Spring is a period of development and the entire care effort should be conducive to bringing the colonies to the required number of bees soon.. Correctly wintered bees do not require early intervention. The main inspection should in principle be carried out after the bees have flown several times. However, it should not be delayed with a review of families raising doubts as to their proper condition. Weak families can be picked out when interrogating hives with a snake, based on the volume of the voice, and on clear days recognize by a weak flight.
The motherless (orphan families) are loud when questioned, and the bees out of them, on warm days, they hardly fly, they just walk on the hive outlet and walls, creating the impression that they are looking for something. Families with drone or semi-stranded queens can be identified by drone flights, after defective or dead drones thrown out of the hive, and often also pupae. Outlets in weak families should be narrowed with a stick, slat, with a piece of rubber or plastic hose up to approx. 5 cm, to prevent the robbery of food supplies. Motherless mothers should join a normal family as soon as possible. It is wise to do the mating after the flight of the bees has ceased for the day, in which matlessness is established.
As the activity of the bees increases and the weather is favorable, any unnatural symptoms will require a thorough family review, to determine the amount of food, brood quality, the number of frames needed, health status of bees. Due to the large and rapid loss of bees expected in this period, the nests are not widened, or rather, the number of frames with empty or large spare slices is reduced. However, frames with brood or feathers cannot be removed. The consequence of the review should be an ad hoc adjustment of the amount of food, i.e.. subtracting the excess from one family, and adding to others.
