Maintenance and Repair

The Moon busy again

It's been a quiet winter, so not posted for a while. However, I have been doing little things, but none of them worth posting as yet (there is a larger project in the pipeline, but it's not ready to be unveiled yet).

As the weather is improving now, I decided I need to attend to a number of issues urgently.
First of all I removed the Celotex from the Moon. The bees are out in strong numbers and I think they should no longer need the extra protection. It still gets cold at night, but there is enough forage available for them to eat their way through that, I think. Also removed the mouseguard, so the hive is once again working as usually. As it was windy, I didn't open the Moon up, but intend to on Monday, not least because I have to mark the queen.

Various hive bits in the process of being de-propolized

Second task was to go through all the supers and frames and clean them a bit. I scraped off the remains of the dead bees, wax and - mainly - propolis. It was harder work than I thought, but the hive tool is great (love the hive tool!) and after a few hours all wooden surfaces were tolerably smooth again. At some point I think I should burn the wood slightly (I think that's what they say you should do). Will try that next year.

Finally, I had some repairs to do on the Star brood box and roof. Due it having fallen over, the roof was broken and the brood box slightly damaged, too. Fixed both of those best I could. The equipment is now as ready as it will ever be. Roll on the good weather!

Fixing the Star