How often do you check your hives?

[user 20297]

I was just re-reading the section of Tim Rowe's book (admittedly, not The Bible of Beekeeping) that deals with swarm-checks.. More than once he refers to checking every nine days. I had thought that in "swarm-season", assuming that you are very thorough each visit in your examination for signs of swarming, the standard gap would be every seven days in order to catch them immediately before a potential queen-cell was capped.

Should I be inspecting more or less frequently?

 

[enrico]

every five or six days for me in the swarm season

 

[Wilco]

I aim for seven days based on the queen raising cycle.

 

[JamezF]

I was just re-reading the section of Tim Rowe's book (admittedly, not The Bible of Beekeeping) that deals with swarm-checks.. More than once he refers to checking every nine days. I had thought that in "swarm-season", assuming that you are very thorough each visit in your examination for signs of swarming, the standard gap would be every seven days in order to catch them immediately before a potential queen-cell was capped.

Should I be inspecting more or less frequently?

I think seven days is usually considered convenient because it fits in around most peoples' work schedules whilst giving you time to react to a potential swarm. As far as I recall, nine days is probably the absolute limit where you can go from no queen cells at all to having one on the point of being capped, but you'd not have time to mess around if you did find a queen cell then.

James

 

[Murox]

Five to seven days is what I aim for, though I can go eight or nine days given the climatics here; but as JamezF points out if you find a queen cell...................

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

seven days

 

[WalnutTreeBees]

I wondered the same thing when I first read his book. He also mentions that he often only hinges the boxes up and checks the bottom of the frames for queen cells, which would obviously make spotting the early signs of swarm prep even more difficult. I presumed that the few additional losses he takes are not worth the more frequent inspection time. Plus he's on the west side of Ireland so errant swarms will not be too much of a problem.

 

[enrico]

I wondered the same thing when I first read his book. He also mentions that he often only hinges the boxes up and checks the bottom of the frames for queen cells, which would obviously make spotting the early signs of swarm prep even more difficult. I presumed that the few additional losses he takes are not worth the more frequent inspection time. Plus he's on the west side of Ireland so errant swarms will not be too much of a problem.

Most ' professional ' beekeepers only check the bottom of the top box of a double brood. It is just a short cut. If they see queen cells they just split the boxes. If you have many hives you need to cut corners.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Every 5-7 days but that aldepends for example a demaree gets left for 2/3 weeks
Reversal double brood 2 weeks .
Extensions on poly nucs you can leave for 10days 2 weeks .
Swarmy season main inspections are no more than a week .
Different set ups imo need different timing of inspections and then we need to add in honey flows/strength of colonys

 

[Curly green finger's]

Most ' professional ' beekeepers only check the bottom of the top box of a double brood. It is just a short cut. If they see queen cells they just split the boxes. If you have many hives you need to cut corners.

Not all
I know a few that do 10 days but they leave lots of space also supers when adding one will add two with a cover board above the second with a hole in for access.
If a colony has just comb to use it helps , drawing wax slows them down

 

[WalnutTreeBees]

Most ' professional ' beekeepers only check the bottom of the top box of a double brood. It is just a short cut. If they see queen cells they just split the boxes. If you have many hives you need to cut corners.

I know, and I'm sure it works well enough when you can look for royal jelly in cells on a shorter inspection cycle. But on 9 day inspections your losses are going to increase quite a bit I would have thought.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Usually seven days for me but the odd one might be five
With a Demaree I check both boxes after a week then every two or three weeks thereafter till I take them down.

 

[enrico]

I know, and I'm sure it works well enough when you can look for royal jelly in cells on a shorter inspection cycle. But on 9 day inspections your losses are going to increase quite a bit I would have thought.

Yes for a hobby beekeeper. Far too long I reckon unless you have clipped queens

 

[user 20297]

seven days

OK then.

 

[wbchive]

Tim Rowe’s methods were fine for his situation but perhaps not so suitable for general use. For example, his one-size boxes were easily and cheaply made - providing you had access to some quite advanced woodworking tackle. Furthermore, his hives were usually situated near woodland so swarms could be retrieved provided they didn’t cluster out of reach. I believe he gave up commercial beekeeping some years ago.

 

[blackcloud]

Seven and for me that fits nicely with work rotas for changing doors on Snelgrove boards

 

[hemo]

Up to 8 days but depends on weather outlook and state of affairs within the colonies, one after a while gets an inkling on how swarmy they may be . I aim for the least disruption as possible, all mine Q's are clipped so don't lose a swarm as in off and gone but may lose the odd Q and some bees if it suddenly rains. Often they will clambe rback to the hive and cluster under the UFE.