First Inspection questions!

[SavvySalli]

Whooppeee.. got to the end, now which frames were the brood on ...

So our recently arrived nuc is expanding, plenty of young bees, new comb being drawn on new frames, spotted queen (big pink spot hint!), capped workers, few drone cells, larvae but there were so many bees on the brood frames that we couldn't see any eggs. However some of the larvae are very small so those must be eggs that were laid after arriving here. Brood pattern (I'm not absolutely clear about what this actually means) seemed rather higgledypiggledy - in that they're spread around, not concentrated on one or two frames. I've forgotten how many sides had brood and of course that count didn't get video'd by my side-kick! However, I think it's upwards of 6 sides which is good as was only 4 last week. Hooper's Five doesn't give a reminder to count the number of sides with brood!

There's quite a bit of pollen, lots of nectar, and honey been capped. Some of the pollen cells (which are on new comb) have adjacent ones with very dark bits in them, I presume to be propolis.

Questions arising:

1. is there a better time of day to do an inspection? We did it around 2pm as we were concerned that rain was on the way (sun came out instead!) but I wondered if we'd done it later towards evening or earlier around 9-10am there might have been fewer bees on the brood frames and we could have seen eggs.

2. not only was there brace and burr comb (on top of frames?) but I found some comb at the side of frames. I had thought that the building of all this extraneous comb was because the bee spaces aren't quite right. So if the bee spaces are right why are they building the extra comb? They'd even put wax in the entrance into the rapid feeder and stuck it onto the clear cover board!

3. as I've forgotten which frames had brood should I do a mini-inspection tomorrow just to count up, and look for eggs, or just wait until next week? The bees are very calm at the moment and hardly took any notice today except when I shook them out of the feeder!


Thank you.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Are they in a full size box? Sounds as if they should be.
If they are then you need to put a super on and stop feeding.
If your pattern is higgledy they may be running out of room and putting your feed in brood cells. You need to remedy this or they will swarm.
Bees will move out of the way if you gently blow on them or simply place your hand over the frame where you want to look.
Afternoon is a good time for inspection. Most of the foragers are away gathering nectar so there are actually fewer bees in the hive than morning or evening.
The only time not to look in the afternoon is if your are expecting a virgin to be out on a mating flight

The dark cells will be poppy pollen....bees do not store propolis in cells.
Good luck

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Whooppeee.. got to the end, now which frames were the brood on ...

So our recently arrived nuc is expanding, plenty of young bees, new comb being drawn on new frames, spotted queen (big pink spot hint!), capped workers, few drone cells, larvae but there were so many bees on the brood frames that we couldn't see any eggs. However some of the larvae are very small so those must be eggs that were laid after arriving here. Brood pattern (I'm not absolutely clear about what this actually means) seemed rather higgledypiggledy - in that they're spread around, not concentrated on one or two frames. I've forgotten how many sides had brood and of course that count didn't get video'd by my side-kick! However, I think it's upwards of 6 sides which is good as was only 4 last week. Hooper's Five doesn't give a reminder to count the number of sides with brood!

There's quite a bit of pollen, lots of nectar, and honey been capped. Some of the pollen cells (which are on new comb) have adjacent ones with very dark bits in them, I presume to be propolis.

Questions arising:

1. is there a better time of day to do an inspection? We did it around 2pm as we were concerned that rain was on the way (sun came out instead!) but I wondered if we'd done it later towards evening or earlier around 9-10am there might have been fewer bees on the brood frames and we could have seen eggs.

2. not only was there brace and burr comb (on top of frames?) but I found some comb at the side of frames. I had thought that the building of all this extraneous comb was because the bee spaces aren't quite right. So if the bee spaces are right why are they building the extra comb? They'd even put wax in the entrance into the rapid feeder and stuck it onto the clear cover board!

3. as I've forgotten which frames had brood should I do a mini-inspection tomorrow just to count up, and look for eggs, or just wait until next week? The bees are very calm at the moment and hardly took any notice today except when I shook them out of the feeder!


Thank you.

1. Inspection isn't a fixed time exercise but for a smallish number of hives around midday in fine weather should be when the flying bees are out of the hive so you only have the house bees at home to deal with. If you have dozens of hives this is impractical.
2. That amount of extra comb building does suggest inaccurate bee space. You've explained the space between frames but the gaps between frame and box walls or top bar and qe/crownboard could still be wrong ( some bees are just messy builders ) Where did you get your hive and frames from?
3. A good rule to adopt is you only go into a hive for a good reason. I'd leave them alone until your next planned visit. Counting frames can wait and if you've seen tiny larvae the queen must have laid eggs.

It gets easier, your tecniques improve and your handling becomes smoother with experience. We'll look forward to hearing of your progress

 

[Curley]

Hi S

good advice from John and Erica. PM sent.

David

 

[Motobiman]

How much can be judged of the state of the colony just by watching the bees at the entrance?

 

[Galaxy55]

(How much can be judged of the state of the colony just by watching the bees at the entrance?)

Link here to a free download you may be interested in:

Sorry the link didn't work try searching for, At the Hive Entrance

Here is another link to try:

http://www.natural-beekeeping.co.uk/at-the-hive-entrance-heinrich-storch-free-book-download/

 

[Motobiman]

(How much can be judged of the state of the colony just by watching the bees at the entrance?)

Link here to a free download you may be interested in:

http://www.------------/library/gen...eping_books_articles/At the Hive Entrance.pdf

Can't open that link.

Currently reading this

http://www.natural-beekeeping.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/At-the-Hive-Entrance.pdf

 

[madasafish]

How much can be judged of the state of the colony just by watching the bees at the entrance?

You can tell if:
they are about to swarm
they have swarmed
They are being robbed.
They are short of food.
etc.

 

[Galaxy55]

Can't open that link.

Currently reading this

http://www.natural-beekeeping.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/At-the-Hive-Entrance.pdf

This is what I was going to recommend - I have edited the link above.

 

[SavvySalli]

1. Inspection isn't a fixed time exercise but for a smallish number of hives around midday in fine weather should be when the flying bees are out of the hive so you only have the house bees at home to deal with. If you have dozens of hives this is impractical.
2. That amount of extra comb building does suggest inaccurate bee space. You've explained the space between frames but the gaps between frame and box walls or top bar and qe/crownboard could still be wrong ( some bees are just messy builders ) Where did you get your hive and frames from?
3. A good rule to adopt is you only go into a hive for a good reason. I'd leave them alone until your next planned visit. Counting frames can wait and if you've seen tiny larvae the queen must have laid eggs.

It gets easier, your tecniques improve and your handling becomes smoother with experience. We'll look forward to hearing of your progress

I think the spacing isn't right, when i put syrup in this morning i could see it isn't. I've been told that they'll stop taking syrup as they find natural sources.

My bees came from a very well respected source locally, known for quality of Queens and colonies, and Master BK.

Hive from one of well-known suppliers of everything a bk needs, almost, if little pricey.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

[SavvySalli]

Hi S

good advice from John and Erica. PM sent.

David

Thanks. Will check pms.

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[Erichalfbee]

Just to address one point you made.
Bees won't stop taking syrup till all the available space is filled. This doesn't matter in the autumn as they need it for winter stores. In the summer when the queen is still laying at a good rate they need the space for brood. If they fill it with syrup they will swarm. If they are capping the syrup you are feeding then stop.
There is a good case for letting the bees proceed at their own pace

 

[SavvySalli]

Are they in a full size box? Sounds as if they should be.
If they are then you need to put a super on and stop feeding.
If your pattern is higgledy they may be running out of room and putting your feed in brood cells. You need to remedy this or they will swarm.
Bees will move out of the way if you gently blow on them or simply place your hand over the frame where you want to look.
Afternoon is a good time for inspection. Most of the foragers are away gathering nectar so there are actually fewer bees in the hive than morning or evening.
The only time not to look in the afternoon is if your are expecting a virgin to be out on a mating flight

The dark cells will be poppy pollen....bees do not store propolis in cells.
Good luck

They are in full size box with 11 DNs. 5 have brood and capped honey, one side of 6th is being drawn. so there are still 5.5 frames empty.

Poppy hey! That's good, we sowed loads and they're all up.

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[SavvySalli]

Are they in a full size box? Sounds as if they should be.
If they are then you need to put a super on and stop feeding.
If your pattern is higgledy they may be running out of room and putting your feed in brood cells. You need to remedy this or they will swarm.
Bees will move out of the way if you gently blow on them or simply place your hand over the frame where you want to look.
Afternoon is a good time for inspection. Most of the foragers are away gathering nectar so there are actually fewer bees in the hive than morning or evening.
The only time not to look in the afternoon is if your are expecting a virgin to be out on a mating flight

The dark cells will be poppy pollen....bees do not store propolis in cells.
Good luck

Do they store propolis at all or is it used immediately?

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[Erichalfbee]

It's collected as they need it

 

[Brigsy]

If it's any consolation my bees early in the year, when drawing out many frames of foundation were messy. Now the frames are drawn out they are sticking to bee space.

 

[SavvySalli]

Just to address one point you made.
Bees won't stop taking syrup till all the available space is filled. This doesn't matter in the autumn as they need it for winter stores. In the summer when the queen is still laying at a good rate they need the space for brood. If they fill it with syrup they will swarm. If they are capping the syrup you are feeding then stop.
There is a good case for letting the bees proceed at their own pace

Thank you, I just filled the feeder up today of course! On Wednesday when I do the inspection and get the spacing right I'll check if they're capping the syrup, last week they were only drawing new comb but I see that they've moved onto more frames now so maybe have capped syrup. They're bringing in a fair bit of pollen but it seems to be largely on the floor and it's from the frames as it's in rows, quite distinct against the white of the floor! Maybe that's because they're capping the syrup rather than storing pollen?