A fresh article about splitting winter bees and the mistakes of doing it too early
One of the best ways to increase your apiary/number of hives is to make splits in the spring when the bees are naturally making increase and preparing to swarm. In other words, take advantage of their natural inclination to swarm and channel that energy into producing splits. Turning lemons into lemonade!
This is a common question that is very hard to answer. We recently found a deadout and filmed our investigation.
One of the most common pests in honey bee hives are sweet ants.
Most beekeepers see them under the cover and on top of the inner cover. Sometimes they are even under the tin on the cover. I have seen many beekeepers go a bit overboard trying to keep ants out of a hive. In our area of SW Missouri ants hold no threat to a colony of bees. Mostly they are just looking for a warm dry home and maybe an occasional bit of sweet food usually from the beekeeper. They do get into the hives on very weak hives but in most cases they are still not the problem or even a threat. The video below discusses the sweet ants in more detail and possible solutions like cinnamon.
March is one of the hardest months for bees. More beehives starve in March than they do in January and February. Why? Because they are not doing much in Jan. and Feb. so they are not eating much. Just trying to stay warm. How-ever, in late February or early March, they start rearing brood to prepare for the spring harvest of nectar and pollen.