Why I hesitate to inspect my hives

[BaconStreetBees]

I have been "keeping" bees for four years. I absolutely love it. I can sit for hours and watch them. I have two hives and I have lost them each winter/spring. The local bee inspector is not sure why and says that the first year was CCD, the second year he said that they broke cluster too soon and could not recluster, this past year he said that it looked like starvation even though there was honey in the upper deep. Here is my confession, I have no problem opening up my hives to look in the top deep and gingerly remove a couple of frames to look at them. To go further, I am scared to death that I will kill the queen by crushing her between frames no matter how careful I am. I have rarely seen in a strong hive, but have when I have had a weak hive. I have a friend who does pretty much nothing with their bees accept put on supers and extract honey with no problems. Obviously that strategy does not work for me.
Here is my question. How often does the queen get killed from inspections?
I am determined to do the right thing for my hives.

[StevenG]

A few suggestions, BaconStreetBees... And I mean no offense, I'm simply not assuming anything about you, ok?

To answer your question, it depends on how you open the hive. Get a frame holder to hang on the outside of the hive. Remove the #1 or #10 frame first, check it over, and if the queen isn't there, hang it on the frame holder. That will give you space to move frames in the hive without crushing bees. inspect very carefully.

I would suggest you invest in an observation hive. Either buy one, or build one. Mount it in a window in your house. When my daughters were young, I had such a hive in our dining room window, which faced the south. We loved it! We'd take the masonite cover off the glass regularly, and watch the bees work!

Now, my biggest concern is that you should not be losing your hives each year! If you aren't subscribing to Bee Culture or the American Bee Journal, i would encourage you to do so. Also, get a couple of the key books on beekeeping - The Hive and the Honey Bee, or ABC's...You'll love them! Full of great information and wonderful pictures. Get other books as your interest and bank account allows.

Join a local beekeeper's association. Find out when they check and feed their hives in the wintertime to keep them alive. Sometimes bees can't move the cluster laterally, but if the honey stores were above the cluster, I don't understand why they wouldn't have moved the cluster up, vertically. Unless the need to keep brood warm kept them from moving.

You are wise to get your local bee inspector to help you do a post mortem. That's how we learn.

If you haven't already started, NOW is the time to prepare your hives for winter. They should be in two deeps, or three medium supers... and the top one should be filling up with honey. If not, feed them. Feed feed feed to get the hive heavy with food for the winter. Good luck!

Regards,
Steven

[BaconStreetBees]

Thank you Steven,
No offense taken. I always appreciate sound advice.

[alpha6]

We go through thousands of hives each spring and fall without worrying about crushing the queen.

We run 9 frames in 10 frame boxes. We pull one frame out inspect it and set it aside. From that point on there is plenty of room to gap your frames and pull, inspect and then place back in and go to the next. When replacing the frames put them in with more gap in between and then press them together at the end to close up the gap space. This keeps you from rolling or crushing the queen.

[caberwife]

This is an interesting thread! I too worry about killing queens by doing something inept during inspections. I also get nervous at the end of an inspection when the time comes to push the frames together to close up the gap space. How much should one worry about squashing the bees between the frames when pushing them together at the end? (I do that gently, but still!)

BaconStreet, this is my first year beekeeping and I know how you feel about watching the bees for hours on end, and wanting to take good care of them. :)

Natalie

[alpha6]

You shouldn't crush the bees pushing frames together as long as you do it nice and slow. If a bee is getting trapped by say, burr comb or something between the frames it will move quickly from being trapped. Bees and queens can be crushed or "rolled" when you are pushing frames back into the hive. This is why it is best to have lots of space to place the frame into the hive and then slide it sideways into place.

[devdog108]

I have done well inpecting and removing frames1, 2 and 3, then I more than enough room to move around frames. I generally SLOWLY push the frames together. If i happen upon the queen, and for the most part i do find her every time, that frame go back in immediatly in the spot from which it came after I check it over. Saturday i found her in the deep on the bottom on frame 5. She would NOT get off the edge and kept running back and forth. I GENTLY set that frame down on the side she was on and let her crawl back down into #4 frame on the bottom, which I had already inspected. I kept 5 out so not to create a bridge to frame 6, and then finished my inspection not worrying about where she was(she moved over to #3) then i slid in reverse to compact the frames...... but thats just what i do......

[11x]

well this is my first year in beekeeping so take my words with a grain of salt. after my bees filled the 3 med boxes that thay required to winter in i havent had the need to dig very deep into them. when i inspect i dont feel that i need to see the queen just to see that she has been there in the last 3 days. if by chance i do happen to kill her while i was moving the 3 maby 4 frames i had to move to find eggs at least i know there is fresh eggs that the hive can make a new queen if needed. please correct me if i am wrong so i can start doing things write.

[devdog108]

i inspect to make sure they have built up enough.....and to check for sign of SHB...i hav killed 9 since I started my hive.....they are bad here though from WHat i hear...

[11x]

no shb up here.. yet? i havent wintered yet and just started fall feeding of 2:1 so i havent checked the food situation yet

[caberwife]

Ah, that makes me feel better, Alpha6. I always push veeeeery slowly but wasn't sure how fast the bees would move out of the way. This stuff must all be absolute second-nature to the experienced beeks! I like Devdog's anti-queen-crushing method as well. :)

Natalie

[chevydmax04]

I did roll the queen in two of my hives, I must have done them both at the same time as both hives started to decline at the time. One hive requeened itself and the new queen was a work horse, that hive just took off! The other one never managed to get a new queen going and dwindled down. I finally did a combine of the two hives and now that combined hive is stronger than my third hive. I stopped doing the check all the boxes method, now I just open it up check the supers, examine the bee's looking for mites, and maybe pull a few frames from the #2 brood box. This seems to be working well I also went to 9 frames in a 10 frame box, 10 just gets to tight.

[deknow]

alpha has good advice.

pull one of the end frames to make space. once you have space, start with the next frame, then replace it. as you move through the box, you should have 2 groups of frames (already inspected, and not yet inspected), and each group should be pushed together tightly at all times with the workspace between the 2 groups. the end bars are where the frames touch, and if the end bars are already touching, bees can't get trapped between. when you push the frames back into place, do it as a group, not one at a time (again, no gap, no bees to get squashed).

deknow

[Motown]

[QUOTE=11x;466149]...she has been there in the last 3 days. if by chance i do happen to kill her while i was moving the 3 maby 4 frames i had to move to find eggs at least i know there is fresh eggs that the hive can make a new queen if needed. [QUOTE]

I'm extra carefull now, if I kill the by accident now, their aren't any drones to mate with? What do experienced beeks do after the drones are kicked out? Extra precausions? I haven't inspected since they started tossing the drones.

[ccar2000]

This is a great post. Thanks for asking the hard questions and giving the right answers. Some simple steps are just obvious once pointed out.

[CentralPAguy]

I used to be reluctant to go into a strong hive. But this past April, I had two strong hives and 1 weak hive. One of my strong hives sent a swarm of bees into the air. I mustered up my strength to go into the strong hive and found alot of queen cells, which I then split into a couple of nucs.

This got me to think that my other hive might be thinking of swarming as well.
Sure enough, they had queen cells built. I then used the queen cells to create more nucs.

If I hadn't inspected my hives, I would have lost a swarm from my second strong hive. Next year, my plans are to go deep into strong hives in order to prevent/delay swarming tendancies.

[scdw43]

If you take out frame 1 or 10 the queen is usually not on these frames as they are used to store honey. You will have plenty of room to inspect. As you do more inspections you will become more comfortable with them.

[Cedar Hill]

Many beeks probably don't do this, but removing the propolis from the end bars and side super areas which touch the adjoining end bars after examining a frame will allow for a much easier and more confident reinsertion of the frame. Once the entire super has been "cleaned" in this fashion, the next inspection will be easier. However, StevenG's advice of using a frame holder and taking out frames #1 and 10 should be taught to every member in every club's beekeeping school. OMTCW

[Gene Weitzel]

All my frames are on 1-1/4" spacing. With 10 frames, this leaves plenty of room to move frames around in the hive. When I inspect I go strait for the middle of the bood nest as I usually only look at one or two frames and I want to see that the queen is maintaining a good pattern and check for the presence of eggs (tells me most likely that they are not queenless). I just slowy push the frames away from the center frame on both sides which gives me a good 1/2" gap on each side of it. I then pull that frame out and inspect it. Sometimes I will pull one or both frames on either side of it as well, but more times than not I simply look at them as with the center frame removed their is a pretty wide gap that allows me to see the brood pattern without removing them. Then I replace the center frame and slowly close up the gaps by slowly moving the frames on either side as a group. I rarely do more than this on my main hives unless I am splitting, when it is important to locate which box has the queen.

[franktrujillo]

http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad323/franktrujillo/th_100_0460.jpg
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad323/franktrujillo/th_100_0457.jpg
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad323/franktrujillo/th_100_0458.jpg
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad323/franktrujillo/th_100_0337.jpg

The last pic shows the queen russian/carne open mated.Started june 23rd with two frames one honey one eggs.Aug. feed half deep frame caped honey and added 1LB pollen patty from mann lake.Sept. removed frame of honey patty more than half eaten. you can't see patty consealed from front didn't wan't to see patty every time i look at hive.:D