Today Mrs Watson and Mr McMullan inspected the bees for the first time this year.

In the top box there was eggs, larva and brood and lots of honey that they haven’t eaten over the winter.

Beeyonce was in the bottom box, so we put what is called a “Queen Excluder” in between the top and bottom box so that she can’t get up into the top box. This means that there will be no eggs laid in the top box and the bees will just use this for making honey.

You can see her searching around all the cells trying to find one that has been cleaned out and is ready for her to lay eggs in.

Here you can see the bees returning from foraging at flowers and they have got loads and loads of pollen in their pollen baskets on their legs.

The bees have woken up!!!!

Now that the milder weather of spring is here and there are some flowers – we found 6 different types on a walk this week – the bees are no longer clustering and are out looking for pollen and nectar.

This is a dangerous time for the bees however – there aren’t a huge numbers of flowers around and the bees need food because they are moving more which uses more energy.

The Queen is starting to lay eggs as well, and these babies need pollen and nectar to grow.

It is very important that we make sure that they have enough food to keep them going until more flowers are out and there is a steady flow of nectar.

They still  have stores of honey and I have given them more fondant icing to keep them happy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022v2yw