We visited our two hives the weekend before last to see if the bees needed pollen or sugar syrup to supplement them until things started blooming. No, there was no doubt that they really, really didn’t need either. There were hundreds of bees returning to the hives with legs full of pollen (as shown in the picture above), and the frames had lots of capped honey in them! We aren’t sure if the honey is leftover from last year or if our bees had found a source of nectar and were already producing more, but logic would dictate the former. There were still so many frames with capped honey, however, that it boggled the mind to consider how they got through the winter with so much left. There were also far fewer dead bees in the bottom of the hive this spring than in previous years, at least from what I recall.

I did see a few brand new eggs on a few frames, which means the queens are starting to lay again. But I did not see any larvae or capped brood. If the queens are active, they’re just starting. When there’s larvae, I’ll look for mites in the cells, especially in areas where there are capped drone brood, since varroa mites like drone bees the best. We are planning to do a sample test for mites but it seems more worthwhile to me to wait a couple of weeks and do it when there are more drones.