Asked Some Beekeepers on How Much or Even Whether to Inspect the Hive

Asked Some Beekeepers on How Much or Even Whether to Inspect the Hive

A lot of varied responses:

Michael Cortopassi

In the spirit of being "natural" with top bar hives, after reading many of the posts here over the past couple weeks, I get the sense that there is too much management going on. I am a complete newbie at this so please flame me if appropriate.

I plan on touching the brood area as little as possible, other than adding bars at the end to give them a choice of expanding the brood nest or storing honey. As long as I am not seeing anything bad through the observation window and activity looks good, is there any real reason for me to inspect the brood nest?

Even, say if I saw cross comb in the brood area, why should I care? These are real questions, not trying to pooh pooh anything anyone does. Thanks.

P.S. To be clear of my objective, it is to give bees a home in the neighborhood and observe them, and occasionally cutting off a comb of honey. Honey for me was never the objective.

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Chris Kohl Michael, your approach and intent are laudable but some of it may come down to a state required inspection of your hive. Depending on the flexibility of your inspector, you would want each top bar to be free and clear of the other so that they are "inspectable".

Michael Cortopassi Good point. I have not considered that!

Ruth Glasgow How will you inspect for and treat disease and queenlessness? A have that's been wiped out by disease and is being robbed out will look busy, but will spread disease to surrounding hives.
A hive with laying workers will still look busy, but will die out.

Michael Cortopassi Ruth, this is talking from inexperience, and having only one hive. The books I have read mostly specifically stay away from treating for diseases, at least with chemicals. Will I feel the same way if mine is dying? Probably not. Queenlessness, I don't know enough about that. Why would an established queen disappear? A swarm? Supersedure? In either of those cases, isn't the colony generally prepared to raise, or raising, a new queen?

Ruth Glasgow We don't treat for diseases like afb here either - we use prevention and burn hives that develop it to control the spread, but this requires regular inspection. Diseases like chalkbrood and half moon syndrome aren't treated with chemicals either, but you have tho know they're there to do something about them.
Other diseases like pms and varroa can be controlled without your standard chemicals.
Queenlessness can occur for a number of reasons and the bees can and do sometimes fail to raise a new queen, or the virgin queen fails to make it back from her mating flights.

Ruth Glasgow Michael Cortopassi Just had another thought - as a beginner beekeeper, if you haven't inspected your hive and something goes wrong, it would be near impossible to work out what it is as you will have no idea what 'normal' looks like. Even if you don't manipulate the bars or make any changes at all inspecting the comb gives you invaluable experience in what your bees and brood look like in a normal situation so you will know when something is wrong before it goes too far and potentially turns into a disaster you won't be able to do anything about. Top bar bees are pretty peaceful and as long as you go slow and steady they don't even seem no notice you're in the hive

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Sandra Lindner-Turner My first top bar I was in probably way too much but guess what? I learned a heck of a lot about bees. The first hive survived. Bees are able to survive dispite us. If you want to learn about your bees, learn how to manage them. You have to work bees. Just my opinion.

Christine Southard I also wish to disrupt my brood area as little as possible, but catching cross combing early is easy to remedy and will save you a world of trouble in the future if you NEED to get in and inspect - if you suspect you've lost your queen, for instance. And inspecting the way Christy Hemenway suggests, in which you are only taking one bar out at a time and keeping everything else in touch and in order is surprisingly mellow. After having Langstroths, we were amazed at how harmonious and pleasant the experience was. The bees were totally chill with it, kept right on doing what they were doing. It was fun and fascinating. We took pics of each bar, both sides, so we could look at enlarged photos and see better, so we were in and out very quickly.

Michael Cortopassi Thanks all, I do plan on doing inspections, certainly to learn. Just not really sure on the frequency, esp. since I am able to look through the window. Getting harder though. Almost all the comb is right up to it now, making it hard to see in very far!

Christine Southard Unfortunately you can have attachment to the other wall or crosscombs that aren't visible through the window. I saw a funny/horrible video of a guy getting into his tbh that had a bunch of crosscombs and when he tried to separate them, they broke off t...See More

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Julie Osborne Blick I'm a newbie started with no comb and 3000 bees. I watched them build 5 bars since Easter. The only reason I inspect is to make sure queen had a good egg laying pattern and I have no bugs

Luc Bernard Inspection is good. Ignoring them isn't. Looking through the window won't give you a good enough glimpse of any problems.

Stacey Ssutu Hiller Also a new bee keeper; boy, was the learning curve initially rough! But I learned how to manipulate the bars, I learned how to look for context clues, I caught queenless hives, I learned what a good inspection was without crushing a single bee to dealing with mad mad bees, from taking an open brood bar from one hive and giving it to a weaker colony in hopes they make their own queen.

I've dealt with two bars of comb crashing because they were stuck at the top and now I know how to wiggle the hive tool to break apart the top combs so they don't stick.

I say....learn how the basics of manipulating the hive. Then you can choose not to buy you're prepared!

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Paul Krabath Sometimes you have to look at the brood frames to look for swarm cells. You can let your hive swarm but it's good to know when the cells were capped so you know when the new queen would emerge. I will usually go in a bar or 2 into the brood nest if I'm not looking for swarm cells.

Tom Hebert I consider myself a minimalist when it come to tbh management. Part of it is time constraints I have for working with the bees because of my teaching job, but I also think that is the way to go.

Too much intervention can sometimes have a detrimental affect on the hive. Bees have been around for a long time and usually survive just fine without us. They usually know what to do. Sometimes our well-intentioned intervention results in messing things up for them. Lots of intervention is for the beekeepers sake, not the colony itself.

But there should be some management, however. Just not over done. If your objective is to get as much honey as possible, you need to intervene. You especially need to keep on top of the space issues with the brood and honey storage.

In my case, I'm happy with what the bees give me. I don't put a lot of effort or time into management so the honey is basically all profit. It's what works for me in my present situation. The honey is a nice secondary income. The bees are my primary income source.

I rarely go through the whole brood nest. I can usually get a good idea of what is going on by just checking the three to four outside brood combs. If something looks wrong, then I keep going. The activity at the entrance can also tell you something about how the hive is doing. It takes some time to learn this however; how to interpret what's going on with the bees.

I don't even touch some of hives except to harvest them. One of my apiaries is in the mountains above town on a coffee farm (in Honduras). I don't get up there very frequently. The last hives in the line get the least attention. Time runs out and the truck is ready to take the workers back down to town. I have to go with it.

But I should also mention that I work with Africanized bees. They usually don't have too many problems with pests and deseases. I also get the majority of my hives through capturing swarms (lots of them here.) If I do happen to lose a hive for some reason it is simple enough to get it filled again with a swarm.

The problem is when your new and really excited about having bees and want to see everything that is going on inside the hive. Just use a bit of self control so you don't go overboard.

Tom Hebert Each beekeeper has their own unique situation. There is no one correct management style. It's what works for you as the beekeeper.

Douglas Vohnoutka Because you may want to inspect brood area, and your laws may require the inspector to be able to remove frames.

Richard Bakowski You should look at something less invasive maybe the warre just a thought

Sam Gropler Yes, you should inspect the brood for pests and diseases.

Dinah Phillips Varroa mites

Phil Chandler https://youtu.be/K9B_kWb6ovI

How to do a quick check on a top bar hive

http://www.biobees.com Phil Chandler -…

YOUTUBE.COM

Michael Cortopassi Phil, your Balanced Beekeeping II book was the first I had gotten, and the video shows what I expected to need to do to a hive that looks healthy. They are building out comb like gangbusters right now. Thanks.

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Katral Tobiaz Checking for disease is essential to keeping healthy bees, you are not doing them any favors by leaving them alone while the nest is overrun with something foul. And cross comb is fine between a couple of straight bars but if you let it run wild you will be locked out of the hive and disease could run wild and spread to other hives. You do make a good point about natural being the operative but, sadly, we live in a world of mites and foul-brood. not a dumb question at all.

Josh Petit If your keeping one or two hives there's not much management going on. If you don't go into the brood nest your doing a disservice to yourself. Top bar hives are the perfect hives for the inexperience but only if you manage the colony throughout the whole hive.
You really want to get in there and see, touch and smell the hive. You want to experience the works of the honeybee and thier setup.
If it's fear because thier bees or your afraid that you'll disturb them, they wont mind if you do it with care. They want to see you. Thier honeybees.
You can always place the colony in the middle or at the end with a empty bar at the end so,you can enter right into the brood nest.
You want to see so many things but trying to keep the post short. You would want to check up on your Queen and check her brood.
Imagine if you did the topbar and decided you didnt like it and you never really managed it. Then you decide to go langstroth. That would bee disturbing them more.
Managing is this,
1.go in see if thiers eggs & good brood pattern
2.add 2 to 4 empty bars in the brood nest. If there's bars of honey drop empty bars in between honey comb. I also,always place a empty bar between the last capped frone comb and honeycomb
3. Check for stores nectar /pollen
4. Add partial comb up front where pollen is stored or in brood nest.
5. If you see emerging brood, place that comb more up or where the queen hasn't layed too much on new comb so when she finds that new comb she can lay in the comb that has emerged after they clean it up. If thier backfilling the brood nest place that emerging comb all the way up near the entrance so they can store in that comb pollen once thr bees emerge.
6. Put capped drone comb at the back of hive before honey and place the newly emerged drone comb behind the honey combs or within the honey nest so they can fill that comb with honey.
7.check for queen cups that are edged, really rounded and partially white coated
8. Check to see the health of hive, clean? Disease etc.
9. Have fun

If this sounds too much then just get a extra deep hive or a layens hive. No managing what so ever except to see a laying queen which is the right thing to do. Just add frames when needed.
You can find these hives at extra deep hives, layens hive and Top bar hives or my other group horiztonal hives with extra deep frames

Paul Krabath One of the best descriptions of tbh management in a very quick statement. I got some good info from a Les Crowder video as well- he recommended moving the honey to the entrance so the broodnest area wouldn't be pinned in by honey front and back. That's the advice I need. I have his book but the management section was hard for me to understand and convert to what I need to do with my hive.

Michael Cortopassi I am not afraid of the bees, and I do want to see what's going on. In what seems to be a healthy hive I am just trying to determine the best balance of how often to get in there vs. being hands off. Right now I see no need to get in more than once every 2 weeks, unless I need to add bars during a flow. Thanks.

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Josh Petit I really think your should look into the extra deep hives or layens. Seems like we have the same mindset but I love beeing one with them inside the hive. I go in my extra deeps and layens more than I should. I shouldn't go in them at all but I love beeing in hives. I could do it all day everyday, rain, sun, night. I dont care

Josh Petit I love the extra deep hives and layens more than top bars but I have 25 top bar hives so I'm in love with those too. Give me any hive and I'll love it except for the langstroths. I can't lift heavy boxes. Broken ribs and bad back I'm trying to fix. Thanks God I never did langstroths.

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