Phew that month went fast!
I did write a “things to do in February” post which obliges me to now write at least one post every month outlining what I would doing at each month.
in short:
- Varroa treatments are urgent now
- Get any honey supers you want to harvest off if you haven’t already before you treat.
- Feeding (unless they have enough of their own honey)
- AFB and disease inspections
- Solve any queen problems you have.
Varroa treatments
In a previous blog post I wrote that I already have lost a hive to the mite, while there are special circumstances with this hive that exasperated its varroa infestation, all hives can be expected to have high infestation rates, and some will likely already be borderline. It is thus important that you start your treatment as soon as possible, if you haven’t already. Actually, last month would have been the better time to start a treatment, but some of you might still have had a honey flow going on, and as you know I am an advocate of not putting on any treatments into a hive until the honey supers are off, regardless of what treatment is used. To clarify further this only refers to honey supers that I intend to harvest in the future.
Some people will obviously have different opinions on this and some manufacturers undoubtedly have financed extensive studies that have “proven” that their product will not cause any residues in the honey. I prefer to be 100% sure that the honey that I eat contains nothing but… honey.
Honey Supers
In my case the honey supers came off last month, any late flows would have been additional winter feed for the bees that they could deposit in their brood chambers, but since it was so dry here there was not much going on sadly.
Feeding
With the supers off, and no flow coming in it might be necessary to feed the bees, depending how much of their honey you wish to leave them, or how much honey they have in their brood chamber. To make sure they do not starve. In my case I have regularly been feeding them sugar water for them to slowly build up their stores into winter.
AFB
I would want my single jumbo brood box hives to be at least half full with honey, coming into winter.
Apart from that with the bees still having brood nests it is of course a good idea to do an AFB inspection somewhen this month. I would advise on doing so even if it is not part of ones DECA. While checking for AFB also look for signs of other diseases, especially PMS.
Solving queen issues
Last but not least march is the last month before winter where I would expect a young queen to get mated, which means it is still a good time to try and solve any queen problems that you might have, and mated queens are still available.
Here is an article where I am outlining what to do with queen-less hives.