Spring Check-Up

I finally got around to opening up my hives.

I had 2 hives going into the winter. One died off early in the winter. I don't know why. The second made it through and still had dry sugar on the inner cover.

The dead out had about 15 frames of honey. I found a small cluster of bees that were head first into the frame, but most of the bees were dead on the bottom board. There were some partial frames of honey and pollen. I put them into one box and left it in the same place so the bees in the other hive can clear it out. I put a couple of newer empty frames into my nuc box on the other side of the live hive.

I prepared the nuc box just in case the hive was getting ready to swarm. I will do an artificial swarm split if needed.

I opened up the hive right down to the bottom board and cleaned it off. There were some dead bees, but not as many as the other hive. Lots of cappings and bits of pollen, but nothing to indicate disease.
The bottom box had some honey and pollen and newly cleaned comb indicating the workers are preparing for the queen to move down into the bottom box. The middle box had some honey and brood, and I found the queen with her blue dot so I closed up the middle box and moved on. The top box had 3 frames of honey on one side and then 5 frames of brood and honey and pollen with 2 frames of honey on the other side. The queen appears to be doing well and getting ready to move into the bottom box. I saw almost all worker brood, a little drone brood, and some empty queen cups, but no signs of swarming. I have not fed the hive any syrup or Fumagilin-B so everything they have done has been on their own. The trees are flowering and so are the wild strawberries and dandelions so there is plenty of forage. The weather has been dry so they have been out a lot. I will decide on medications tomorrow.