A Beekeeper's Journal (Part 1): How We Start the Season in Late Winter

 Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand-new feature on the blog!

In my last post, I shared that we just finished getting the bees ready for winter. Now that the 'off-season' is here, I want to share some special pages from 'A Beekeeper's Journal'  that I've kept since starting this journey.

This series isn't a complete month-by-month calendar. Instead, it’s a look at the key challenges and milestones that define our year—from waking the bees up, to fighting off pests.

Our first entry begins in late February. This is about 20-30 days after their very first wake-up, and it's a critical time when the queen begins to lay eggs again and the colony must build its strength for spring.

The Goal: Building a Strong Colony in the Cold

In late winter, the nights are still freezing in Korea. The colony is small and weak. Our single most important job is to help them grow into a strong, packed hive as safely and quickly as possible.

Every apiary has its own style, but this is our special method.

1. The Setup: Security and Warmth

We don't just let the bees use the whole big, empty hive box. Instead, we create a small, warm "apartment" for them inside it.

We do this using two key items:

1. Divider Boards : These are like temporary walls. We place one on each side of the small bee cluster, shrinking their living space.

2. Feeder Frames
   : These are frames packed full of stored honey from last season. We place these just outside the divider boards.

This setup has two huge advantages:

• Warmth: By keeping the bees in a small, tight cluster (the 'brood nest'), they can use their body heat to easily keep the queen and her new eggs warm, even when it's cold outside.

• Security: The bees know those massive honey frames are right next to them. This gives them a powerful sense of abundance and stability. They feel safe to start raising a lot of new brood, knowing they won't starve.
  
  

  

  2. The "Patience" Method: When to Add New Frames

  As the new bees hatch, this small central area gets crowded.

  This is the most critical step and where our method is different. Most beekeepers, seeing the crowding, would immediately add new, empty frames (called 'foundation' or 'drawn comb') right into the middle of the brood nest to give the queen more space.

  We do not do this.

  Why? In our experience, adding frames too early breaks up the queen's beautiful, tight, dense egg-laying pattern. It creates cold gaps in the nest, management becomes difficult, and the population growth can actually slow down.

  Instead, we wait.

  We wait until the central nest is so full of bees that the queen has no choice. She physically crosses over the divider board and begins laying her first eggs on the 'feeder frame' (the honey frame) on the side.

  
  

  3. The Result: The Signal to Expand

  This is the signal we've been waiting for!

  The queen crossing that divider is proof that the colony is strong, healthy, and absolutely ready to expand.

  
  

  As you can see in this photo, the hive is literally "boiling over" with bees. (We actually took this picture right before we added the new frames.) This is the result of our patience method: a dense, incredibly strong population.

  Now that we have this perfect, crowded hive, we step in. We add the new, empty frames, giving them all the space they need to grow.

  By waiting for this precise moment, we ensure the queen's brood nest stays dense and protected from the cold. The population grows without interruption.

  Using this method, even a small colony starting on just half a frame's worth of bees can explode into a hive in this condition by the end of March.

  This is just one of the lessons we've learned in our apiary. It’s a method of patience that pays off.

  Thanks for reading the first entry in our Journal. The seasons change quickly, and so do the challenges.

  Next time, I'll share a much darker story: our battle against the Asian Giant Hornet.

  Stay tuned.