Spring is a wonderful time of re-growth and renewal. Trees are budding up and most hives are in full swing on the warm, clear, sunny days. Have a look at what's flowering and what the bees are working in your area: tree lucerne, pussy willow, early plumb trees, black and bush wattle and the odd kowhai.

Drive into an apiary and observe what is going on. Apart from the tuneful warble from the grey warblers and the song of the Tuis, there is a hum in the air, bees flying in all directions. Walk among the hives and observe what is happening at the landing boards. Masses of bees flying, pollen coming in on their legs indicates a healthy hive, with a laying queen, working an early nectar source. Those with only a few flying bees, or not flying at all with a clump of bees defending the landing board could be queen-less - but not always. Large amounts of cappings out the front indicated a mouse has been feeding on your precious honey and pollen reserves. An abnormal amount of dead bees outside a hive could indicate a nosema problem. No bees at all could means that the queen failed and the bees have absconded or the hives has died from starvation. All need attention.

I have been through a few of my apiaries and I am very pleased with there condition. I winter my hives, mostly three full depth supers high with a minimum of a full super of stores. Being a warm settled winter, the bees have been flying well and most still have that full super of honey. Queens are laying with patches of brood in three frames (these require requeening) to a full seven frames of brood, (these will need to be split next month to prevent swarming). All the brood is surrounded with a band of fresh nectar and pollen and most hives have already started producing drone brood. Only one or two hives in each apiary require supplementary feeding in the form of a few kg's of raw sugar.

As soon as you feel comfortable working outside, its time to inspect the hives for, disease, assess the amount of stores, the condition of the queen, how much brood and to replace any old, dark, broken frames and rotten woodware.

Load your vehicle (or wheelbarrow) with everything you may need for the inspection. New pallets or hive stands, spare roofs, bases and supers plus a number of lasts years fully drawn frames. Water- based poster pens or twink to mark queens, protective gear, smoker and all.

Before fully opening a hive, gently apply smoke at the entrance and under the lid, (hive mat or top feeder). Allow twenty to thirty seconds for the smoke to calm the bees before removing the roof and crown board, cover boards, top feeder or mat (what ever you use). Waft a small amount of smoke over the top of the frames to disguise any alarm pheromone produced by those bees with their stings in the air. This also discourages the guards rushing up and having a go at you.

If the hive is not aggressive and you don't mind the odd sting, remove your gloves and continue to work the hive. I recommend this action for two reasons. You can feel the air temperature and the heat given off by the bees, and when the bees are starting to get out of control, they remind you its time to use a little more smoke. It's also a good idea to top up your immune system with a sting or two early in the season. If the bees get out of hand or are dark and bitchy, keep your gloves on.

Look down into the hive and observe the conditions. Water between the frames, dampness on the inside walls of the supers or in the top feeder, indicates that the hive requires a little more top ventilation.

How many frames are covered with bees? Can you still see sealed honey? How much does the hive weigh - lift the back of the hive slightly and estimate the weight. Then carry on with the inspection.

Strip the hive down to expose the bottom board by stacking the supers on the up-turned lid in front of the hive stands. (As you break each super, waft in a little smoke to control the bees). Lift off the floorboard and inspect the hive stand. Replace if there are any signs of rot, as these have to support a fully loaded hive later in the season. (There’s nothing more soul destroying to have a hive full of honey topple over and robbed out through a collapsing stand). Place the bottom board back in position and clean off any debris. (From my observations, hives with small entrances that prevent mice getting in will be fairly clean. Those with wide entrances will have debris cause through the mice damage). Use the flat of the hive tool to scrap the bottom boards clean. If you use the conventional reversible bases, turn it over and wipe away the cobwebs. In The UK, some beekeepers scrub the bottom boards clean as they harbour all the rejected material from the brood nest above, (Nosema spores, sac brood mummies, etc). I believe this is a good practice that a hobbyist should adapt but unfortunately it is not practical for busy commercial beekeepers. I scrub the bottom boards of hives with heavy infestations of nosema using a bleach/water mixture. This strips away everything leaving the surface clean.

Replace the bottom super back on the hive, put a puff of smoke over the top of the frames and remove any burr comb from along the top of the top bars, then remove the outside frame. (If the hive has not been worked for some time, removed the next one in, as the outside one tends to fall apart, as this is the first frame to rot). Position yourself so that the sun is over your shoulder, kneeling, side on to the hive and proceed to look through the frames for BL disease; sunken cells off coloured, ragged holes in the cappings, etc. (-see your DECA book). As you go, scrape off the propolis build-up on the edges of the end bars so they will fit snugly together. Broken or old dark frames should be replaced or moved slightly to the outside for eventual replacement. It the super doesn’t have any brood in it, check for any old capped cells or scale in the bottom of the cells. Flick off the tops with the hive tool and see what is underneath. Most of the time it will be a chalk brood mummy. If you are not sure, close up the hive, scrub your gloves, smoker and hive tool and consult another beekeeper or AgriQuality. Some beekeepers only inspect the frames of brood for disease, but this can be dangerous. I have found hives with beautiful brood in the second super yet, found diseased cells in the bottom super well away from the bees. When the hive population increases or you reverse supers in October to reduce congestion, these cells will be introduced into the brood nest and infection quickly takes hold. Hence it pays to do a complete inspection of all frames in the spring. There after, you can quickly look at three frames of brood to monitor the hives condition. If the super is rotting, place the frames after inspecting them into a new super.

Queens are easy to find at this time of the year as they are concentrated within the broodnest and don’t wander. She is usually on the frame where you see eggs. I mark my queens when I come across them. They are fairly easy to mark using twink or a water based marking pen. Gently hold by the wings leaving the queen on the frame and dab just a little on her thorax. (You can purchase a holder to pin then while they are marked that will not injure them). This does take a little practice so try marking a few drones to get in practice. Red for last year's queen, green for this year or just use twink. If you use a spirit-based marker, blow on the queen to dissipate the fumes otherwise these can kill them.

Just as an aside, sometimes when you mark a black queen, they seem to die. In fact they feign death and this can really scare you. (I have thrown away a few queens thinking I had killed them, until I discovered one wandering around the roof of an adjacent hive where I had put her). Warm her up in your hands for a minute or two and she will twitch a leg. Place her on the frame and she suddenly comes to life and runs away. If you are going to handle more than one queen, wash your hands between hives with plain water so you don't transfer one queen's pheromones to another, as the bees may think she is a foreign queen and kill her.

Marked queens are easier to find next month when you want to replace them or make a nuc. Have a look at the brood patten. Is the hive strong or weak? Does the queen need replacing? Is the inner circle spotted (bees of all ages) yet the outer bands of brood are compact with very few missed cells. This spotted patten is due to nosema when brood was being produced from reserves within the hive. As soon as conditions warm up and the bees are able to bring in fresh pollen, nutrition increases and more royal jelly is produced therefore acceptance rates increase. Capped brood is not really a good indicator of the queen's performance as she can go over the missed cells and re-lay in them. Check the open brood for laying pattern. Missed cells will have younger larvae in them. If more than 15% of cells are missed, (75 X 75 mm square = 100 cells) or all the brood is spotty, mark the hive and replace the queen as soon as possible. Likewise mark the queen for replacement if there is a lot of sac or chalk brood. (Normally I only see four to five cells of chalk brood on the face of a frame in a bad hive, most hives are now resistant to this disease.). Check these hives again next month. It may have cleared up on their own as these disorders are stress related. How much pollen is in the hive? Frames clogged with old pollen can indicate a failing queen. None at all could mean that the hive requires artificial pollen. Normally hobbyist in urban areas will never have this problem. It's mostly seen by commercial beekeepers with more than 10 hives in an apiary where there are very few spring pollen sources. I encounter this problem in a few apiaries after a week of rain or in late October when very little is flowering.

Put a puff of smoke over the tops of both supers to drive the bees down, then place the second super back on the hive. Go through all the frames in the second super, checking for disease but also take notice of how much honey is in the hive. Was there as much as you estimated by lifting or was the weight due to brood and pollen? Never let the honey reserves go below three full frames of honey. This is a weeks food supply for a full hive of bees (end of October). If they are running short, start feeding equal weight of sugar and water.

You will notice that you will receive one or two stings when going through the hive if you loose control of it. Take note of the bee's behaviour and when they start getting edgy, ie moving over the tops of the frames, darting out at you, give then a gentle puff of smoke to keep them in check. With gloves on, it's easy to overlook the control factor until a neighbour lets out a howl of pain. The idea is to control your bees and make beekeeping fun for you and your neighbours.

All this should take only five to seven minutes. If you are going to have the hive open longer than this, cover the exposed frames with the crown board or a cloth to conserve heat. As soon as your hand get cold, close the hive down and select another warm day to complete your inspection.

Just to summarise: Check for BL, Cull out old frames, Feed if necessary, Spray around the hives to control the grass, check the stored boxes for wax moth and continue to make up new equipment.

Swarms. These can start in September in our area and are a real loss to the beekeepers or a nuisance to non-beekeepers. Requeening helps to reduce this problem but some will always get away, (feral hive swarm every second year). Clubs should have a list of those willing to collect them. Notify your regional council, city council and the police that this service is in your area. I do local calls for free but charge if I have to travel some distance. Generally once they have gone in a building, it's easier to destroy them and then get the owner to seal up the hole or repair the surface as they will return again next year. If you know of places that always get swarms, put out a bait box. This can be an old super, with a few dark frames and the rest foundation. The entrance should only be 25 mm wide. Put these on a shed or at least head high and have the owner call you when they see them arrive or when they see pollen on the legs of bees going into the hive. Quite often I get a call and its only scout bees visiting. This can happen for two to three days before the swarm arrives or else this activity dies away - they have found a better place. It's also a good idea to leave a bait hive in your apiary (on top of the tallest hive). Its surprising how far a swarm will travel to a bait box.

If you get a call for a swarm in a bush, ask them to put a carton under them, shake and close the lid and place on the ground. Bees don't normally sting. You can then pick them up in the evening when they have finished flying. Don't take risks trying to recover a swarm up in tall tree. Sometimes they are not worth the effort. If you collect a swarm and want to keep it as an increase, requeen it immediately. If not, allow the queen to lay for a week or two to check for disease, then kill the queen and unite with a weak hive using two sheets of newspaper. (Put the good queen hive on top). If you have to kill a swarm, put a good squirt of dish washing liquid with a litre of water in a sprayer. They can't fly and die very quickly.