After a period of rain, its nice to get out into the garden and see the bees working the early pollen and nectar sources. In the spring, things seem to happen so quickly. You see the buds on the pussy willow and next thing you know the catkins have burst into full flower. Kowhai, (Sophora microphylla), Clematis paniculata are flowering in the bush fringes while around the city, many garden ornamentals are now providing valuable nectar and pollen sources. Despite the period of cool weather for a week last month, the season around here appears to be a month ahead of normal.

Some bee hives are reaching a stage where they need to be split to reduce the chance of swarming, while those with an old queens will need a replacement fairly quickly so that the bees have enough time to build up to full strength for the flow. A few hives seemed to have anticipated my requirements and have already started to produce one or two supersedure queen cells along the bottom of the frames in the middle of the brood nest.

Beekeepers in the North Island might have difficulty obtain replacement queens this year due to the restrictions put on to control the spread of the varroa mite. Many hobbyist beekeepers may have to consider producing one of two for themselves this year or may have wait as generally most queen breeders are fully booked for early spring queens.

It's fairly easy to produce a few queen cells using a four-frame nuc. All you have to do is reproduce the conditions that exist during swarming; lots of young bees and a good amount of pollen and nectar coming in. The whole idea behind producing good queens is nutrition. There has to be plenty of pollen in the hive right next to the frame with the young larvae on it.

How to: Take your strongest hive and put a new, fully drawn frame in the middle of the brood nest. Five days later find the queen (she's usually on the warm side of the hive in the morning on a frame of emerging bees) and put the frame you find her on against the front of the hive. That way, if she drops of, she will find her way back into the hive.

Remove the frame you put in five days before hand and check that there are young larvae along with eggs in the cells. Choose about five larvae that are tiny and still straight in the bottom of the cell and with the back end of a pencil, open out the mouth of the cells to about double its original size. Place this in the middle of the nuc box along with another frame of emerging brood and bees. Select a frame of honey and one of pollen for the nuc. Take the pollen frame and with a hive tool, scrape down to the midrib, a 50-mm square of pollen and honey. Mash this up so that it combines into an orange mush. Dribble this over the frame of young larvae and then place both the frames into the nuc box so that there is a frame of honey on the outside, then emerging brood, the frame of your larvae and the pollen frame. Select two frames of brood from the original hive and shake the bees off these into the nuc. Sprinkle about a cup of warm sugar syrup over the bees and frames, cover the nuc, block the entrance with grass and remove to a cool dark place.

Reassemble the frames in the main hive in the same order as they were originally, being careful not to squash the queen. Move all the frames into the middle and replace the missing frames with fully drawn frames.

After 24 hours, check the nuc to see if the larvae you selected are floating on top of a small pool of royal jelly. This means they have been accepted as future queens. Also check to see if the bees have started building cells of their own. Break these down, as they will have been developed from older brood. If they have started feeding your selected cells, close up and continue to feed the nuc with a little sugar syrup using a top feeder ever few days. If not, select a few more cells with tiny larvae and open these up as before. Repeat the mashing up of pollen and honey and close up again.

This time, check after another three days. If no cells have been produced, look for eggs, you may have had two queens in the hive or you moved the queen across to the nuc. If you did this by mistake, then the main hive will have produced queen cells by now. Bad luck as you didn't really want a break in brood rearing but at least you should get it requeened.

On the tenth day, check the cells. If more than one, leave the biggest and gently cut out the extras. Keep them upright as much as possible. Don't drop them. You can use these to requeen other hives or make an additional nucs. Before you place a queen cell into the middle of the brood nest of another colony, wrap all but the end of the cell, (where the queen emerges) in a strip of catering foil. This prevents the bees tearing down the queen cell.

Or you can just let thing be and in about three weeks you should have a mated, laying queen in the nuc, ready to unite with the main hive. I.e. Kill the old queen, transfer the nuc into a full size super and place two single sheets of newspaper between the main hive and the nuc so they merge slowly.

September / October is spring clean and inspection month. Any hives showing deterioration should have their woodware replaced. Make a note of what is required and have everything ready so that all things including a brood inspection can be done at the same time. Just like you are taught when doing your DECA course, start at the bottom of the hive and work upwards.

Hives will be open longer than normal when doing your spring inspection, so have a cloth or a split board handy to cover exposed supers so the bees do not become agitated or loose too much heat. Choose a warm sunny afternoon, when plenty of bees are flying to do your inspection. Place the roof on the ground in front of the hive and stack all the supers on top of this. Cover the exposed super.

Check the hive stand. Still sturdy with a very slight slope forward? It has to support a lot of weight during the season so be fastidious.

Replace or clean the bottom board or if you use the combination floorboards - turn it over. Brother Adam used to replace his floorboards in each apiary with spares, take them back to the Abby and clean them in and acid bath. We can do the same thing by scrubbing the surface with 75/25 mix of water and Janola (sodium hypochlorite) after first removing all the debris with the flat of the hive tool. This removes all the crud, plus sterilizes the boards of Nosema and Chalkbrood spores. Rinse off with a little water, wipe down and place back on the base.

Now place the bottom super back on the base. Remove an outside frame or if the hive hasn't been looked at for a while, free and remove the second frame in from the edge. Often if you force the outside frame, they tend to disintegrate. Remove it slowly so as not to roll the bees and check the frame. If it has a lot of drone brood, mark the frame and move it towards the outside of the super so it can be replaced later in the season with a new foundation frame. Similarly for dark combs you cannot see light through when held up to the sun.

Inspection all frames in the bottom super with the sun behind your shoulder. Shake off any bees on the frame into the base of the hive. Check each frame for AFB scale in the base of the cells, remove any buildup of wax along the top and bottom bars, remove any propolis along the edges of the end bars (keep separate as this is worth money) and replace the frames back into the super. If you already have drawn out frames from last year, the dark, broken, and frame with large amounts of drone brood cells can be immediately replace providing the old ones are free of honey or brood. Check the brood paten, (spotty could indicate it may be necessary to change her), note that there is enough pollen around the brood nest. Take a note of the amount of honey reserves. Replace the frames in the same order they were removed and press them close together in the middle of the super as this allows the bees to heat a greater frame area more efficiently. Don't expand the brood nest by adding new frames between the existing frames of brood as the brood can become chilled during a cold snap.

If you come across a single queen cell - DON'T KILL IT. At this time of the year, quite a lot of hives produce new queens through supersedure. Put the frame aside and keep an eye out for eggs. If you find them, then the hive still has a queen. Either put the frame with the queen cell attached back in the main hive or use this in the nuc.

Proceed through all the supers, covering the exposed super still on the up turned lid. Put everything back in the same order as it was removed. Work steadily and keep puffing a little smoke across the top of the frames to keep the bees under control. Don't let the honey reserves fall below three full frames, as this is the amount necessary to carry a large hive through a week of inclement weather. If in doubt, start feeding sugar syrup 50/50 with warm water until adequate reserves or a flow starts to supplement the stores. Reassemble the hive. Save the wax and burr comb for melting down during the summer.

This is the only major clean up work you have to do in the spring. Once you have fully checked all the frames for disease, you only need to monitor the emerging brood frames for AFB (Paenibacillus larvae larvae) during subsequent hive inspections. Note in you diary when this was completed for your disease return.

Woodwork. All the woodware you preserved last month should be dry enough to assemble. Before assembling supers, protect the end grain by painting them with an undercoat. If you used metalex, use an oil-base paint otherwise use water-base paint.

Its easier to assemble supers in a jig or against a square structure. Something that holds the handle hole end plus both sides upright in the shape of the letter "U". This way, the whole super remains square when you nail on the other end.

Just a little reminder before nailing (or stapling), check that the rebates are both facing the same direction. Use at least 5 X 75-mm galvanized flat head nails to on each corner of the super; top, middle and bottom on the end and another two in between these on the sides. Skew nailing (at an angle) will make the super hold together longer. Undercoat the outside, top and bottom edges and when dry, give it a topcoat. Paint, stencil, or brand (before painting) you hive number into a few supers so they can be seen from a distance.

After getting into a rhythm assembling supers, if you don't keep checking, you will occasionally top and tail a rebate. Don't try to take the super apart. If you have done a good job nailing it, you will only wreck it. Use a router to make another rebated and fill in the other one and adjust the hand hole.

Frames can be assembled when the supers are completed. I live in a relatively wet area and find the top bar lugs rot off in a few years if hives have insufficient top ventilation, so now preserve them. I paraffin wax dip mine but any non-toxic wood preserver (metalex, woodlife, etc) will do. Just drop the top bar ends into 3-5 mm of solution and let the wood take up the preservative over the next 10 minutes.

There are many different types of ways of nailing frames - top, sides and at the ends. Use a decent nail at least 25-mm long, top and bottom (or what ever suits you). If you nail top and bottom, why not make up a frame jig. A jig to hold the 10 frames square and they can be all nailed at one time. This jig looks like a 1/2 or 3/4 super, reduced in height and width so that it holds the assembled frame fairly tightly. Half way up the sides, rectangular holes are cut in (slightly less depth on the other side) and a tapered stick inserted which hold the end bars in place. Slide in the tapered sticks so that there is just enough room to place in the end bars. Press the top bars into position, nail, and then turn the jig over, position and nail the bottom bars. Slide out the end sticks that hold the endbar's square and the frames should be able to be removed. These jigs are much quicker than nailing one at a time and make life easier for you. Some beekeepers prefer to glue their frames before nailing but I do not find this necessary. It all depends upon the type of nail you use. Smooth, chrome nails tend to slide out after a time so I do not use this type of nail.

What ever you do, don't take short cuts. You have invested a lot of money into you beekeeping gear. A quality job will see the gear last much longer. Apart from inspecting your hives, continue to check their stores to see that they do not run out, clear away or spray the grass around the hives and keep an eye out for early swarming.

Spring is a time of rebirth. Spend an hour in the garden on a sunny morning, drinking up the sun and listening to the bees working the blossoms and flowers around you. Enjoy the moment.

Frank Lindsay