Tips for the Month:

• Continue 7 day inspections to prevent swarming where needed.

• Ensure the Queen has space to lay in the broodbox and in poor weather that there are sufficient stores for the colony at least 2 brood frames full.

• If you have a successfully mated a laying new queen from a split or swarm prevention, you may want to unite this colony with the original one, having removed the old queen. Use a sheet of newspaper held down to separate the colonies being united. After a week they will have chewed through and the brood can be interleaved in one box. Frames of stores can be kept to be used in the Autumn for winter stores.

• If you want drawn frames for making up nucs, this is a good time when the hive is reaching its peak population to put a brood box with frames of foundation over a queen excluder to encourage frames to be drawn out which can be used in nucs or shook swarms.

• Open entrances to the wide setting to stop congestion at the hive entrance

• Continue to add supers as needed

• Remove sealed supers for extraction. Book the branch extractor - Select "Request the Branch Extractor" on the Contact Us form.

• Check colonies for disease.

• Ensure bees have access to water near the hives - they like shallow gravel beds.