After several weeks of cold but dry weather, with plenty of very welcome sunshine, I manage to pick the day when it rains to do my first hive inspection of the year. Thankfully the sun came out so it wasn't too bad but there were some worrying signs inside both hives.
Firstly, the bees were alive and in both hives there were plenty of them. There was brood (not much but it's early yet) although I didn't see the either of our two queens, and the bees seem ok. On the down side, there was some light mould on the crown board and a couple of cells looked like they had chilled brood. Unfortunately it isn't possible for me to use a camera and check the frames so I had to rely on memory to check the problem.
For me, the most worrying thing was the amount of dead bees on the varroa mesh. There seemed an awful lot. This may have caused the poor circulation of air in the hive, as they were thick on the floor. I brushed them all out and, while one or two weren't dead, they didn't look very well. There wasn't, as far as I could see, a queen among them, so fingers crossed.
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