I already knew they had survived, as the bees have been busy getting out and bringing pollen back in. As it was a nice warm day (18° at lunchtime) I took off the feeder tray that had protected the candy on top of the frames - all the candy had gone, so I peeled off the remnants of the empty candy package.
I moved some of the frames, removing two older ones and placing some fresh frames with just a sheet of wax for the bees to build cellules/comb on, placing the new frames either side of the busiest frames housing the colony. Hopefully that should give the bees space to build and reduce the likelihood they swarm.
Fingers crossed!
Current top choice for collecting pollen seems to be the Pussy Willow in our back garden and the Plum blossom that is just coming out.
I also replaced the bait in the Asian hornet traps, see last month's post for the recipe. No Asian Hornets caught yet, but the queens will be emerging now the days are warming up, so it's important to catch as many of them as possible now, to reduce the number of nests, and therefore reduce the number of Asian Hornets attacking local hives, later in the year.