[Montyb]

So, first year went great. We did minimal interfering with the bees, never went into the brood deep or hunted for the queen. Left them plenty of honey to make it through the winter.
Question : is there a good reason to do a whole hive inspection all the way down to the brood deep at this point? I keep thinking, what would I do with the information, as long as there seems to be a queen?
Thanks for feedback!

 

[fieldsofnaturalhoney]

Knowledge is power! Whats the current set up? How many bees are there? At some point you will need to know whats going on in the inside for swarm prevention, adding more bodies, disease, etc.

 

[merince]

You don't really need a frame by frame inspection. You can check for swarm cells by peeking at the bottom of the frames (just lift the box). Observing traffic at the entrance and general population should give you pretty good clues of the status of your colony.

 

[Wolfer]

The main goal of any overwintered hive with a queen that is near a year old is to swarm. If they swarm they generally won't make much if any surplus honey this year.

Once they start swarm prep their very difficult to stop. Controlling swarms needs to be done before they start prep work.
There are nearly as many ways to do this as there are beekeepers.

 

[burns375]

I like to do a full inspection once the weather is nice, so right about now in Louisville. I clean up burr comb and propolis from previous year before it gets even more out of control. Also invetory combs brood, pollen, nectar etc, where the cluster is located, state of the hive.

Tilting the box is easiest way to know swarm, if you see alot of new cups or started queen cells along the bottom, is it a good indication they are planning to swarm.