Repost from [mtbakerbees] Upcoming nice weather/first deep inspections

[Mohan Raj]

Some guidelines on what to look for and take care of in your first deep inspection of the season.

[scribblesrebel]

Just a heads up for those in whatcom County.

 

Next week looks like the first good weather days for deep inspections. Now is the time to get your game plan together and equipment.

 

It's probably too early to spilt but it's good to have a plan incase you need to. The earliest I've spilt has been March 29th but that was a very warm spring.

 

Somethings I will be deciding is:

 

How big or small is the colony?

 

Is it large enough to reverse boxes? ( put brood and queen box below and the lower box that's empty above, with added stores)

 

Is it small and would be better off being in just one box?

 

Does it have rows of drone brood?

Does it look like it's thinking about swarming?

 

If so how, am I spilting, snelgrove, walk away spilt.

 

Do I have enough equipment to do that?

 

Do I start feeding syrup? Is it warm enough that they will take it? Do I have some made, incase I am feeding. 

 

How about pollen patty? Are they eating it? Do I have enough for spring?

 

This weekend will be your last push to be ready.

 

Welcome 2025 beekeeping year!

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Upon inspecting frames, I will be counting:

 

Frames of Bees

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Frames of Brood

 

For example: 4/3

 

Just to Re-Cap-

( Please correct me where wrong)

 

If for some reason you have 5+ frames of Brood, in the top box, you could make a split. Either into a 5 frame Nuc or a 8/10 frame Box. Adding a frame feeder of 1:1, 3 frames of Brood, Old Queen, and frames of food. 

The old hive  will Re-Queen now in 1 hive box. It will have the 2+ frames of Brood. At least one of these needs to have eggs, larvae? And of course food frames, and a feeder with 1:1. 

The Old Queen in the new box, should be insulated as well and removed from the site, carefully, for 7-10 days, before returning?

 

 

                       

--

Jolee B. Darrow

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This time of year it's more than just how many frames of bees and brood you have.

 

It's also about drones. You can make queens but you must have drones to make a fertile queen.

 

I believe this year it will be too early to spilt hives quite yet. As we have not been warm enough. 

 

If you do a inspection and see rows of drone brood along the bottom of frames then it's time to split.

 

Remember drone brood not only take longer to hatch than a queen but they must mature for a couple of days before orientation flights then mating flights.

 

I think everyone has different bench marks for spilting.

 

For me, I over winter in 2 deeps, so I want the hive to be back in 2 deeps before I think of spilting. 

 

The hive needs that critical mass before taking away workers, which are also heat producers. Especially if your doing walk away spilts. With snelgrove they are sharing their heat but both will struggle if they don't have enough workers to keep brood warm.

 

In 10 frame snelgrove spilts in spring, I would want to see 7 frames of brood and 10 frames of bees. 

 

1 frame with a small patch of open brood for the old queen below and 6 frames of brood with eggs for upper box with stores for both.

 

Walk aways aren't too much different the old queen can go into a smaller nuc box but remember last years queen is this years honey makers. She will be explosive and quickly outgrown a nuc.

 

Maybe some others can chime in on their thresholds for spilting.

 

A picture from the Apiarist blog.

Marie- Do you simply check for those rows of Drone Brood in the center frames, and don't really inspect much of the other frames? It sounds like that's the most important thing, seeing Drone brood. Does that always mean the Queen is present, or do you try to find her as well? As can't the worker bees make Drones if they are Queenless

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Jolee B. Darrow

No, I do deep inspections of all frames but this early in the year I would need to see rows of capped drone brood on the bottom of frames before even thinking of spilting.

 

The commercial beekeepers are probably thinking of coming to our neck of the wood but it might be early for them. So there probably are no drones and they need to be well on their way to developing before queen cells are started.

 

First inspections are mostly assessment of size and needs of the colony.

 

Feeding being most important. Nows the time if you have any capped brood frames of honey to give to your hives. Replacing empty frames.

[scribblesrebel]