Hive inspection is a hot topic among beekeepers. I can certainly understand new beekeepers wanting to open their hives and peruse the colony frame-by-frame. It is the very best way to learn about the social structure of a colony, the duties of individual bees, and the physical layout of pollen, honey, and brood.
Nevertheless, I believe it is easy to over inspect. I believe the integrity of the colony should not be compromised any more than necessary. An inspection is nothing less than a home invasion and before you do it, you should have a good reason for doing so.
In the United States, hives are required to have removable frames so that colonies can be inspected for disease. Although it is a good idea, it doesn’t mean that hives should be constantly violated. It means that hives can be inspected periodically or when things go awry.
So how often should hives be inspected? I can’t answer that. Speaking for myself, I seldom inspect frame-by-frame.
Most of the time you can tell everything you need know by standing near your hive and watching. You know a lot by how the colony behaves, the way it sounds, the way it smells, and the number and type of bees that come and go. You can tell even more by watching what they bring in, observing what they haul out, and assessing their temperament. If you walk by your hive on a summer’s evening and it purrs like an insulated engine room, smells like heaven, and the landing board is clean, why on earth would you open it up and disturb everything? It doesn’t make sense.
On the other hand, if the number of bees is decreasing, you see dead bees or pupae unattended on the landing board, you detect an odd odor, or your bees are unseasonably temperamental, open the hive. If you see robbers, predators, or leaking honey, open the hive. If you see lethargic, aimless, or deformed bees, open it up.
Again, speaking for myself, I inspect all my hives in late winter. Later, I open those I’ve decided to manipulate in some way like reversing, splitting, or re-queening. Although I open hives in spring and summer to add supers or remove them, I don’t actually inspect frame-by-frame unless I detect something amiss. If all goes well, I don’t inspect again until fall when I assess honey stores and queen activity just before winter. At that time, I may redistribute honey frames, combine colonies, add feed, or make other winter adjustments. In any case, I never inspect on a calendar schedule. That is, I never inspect just because two weeks has passed, or three. That’s crazy.
That said, I walk by my hives nearly every single day, both summer and winter. In the past, when I had out-yards, I checked on those once a week. There is always something to be learned about the inside of a hive by a quick check of the outside. But every time you start pulling out frames, you run the risk of killing the queen. You agitate the bees. You break propolis seals. You chill the brood. You jar the larvae or dry them. If you damage honey cells, both robbers and predators may pick up the odor and come running.
A lot of routine maintenance can be performed on a hive without pulling out all the frames. You can add feed, pollen patties, or mite treatments by just lifting the lid. You can look for swarm cells by tipping up a brood box and inspecting the bottom. You can assess honey stores by lifting the back end of a box and estimating the weight. You can check for mites on a sticky board. And if the hive is so full of bees you can’t see a blame thing, if it boils over when you lift the lid and the sky goes dark ’cause sunlight can’t get through the cloud of bees, then is it really necessary to check your brood pattern? Get real.
I realize it takes time to develop a feel for what is going on inside a hive. But I urge new beekeepers to strive for that. Compare what you see on the outside to what you find on the inside until you develop an intuition. It will happen sooner than you think. And in any case, use common sense. No animal wants its home torn apart for no good reason. So before you do it, have a clear idea of what your good reason is.
Rusty
@HoneyBeeSuite is my fav beek! I love how she doesn’t push a one-size fits all. Pay attention and learn something useful, she shares wisdom.
This is a very good subject. When I started out with beehives, I read the forums like everyone else. I got the impression that I had better inspect once a week to make sure the mites, the beetles, the this and the that were not killing my hives. I think I did more to set them back than anything out there ever could.
Now, if I see normal activity at the front of the hive, and when I lift the lid and see a lot of bees working away, I don’t tear the brood nest apart. I just check to see if I need to add another super or not. If they are having a problem, you get to the point that you can just sense it, in most cases, but not always. I do complete inspections every month and a half to two months. My bees just seem to do better. The thing is, I use a fogger with Thymol/FGMO for V and T mites. It does the job without any manipulation, so I am pretty confident by not bothering them much.
I do the same thing with my packages. A couple months later, I’m cutting queen cages out of comb. 99% of my packages make it fine. I think it’s because I leave them alone.
New beeks need to leave them alone as much as possible, as hard as it can be! But that is just my opinion, because it works for me.
I have thought about this very thing quite a bit, and I am actually considering setting up a hive with three boxes of drawn comb, and just leaving the bottom three boxes untouched, just adding and removing supers. Let them requeen and do their bidness as they see fit, just to see how it goes.
No comment, just a question. I did a split, hive appears somewhat weak.. Saw the new queen today. Need to feed continuously through the summer? Do you ever remove the inner cover for ventilation?
Hi Les,
I’m not sure which half looks weak, the original hive or the split. The split will look weak and get weaker until the brood starts to hatch. If you used a queen cell, it takes many weeks for the queen to produce brood. After hatch she spends 3-4 days maturing, 1-2 days mating (if the weather is good), then another 2-3 days before she starts to lay. The first eggs will then hatch 3 weeks later. So you are looking at four or five weeks before the first eggs hatch–and that is if you had good weather. During this time the adults are dying and the colony is getting smaller. If you added a mated queen, the time is shorter, but it will still be three to four weeks with no new bees.
If your split has lots of brood, however, this will help stabilize the population until the new queen’s brood comes along.
Sugar syrup helps the bees produce comb. If they have no comb, they must build it quickly in order to give the queen a place to lay her eggs. This late in the season, it is probably a good idea to feed syrup. If they are on drawn comb, it is not so important. Here’s a link to an article about feeding a new package; it is similar to feeding a split, especially if they have little comb.
I use a ventilated inner cover for ventilation. You can also use an upper entrance, or you can prop the lid upon with two small pieces of wood. In a few days I will be writing more about inner covers, both regular and ventilated ones. In the meantime, here is a link to more about ventilation and a photo of a screened (ventilated) inner cover.