Today did a spring health check on the hive that had bees in it at the beginning of winter.
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.

Out walking yesterday, and realised quite a few early spring flowers are out, the sun was shining and likely to stay out for a few days, which made me think I should prep the Asian Hornet traps in the garden, in the hope of catching any new queens emerging from winter, looking for a sweet energy boost.
I recycle jam jars with a special plastic top that leaves enough space for the hornets to crawl in - available from www.Apidistribution.fr (they have a shop in Bordeaux) and probably also available from many other hardware type shops.
The bait is a mix of 1/3 blackcurrant sirop, 1/3 white wine, 1/3 brown beer.
Sounds quite drinkable...
If you have a garden and want to protect bees from Asian Hornets, please put out a trap or two now, if the weather where you are is also starting to be sunny, or as soon as it does.
You don't need to buy a special trap, you could adapt a plastic bottle (saw off top third and invert it into bottom two thirds) or use a jam jar with a hole drilled in the lid. Hang it in a tree, or from a fence about 1.5m from the ground. Best if you can stop rain entering the trap too.
The alcohol content repels bees from being attracted to the bait.
Every Hornet queen caught now, is one nest and therefore thousands of hornets not eating bees later in the year.
Thank-you !

Happy to report that following a phone call on Saturday night, I had a little unexpected adventure to collect this swarm.
It was quite easy to reach, and the collection couldn't have been simpler - just needed to cut off the branch and lower the entire swarm into an empty hive.
It did mean driving about 2km after the then 9pm curfew, but I figured if anyone stopped me to ask questions, the beesuit sort of explained what I was doing!
Also a car behind me was a bit impatient as I slowly crawled home over some speed bumps - they roared past me at the first opportunity to overtake - felt like shouting - "Hey - Box of bees in here!!" or probably more appropriately "Attention - J'ai des abeilles dans le coffre !"
Anyway, they seem to have settled in their new home, so we now have 3 active hives.
If the surrounding area looks a bit like a jungle - it is sort of intentional - it makes it harder for Asian Hornets to hover around the hives, and doesn't seem to cause the bees any problems.
And I quite like the wild fern look :)

Today opened up the hives for a first spring health check. I currently have two hives, and happy to report both are looking healthy, with lots of bees out and about today. Most are returning with bright yellow pollen bundles on their legs.
One of our neighbours has a big Mimosa tree in flower (Yay!) and they are also visiting the Pussy-Willow tree in our back garden which is just coming into bud.
Just before winter I had given both hives half a pack of bee-candy to see them through, the plastic packets had been licked clean, so today took the empty packets out, and removed the feeder trays which had been upside down over the candy. I also managed to free up the side frames with the help of our bread knife, so that I could replace a frame. The bees still had some honey reserves. One colony was occupying 4 frames, the other maybe 7, so much better than last year when I only had one colony left at the end of winter.

However, I did make a rookey error - been too long since I've worn my bee-suit!
In my enthusiasm to get started, I somehow forgot to fully zip the hood to the body of my suit :$, and suddenly in the middle of moving frames about  realised that the buzzing and slight tickle on the back of my neck must be a bee inside the suit... I managed to walk away from the hive, remove the top half of my suit and by doing some vigourous upside down shaking get said bee out of my hair, without any sting incident :)

As there is blossom coming out everywhere, I suspect the first Asian Hornet queens will soon be out of their winter shelters and looking to feed on somethng sweet before starting to build their first nests. So with that in mind I set up three traps in the garden : the more Asian Hornet queens than can be caught now, the fewer colonies of Asian Hornets this summer, and the better off the bees will be. I use standard traps from Api Distribution in Bordeaux, but you can also make your own with a plastic bottle, or jam jar. For the bait I mix up the following cocktail : 1/3 syrup of Cassis, 1/3 white wine, 1/3 brown beer.
You should replace the bait every 14 days or so.  
Please put out traps if you can - the bees will thank-you !
If you have any questions, feel free to message me in the comments.

The bees I collected in May unfortunately didn't stay - they built a lovely lot of rogue wax comb in the feeder tray, but I couldn't entice them to move from that to the main body of the hive. They swarmed again and settled for a while high up on one of our apple trees, out of reach : 

However, the other two hives seem to be happy and healthy. I have collected some honey this year, only 6.1kg, so a far cry from the heydays of 2016 when we had over 60 kilos - but about 6 kilos better than last year, so things are improving!

Now into Asian Hornet season, with the two remaining hives under constant attack.
Very frustrating - I have protections around the hive entrances, Hornet traps freshly baited, and occasionally swipe quite a lot of the beasts, but if the last few years are anything to go by, I expect they will be present well into automn. Here's hoping the two remaining colonies are strong enough to withstand the attack.

So happy to see bees busy going in and out of both hives, coming back with pollen.
Last year was difficult, both hives swarmed in the spring and not many bees were left in the hives.
Then they were massacred by Asian Hornets - during August and September the hornets were constantly looping around the hives, often up to ten at a time. Most of that time the bees were rarely seen , only one or two would  try to make it out, passed the hornets. When the hornets caught a bee, they would carry it to a nearby branch, pull off the wings, head... and carry the thorax and body back to their nest. Their attack was relentless, regardless of using traps, cages infront of the hive entrance, it seemed the bees were just doomed.
I fed them sirop, and at the end of autumn, after treating both hives for Varoe, fed them again with sugar candy - although I thought hive 3 didn't have enough bees inside to get through winter.
The contrast now, to hear the bees buzzing again, and watch a dozen or so coming and going from both hives  is great. No hornets about yet, as it's too early in the year, and too cold I think. 
We could still have more cold weather, but the days are getting longer, so there are more hours of sunshine each day. 
Fingers crossed they stay healthy !

Friday night, after a busy week, dinner done, just washing up, ready to relax, I look out of the kitchen window: is that black blob hanging off the nut tree a swarm ?? Quick change into bee kit, and out to try and brush migrant bees into my cardboard "swarm box", some of them had other ideas... Decide best plan is to leave those that I'd collected in it overnight.
Next morning sprayed my empty hive with "Bee charm" and put some old built frames inside (also meant to be irresistible to bees) and tried to entice bees from box into hive. Left them to it and went to do Saturday morning errands. As I drove back into the drive a cloud of bees seemed to be heading off over our neighbour's garden - bad news? But then a cluster of bees appeared on the olive tree, brushed these into the swarm box... some more then seemed to be congregating on the lavender next to olive tree - decided to try a more direct route, and moved hive 1 next to this patch ( tricky as you can see, my vision was limited!), chopped off the branch of lavender and popped it directly into the hive - closed hive up...
Then saw more bees on the next lavender bush. Chopped this off and put it in swarm box.
Left everything to settle and went out out (drinks and stuff)  - Yay!
Sunday morning asked for assistance from husband - this time with us both kitted in matching bee-suits, we managed 'a quick lid half off, bees brushed out of box into hive, lid back on' manoeuvre. After a few minutes I opened the entrance to the hive just a little bit, and again have retreated to leave them alone...
Fingers crossed !
ps - pink flowers are what my mum called Ragged Robin (not the lavender, which isn't yet in flower). We have loads of this in the garden  (in France) and I think I was told that its now rare in the Uk

Having a bit of a bee themed weekend.
Have now painted hive 1 (lovely blue coulor, which by coincidence matches our shutters... ).
Whilst preparing, washing and painting it, this hive was getting a lot of attention from some of the other hives' bees - which is a bit of a worry as any empty bee equipment tends to be stocked next to our front door.
I suppose it must still smell good to bees - even I could smell a sweet aroma coming from it.
As this was the case, and we are coming into swarm season, decided to set it up as an empty potential swarm trap - just needs a little sign "vacant - apply within" .
So here we have the row - blue hive currently un-occupied, next the hive with the recent Buckfast arrivals, and finally next to the apple tree the hive with local Black bees. Think all our fruit trees are just about to burst into blossom, so, in estate agent speak "a truly desirable residence" ! 

This winter I lost another hive - well of course not the hive, but the bees inside. Think maybe there was a  swarm late in autumn - the old queen leaving the hive with an entourage of bees - and the remaining bees & their newly hatched queen just weren't up to surviving the winter - but  its always a bit of a mystery.
I had given them sugar candy to help them through the winter months, and if anything thought hive 1 had more bees inside than hive 3, but the bees in hive 3 were more active, nipping out on any sunny days throughout winter, whereas hive 1 was in lock down.
Anyway, by the 10th of March, when it was warm enough to check on them, the difference was clear - hive 1 had not even managed to eat the sugar candy, and the bees were gone with only a few stiff corpses remaining - whilst in hive 3 the sugar candy had disappeared completely - the plastic wrapping licked clean - and the bees were busy zapping in and out collecting early pollen.
So I've lost one swarm each winter over the last two years. However as hive 2 was already empty last year, last summer I ordered a new swarm from the Bee School. Yesterday was collection day  - I drove over early in the morning, loaded my hive, with the swarm inside, carefully into the back of the Kangoo and brought them home - must say, I've never slowed down quite so much for the bumps -"sleeping policemen" - on that road as when transporting  a hive and maybe 40,000 bees - but fortunately nobody was following me to observe my slow progress !
Once home, after 30 minutes to get over the transportation, I opened the hive entrance - and got stung - serves me right for not kitting up for that - but as they say - no gain without pain.
Today I did kit-up and checked inside the hive, all looks good - I moved some of the unbuilt frames which had been used as packing and put the occupied frames back in the arrangement they would have been in their small starter hives all last summer.  Also gave them some sirop in the feeder tray, mixed with warm water, and with a few twigs scattered in the tray, so that any bees that get too deep in the sirop should be able to crawl out.
Was happy to see some foragers returning to the hive with pollen packed on their legs - they must have found my neighbours Mimosa, or something else in flower.
I now have one empty hive, awaiting re-painting, hive 2 with the new swarm of Buckfast bees - which are stripey orange and brown, and hive 3  with local black bees. Buckfast are meant to be less aggressive, produce a lot of honey, but also need a lot of provisions, whereas the local black bees are a bit more aggressive, a bit hardier, and maybe produce less honey. Well, they did survive the winter, so that's in their favour! - have to see how the season progresses - will let you know if they live up to their reputations.