Cinco de Mayo Hive Inspection

On Saturday, 5/5, Susan from the Gainesville Area Bee Club was kind enough to come by my house to help inspect my hives.  She was full of great information and it was a real privilege to have her expertise available during my inspection.  As a new beekeeper I find that watching other people perform hive inspections is useful, but not nearly as helpful as having an experienced beekeeper backstop me while I do the work.  Last Thursday my friend Martin, another novice beekeeper, and I thought we were seeing two very different and interesting scenarios play out in my backyard hives (previous blog post):

1. My "hill" hive looked like the brood cycle has been broken - no open brood, no other indications of an active queen.  Also, some large cell structures in the middle of frames.  We thought perhaps this colony had gone queenless and was trying to create an emergency queen.  With Susan's assistance I was pleased to find out that we were right; however, I was obviously sad to realize one of my hives is in such difficulty.
2. My "pink" hive was bustling and seemed to be doing very well.  They're drawing the expansion brood frames and super frames nicely.  With Susan's help we were able to find the queen!

Martin was again present for this inspection and was kind enough to take a number of photos during the inspection.  These have been useful for going back and revisiting what we were seeing.

We also decided to add some beetle blasters as both my hives were suffering from a decent population of small hive beetles.  Martin helped out by loading the traps with apple cider vinegar.

After the inspections at my house I met Susan at a location where she keeps a couple hives.  I assisted with her inspections (mostly by trying to stay out of the way) as she was moving frames between her honey super and her brood super.  This was an interesting process in which she was attempting to bring largely unused frames down into the brood chamber (first med super)  to provide the queen more laying room (her deep hive bodies were chock full of capped brood).  Simultaneously, she was moving honey frames from the first super up into the honey super.

All in all I think this was a wonderfully educational experience and I feel so much more confident after having worked through a handful of inspections with an experienced beekeeper.  This is yet another example of why I feel the master/apprentice system of learning a craft is so effective.  This sort of one-on-one guided learning is really the best way to accumulate experience and confidence.  Thanks Susan!

One of Martin's photos of my queen.