But first things first. I did not get a chance to disinfect my equipment during the fall last year so this had to be done first.

All boxes was scraped to get as much propolis off and then it was all sprayed with Virkon S which do its work and then decompose afterwards. So all I had to do was spray and leave to dry.

All minor equipment was soaked in household ethanol for several hours and the leftover propolis can then be scraped off easily – this was a tip from another beekeeper that I read in a magazine and it works beautifully :o) It is very effective, and the equipment can just be left to dry in the kitchen sink and then is look as good as new.

Then it was time to go through the hive. First I weighed the hive and it had gained weight for the first time – so the honey collection has started.

The slope on the curve 0.044 kg or 44g corresponds to the average daily loss in mass during the winter. This is almost the same as last year where the daily loss was about 40g

The family is now very big and more than half of the 10 plates in the winter box contained sealed breeding cells. Also pollon was present and almost a full plate with recently harvested honey – the honey cells are a bit darker than the cell from the winter feeding.

Furthermore the edges of some of the breeding plates contained cells for drones. These cells are a bit bigger than the cells for the normal working bees. This means that it is definitely time to insert the drone plate – a plate were the bee can built freely which they will dedicate for drones.

So I removed the plate furthest away from the entrance which was the only one containing winter feeding and it was still almost full and weighing about 2 kg. Then moved two plates containing fresh honey back and inserted the drone plate. Hereafter the 6 plates with the breeding cells were found and finally the plate with pollen by the entrance. This was almost exactly how the hive developed last year

Since the bees already started to collect honey I decided to add a second box today too. I was a bit surprised that the bees were already investigating it less than a hour after I assembled the hive – guess the bees were more than ready for the expansion of their hive.

I all looks great. Unfortunately I did not find the queen, but judging from the size of the hive, she must be doing fine.

A quick look around the hive, there was no dead bees – so far so good. Also, there was not off smells indicating diseases. Putting my ear to the hive I could hear a happy buzzing, so all looks and sounds good.

Pulling out the tray in the bottom of the hive also looked great – only 4-5 mites which might as well be the last of the clean-up after the oxalic acid treatment in december about a month ago.

Finally I weighed the hive. Total mass was 26.05 kg which is a drop in mass of 4.1 kg since end October. Still it is a little more than one kg more than last year where the starting mass was pretty much the same at the end of October. It could mean that the winter family is a bit smaller than last year or that there has been something to feed on for longer (?)

Anyway, I look like I will have a healthy family in the spring ready to collect honey for mead :o)

Oxalic acid works well on mites on the active bees in the hive, but it does not work on mites in the closed breading cells. Therfore oxalic acid should be used after be bees goes into the winter cluster and are no longer breading.

This weekend we had a bit of good weather Saturday (6/12), so I went to check the hive.

Yes, the bees were sitting in a small cluster and they were very inactive.

Oxalic acid treatment is quite simple. The solution used is

The judges statement: “A rounded and mellow, sweet honey with moderate acidity. Tones of wood vanilla and flower together with touch of fresh citrus. An interesting honey with good complexity”

Nothing is too god for my meads :o)

First I needed to kill her in a gentle way. I did not have any organic solvents at home so I just figured I would get her drunk in Bacardi :o). I put her in a glass with some beads to lift her from the Bacardi rum in bottom. It took longer than I expected and she was not dead until the next morning.

When I took out the queen she was damp and a bit curled up. The wing was sticking together so I needed to dry her in the position I wanted to exhibit her. A cork, a few pins and some precision work did the job – a pin in the neck, on each side of the body and positioning the legs and wings in a “natural” position.

Hereafter I just left her on a shelf to dry. Also, I did not have a plate to pin her to. I found a good frame in IKEA where the glass was lifted several centimeters from the picture. I found a piece of styrofoam about 1 cm thick and cut out a square which I then covered with a yellow dish washing cloth. This I could use as the surface to pin the queen too. I picked a yellow cloth because the contrast to the dark queen highlighted her details.

And voila!

After the formic acid treatment in september I had decided to change the queen in the hive. She is marked yellow which means that she from 2012. Last year the hive behaved great, but this year she had several times started to make swarm cells, i.e. cells for new queens.

If these are not removed, half the hive will swarm with either queen to a new location – typically a tree close by. This happened several time in “school hives” of the bee association that I am member of and it is quite an awesome thing to see – and to take down again.

The new queen bee that I bought is from this year 2014 and is labeled with a green mark.

1. Remove the old queen and leave the hive without queen for a day. I caught one extra working bee with her which I could not get rid of.

2. Add the new queen in a place where the other bees cannot get to her and sting her to death. Leave the hive for half a day for the bees to get use to her pheromones.

3. Insert the new queen in the hive and let the bees work for her by digging her out and feeding her.

And the hive now has a new “monarch”. Can you find her…….. :o)

I had bought a 20 L bucket instead of the 40 L which I have used  earlier since I try to collect several times during the summer and I will never have more than 25 kg after harvesting one magasin, which corresponds to 18-19 L. It is also more handy in small kitchens :o)

Below the third honey batch is transferred to the final container.

I reserved 7.4 kg of honey from the spring honey as described earlier and 2 x 7.2 kg from the summer honey so a total of almost 22 kg. The rest we are enjoying or selling – first come first served. This is all that is left from the first two batches …

The mead I prepared last year has a strong acidic note to it, which can be directly traced to the honey used, but there was only one batch to choose from. This year I have selected the more smooth batches – spring and summer. The late summer batch has a strong sting to it so now I am wondering what the source is, so that I next year can harvest before this flower bloomes. The summer honey (clover and flowers) is just fantastic and the spring honey (fruit trees and early flowers) is a close second. The late summer honey is not fit for mead making in my opinion, but it is still great for eating, salald dressing, glacing etc. Mmmmmm. I will probably stir it untill it crystallizes as this should take some of the acidic sting out too.