Do a Hive Inspection With Me
And some queen drama
Bees have no king. They do have a queen and, as I’ve mentioned before, the queen is not so much a ruler as a biological mother. The worker bees make the real decisions and dote on the queen.
That said, if I have a specialty as a beekeeper, it is accidentally running into drama with my queens. Therefore, I was relatively unsurprised when, as I wrapped up this hive inspection, I found my hive’s queen on the ground. More on that at the end.
This post has two purposes. 1) For new beekeepers who want some visuals on what they’re looking for in a hive, I have examples. 2) For those who are just curious, I have a lot of images. I often get asked about my bees, and the inner workings of a hive are easier to explain with pictures. This is a visual-heavy post, so it ran over the email limit. Never fear; you can open the link to see all the cool stuff.
I have been keeping bees since May 2021, and this hive has been in continual use since then, although not all of the frames have been. You will see some dated frames, and I recommend that new beekeepers start dating frames from the jump. I wish I had been more consistent. Also, if you happen to have any frames in your supers when you treat a hive with something like Apivar (which is not reocmmended, but shit happens) label those with a P for Poison since you cannot harvest honey from them. You can use them for your bees, though, and so I have never regretted having those tainted frames in reserve for my girls.
Here’s a video snapshot of the inspection. I will explain some details to look for in inspections through photos afterward. There’s so much more I could have gotten into—mite management, splits, stings, etc.—but I tried to keep it fairly top-level.
Have an Inspection Plan
With every inspection, I try to have a plan and a purpose. Each time you work with the bees, you are going to kill some of them, and you risk killing the queen. Make the inspection worth it and move smoothly and with intention.
When I am nervous or distracted, things happen. I drop frames. I knock over boxes. I make the bees mad. A plan helps keep me calm. I always wear my suit. Rings off. Hair up. No fragrances.
Ideal conditions for a hive inspection are: sunny, not windy, midday, and at least 57°F.
You should be:
Observing the attitude of your bees. Are they calm or agitated? Angry bees could be sick or hungry, or bothered by a parasite or pest. Or it could just be cloudy or too late in the day for you to open the lid. If you pop open a hive and the bees are enraged, my first guess would be that they are queenless. It’s okay to close them back up and try again another time unless you really think it’s an emergency.
Find either a queen or eggs. Having a laying queen is essential.
Look for brood in all stages.
Check for signs of disease or pests.
Look at how much space your bees have. Conventional wisdom is that when the bees are using 6 frames in an 8-frame hive and 7 in a 10-frame, it’s time to add another box on top. If they get too crowded, they might swarm.
Look for resources coming into the hive and being stored. Both pollen and nectar! When the nectar flow is on is highly local. When it stops, your bees will get grumpy, and you might consider feeding them.
Also, talk to the bees or sing to them. It keeps you calm.
Some beekeepers swear by their smokers. I have always had docile bees, so I only use mine in late summer when the dearth of nectar makes the bees really cranky, or if I am doing something especially disruptive, such as splitting a hive.
Tip: Use Tea Towels
I hate smooshing bees when stacking the hive back together. What has helped me is putting a tea towel over the top of a box after I finish inspecting it. I leave the towel in place until the box is back on the hive, and I am about to put another box on top of it. That also keeps the bees calmer in general. I think it’s part of why I so seldom use my smoker. The flat weave of tea towels keeps bee feet from getting stuck, like they might with terry cloth.
Looking for Signs of Intruders or Disease
Blessedly, I have not had to deal with wax moths or small hive beetles, so I am including links to other resources. I always look for signs of pests or sickness in the hive.
I often have a jumping spider inside the outer cover. Jumping spiders love to eat bees, but they won’t eat as many as, for example, a bald-faced hornet will. They will eat other insects that might be a problem for the hive, so I leave the spider alone.
I have also had chalk brood, a fungal infection that causes bee larvae to die and turn into little chalky mummies. My first sign that something was off was the smell. Generally, the hive should have a sweet, woody aroma. A bad smell can be a sign of mold or disease.
I also look closely at the bees, keeping an eye out for deformed wings or baldness.
I look at the brood pattern. Is it compact? Are there lots of uncapped pupa? Is the bottom board covered in unusual debris?
Anything that looks odd to me, I take a photo of and then consult beekeeping guides.
Looking for Life Cycles
You do not always have to find your queen. When you find a queen, it is always a thrill, but as the population in the hive grows, she will be harder to find. Instead, look for signs that you have a laying queen. The first photo below shows eggs, which look like grains of rice in the bottom of a cell, and larvae at various stages.
The second photo shows capped worker cells and then, at the top of the frame, a few drone cells. Worker cells are capped flat and the drone cells are puffy to accommodate the larger size of these male bees. They tend to be on the edges of the frames or between hive boxes. Drone cells run horizontally; queen cups are vertical. Drones come from unfertilized eggs; workers from fertilized eggs. If you have drone cells scattered around, or what seems like too many drone cells, it could be a sign that your queen is running out of genetic material to lay fertilized eggs and you should expect the bees to supersede (replace) her soon.
The bottom two photos show queen cups on the bottom of a frame and in the middle of a frame. Typically, swarm cells are built at the bottom of a frame, and supercedure or emergency queen cells are made in the middle. They look kind of like peanuts.
Remember that the bees don’t read the beekeeping manuals, so they will build comb and queen cups sometimes in a plan that only makes sense to them. I have seen them build and tear down and move queen cups all summer without using them. I have also had them requeen themselves so quickly that I almost missed it. That’s why inspecting every 7-10 days during the summer and early fall is so important.
Queen Spotting
One of the best tips I have ever been given is that the spot in the hive where it seems there are the most bees is likely where your queen is. So, if the crack between two frames is bursting with workers, those two frames are a good spot to check for the queen extra carefully. Also, where you see eggs, the queen has been there recently.
The top left photo shows hatched queen cups. Top right shows a virgin queen. Before the queen mates, she is much smaller. A smaller booty helps her fly away to mate and come home again. Once she’s full of sperm from a few choice drones, she swells up. The bottom two photos are mated queens, one on a frame of honey and one on a brood frame.
Queen Persephone Escapes the Hive
A problem I am encountering this spring is that the ground around my hive is soggy. I need to add some more gravel to help stabilize it. It keeps tilting backward, which is a good way to trap moisture in a hive, which can cause mold. After taking video of the inspection, since I had the hive broken down anyway, I adjusted the stand’s tilt and started to move gravel into the holes where the stand sunk. Fortunately, I spotted Queen Persephone before I hit her with the gravel.
I don’t know why she was on the ground. She probably fell when I moved a frame. Tip: Until you spot the queen, always hold frames over the hive. I thought about that as I was moving frames around to get video in better lighting. I also wondered if she was outside the hive when I saw bees clustered on the outside of a box, as pictured in the photo of the “Girlfriends” teatowel above.
So, I put out a finger and let her climb onto my glove. Her wings looked a little tattered, but otherwise, she did not look injured. That was a relief. I let her climb on my glove while I put the hive back together. I thought she’d be safer there as I fussed with the bottom parts of the hive.
But then she walked up my arm. And then she was on my veil. And then, I couldn’t see her anymore. And then I backed into an apple tree and was scared I smooshed her.
I walked to the back door to look at my reflection in the glass. Julio was there making lunch, so I asked him, “Do I have a queen bee on my back?”
I was so proud of him that he was able to spot her, but he assures me that it was easier on a white background than on a frame. I walked over to the hive with a stick, hoping I could transfer her safely from my back to the stick, then to the hive.
Almost immediately, I thought better of it. First, I couldn’t see what I was doing. Second, bees are pretty attuned to the scent of their queen’s pheromones. I had already collected a few workers along with the queen and I worried that if I stood by the hive for too long, all the bees were going to realize where the queen was and mob me.
So, I walked over to the barn and gratefully accepted Julio’s help. He put on my glove, got the queen to walk onto it, and then gave it back to me. I watched her sashay into the hive and was relieved she survived the misadventure.
I did an inspection this morning in the middle of writing this post and I can confirm that the queen is still alive and laying. Hurray! It also reminded me of a few more points.
A hive inspection takes 30-60 minutes unless something goes wrong.
You are bound to encounter That One Bee—a guard bee who takes her job too seriously. Don’t take it personally.
If you smell bananas, your hive is sending up a warning signal. Sometimes, they won’t escalate, and sometimes they will start to sting you. If you can’t tell if it’s sweat or a bee, remember that sweat doesn’t run up the back of your neck.
In the video, I took my hive all the way apart because I wanted to check the bottom board for moisture and rotate the two deep boxes, to get the bees back to the bottom of the hive. They migrate up over winter. I don’t always disassemble the hive that much unless I need to. A few times a year, I will, so I can inspect and clean the bottom board, but it is not always necessary to do so.
Any questions? Ask in the comments.
Here are some links to stories about my bees in this newsletter or elsewhere.
Robotic Bees Don’t Say Ope at Star 82 Review
Cosmic Bees at the Center for Humans & Nature
Escape to the Hive at The Hopper
How to Grieve a Lost Beehive at Canary
I had bees for a while and they were a little not of magic in my field. Just wonderful. The tea towel is a great tip! I wish I had known that one. Thank you Kasey!
Why 57 deg. F? Also, does humidity matter? 57 deg. and dry can feel very different from 57 deg. and humid. Do the bees notice?