The bees have continued to take the fondant down but still little movement outside the hive, it is now the 23rd of the month and finally the bees are flying with the weather warming up, one way to know if all is well in the hive without opening the hive is to watch the bees returning from flight to see if they are bringing pollen in, if they are this is a good indication the queen is starting to lay as the new brood need pollen to form and grow, as can be seen by the photographs below the bees are bringing in several colours of pollen which indicates they are visiting a variety of flowers for the pollen.