Why hive inspections matter
Hive inspections are the primary means of being able to understand what is going on in your hive. Without inspections, a beekeeper wouldn’t know if they could harvest honey, if they had a healthy queen, or if they had a laying worker. Hive inspections are an integral part of beekeeping.
How often to inspect
Hive inspections take time, and they disrupt the colony workflow, so it is important to inspect when needed, but not to inspect every day, (under normal circumstances). Different times of the year call for different frequencies of inspections.
In the spring, the beginning of the beekeeper year, you should inspect your hive once every seven to ten days. In summer, things are a bit more stable, and you should inspect once every ten to fourteen days. Then in fall, inspect around treatments, and no less than once a month but not more frequently than every two weeks. In the winter, you should not inspect your hive. They need to preserve their heat, and a beekeeper opening up the hive makes them warm the hive all over since they lose the heat they have made.
Tools you need
To successfully complete a hive inspection, you generally need a hive tool, smoker, and your own protective gear. I like to generally wear a jacket, gloves, jeans, and boot bands, as I have a somewhat severe reaction to being stung, so I try to avoid getting stung on more sensitive areas of my body.
Most beekeepers use a smoker when working their bees. I most generally do not, as I would rather deal with the bees being a bit meaner, than risk catching the woods on fire. There is not water available where I have my bee yard, and many fires have been started by accident from smokers. If you choose to use a smoker to calm your bees, then you’ll want to gather the smoker fuels and light her up, making sure the smoke is cool to the touch so you don’t scorch your bees’ wings.
Your hive tool is absolutely essential for an inspection. Bees collect sap from trees, and use it to make a sort of glue, called propolis, to propolize everything in the hive. They coat the walls, and the frames, and glue the frames in place. Your hive tool is used to pry up the frames, and also leverage potentially heavy frames, so you can get a good grasp on them.
Step-by-step inspection walkthrough
I am going to walk you through every step of the process so that you can confidently inspect your hive for the first time.
- Put on your protective clothing (called suiting up by beekeepers) and make sure all elastic and zippers are secure.
- If using a smoker, light it and ensure the smoke is cool to your bare hand.
- Locate your hive tool.
- Remove the lid (if you have a telescoping cover this is called your outer cover and you will need to remove your inner cover as well, otherwise if you have one cover that does not hang over the sides but only hangs over the front and back you have a migratory cover, and you will only need to remove this one piece.)
- Now you should be able to see the tops of your frames, and your little bees’ faces looking up at you. Use your hive tool to pry the outermost frame on one side out. Most often this will have very few bees and even fewer resources on it. If this is the case, gently lay it on another hive or surface. This gives you more room to work and decreases the chance that you will squish your queen (generally called “rolling” by beekeepers.)
- Work from the side you removed the frame, and pull out one frame at a time, taking note what is on it, brood, honey, pollen, or a mix. Notice how much capped brood you have. This is the workforce that will be emerging any day. For more information about what you’re looking for when inspecting brood frames, click here.
- Look for signs that you have a healthy queen. Eggs neatly laid at the bottom of a cell are an excellent indicator your queen is in good health. Keep your eye out for your queen as you are looking at frames with brood and especially eggs on them. It’s alright if you don’t find your queen, but it is always fun and satisfying to see her. Worried your hive might be queenless? Read this.
- Continue doing this as you move through the frames, keeping them in the order and orientation that you found them. Be careful not to spin the frames and reverse them.
- If you have more than one box, continue into the second box the same way. Lift the box off and gently set it down.
- Put all frames back as you found them. Once you have moved through all the frames, put the top box back if necessary.
- Close them up, replacing the cover(s).
That’s it! You just completed your first hive inspection! Good job!
What healthy brood looks like
They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Healthy brood should be white and have an almost pearl-like shimmer. Capped brood should only be ever so slightly domed, maybe a couple of millimeters above the sides of the cells. If it looks like bullet tops, you may have a laying worker or a failing queen.
Red flags to watch for
When doing your first hive inspection, it can be overwhelming to know what to watch out for. This list includes the most important things to notice.
- Do you smell a sweet smell or a sour or foul smell? If sweet, then things are going well. If it is sour or foul smelling, you might have a bigger problem on your hands. Talk with your mentor if the hive doesn’t smell right.
- Are the bees unusually angry? Calm bees are healthy bees. Angry bees could be queenless, or have bad genetics, making them dangerous to work around. Angry bees could also be a sign they are being bothered by pests, like bears or skunks.
- Do brood frames look healthy?
- Do you see a queen or a sign of a queen (eggs or young comma-shaped larvae)?
- Do you see bee wings that look like they got too close to an electrical socket or have “melted”? If so, this is called deformed wing virus, and is caused by varroa mites. This is a good sign it is time to treat if you notice these deformed wings.
- Do the bees have enough food? I personally will generally feed my bees any time they have less than two frames at least half full of honey. This post shared exactly how to feed your bees.
- Have the colony numbers drastically changed since you were last in the hive? If the hive has gotten smaller, you need to understand why.
When to stop and close the hive
If the bees are attacking you, or passers-by, then it is a good clue the situation has gotten out of hand. One or two bees stinging you isn’t necessarily cause for alarm, but many more than that, or them angrily buzzing your face, and you might just want to close up the hive and try again another day. As you develop more comfort level with your bees, you can push through a little testiness, but for now, at the beginning, you want to make sure you don’t create a dangerous situation you cannot manage.
If I have dropped a frame, or otherwise dropped the hive, I will just put it back together and inspect it another day. The bees are angry and with good reason, and it is best to just leave them alone that day. Thankfully, this has only happened once in the thirteen years I have kept bees.
Common mistakes beginners make
Most beekeepers are anxious to see what is happening in their hive. As a result, they tend to open their hives far too often, which disrupts the bees’ workflow, and also provides more opportuntiy to inadvertantly roll the queen. Only inspect as needed.
Don’t open the bees when they are likely to be angry. For more details about when they will be upset, see my post about why bees sting.
Feed your bees if you think they will run out of food. Usually, feeding the bees unneccesarily won’t do any harm, but a colony starving is a sad prospect.
Next steps
Check out these other posts to help you learn how to inspect your hive.
Complete Hive Management Guide
Complete Beginner’s Beekeeping Guide