on it. They almost looked alive. My heart jumped but once i put my finger down to pick it up, it was apparent it was dead. After removing that i was exposed to the honey super, there was a big cluster of dead bees there. They all looked so "fresh" like maybe they had walked away from the cluster to bring food back and got cold and died. There was very little mold in the big hive, and a small amount in the smaller one.

Anyways the hardest part was done. James had a small fire going in the fire pit and so i took advantage  of it and burnt a bunch of the frames. They were really old and it was a good excuse to start with new ones. I learnt during the winter that you should replace your brood frames and comb every 5 years. I hate to think how old these were.

A couple days later, i got the bee yard all organized and set up for the arrival of the new ones. I had ordered 2 nucs and I am hoping to get a local split.

On a happier note, i recovered the leftover honey from the dead hives. The honey was so cold and thick, it took days to get it warmed up so it would run. But i did and managed to get a nice little stash for this winter.
And if you read my blog you will know that  i LOVE the wax part of beekeeping.  I got quite a bit of wax bits so I spent part of the day washing and melting the wax down into a nice lump for future use.

Wax capping ready to be melted

Melting and filtering the wax in the oven

Anyways now i will pick up the pieces and carry on. The bee yard is cleaned up and ready to go, i just need the bees now and they should be here near the end of May. Onward and upward.
Bee Happy