New(ish) Beekeeper Column
Off the Wahl Beekeeping
Mechanics of a Hive Inspection
Richard Wahl
One of the more daunting tasks in beekeeping is deciding what to look for and when to do hive inspections. I have to admit that in my first year of beekeeping I did not do any deep hive inspections. I only opened the hive once to add a second ten-frame deep midway through the Summer after seeing more extensive bearding on the front of the single deep hive. I did not realize at the time that this was more likely due to overheating inside the hive rather than a lack of space. There is a good likelihood that the additional space was needed at that time, but as with many of my actions in that first year, I was correcting some perceived need of the bees for the wrong reason. Fortunately, that first captured swarm was resilient enough to survive through my faulty logic and I was on my way to becoming a more knowledgeable beekeeper.
After reading more on beekeeping through that Summer, my next action was to treat for mites on only one occasion in the following Fall. No further adjustments were made to the two deep hive until the following February when I added a candy board to the hive having seen the recommendation for supplemental Winter feeding in a video. This too must have been an opportune decision as the hive devoured the entire candy board and came into the next Spring as an active hive. Perhaps some of the strong genetics of this first colony of bees linger in my apiary after fourteen years as I have gotten at least one hive through every Winter since that first lucky endeavor.
I now realize that that first year hive should have been split going into its second season. But as a greenhorn beekeeper, I was not yet aware of splitting techniques or even the now obvious strength of the hive that would have warranted splitting.
Since that first year of beekeeping, I have become much more proactive in my hive inspections and have learned much more about what to look for and which actions to take for rationale reasons rather than relying on simple luck, based on erroneous logic. I still try new techniques or test new approaches with a single hive now and then to see if some differing approach has significantly different results. That has resulted in some tried and true techniques which sometimes seem to work in my apiary and at other times result in the loss of a hive, particularly through the following Winter.
The first point to consider when contemplating a hive inspection is to have a reason for the inspection. Any deep inspection where frames are removed, and even when replaced in the original order disturbs the environment of the bees. It may slow nectar and/or pollen collection for up to a few days before the bees reestablish their ideal internal humidity and temperature conditions. Damage may need to be repaired in interconnected frame patterns or pathways and comb that may have been inadvertently stressed. And then, there is the chance that the queen was in a bad spot and got injured or damaged during the removal or replacement of a frame. It is estimated that after a deep hive inspection it may take the bees up to two days to return themselves to their desired ideal state.
If the need is determined for a hive inspection, the first step is to have any needed equipment at the ready in the hive area. Prepositioning additional honey supers and/or nucs can save valuable time after the hive is opened. Having all of one’s hive equipment close by can also aid in making timely inspections.
And let’s not forget about getting the smoker going with an adequate amount of fuel nearby. A little cool white occasional smoke can go a long way to settling down a testy hive. The smoker should be loaded about halfway with the user’s choice of fuel and then lit with some vigorous compressions of the baffle to get a good flame going with its underlying embers. I have found that using a plumber’s butane blow torch with a click switch igniter at the top makes starting a smoker quite easy. I have been using my butane torch for the past thirteen years and it is still going strong even after a few minor plumber repair jobs. Once the flame is steady, the remaining half of the smoker can be filled with fuel which should result in the embers below producing a steady white smoke when the cover is closed. If the resultant exhaust smoke is nearly clear or flames are exiting the spout then the fuel is burning too hot, this will only annoy the bees more. Strive for a steady white smoke stream with just a few puffs at the hive entrance. This disguises the pheromones of the entrance guard bees which are then less likely to alert the remainder of the hive. Remove the outer cover and lift the rear of the inner cover and aim a few puffs of smoke into the hive just between the inner cover and the top deep. A few puffs can be directed at the inner cover center ventilation hole as well.
Cool white smoke from a lit smoker.
Reset the inner cover for a minute or two and as the smoke is sensed by the bees, they will begin to engorge on nearby honey which should reduce any tendency to be aggressive toward the beekeeper. As I learn the temperament of my various hives in the first, late Spring inspection I often choose to not even use smoke on some hives that seem very gentle. The key to any good inspection is to move slowly and carefully so as not to injure any more bees than is absolutely necessary.
Once the inner cover is removed I like to set aside any upper honey supers and the upper second brood deep (if used) and start any inspection in the bottom deep and move up. Set any removed supers over the inverted outer cover to minimize bees falling into the grass or surrounding ground. Any bees landing on the outer cover can be shook back into the hive before it is reclosed. Carefully, pull a frame straight up at the outer side of the super and hang it on a frame support or set it in a spare nuc. The queen is not normally on one of the outer most frames which more often than not contains mostly nectar, honey or pollen.
The brood chamber frames should always be shoved together tightly as this provides the correct bee space between frames and results in less cross frame comb being built particularly if new undrawn comb frames are being used. There will still be a little play in the space at the outer edges of the frames in supers where the bees may have extended the comb a bit. It is not unusual to see bees being rolled on these extended frames as the outer most frame is removed. This is another reason to start at an outer frame so as not to be rolling the queen on an inner frame if she were to be there. On occasion, I have started by pulling the second from the edge frame out first if the outer most frame seems to be too stubborn as a result of the propolis holding it in.
Once a frame has been removed I then use my hive tool to pry any subsequent frame horizontally into the opened space resultant from the removed frame before lifting the next one out. If additional frames need to be checked, they in turn, are slid to the open space removed, inspected and replaced or lifted out. Unless one is doing a split or removing a brood frame to increase the needs of another hive, the frames should be replaced in the same order in which they were removed. This minimizes the disturbance of the hive as noted before.
Single deep hive inspection revealed need for another super. Note the homemade frame holder with two outer frames removed and frames three and four slid horizontally.
The reasons for inspections can vary greatly throughout the season. In the initial late Spring inspections it is good to know the state of individual hives. This can include the relative hive strength or apparent number of bees, whether a queen is present with a nice brood pattern with larva and eggs on some frames, the amount of nectar/honey and pollen that is present and the age of repeat use frames that are in the brood supers. I mark my frames with the last number of the year and try to annually remove some of the oldest frames in the brood chamber to be replaced with newly waxed foundation frames. This also gives newly emerged bees a place to draw out new comb as they want to do after a few weeks serving as cleanup and nurse bees.
Another reason for a thorough hive inspection is to spot any diseases early and to look for any pests such as wax moths, hive beetles or varroa mites. As a minimum, any hive inspection should allow for a quick mite count test with the resultant assessment as to whether a mite treatment is required. More hives are lost due to lack of monitoring and treating for mites than for any other reason. Once hive qualities are noted in that first deep hive inspection, decisions can be made as to whether a queen is needed, if a hive is a candidate for a split, or if mite treatments should be considered. This is also the time to determine the most likely reason for any dead-outs that may have occurred and notes made to change or alter past year or Winter procedures.
A hive inspection does not require that every frame be looked at. If there is uncertainty about the presence of a queen it is not always necessary to find the queen. As frames are sequentially removed and checked, it is not unusual to see increasing brood patterns as one gets closer to the center of super frames. Once a good brood pattern is seen and larva and eggs are spotted there is no reason to go deeper into that hive. When a queen lays an egg in the bottom of a cell it stands upright and vertical for most of the first day. During the second day, it begins to lie on its side and by the third day it is lying horizontal at the bottom of the cell. It is during this egg development that the nurse bees are filling in the bottom of the cell with a jelly like substance. Once cells are seen with eggs you know that the queen has been present in the last day or two, doing her job of laying eggs and no further frame inspections are necessary unless other indicators require looking further for disease or other problems. Close up the hive and move on. Once I am happy with the hive or split or nuc that I am inspecting, I may not do another deep inspection until late Fall other than for mite checks. Nucs and splits will require more frequent inspections as nucs with brood frames can expand quickly and splits require a check to see if a new queen has developed.
A beautiful capped brood frame found in an early Summer hive inspection.
Even a mite check requires one to go no further than that first good brood frame that one comes across in order to gather brood frame bees for the mite check. Since mites like to gather to enter brood frames just before capping, a brood frame containing open larva is a good frame to take bees for a mite check. If a mite treatment has recently been completed and no other reason exists to do a deep inspection, I may only add honey supers as needed by looking at the bee population and the tops of frames in the previous honey super. If there is evidence of honey/nectar in all but one or two frames, it is time to add another super.
Another quick way to check a super is to slide the brood or honey super back a few inches from the one below it and tip the super forward so as to look at the bottom of frames in the super. With a bit of experience, one can tell by looking at the bottom of frames if additional supers need to be added. If my most recent check indicated all is well and I see bees bringing pollen into the hive entrance, I may not check that hive further other than to insert mite treatments. If bees are bringing pollen into a hive it is a good indication there is a laying queen since the pollen is made into bee bread to feed new larva that is yet to be capped. On the other hand, if a hive that has been relatively calm seems in later weeks to be a bit testy and there is no pollen being brought in it can mean the queen is no longer there, a supersedure is going on or some other problem exists warranting a deeper inspection.
Adding Supers
The general philosophy is that another super should be added when there are only one or two frames left with room for the queen to lay eggs or the workers to store honey and nectar. One of the most common reasons for swarming is the lack of space in an overwintered hive. A queen eager to lay more eggs that has frames filled with emerging brood, pollen and nectar and no more room is a ready invitation for the swarming instinct as the worker population expands in late Spring and early Summer. I have had several times in my early beekeeping experience where I kept adding supers as space requirements dictated resulting in a hive getting to over six feet tall. I have since increased my number of hives and taken full honey supers off more frequently rather than only once in the Fall to keep hives to a shorter height. Some beekeepers prefer to keep only one brood deep and the remaining supers above reserved only for honey supers. This works best if there is an equal mix of open space, pollen, nectar stores and brood frame space in the single brood super. It may require the removal of several honey or pollen frames from an overwintered hive that still has plenty of resources in it to provide the needed egg laying space. As the queen gets into a cycle of laying eggs where recently emerged brood has left, a continual cycle of egg laying and brood rearing can occur provided there is also a frame or two of pollen and the same for nectar or capped honey as a food source. I tend to err on the cautious side and prefer to provide a second deep for brood space before adding honey supers knowing that my brood, pollen, nectar and empty cell frames are not always equalized in a single brood super. If one is using the eight frame deeps it will almost become a necessity to have at least two brood supers as there are two less frames for this equalization of use.
Honey Supers
The inspection of honey supers is much less of a challenge. They are either uncapped nectar or capped honey in varying numbers of frames. When all but one or two frames have room left it is time to add another honey super. If in an inspection the inner most frames are filled with nectar or capped honey, they can be moved to the outer edges of the super and the empties at the outer edges moved to the center. The bees prefer to work vertically through a hive rather than horizontally to the outer frames. The bees will move up into the next honey super before outer edge frames are filled below, particularly if the frames need new comb cells built on the foundation. If new foundation is being used honey supers need to have ten frames (or eight in eight frame supers) until all frames are drawn out with comb. This maintains the correct bee space between frames. Since there is a little slop in the spacing in most supers, the honey frames should be equally spaced throughout the super. After the honey super has been uncapped and the honey extracted the honey super can be stored and reused for many subsequent Summers to come. The bees will clean up and rebuild any frayed comb edges and recap honey each following year. In subsequent years, nine frames can be equally spaced in a ten frame honey super (or seven in an eight frame) and the bees will draw the comb on each frame out just a bit farther making it easier to use any uncapping tool.
Nine frame spacer tool used to equally space frames on a previously used ten frame honey super.
Understanding the need for good pre-inspection preparation, what to look for during inspections, timing of inspections and the actions to take as a result of the inspection can measurably assist in becoming a more proficient beekeeper. The one major asset to my beekeeping career is that from day one of my first swarm catch, I took notes as to what was happening every time I worked with my bees.
Your inspection schedule may vary based on your time constraints, job or family commitments and other obligations. But developing a solid approach to efficient hive inspections can go a long way toward improving your beekeeping skills.
