Honey Do Beekeeping Checklist for April
April is when things begin to turn around for the bees. The temps are consistently warmer, and blooms are just around the corner. It’s important to keep feeding the bees until they can feed themselves. This is when the majority of you will restart your colonies with packages, and when survivor colonies begin to ramp up for spring.
CHECKLIST
- If your colony didn’t survive, make sure your hive is ready for your new bees, which could arrive at any time
- Install bees into brand new hives as well as the hives from colonies that didn’t survive
- Sort reusable comb and harvest all the unusable. Save the bad comb for future wax rendering
- If your hive had mice in it we recommend doing a diluted bleach rinse on the empty hive and letting it air dry completely before putting anything back in
- If your colony survived, continue feeding the 1:1 water to sugar solution until you see flowers blooming. It’s always nice to plant a patch of early blooming flowers near your bees to give them the earliest possible spring start
- If your colony survived but the queen is struggling, consider requeening the hive
