When should you look through?
Well a good start would be when it is Spring and it is certainly not that balmy in the East Mids at the moment so I for one am exercising my patience.
What do we mean by a look through? All combs out and back and replaced in the same order. A careful note taken of the stores, the room available to the queen and the amount of brood if any. Is there BIAS… aka Brood In all Stages, as in eggs, open brood and sealed brood. If so then your queen is probably laying properly. I am not going to touch on the dreaded Drone Laying Queen or laying workers as that is another month or so ahead of us.
The principle point at the moment is this. It is Winter here still, and the local forecast is predicting another two weeks of it. Am I going to take the colonies apart in 5C and freezing fog? One guess then.
I will wait for balmier weather and in the mean time I will keep an eye on the stores as starvation is ever a danger.
Exercise patience and it will “dee nae ill” whilst taking things apart too early may very well do a lot of damage or ill.
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