First Inspection Ever!

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bbrian

New Bee
Joined
Apr 8, 2014
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Winchester, UK
Hive Type
Langstroth
Number of Hives
2
We had our first two nucs delivered on Tuesday, they had been over-wintered and seemed raring to go. Everything seemed very calm and straight-forward with our bee expert there and each of the two hives received 5 frames of busy, active bees; we even managed to see one Queen.

I have just finished my first ever inspection and I was solo, no calm bee expert to hand! The most difficult part was keeping the smoker smoking, and deciding how much smoke you need? Some seem to work in a peasouper, while others give the occasional puff, all these decisions!!

If I am honest, the bees appeared far more relaxed than I was, which certainly helped. In Hive no.1 the bees have just started drawing out and building up the first of the new frames. I saw lots of capped brood cells, nectar, pollen & larva, but wasn't 100% sure I had seen eggs. Hive no.2 seemed far more dynamic, they have already got 2 new frames started and I 'got my eye in' and definitely saw eggs here, although there were fewer capped brood cells.

One lot had started building wax between the top of the frame and the board, should I scrape this off? I'll leave them now for a week (or should I check sooner?)
 
Hi Bbrian.

Well done!

Use as little smoke as possible would be my advice.

Disturb them as little as possible too so next week will be fine. Only go in when you need to.

Wax removing is up to you. I leave it because they will only put it back again, others will remove it.

Have fun.
Cazza
 
Yo...... Well done! The first time is hard, the first time they sting you is even harder.....keep it up!
E
 
I would leave them 2 weeks, apart from regular top-up feeding. The only reason to take frames out in the short term is for your own benefit i.e. practice, but if you want to do that it will be fine.
 
Last edited:
Well done. Exciting isn't it?
Make sure they are not in cavernous box amidst 6 undrawn frames.
They need to be kept cosy so just add frames as they are drawn.
 
Well done, going solo always raises new practical (how on earth?) questions! :)

The smoker. Use smoke before inspection, to get the bees honey-happy and placid. But during inspection, minimise its use. At that point it may 'drive' the bees, but it will also bother and potentially anger them.
I find a light use of a water mister (tomato plant mister) to be very useful in 'suppressing', driving down bees during inspection.
Keeping the smoker going is down to the smoker, the fuel and the lighting. Getting a small fire flaming in the bottom of the smoker before part-smothering it with more fuel is important to establishing a good bed of embers.
If you are putting in an order to one of the major suppliers, you might consider getting £5 worth of smoker pellets. Slightly extravagant, but they do work well, and having a smoker just quietly smoking without going out, is one thing less for you to be bothering about while everything else still feels awkward and tricky. When you are happy to deal with another variable, then experiment with other, cheaper (free?) and locally available fuels.

Onward and upward!
 
I'd go along with Chris B and leave them to it for a fortnight.
Practice with your smoker in the meantime ;) See if you can get it to smoke happily away for an hour once lit. When you've mastered it, you will be able to concentrate on your bees, safe in the knowledge that it's not going to go out.

Some bees stay in the seams, others are all over the top bars. Use of smoke depends on your bees but do take the time to study their response and use only as much as you need to keep them away from being squashed during your frame manipulations and down in the hive.
Don't be over enthusiastic with the smoke though, that's just unfair on the bees.
 
Thank you for all the quick responses and I amazingly I don't seem to have done anything too wrong.

I'll look again in a week and see how everything is going. I'm off now to practice my smoking skills.

Thanks again.

B
 
Thank you for all the quick responses and I amazingly I don't seem to have done anything too wrong.

I'll look again in a week and see how everything is going. I'm off now to practice my smoking skills.

Thanks again.

B

I picture you in the garden with a smoker in each hand practising quick draws.

"now punk, this is a 44 magnum... have I lit if 6 times or 7 ?":welcome:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top