By: David E. MacFawn
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
Based on their knowledge of the bee year in their area, the beekeeper should be thinking at least three to six months in advance when looking at the conditions of their colonies. Consideration should be made for seasonal changes, climate, and weekly weather when planning beekeeping activities. These, and other factors, will affect ordering and installing queens, packages and nucleus colonies (NUCs), feeding syrup and pollen substitute, as well as many more beekeeping activities. The beekeeper needs to understand where, and what condition they want their colonies and when. This takes experience as well as learning from others. Also, before entering a hive, determine why you want to go into the hive and have a reason and a plan for what you are going to assess and accomplish.
Figure 1: Five Frame NUC
After a while you will find using gloves is cumbersome. However, there are times you will want to use gloves. Wearing gloves may make sense during cooler weather when the bees are very defensive, such as the Autumn, Winter, and early Spring when the temperature is in the 50’s°F or cooler. You want to work colonies when it is 60°F or warmer, a temperature greater than they visibly cluster (57°F). Other times you may want to use gloves are when rushing though hives, during wet weather, early morning, late evening, or anytime when forager bees are in high numbers within the hive. You may want to try using gloves with the fingers cut out initially to get use to not wearing gloves. Two layers of nitrile gloves also works well.
Move slowly when working colonies so the bees do not become defensive. Don’t wear strong perfumes, or scented deodorant. When you do get stung scrape across the stinger from the top to minimize injecting more venom into the skin; do not squeeze and pull the stinger from the skin. Then smoke the area to mask the alarm pheromone. During the nectar flow, bees are easy to work. During dearth or Winter, the bees are more defensive.
Prior to going into a hive, assess the entrance activity considering the time of year. This includes noting:
•Number and activity of bees. More bees in the Spring and Summer; fewer bees in the Autumn and Winter.
•Dead or diseased bees, larvae, pupa and pests
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- Chalk brood: Hardened whitish to gray mummies
- Poisoning/Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus: A lot of oily looking dead bees in front of the hive.
- AFB: Perforated sunken concave cell cappings, in an advanced stage one can smell the AFB, you need to make sure the smell is not Goldenrod nectar in the Autumn, the pupa ropes out about one inch. Bees die in pupa stage and are hauled out of the hive.
- EFB: Bee typically dies in the larvae stage prior to capping. Grey/brown larvae are removed from the comb and hive. Twisted, caramel color, melted look, stress disease.
- Robbing: robber bees weaving in front of hive and on sides; not going directly into entrance. Are guard bees inspecting arriving foragers; not fighting on the landing board.
•Pollen coming in on the bee’s hind legs. This pollen may be various colors depending on the source.
• Behavior on landing board. Fighting between hive guard bees and robber bees occurs when active robbing is going on. When passive robbing is occurring, robber bees may be able to access a weak colony’s entrance without robbing. Flight behavior. Robber bees fly nervously to the sides of the hive looking for entrances. Robber bees also fly erratically around the front entrance and you can see fighting on the landing board. It should be noted that it is very rare for robbing to occur when a nectar flow is on. Robbing usually occurs during a dearth.
Figure 2: Smoking the Hive Entrance
When smoking the bees, smoke the entrance, under inner cover or migratory cover, puff smoke lightly over frames, smoke the ends of frames so you can pick up/remove frames without squashing bees. Listen to the bees to determine when to smoke. Smoke lightly when bees are looking up at you from between the frames. Smoke the bees if they get loud or noisy. Smoking the entrance supports the theory that when bees detect smoke, they engorge themselves with honey in anticipation of possibly having to leave the hive. When engorged, it is more difficult for them to bend their abdomens to sting. Smoking the entrance also supports the theory that smoke interferes with the bees’ sense of smell. One word of caution, be careful not to “bang” your smoker against the hive. It should be noted that over smoking can irritate the bees. Just one to two puffs from a well-lit smoker is all that is needed.
When using a standard hive tool, pry under the top bar where the frame is the strongest and thickest to loosen and remove a frame. Do not pry under the frame end which may break the end frame ear in some cases (avoid prying between the end of the frame and the inner hive frame rest rabbit). If you damage some of the comb prying, the bees will easily fix it. Certainly, if using the J-hook hive tool, you can get under the frame end, but sometimes you may break off the frame end. It takes careful work to loosen the outer most frames (frames 1 and 10 in a ten-frame hive). You should scrape the propolis off the top ends of the top bars and pry on the sides of the end bars between the side of the hive and the frame.
Figure 3: Prying and Removing Frames
Figure 4: Smoke, the bees are looking up at you. Drift a little smoke over super to keep the bees calm
When working the colony, go around the Langstroth hive and not over the frames with your hands/arms. Bees get excited when you move hands over the frames especially when moving quickly. An experienced beekeeper holds their hive tool in their hand as they sequential remove and inspect frames.
Remove the second to outside inner frame (typically #2 or #9 in a ten-frame hive) since the outside frame may be propolized to inside of the woodenware. Move slowly without quick motions. Remove frames one at a time. Check the first frame removed for the queen. If the queen is not seen set the frame aside. Sequentially remove the remaining frames, looking at each frame and placing the frame looked at back into the hive. Keep all the frames, except the first one removed, in the hive. Keeping the frames in the hive will minimize the chance the queen gets lost on the ground. Additionally, it helps keep the frames in the correct order and orientation. When replacing frames, be careful you do not “roll” the queen and kill her. Move the frames in the hive apart with your hive tool to ensure there is plenty of room to insert or remove the frame without rolling bees or queen.
When taking frames out: look down between frames to determine initial assessment of:
• Capped brood; worker & drone brood
• Honey
• Pollen
• Number and concentration of bees; for the time of year.
• Consider what a normal brood nest looks like
- Eggs, larvae, brood in center of nest
- Pollen band
- Honey and/or nectar in corners
- Pollen band and honey may be in box above a deep bottom brood chamber in the Spring and Summer when the bees build up.
- Often the brood nest will favor and be closer to the “sunny /warm” side of the hive in cold weather.
Figure 5: Opening a colony after removing top cover
Keep the colony open for as short of time as possible. When bees get noisy and start “hitting your veil” you need to smoke. This indicates you probably have been in the hive too long.
After opening the colony by removing the top cover, look into of the hole in the inner cover. In the late Winter, early Spring if there are a lot of bees in the hole, it may mean you need to feed (if colony is light, 1:1 syrup) and/or add another super if the nectar flow is on. In the autumn or Winter, if there are a lot of bees in the inner cover, you need to check to ensure the colony has enough food stores. If there is not enough honey, you need to feed (2:1 syrup). If the cluster is already at the top of the equipment stack it usually means the colony is out of honey.
Figure 6: Smoking the Bees Upon Opening the Hive
Figure 7: Breaking Apart the Hive for Inspection
Sometimes when removing a super, frames from the super below get propolized/”glued” to the super you are removing. If this happens, insert your hive tool under the super you are removing to break free the frames. Scrape the propolis off the frames in the below box so the frames will not get stuck again.
Figure 8: Looking for Queen Cells on the bottom of frames in the feed chamber
Often swarm cells are on the frame bottoms of the feed chamber (super directly above the brood chamber). Examine the feed chamber bottom frames for swarm cells, especially during the nectar flow.
Figure 9: Inspecting the brood chamber
Figure 10: Removing and inspecting frames/comb
The frames should be inserted in the same order and orientation that they came out of the hive. Also, hive bodies and supers should be reassembled in the same order they came apart.
Figure 11: Inspecting the brood chamber; smoking the bees off of the frame ends so you can pick the frames up
When working a colony, you should have a reason and plan as to why you are going into the colony. The colony should be examined for: diseases and pests, honey, pollen, swarm or supercedure cells and general health. Frames should be removed by prying under the top bar, not the end tabs of the frame. Frames and hive bodies i.e. “boxes” should be reassembled in the same order and orientation they came apart. Gloves can be worn when the bees are very defensive such as during cold weather (less than about 60° F). Listen and watch the bees; use a puff or two from your smoker to keep them calm.
Figure 12: lnserting the frames
