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After a long, cold winter spent huddled inside, everyone is looking forward to spring – bees included. For your hives, spring is a time of intense activity. Egg-laying, brood-raising, and nectar-gathering all start to ramp up after being almost non-existent in winter.

Ecrotek outlines how often you should check, what to look for and why it matters – your complete beehive inspection guide.

A beginner’s guide to queen spotting, and marking the queen bee in your hive.

When we hear about bees most of us think of honeybees (Apis mellifera) but there are many more bees around us.

​The matriarch of the hive, an egg laying machine, the mother and surrogate father to all the workers and drones, and a creature of true beauty.

Many Kiwi beekeepers start out as hobbyists, with one or two hives in a back garden or on a rural property, then make the jump to selling honey and beekeeping full time.

After a long, cold winter, we’re all looking forward to spring – and bees are no different. As the days get warmer and blossoms appear, bee behaviour starts to change in preparation for a busy summer of honey production. If you’ve left your hive to its own devices during winter, it’s time to do a comprehensive inspection and make sure all is well. Then there are a number of jobs that need to be done early in the season, to keep your colony in good condition throughout spring and summer.

Bee colonies revolve around their queen – but what happens when she’s gone? Although it’s not common, there are times when a beekeeper needs to introduce a new queen to an old colony. This happens if the queen dies or stops laying eggs, or if you need to split a hive and start a new colony. Without a queen, there are no eggs, and without eggs, there are no new bees. So, lack of a queen can eventually lead to the loss of the colony, if you don’t take steps to fix the problem. Some colonies will be able to fix the problem themselves by creating a new queen, but this doesn’t always happen.

There are many options for feeding honey bees. Here are some bee feeder supplies you can use.