First Spring Hive Inspections

• #1- Is your colony strong or weak? Checking colony population.

• #2- Are they hungry? Checking their food stores.

• #3- Do they have brood? Checking for the right brood frames!

• #4- Is there a queen? Visually finding and locating each and every queen!! (this step is crucial)!!

Now let’s get into the core of each step.

Task #1: Checking colony population.

This is probably the easiest task during a hive inspection. Upon opening the hive, removing the hive cover, simply count the number of frames of bees that you see.

This pretty much means that you look in between each frame and count the number of frames that there are considerable bees on. This is their Cluster Size and therefore will give you a general idea of their Population Size.

It could be two frames or it could be eight! Each colony will show you their size at first glance. You can also do this by up-turning the box and looking from the bottom bars, up!

Task #2: Checking their Food Stores.

This is the second thing you want to do because as you perform a hive inspection, you should be removing the OUTSIDE frames first, working your way towards the brood. Here’s why:

• The food stores or honey frames are going to be on the outside frames.

• This keeps the queen much more safe as you create room in the hive box to manipulate frames without potentially pinching or squashing your queen by struggling with stuck frames.

If you find that your colonies are short on food and need something now, here are some options to have ready beforehand (ideally):

1) HiveAlive 15% Pollen Patties. It’s what I used this year and my bees are devouring it. Get yours here- HiveAlive Pollen Patties!

2) HiveAlive Fondant Patties. Get yours here- HiveAlive Fondant Patties!

3) Get some liquid feed on them quickly AND add HiveAlive Concentrate for extra-added health benefits. Get yours here- HiveAlive Liquid Concentrate!

Here are some of my YouTube Channel videos to help you with this:

• Watch my video on Feeding Bees. It’s my Fall Feeding video but still applicable to Spring for general feeding: Feeding your Bees Liquid Feed.

• Here’s my video to walk you through each element of this week’s newsletter: First Spring Hive Inspections.

Task #3: Checking for Brood.

This one has one catch to it: You don’t ONLY want to see if they have frames of brood BUT it’s most important to check and see if they have all three stages of brood present: Eggs, Larvae AND Pupae (capped brood).

The reason for this is simple: it means that you have a laying queen present AND that she has been laying consistently for the last few weeks. And consistent laying during this time of the year means that your colonies are growing!!

Task #4: Visually locating each and every Queen.

This is the MOST important task of them all in my opinion. I know that we already established that if there’s brood then there is also a laying queen but this is the beginning of a new beekeeping season. I want to SEE my queens in each of my hives.

This may take more time during hive inspections but it’s totally worth the Peace of Mind that it brings at the end of the day.

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom 😉. I want to hear from you!

See you next time!

Jonathan Hargus//The Hive Doctor