Layen's twice a year inspections?

[Bob Wilson]

Part of George De Layen's hive management was a spring inspection/hive arrangement followed by a fall harvest/winter preparation. Two inspections a year. Other than that, a 25 or 30 frame Layens hives has the room and deeper frames to accommodate the yearly expansion of a colony without swarming.

Has anyone actually done this?

[BeeMaster2]

Bob,
I don?t have Laylen hives but I do usually only do full inspections twice a year. I do weigh the hives and look in the tops,I have all screen top boards.
This is how it was done by the old timers. They didn?t have to do inspections to keep the bees. When I started I was doing inspections every week. My father came to visit, he kept bees many years ago, and he chewed me out saying that all I was doing disturbing them and stopping production.
Jim Altmiller

[Bob Wilson]

Weekly inspections was my norm until last year. Perhaps I know more of what is going on now, or perhaps I got tired of all the constant manipulations, every week, trying to give them room, or check for pests.
Whichever, I want more hives but less work.

[Ben Framed]

Weekly inspections was my norm until last year. Perhaps I know more of what is going on now, or perhaps I got tired of all the constant manipulations, every week, trying to give them room, or check for pests. Whichever, I want more hives but less work.

"or perhaps I got tired of all the constant manipulations, every week, trying to give them room, or check for pests."

It must have been a real pleasure back in the old golden days of  beekeeping, back before Small Hive Beetles and Varroa Destructor..