Checking Hives

[Millet]

It may have been done to the death but i will ask anyway..

How often do you good folk inspect your hive's, i am between 7 and 10 day's at the moment and maybe sooner under instruction for quick modification's, could it cause problem's if hives are messed about with too regular ie every 3 or 4 day's, not that i have any intention's of doing that..

 

[midnight sun]

Every 7 days'ish especially swarm season. 7 to 10 depending what is going on and assuming my Queens are clipped rest of time. Any less than 7 days are one off for a very good reason. But all depend on weather. Not saying that mine is correct frequency, you just asked and I answered.

 

[Finman]

It may have been done to the death but i will ask anyway..

How often do you good folk inspect your hive's, i am between 7 and 10 day's at the moment and maybe sooner under instruction for quick modification's, could it cause problem's if hives are messed about with too regular ie every 3 or 4 day's, not that i have any intention's of doing that..

There is no reason to every 3-4 day.

7 day inspection is for swarming period. IT has couple spare days. 10 day is maximum, and if it is bad weather, you cannot do it, and time goes over.

 

[Hawklord]

I do mine every 7 days unless something needs attention before then, or if the weather might be rubbish on the 7th day. Even though small nucs could be left 14 days I still do them at 7 as I like to see how they're expanding or temperament change.

 

[ellypatt]

7-8 days, unless I really know what they're up to (eg new q emerging)

 

[enrico]

They will get fed up of you going in every three days!
Think why you need to go in, go in and do what you need, close the hive up. The more you interfere the more you upset the bees and stand a chance of killing queenie. If there is no reason for you to go in then don't
E

 

[Eyeman]

How often do you good folk inspect your hive's,

Between end of April and early to mid July I would like to inspect weekly.
In reality other exciting things in life getsin the way.
Longest gap this year was 21st April then 6th May. Paid the price with 5 out of the 8 colonies having capped QC's.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

The bees keep the hive at mid-30s temperature. Every time you open the hive up and remove frames everything cools down to the ambient temperature - today for instance, just over 20 degrees. The colony then has to use a lot of its stored energy (honey and nectar) to raise the temperature again. The less you open the hive the better, consistent with having a handle on what is happening swarm-cell wise. Having a see-through cover board is helpful for us inveterate interferers so you can see the top of the frames without losing too much heat from the hive. I try for inspections every 7 days between middle of May to middle of August and as little as possible outside that period.

There are people who use the monitoring board under the hive to see what is happening; apart from checking for Varroa mites, you can see where the uncapping of brood and stores is happening and in winter you can see where the cluster is located.

Hope that helps

CVB

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

They will get fed up of you going in every three days!
Think why you need to go in, go in and do what you need, close the hive up. The more you interfere the more you upset the bees and stand a chance of killing queenie. If there is no reason for you to go in then don't
E

+1 from me.

Go in with a reason and a plan. In swarm season, every 7 days at most in most circumstances. When is swarm season? How long is a piece of string? For non-swarmy bees, like my best colony, I am starting to relax. Will go in tomorrow to check supers and will not check the BB in that one. My swarmiest one? Not sure, TBH: may peek at the bottoms of the upper brood frames.