Hive Inspections

Inspecting Your Hives

It's important to inspect hives for many reasons:

• You want to see that the queen is laying, and laying a strong brood pattern so that the colony will have enough foragers to build up winter stores (and fill honey supers, if that's one of your goals).  Otherwise, you may need to re-queen. 
•  You also will want to inspect your bees for signs of disease or parasites like Varroa mites. 
• Finally, you will want to inspect your bees to know when to put on a 2nd deep body:  bees will swarm if they feel crowded.  Once they have drawn comb on 7 of 10 frames, it's time to add that 2nd box. 

It is good to inspect about every 10-12 days, weather permitting, in "swarm season," spring & summer.  A queen takes 16 days to hatch out, & a potential swarm cell is difficult to spot at the egg stage. 

(FYI:  reasonable beekeepers can & do disagree about timing inspections:  many believe that every 10-12 days is too often to invade the hive & pull frames.  You will do best to take a class and/or read and/or come to workshops to talk to beekeepers, then make your own best decision.)

Conducting Hive Inspections:

Hive inspections are best done at midday, when many bees are out of the hive foraging.  The temperature should be 50F.+ degrees (some say 55+). Avoid inspecting on windy or rainy days to avoid chilling brood.

When inspecting, move slowly & deliberately.  Avoid fast, jerky movements.  Go gently with your bees to avoid alarming them.  Hold frames over the hive box (if the queen is on a frame, you don't want to shake her onto the ground by accident).  Tilt frames gently as you look at them and do not tilt them past about a 45 degree angle:  this avoids shaking out any eggs or larvae.  Also, if tilted too far, the sphericles through which bees breathe at the egg stage can become filled with fluid, killing the egg.

Many use smokers to encourage bees to dive down into the hive, exposing frames.  However, this makes bees think a fire is happening: they will ingest honey & set back their food strorage.  Many beekeepers now spray a 1:1 sugar/water solution on the bees (a gentle mist, not a drenching):  this promotes bees' grooming each other, does not traumatize them, & accomplishes the same purpose of getting bees less focused on you, the inspector.

A frame holder that can be hung over the side of the hive box is very helpful:  you can move outer frames with little or no drawn comb out of the way & get a better view of what is going on with built-up frames.

Covering the how-to details of hive inspection is beyond the scope of this site: if you're an LCBA member, we encourage you to come to a hive inspection mentor workshop & see how the process works. 

Keeping Records:

To make good decisions about managing your bees, it helps to observe & record patterns in your colonies. You may not remember everything you see when you inspect.  How many frames had brood?  How many frames had drawn comb?  How many frames had stored honey?  etc.  It helps to keep records.  Some do this with a hand-held voice recorder & make oral notes throughout the inspection; others write down notes. 

Covering the how-to details of hive inspection is beyond the scope of this site: if you're an LCBA member, we encourage you to come to a hive inspection mentor workshop & see how the process works!