A different view of hive inspections

By Chari Elam

Regardless of how many times a beekeeper has been exposed to hive inspections, there is something to learn, something you didn’t notice the other thousand times you saw the same thing. Suddenly, revelation! Are you looking beyond the obvious? Don’t get me wrong—the obvious is on the radar. As a matter of fact, it’s required. You know the drill—start to finish. But let’s review.

You are looking for:

• Population or frames of brood
• Eggs and larvae (queen laying)
• Frames of honey, or stores
• Pollen in hive
• Well-fed brood (moist, shiny, white)
• Space—too little or too much
• Brood disease or evidence of Varroa mites

A deeper look into these components will bring about your “revelation” moments. So often I hear, “I don’t know what happened! I was just in the hive a week or two ago and everything looked fine!" Did it? Really? What did you miss? Unfortunately, you did miss something if the hive you returned to was in poor condition or, even worse, dead or gone.

Examining the components of a hive inspection and looking beyond the obvious is where answers to future problems come from.

Population, frames of brood, eggs and larvae

Using this chart as a guide, justify your population accordingly:

• January: 5+ frames of bees
• March: 8+ frames of bees
• May: 14+ frames of bees
• November: 12+ frames of bees

But hold on—for those of you who keep double deeps, did you look in the bottom box? Case in point, I popped the lid on one of our backyard hives yesterday, and the top brood box looked like it had a great population! I pulled a frame on the outer edge of what should have been the brood nest, and it wasn’t—wasn’t brood, that is. It was backfilled with nectar. This was true with each frame I pulled. There were a ton of bees, though! But those bees were foragers bringing in nectar. Not a stitch of new brood was in the second deep. I removed the top deep box to look into the bottom box. There was brood but very little of it. Why? Because they were starting to backfill it with nectar and pollen too, leaving no place for the queen to lay so there was no new brood.

Had I not looked beyond the “population,” I would have missed this very important find—my bees were preparing to swarm because there’s no room. What should I do?

I had two choices, really: completely rearrange the box since it was primarily honey and nectar, taking some frames out and replacing them with open comb, or split and ultimately do the same, dividing the good components up between two hives and adding space for the queen. They really didn’t need more boxes for the number of bees that were there, just more comb space. Adding another box wouldn’t have solved this issue. They would have likely just turned it into another place to store honey and not a brood box because the queen was trapped in the bottom, blocked by a honey band (top box full of nectar and honey). So “not” obvious!

What did I do? I pulled honey and nectar frames, put them at the opposite end of the yard to be robbed out (which took about a day), then returned them as open comb for the queen to start laying again. And it worked! I caught it soon enough to avoid full-on swarm measures. Score!

Frames of honey or pollen in the hive

I think that these components are fairly obvious. Where these are located is the key. Honey should be stored on the outside frames in the box, and pollen should be banded around the brood frames and brood nest. Having too much is where the “not so obvious" may come into play. Blake wrote an awesome article on “Honey- or Pollen-Bound Hives” in the last issue—check it out. What I can add to it is this: Look in every box. Don’t just assume that what you see in one is playing out in another. #bottomboxneglect

Well-fed brood

I can say “moist, shiny, white” open brood and even show you a picture, but when you are in the middle of a hive inspection, can you tell when brood is underfed? Underfed larvae are dry—bone dry. When an egg is laid, it appears to be laid in a dry cell, but within three days that egg will hatch and begin its larval stage, where in theory it will be fed bee bread, which gives it a nice pool of liquid to feed on until the cell is capped (approximately day nine).

When this larval development lacks sufficient bee bread, the bee that emerges at the end of 21 days will be a poor participant in the colony. This bee may lack the ability to forage well or at all! It could even lack the mental ability to locate the hive, fly, or do any other basic worker bee jobs. That is why it is so important to actually look at the open larvae in a hive inspection. If they are dry, the solution is easy—feed pollen patties!

HEALTHY BROOD

UNHEALTHY "DRY" BROOD

Space (too little or too much)

This is a biggie. When you are doing a hive inspection, you have to look beyond what you are seeing now (the obvious) and look to the future, expounding on what you see now. That most likely sounds confusing. In other words, if you see a nice, full frame of capped brood, remind yourself that, once that frame emerges, approximately 7,000 more bees will be added to the hive. And if you have several of these, this should inspire you to add boxes at the appropriate time of year. Why? Because the cycle goes population growth into spring (add boxes), peak in summer (maintain), decline in fall with a short period of brood building to overwinter (possibly decrease if population has dropped enough to not fill the space), and then finally dormant population in the winter (never add boxes). The rule of thumb is to add boxes with population increases (typically) during nectar flow or when you are feeding continually. Decrease boxes if and when the population can’t defend the space—fewer than five out of ten frames of bees.

Brood disease or evidence of Varroa mites

At the risk of creating an oxymoron, the obvious is obscure when it comes to Varroa mites and the brood diseases that follow. For most of us, deformed wing virus is the obvious—and maybe a poor brood pattern to put a cherry on top—when Varroa mites are taking over a hive. The problem with this is that, once you see these issues, your mites and the diseases associated with them are probably so far advanced that treating is just fighting a losing battle. I don’t say that to be pessimistic. I promise—I did not write that book! Studies are showing more and more that Varroa are doing damage long before we can see a single sign of them in our hives. If that’s the case, how can I guide you to look beyond the obvious? This is how: I’m going to tell you for certain that your hives have Varroa mites. I’m also going to tell you that, regardless of how you view or use treatments and to what extent, you have no choice but to address them in some way. The obscure is obvious in this. There, I said it!