Im a new bee keeper and my one precious colony acquired in August has just survived its first (extremely cold) winter in the far north. My bees are coming out a bit now and all looks well. They are in a new national hive with old frames. The queen excluder was removed at the start of the winter and one super left above the brood box. We fed them as much ambrosia as they wanted in the autumn via an entrance feeder - it all disappeared (presumably into the hive) and has kept them in food all winter. In January we put a block of apifonda in on top of the super frames just incase they were running short and they have just started munching that now. I have a block of pollen substitute for them - should I put that out yet?
In the next few weeks we would like to find the queen and get her back down into the brood box so we can replace queen excluder. We would also like to replace the old frames (brood and supers) with new as far as possible without stressing the colony. Any advice on the best way to do that? Can we just put a brand new super on top of the brood box with all new frames / foundation? Obviously the brood frames cant be done like that - perhaps we can just replace one or two of them a year?
Also should we move everything to a new hive and clean / re-treat the old one or should we avoid doing that (the hive is just 7 months old so there is no hurry but Im guessing we should move them every now and then so that hives can be given a new coat of preservative etc).
Advice greatly appreciated. I have joined SBA and my local bee club so its great to have so many sources of information.