03 inspection guide v1.08.docx - webcollect web viewhive inspection guide . ... when it is warm and...

THE LEEDS BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATIONBRANCH OF THE YORKSHIRE BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION

AFFILIATED WITH THE BRITISH BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION

Hive Inspection Guide V1.08

These are prompts for conducting a hive inspections.

These are meant as a guide and is not an exhaustive list of topics to cover.

When conducting an inspection, always have a reason to go in IE weekly inspections are to prevent swarming.

5 things you are looking for when doing an inspections

● Is the queen present and laying (brood in all 3 stages)?● Has the colony got enough room?● Does the colony have sufficient stores of pollen and honey?● Is the colony healthy?● Are there any queen cells?

External

These are not listed in any set order

· Read your previous hive inspection notes

· Monitor the bees coming and going through the entrance - Checking to see if some are carrying pollen

This is an indicator that the queen is alive and laying (it is an indicator not guaranteed though)

· Check the ground in front of the hive for dead bees or any crawling upwards looking illThis might be an indicator or poisoning for instance

· Check the hive and stand for any signs of damage or wear and tear - Various animals may damage the hive (Horses, cattle, mice, woodpeckers, people damage)

If any damage - rectify

· Check the varroa tray for varroa or any other signs of other problemsDoes there seem a lot? If so refer to FERA online calculator to calculate the approx varroa population of the hive to decide if to treat or not

Remind/Refresh Students on the make up of a hive I.E.Roof / crown board / supers (including frames with comb/foundation), brood box (including frames with comb/foundation), floor (inc varroa tray) and stand.

Mention in Winter it might be appropriate to put a brick on the roof or tie hive down depending where you have your hive.

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To prevent winds blowing roof off.

Internal - Before you open the box

Ideal time to do an inspection, when it is warm and sunny and minimal wind and during the day when lots of the bees are out foraging. Note: this is an ideal choice which is not always possible

How long should the inspection take: 10mins to an hour, depending how thorough you are being or how rushed you are or how many colonies you have or how new to beekeeping you are.

Temperature must be above 15°C for a full inspection

Always have a reason to go in to your bees? IE are you checking for swarming preparations?, have they enough stores?, are you taking stores off them?During the spring/summer from the beginning of April it should be weekly to check for signs of swarming or to practice swarm prevention

Light your smoker if you are going to use one

Decide if you are going to use cover clothes or not (if you are, get them ready)

When conducting an inspection, starting from one side of the hive, lift out one frame at a time from the brood chamber inspect it and replace it and go through the box (except the first frame, the first frame is put to one side, so the others can be nudged up). Do not start an inspection by standing in front of the entrance.

Remove lid and put on floor at side of the hive.

Remove the crown board (check for queen) and put in side the lid.If the queen is on the crown board (mark her if not marked) put back in brood box

Internal - After you open the box

Check the supers - (If any) to see if you need to add one - When adding supers, only add 1 at a time IE dont put 4 supers on and then walk away, then wait until that super is 75% (approx) full of stores before adding another super.

If supers are on, remove and put inside lid (on top of crown board). When removing the queen excluder, always check underside for the queen excluder for the queen before putting it on the super. (if using cover clothes, cover super and queen excluder up) If queen is on queen excluder put her back in the brood box

These are not listed in any set order

The queen - Sometimes you won't find her but thats fine, provided there are eggs and they are still stood upright (DO NOT WORRY IF YOU CANNOT FIND HER)

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If you find the queen and she is not marked, mark her (current year)If you clip your queens, clip her if she is not clipped

Eggs - If you see eggs, thats good, the queen has been paying with in the last 3 days

Check for, eggs Larvae and sealed brood across the frames

See if you can spot any drone brood cells - Although the male bee does very little they are important to every colony. When you can see drone brood in a colony then this is when the swarming season is due to start, bees will not swarm when there is no drones for the virgins queens to mate with.

Egg laying pattern - Is it patchy or is there excessive drone brood - both these points to a potential problem with the queen

Make a note of how many frames have brood on (indicate how prolific the queen is or is not). this includes eggs, larvae and sealed and should be referenced in your notes

Pollen - This is food for the bees, and affects the queen's egg laying rate.

Honey/Nectar - Is there sufficient present until your next inspection?. If so, make mental note of how many frames have stores (capped honey and pollen) in. Have they got enough room until your next inspection, do they need feeding for instance OR if they have nearly run out of room you would need to add a super.

Make a note of how many frames have stores on and this should be referenced in your notes

Queen cells or supersedure cells - Are there any present? Is so, complete your inspection before removing them just in case you don't find the queen and or eggs (NEVER REMOVE ANY QUEENS CELL UNTIL YOU HAVE INSPECTED EVERY BROOD FRAME) If queens cells are present, you need to confirm presence of laying queen or not, confirm the brood pattern is correct. Depending on these answers depends on whether you remove the queens cells or not and how many queen cells need to be removed.

If you implement any swarm prevention strategy, make a note in your notes

Frame and Comb condition - Age, colour or damage (is there any black comb in there that needs moving to the edge for instance or taking out). If frame/combs are damage either remove and replace there and then or make a note and bring replacement equipment on next visit. Make a note of replacements required and done in your notes.

Signs of diseases - Foul brood, chalkbrood, deformed bees, nosema are few of the possible problems.

Foul Brood are notifiable diseases and you would speak to Ivor or Dhonn (the bee inspectors) by phone if you suspect either.

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Deformed wings on worker bees and seeing varroa on bee’s are indications of a possible high varroa count, Check the drop and consider treatment

Chalkbrood is endemic but should never been excessive. If excess consider damp weather might be the cause or genetics with the queen and consider requeening.

Medications for varroa - If used, check what further course of action is required (most treatments are not used during honey production except for MAQS or formic acid treatments)

If there is disease, excessive diseases or if any medication has been added, make a note.Then take a few moments to consider what needs to be done and only then take the required action before closing the hive up again. At this point it is good practice to fill in a hive inspection sheet or make notes ready for the next time you need to visit your apiary.

Other things to document in your notes are aggression and if the bees follow you. If either of these persist in your colony then consider requeening

What brood and stores look like and a brief description

Whilst going through the colony point out to students what each of the below looks like, and get them to spot the same on other frames. Do this multiple times.

Eggs: The queen lays eggs (peak ay 2000 per day in Summer) and to begin with they are stood up on end at the bottom of the cell. After around 48 hours they gently tilt over until they are laying flat at the bottom of the cell. They will soon become larvae.

There are 2 genders in a colony, male and female,

Drone eggs look similar to worker eggs but the cell is larger and the cappings will be more domed.

Larvae: If you look very closely you will see they are slightly different sizes depending their age. Just over a week after being laid as an egg the larvae encase themselves in a silk cocoon and the cell is then capped over to protect them and they become sealed brood. Twenty one days after being laid they will emerge as fully grown young bees.

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If this is a female egg, it is fed brood food for 3 days and then mixture of pollen and honey for 3 days before sealing to become workers., if it is royal jelly, it would turn into a queen.

Sealed brood (Worker): The final stage in the development of a bee before it emerges. Worker bees live 6 weeks in Summer and 6 months in Winter.The 6 weeks in Summer consist of 3 weeks in the hive and 3 weeks foraging.

Sealed brood (Drone): The drone capped brood is at the bottom of the image and you can see how it protrudes out (it is slighter wider in diameter than the worker capped brood). The worker capped brood is in the top right hand corner

Honey: The image is of sealed honey (note the differences between this and capped brood) Nectar is collected from different flowers and trees. It

is clear and runny when the bees collect it. The bees process the nectar and reduce the water content (under 20%) of the nectar and turn it in to honey. Honey is carbohydrates for the bees.

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Pollen: Pollen collected from different flowers and trees varies in colour and size, from 5microns to 150 microns. To be able to see a single grain of pollen you would need an appropriate type of microscope. Pollen is the protein for the bees. Pollen is very visible on the comb and is always in different colours. This is because lots of pollen particles are clumped together by the bees. Pollen must be present for bees to produce brood.

Queen Cells

Sealed Queen cell on left, play cup on right (or just started queen cell)

Left hand side, emerged virgin queen cell

Rest of the queen cells. These are cells that the previosu emerged virgin queen has torn down by sticking her sting in them to kill the grub/queen inside.

Sealed Queen cells on the comb

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Sealed queen cells on the comb

These are cut off queen cells. These if just removed could be used to make up a Nuc

It is important to realise that when you do your inspection and if there are queen cells present, then they will be covered over by bees. This just adds to the excitement

5 things you are looking for when doing an inspections

● Is the queen present and laying?● Has the colony got enough room?● Does the colony have sufficient stores of pollen and honey?● Is the colony healthy?● Are there any queen cells?

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A tip about queen finding in a colony. Just look for the queen and nothing thing else. So pick up the first frame and look for the queen and nothing else put to one side when checked.and pick the next frame up, look for queen and nothing else , put frame down and carry on the process.

Do not look for queen, and eggs, and stores, and what ever else you think of might be important. JUST LOOK FOR THE QUEEN AND NOTHING ELSE, IF SHE IS THAT IMPORTANT ON THAT INSPECTION

If you wanted to note the brood and stores etc...then go through the bees a second time (after you have found the queen). SimplzDifferent Honey bees in a colony

Worker (above, first) - female and smallest honey bee. Populates 95% of hive. Has one sting and generally is not afraid to use to. Has pointy bum (the sting).

Drone (above , middle) - male, no sting, has flat bum and big eyes (compared to worker bee) populates about 5% of hive. larger than worker bee.

Queen (above, last / nearest to word metric in photo)female, 1 per colony (generally) biggest honey bee, long and slender. has a sting but only uses it to kill her sisters when first emerging as a virgin queen. It is not born with a spot on her back either. This is added by you (the beekeeper) to make finding her in the hive easier and to indicate her age (colour denotes year of birth) It also indicates if she has been replaced by the workers and you missed it I.E. new queen has no mark on her when you know you marked the queen in the hive.

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How a bee is born

From eggs to emerging bee

Worker bee - 21 days3 days as egg, 6 days as larvae, 12 days sealed - 21 days

Drone bee - 24 days3 days as eggs, 7 days as larvae, 14 days sealed - 24 days

Queen bee - 16 days3 days as eggs, 5 days as larvae, 8 days sealed - 16 days

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Leeds Bee Keeping Association “LBKA”

Inspection GuideVersion 1.06

www.leedsbeekeepers.org.uk

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03 inspection guide v1.08.docx - webcollect web viewhive inspection guide . ... when it is warm and...

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