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Author Topic: How often do you check your hives?  (Read 9235 times)

Offline LindaL

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How often do you check your hives?
« on: August 12, 2013, 08:13:00 am »
I got my hives a week ago Sunday and haven't checked them since i moved them to there new hives.   The weather wasn't very good this weekend very windy and rainy.   Its supposed windy with scattered showers all week.    If i want to check them on a week day i have to wait until i get home from work which normally isn't until after 5. 

Should i check them anyway or wait and hope for better weather this weekend?   There are loads of bees coming and going with pollen and i have seen orientation flights around both hives. 

Linda.
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Offline KD4MOJ

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2013, 09:05:31 am »
Howdy Linda:

I do what you did... watch. You noticed they are bringing in pollen and the orientation flights. If you see lots of hanging around the front porch as well, it looks like a healthy hive to me! I try not to disturb them as little as possible but if things don't look right from the activity, then I go in.

...DOUG
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Offline LindaL

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2013, 09:24:22 am »
Its my first week as a bee keeper i want to make sure i do everything right  :-D

They are such well mannered girls.  I even picked one up that crash landed on the grass after her orientation flight yesterday, put her back on the landing pad.  Someone should tell the little bees that orientation flights on windy days are a bad idea.   :roll:

I guess its OK to leave them alone until next weekend.   I don't want to disturb them anymore then i have to.   
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Offline iddee

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2013, 10:24:02 am »
I only go in a hive when I have a specific reason. It may be just because I haven't looked for a month or two, or the hive weight has gained or lost significantly, or any other reason, but I do have a specific reason when I go in.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

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Offline LindaL

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2013, 11:00:37 am »
I thought i was supposed to check them every week.   When i moved them i saw uncapped brood in both hives.  I'm not really that good at spotting eggs yet so i only saw them in the one hive.  I didn't see the queen in either, but they aren't marked.   I need to mark the queens at some point before winter as well.   I know they both have at least 2 frames that they haven't dawn out yet.   

So i guess i should just leave them alone and let them be bees.

Linda.

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Offline iddee

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2013, 11:35:34 am »
Every week is too often. It is said that each inspection sets them back 2 to 3 days. Checking them every week would set them back nearly 50 % of the summer.

I have hives I haven't check more than 4 times this year. Others I have checked many more times. It just depends on what I think I need to know about them and when.

I would NOT recommend marking queens by a new beekeeper. There was a post on one of the forums just this week where a keep killed his queen while marking her. I would either get an experienced beek to do it, or wait until you have practiced by marking drones until you are comfortable with it.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline 10framer

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2013, 11:50:18 am »
4 or 5 thorough inspections a year is enough for a healthy hive.  i don't know if i really think inspections set a hive back by days but a lot of people do.  i think frequent inspections might do it, though.   
it's hard to stay out of them when it's all new to you.  i'd try to keep it down to every couple of weeks or less as long as there are no issues that need to be addressed.
i know it's hard to stay out of them.  i still go through mine more often than i probably should.

Offline hjon71

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2013, 10:03:59 pm »
Mine receive very little attention. They were left completely alone for several years and have managed to survive pretty much unmolested. I swapped in some new equipment and removed some really old brood comb when I moved them.
I will check in the spring, pull honey, and look again in the late fall for winter stores but that's all I'm planning on now.
Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

Offline GSF

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2013, 10:36:19 pm »
hjon71;

I'll trade you a goat, three chickens, and a dozen eggs for a queen. :th_thumbsupup:
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Offline RHBee

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2013, 12:38:19 am »
First year I was in them once a week. Second year I'm in them 3 or 4 times this year so far.
Later,
Ray

Offline hjon71

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2013, 12:40:34 am »
GSF
Bring the equipment and show me how to raise queens and you can have one.
Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

Offline Finski

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #11 on: August 13, 2013, 12:58:30 am »
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I have no slightest idea. It depends what are you looking for. There is no "how many".

YOu should learn the natural yeard course of bees. Then you have basic knowledge to nurse them.
To beginner peeping into hives every week teaches what is going there and not going.
To rush on forum to ask everything is really bad habit: "I saw honey in a brood box! What I do now!"
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Offline LindaL

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2013, 04:05:18 am »
Does it disturb them to fill up the sugar feeder?    The bigger hive has 3 full frames of honey 2 are mostly caped.  But the little hive has 2 that it has just started to cap.  I want to feed up the little hive so it can ketch up to its big sister.  (i really need to name my hives) 

On a side note  Any idea what this is?  Two of them have been tossed out of the bigger hive in the last two days.  They are to big for the bees to carry they more drag it out.




Linda
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Offline Finski

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2013, 10:58:30 am »
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That is a mummified larva made by chalkbrood disease.

It is better to change the queen and hope that the new one it is chalkbrood resistant..
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Offline Finski

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2013, 11:06:51 am »
4 or 5 thorough inspections a year is enough for a healthy hive. 

Bees do not need inpecting, but she is very new in beekeeping and it is very hrealty to see, what happens in the hive.

4 inpections in a year? Oh no! What is the value of that?
 You should ectract 4 times a years and that is why to "inspect" how much you have honey.

in swarming time you MUST incpect the hives every week.

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Offline GSF

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2013, 12:16:46 pm »
Might have helped if you had placed a penny by it so we could get an idea of size. At first I thought it was chicken or turkey poop. I would have to agree with Finski it looks like chalkbrood.
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Offline Steel Tiger

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2013, 12:27:26 pm »
I started with foundationless frames so I go in a little more often than I want to check and straighten comb. Right now it's every other week. The brood box is fully drawn, so I don't have a reason to go in there.
 Last inspection I did check the brood and found one of the frames with a lot of capped drone brood. The frames on either side was worker brood. I thought it was late in the season for drones, but if they feel they need them, so be it.

Offline Finski

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2013, 03:15:19 pm »
I want to check and straighten comb. Right now it's every other week. The brood box is fully drawn, so I don't have a reason to go in there.

You have learned to straighten combs?


When you look into hive, you need not do anything. You just look. Mostly everything is allright. But it depends on the time of year cycle, what is happening there. You do not need to see queen.
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Offline 10framer

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2013, 06:18:24 pm »
4 or 5 thorough inspections a year is enough for a healthy hive. 

Bees do not need inpecting, but she is very new in beekeeping and it is very hrealty to see, what happens in the hive.

4 inpections in a year? Oh no! What is the value of that?
 You should ectract 4 times a years and that is why to "inspect" how much you have honey.

in swarming time you MUST incpect the hives every week.

.

if they don't need inspecting why are you worried about swarms?  a couple of runs through the brood chamber in the spring and a couple preparing for winter should be enough if you aren't seeing problems with the hive.  maybe those superior bees you have are a little more swarmy than our italian mixes over here.javascript:void(0);

Offline Finski

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Re: How often do you check your hives?
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2013, 06:31:39 pm »


if they don't need inspecting why are you worried about swarms?  a couple of runs through the brood chamber in the spring and a couple preparing for winter should be enough if you aren't seeing problems with the hive.  maybe those superior bees you have are a little more swarmy than our italian mixes over here.javascript:void(0);

hahahahahaha rubbish

Yes, I have all the time problems with hives. I love problems.

I have had Italian bees 40 years and my are swarmy. I have my bees and you have your bees.
But 4 inspections in a year is a BIG stupidity

How many times in a year you extract honey?  (stupid question)

If hives swarm, you must check them. So simple.

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