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Prepare for Beehive Inspection

2:06
10:03
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At 2:06 in

What to look for 1 Week after Installing a Package of Honey Bees....pastured poultry talk

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What happens here

The beekeeper prepares for the inspection by discussing the crucial signs of a healthy, thriving colony. This includes verifying that the queen bee has been successfully released from her cage (typically by day 3 post-introduction), observing the presence of eggs (indicating the queen is laying), and checking for collected nectar and pollen (signs of active foraging). The plan also involves considering the addition of a honey super to provide more space for honey storage if the bees are well-established, and installing an entrance reducer on one hive that requires it for better defense or climate control. It's noted that day 5 is later than ideal for the first check (day 3 being preferred), suggesting a potential increase in bee activity and defensive behavior.

Goal: Before opening the beehives, the beekeeper outlines the key observations to make: confirming the queen's release, checking for eggs and larvae, and assessing nectar and pollen collection. He also notes the need to add a honey super if the colony is well-established and to install an entrance reducer.

What they say

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Let's go down and check on the bees. First, let me tell you what I'm looking for when I'm looking at these bees. I got sent out of town this weekend to help a buddy out and I was unable to check my bees the way I should have. I should have checked them at like day three. This is day five. I'm going to go ahead in and check these bees. Day five here and what we're looking for is we're making sure our queen is released. We're seeing that we have eggs. We're seeing that they're starting to get some nectar and that they're getting some pollen. We may go ahead and put another super on the top. If it looks like they're getting well established, we'll go ahead and put another super on the top. I've got supers with honey already in them. And we're going to put an entrance reducer on one of the hives because it really needs it. Okay, so it's about 2:27. I should have gotten into these bees sometime around noon to 1:00. They're starting to come back in for the afternoon right now. So, it's going to be a lot of bees. It's okay. I'm going to get my smoker, calm them down, go ahead and get an entrance reducer on one of them. Check them out. Make sure they're doing well. Take that spacer out that I put in to let them release the queen. There's a little spacer that I put in there. And we're just basically checking the general health of the bee colony. While I'm looking in the hive, I'm going to walk you through exactly what I'm thinking and what I'm looking at. Okay, first I got my smoker and we put a little bit of smoke. It's kind of windy out today. So, we cracked the hive. We put a little smoke in there to calm them down. Try to smoke the bees down a little bit in the hive. They do not seem happy. I don't know why. So, we're going to reach in

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