I has bee a fairly cold start to April. I should be thankful it’s not snowing, but the consistently cool weather has made it nearly impossible to begin any inspections or other bee work that involved more than peeking under the inner cover. The hives do appear to be building up well and drones are starting to appear which is a good sign. We have fortunately had one day that hit the upper 60′s and a few days in the mid 50′s that allows me to setup a cell builder and begin grafting with great care not to chill the brood. I use a portable incubator to transport the brood frame to graft from into the house where it’s warm and then to transport the grafted cells back to the hive. It does seem to work quite well and the brood is only in the open for a few seconds at a time.
On the plus side I’ve had more time to catch up on building equipment. Not exactly what I planned on doing this time of year, but with rain and a high of only 40F today I can’t do much else with the bees.
