Few Bees

[Neil]

Hi all,
I was concerned about my hive as it only has four frames of brood, this isn’t even a nuc. The reason for this is we lost a swarm late September last summer and as if I thought that wasn’t bad enough, a cast then came out the hive. We managed to get that back and put it into another hive. Unfortunately this didn’t survive the winter we lost them at the end of February. Is this the reason we have so few bees for this time of year? The weather hasn’t been great up to now but the queen is laying.

 

[buzz lightyear]

4 frames of brood

You need to have enough bees to cover the brood and keep it warm, feed the lavae, bring in forage etc.
How many full frames of bees do you have? Is there any abnormality in the brood pattern? How old is the queen?
These are a few factors affecting spring build up

 

[Eyeman]

The amount of brood you have may be average for this type of bees this time of year. Four full frames of sealed brood about to emerge will mean that you colony will be much larger the next time you inspect. I would check for eggs and young larvae to make sure the queen is laying well and if all is well don't worry.
Out of my six colonies this spring, 2 were large, 2 medium and 2 small in strength. The 2 small colonies were transfered to 6 frame nuclei to aim their build up.