First Inspection Question

You are fine....trust me. When i first got mine, I was in them every other day without smoke. Watching and learning from them. Remember this, there is a ton of advice here, but you have to let the bees teach you. They will let you knw how they feel. You leave all of mine alone on a cloudy for example. One last bit of advice.....the bees dont read the books written by us.....trust me...I have tried convincing mine to, but they just wont....they will throw the paper off the front porch for me though...

Thanks. I am enjoying this so much more than I anticipated, but I am very scared I am going to kill them all!!! Good grief...I appreciate the encouragement, thank you!

mine had every disease, varroa, and AFB, EFB, and everything else you can think of...LOL....and were always on the verge of swarming.......lol....enjoy them. I am infatuated with mine....

I purchased a hive and a nuc a week ago and did my first inspection on the hive yesterday and they were PACKED in there. Poor guys! I added another super and I'm sure they're excited. I'm going to do an inspection on the hive that came from the NUC on Monday. It was a 5 frame nuc so I know they had 5 empty frames to draw on. Just going to check for eggs and all. So far they're SO peaceful. I'm really happy with my decision to get the bees. There had been a little piece of bur comb between the frames yesterday with honey in it so I scraped that off and threw it in my mouth yesterday and WOW! lol

That was a question I had also--if there is comb that is drawn out and touching the next frame--does that get removed--or should you leave it be?

Remove it or it will become a bigger mess next time you go to inspect! They will get it right sooner or later!

sgwjr1979 said:

So far they're SO peaceful

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"So far" is right. There are likely to be times later on that you will think they are the devil's offspring. Wait until there is no nectar flow (dearth), they go queenless for some reason, or they're being harassed by a skunk or something. That threw me for quite a loop in my first year (a dearth of nectar in our hot, dry months) when my formerly oh so gentle bees developed some serious attitude. Take heed when they do. If it's not easily explained by a period of dearth, you need to investigate to find out what's got 'em ticked off.