September / October are the most important months in beekeeping. Brood production has been stimulated by early nectar and pollen sources. We must see that this is kept up, yet keep the fine balance of providing room and preventing swarming.

There is an easy way to determine when a hive needs supering. Tilt the supers back and look along the bottom of the frames in the lower super. If the bees are covering all but the outside frames and covering the bottom bars of the rest, its time for another super. City beekeepers have to be aware of this, as we tend to get strong early flows that either lead to honey production or swarming.

SPRING INSPECTION Chose a warm day when the bees are flying to do your spring inspection. Read your bee books or AgriQuality’s "Honey Bee Exotic Diseases and Pests" pamphlet to refresh yourself on disease symptoms. An inspection can take quite a long time so have a cover or an extra crown board handy to cover those supers not being worked on.

Place the roof in front of the hive and place all the supers on top of this, exposing the hive floorboard. Remove the floor and inspect the hive foundations. Most of my hives are on pallets to keep them off the ground and now need replacing. Hives must have a firm foundation. Replace the floorboard and check that it has a slight slope towards the entrance of about 1-centimeter. If the floorboard is showing signs of rot replace it, as it has to carry a tremendous weight during the year.

Brother Adam was a stickler for hive hygiene. He recommended that floorboards should be cleaned of the hive debris, as this is a source of infection. His method was to scrub them each spring but every four years they were soaked in a caustic soda / water solution (one pound to 25 gallons) and then scrubbed clean, dried and repainted. I scrub mine using a Janola® (Sodium Hypochlorite) / water mix, rinse this off with clean water and then remove the excess water with a cloth.

Replace the bottom super on the floor and cover the other expose super with a cloth or crown board. Gently prize up the outside frame and place this against the entrance. The frame and super should be dry inside. Mould or dampness on the outside frames or inside the super indicates that more top ventilation is required. (Put a twig under each corner of the crown board or top mat when reassembling the hive. The twigs should be just a bit smaller than the diameter of a bee, to prevent robbing.)

Inspect all the frames for AFB scale and capped brood cells that remain from last year. Any bees on the frames can be removed by a quick jerk of the frame into the super. If you find any odd capped cells well away from the brood, flick off the capping with a hive tool and inspect the cell. Most probably it will be a chalk brood mummy but it pays to check, as this could be a source of further disease

As you inspect each frame scrape off the propolis between the frames so they fit snugly together. Keep the scrapings as these can be sold. Most hives contain $2 to $5 dollars of propolis so why not get paid for your efforts. Close fitting frames assist the bees to expand the brood nest, never split the brood nest or add new frames to the middle of the brood nest until the main honey flow is underway. Replace any heavy, dark frames that you can’t see light through when held up to the sun, and any with masses of drone brood. The replacement frames should have been drawn out on last years honey flow. Don’t put in any foundation frames in the bottom super, as the bees tend not to draw the foundation all the way to the bottom bar.

Place the second super on top and proceed to clean the frames and check the brood area for disease. IE. Sunken or holed cappings in the vicinity of emerging brood. Most probably this will be just a larvae being capped. But it pays to check and get used to seeing what healthy brood looks like. If you are not sure what you are looking at, get another beekeeper to assist you. If you are still not sure, contact you Apiary Advisory Office and he will arrange for an AP2 to visit or will arrange for you to send a sample to the Laboratory for analysis.

Looking at brood frames is like reading a book of the last two months of the hives activities. You can clearly see the bands of brood, which progressively get bigger as the population of the hive increases. Notice the spotty appearance of the brood in the center yet the new brood on the outside has a uniform appearance with no missed cells. The initial spotting was cause through Nosema or insufficient protein but generally clears up when the bees begin gathering fresh nectar and pollen. If the spotty brood appearance persists, it could be a number of things. In the morning check that the hives has pollen stored in the frames. If none, consider feeding pollen supplement.

Check an area of unsealed larvae. Are they all the same age or do they vary from cell to cell in size. This is an indicator of an old queen or Nosema. If the queen is shiny has worn wings, then she is old and should be replaced.

Is there a lot of old dead bee bodies on the ground just in front of the hive. IE 100 or more old bee bodies or bees on the landing boards with distended abdomens and unable to fly. Grab one of the bees, remove the head and pull out the mid-gut by removing the stinger. The ventriculus should be the colour of pollen or darker. Light or white is an indication of Nosema but this should be confirmed by microscopic examination. Hives can be medicated with Fumidil-B® but this must take place more that six weeks before the main honey flow. Honey produced from medicated hives is excluded for certain export markets. In the long run, Nosema is a management problem. Three frames in the brood nest should be replaced each year. Apiaries should have good pollen supplies nearby and there should be good airflow around the hives and have morning sun.

Note any hives that have large patched of drone brood. These hives are very health and have latched on to good supplies for nectar and pollen and therefore could be making preparations to swarm. Check these hives every ten days from now on for queen cell bud development along the bottom bars of the second super. These buds are the first indication of swarming. Don’t remove them but monitor their development. Once you see an egg or larvae in the cells split the hive or take off a nuc to prevent swarming.

Good management practices dictates that at least three frames should be replaced in each brood super each year. Frames with large patches of drone brood, broken lugs and dark frames that you cannot see light through when held up to the light, should all be changed. Work these to the outside of the brood nest so they can be replaced during the spring inspection.

Continue inspecting all the frames replacing any old or rotten frames as you go. Assess the honey reserves and try to always keep three full frames of honey in the hive. This is about 1-week’s food for a strong hive. If the food reserves are below this level, add a feeder and start feeding thick sugar syrup or add frames of honey you have been holding back for this purpose. Strong hives can be given raw sugar as this takes the bees considerable effort to convert to nectar so won’t be a stimulant and induce swarming. If you use entrance blocks to restrict the entrance, keep them in place.

Frame Assembly. You can prepare for this now. Before assembling frames I used to dip the ends in a tray containing 1 cm of Metalex and let it soak in for an hour as a preventative to rotting lugs. Not all that good if you want to collect propolis straight away but gives the frame extra life.

With access to a paraffin wax dipper, I now treat the whole top bar by wax dipping them for a few minutes or until the bubbles stop rising. Use a piece of wire netting and spread it across the dipper and pushed into the base so each end is bent over the outside of the dipper. Free all the top bars from their packing strap and place them gently into the melter, a few at a time so that they don't splash or stick together. Hold them under the wax with an inverted "T" stick until they stop bubbling. Then lifts out the wire netting, (with all the top bars) allow to drain and cool then stack them back into a cardboard box. A few will be warped but not many if the frame manufacturer has selected straight grained timber.

The books tell you how this is done. The main points to watch are:

• Use cement coated nails, as they don’t easily pull apart. (Commercial beekeepers use staples).
• Frames should be not be bowed. Check that the frames are straight by lying them on a flat surface. All corners should touch the flat surface of the bench.
• Frames can be glued just before assembly or the top bars locked in by driving an additional nail from the top of the side bar into the top bar but I do not believe this is necessary if the right size and type of nail is used initially.
• Frames can be wired ready for waxing but don’t imbed the wax into the wire until they are ready to go on the hives. (Cold wax embedded now will sag later when it’s put into the hive and warmed by the bees).

Attached are photographs of a frame assembling jig and a wiring jig. The assembly jig is basically a square box with two slightly tapered wedges which hold the end bars up-right ready for the top bar to be fitted. Ten frames wide and just a few mm larger than the frames. If you make it a little bit big and the frames are sloppy in the holder, add a bit of corrugated cardboard as a packer until the frames are held snugly but are still reasonable easy to remove when the tapered end-bar wedges are removed.

Frame wiring jig

Things to do this Month: AFB Check and cull out any old frames from the brood nest. Notify AgriQuality within seven days of finding a diseased hive so further investigations into the spread of the outbreak can be organised and action taken to minimise it’s spread.

Feed if necessary, and spray or grub out weeds in front of the hives to allow the bees easy access. Checked stored supers for wax moth. Air PBD stored frames for a day or so before they are put on the hives.

If you get the chance, borrow Brother Adam’s book, "Bee-Keeping at Buckfast Abby", from the library. His methods are well explained and adapt well to some smaller beekeeping operations of this county's beekeeping. Especially his method of queen introduction. I use it a lot, just find the hive queen and the new nuc queen and swap them over, placing each one where the other was on the frame. Instant acceptance and both carrying on laying as it nothing had happened.

Enjoy your beekeeping, this is a special time of the year when new life begins. Spend a few minutes sitting in the spring sunshine enjoying the comings and goings of your bees.