When is it too often to be looking at the Bees????

[TapStoneBees]

I just wonder as a new keeper, what the standard is for hive checking.

I put in new hives in May.....

Two hives are doing great, though I haven't really been opening things up and snooping around.  I only removed the queen excluder a few weeks ago.
And that is about all.

I haven't been checking for the queen, or brood, I guess mainly because I am not really sure of what it is I am supposed to be looking for.  I watch the bees everyday, and see if I notice differences.   There seems to always be lots of bees, and when I have just opened the hive to look, there is an abundance of activity.

I am thinking that I want to go ahead split the hives, before the winter.
I also am moving things toward MB's way of doing the job with all mediums.  Seems a bit easier.

With that said........ Thoughts on what I should do, I want split before the spring, just so that things are still going along.  We have the Golden Rod Flow starting now, and I thought that might help them transition better before later in the season.   If I split the hives, will I have to qet two new Queens, or will the split hives make their own???  I thought that if they did, there are still plenty of Drones around to do their job too.

Thank you as always for the time and attention.
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[bassman1977]

I just wonder as a new keeper, what the standard is for hive checking.

As a new keeper, every two weeks worked for me.  You need to know what is going on inside the hive so you can learn.

Two hives are doing great, though I haven't really been opening things up and snooping around. I only removed the queen excluder a few weeks ago.
And that is about all.

You need to get in there.  Throw the exluder in the next trash pickup.  They are a waste.  Your bees will fill their brood box complete with honey and no room for brood and you won't have honey for harvesting.  Some say the excluders are good if you are doing some sort of queen management.  Not up on all that, but as far as general use, it's garbage IMO.

I haven't been checking for the queen, or brood, I guess mainly because I am not really sure of what it is I am supposed to be looking for. I watch the bees everyday, and see if I notice differences. There seems to always be lots of bees, and when I have just opened the hive to look, there is an abundance of activity.

An abundance of activity is good.  I'd say that if they seemed "depressed" (for lack of a better word), then they are queenless, but just from what you describe, there's a queen home.  But when you go into your hive, what you want to look for is eggs.  If you see eggs, you have a queen (at least in the past 3 days).  Don't worry about finding the queen every time.  Brood is good to look for but big deal.  If there's eggs,  you'll probably see brood.  Honey...if there's no honey during a dearth, you might want to feed.  Pollen is good to have around.  You might not have eggs/brood if there is no pollen.  I can't think of anything else.

With that said........ Thoughts on what I should do, I want split before the spring, just so that things are still going along. We have the Golden Rod Flow starting now, and I thought that might help them transition better before later in the season. If I split the hives, will I have to qet two new Queens, or will the split hives make their own??? I thought that if they did, there are still plenty of Drones around to do their job too.

Split?  Where are you located?  If you are up north, forget about splitting this year.  You can split next year after the spring flow.  Late May in my area seemed to be a good time to do it.  Unfortunately I did mine a little late and now the hive is pretty small.  If you do the split, you have a couple options for a queen.  The source hive won't need a queen.  Just keep the same one that's already there.  The new hive, you can either let them raise a new queen or put one in for them.  If you buy one and let them accept it, you're ahead of the game.  I let my split raise their own queen because I liked the qualities of the queen from the source hive.  Do a search on this topic in the forums.  You'll find a wealth of info on hive splitting.  BTW...chances are good that the drones from your current hive won't be used in the mating process of the new hive.  A piece of advice too...if you let them raise their own queen, it's ok to check to make sure there's a queen cell(s) present, but after that, leave that hive alone for a couple months, especially after the queen emerges.  She is very jittery and you don't want to go disrupting anything.  My inspector told me it is a good idea to constantly feed the new hive until they get a lot of stores up.  Queeny will be busy laying eggs and eggs will make for hungry mouths.  I think it takes 1 frame of honey to make 1 frame of bees.  That's a lot.  Don't let them starve

Hope that helps!   :D

[Brian D. Bray]

I try to time my checks with the incubation period of the brood, or about 3 weeks--give or take.  That way I get a much better feel on the hive build up.

86 the honey excluder.  They do have a few valid uses, but they're few and far between.

[jfischer]

Look in your hives as often as you wish!
A new beekeeper needs as much practice
as he/she can get, and while disrupting the
hive every day would be silly, they are
your bees, and you need to build skills and
confidence more than you need an optimal
honey crop, or even an optimal-strength hive.

I dunno what the deal is with queen excluders
among beekeepers who are "online", but I've
used them long enough to know their value.

They come off when the supers come off,
of course.

[Dick Allen]

A lot of internet beekeepers do seem to think queen excluders are next to worthless. I know some beekeepers who don't spend time on the internet that use them and get as much honey as those who don't use them. The one difference is that those who do use them NEVER find brood in their supers.

[Kathyp]

i am a first year keeper too.  i looked in my hive a lot early on.  when they started filling honey supers and got cranky, i didn't get all the way in there very often.  just checked the top honey supers to see how far along they were.

i had no problem with the excluder.  ended up with way more honey than people told me to expect for the first year, and am now using it to move my hive down into two boxes.  guess you have to play with it a bit and see if it works for you.

[Michael Bush]

What's best for the bees and what's best for your education are two different questions.  I'd peek in every week if you are just learning.  I'd open them three or four times a year if you know when to do it and there's no outward sign of a problem.

[Dick Allen]

Once a week, every 10 days, every couple of weeks to look at bees is fine, IMO. The enthusiasm of new beekeepers sometimes causes them to get into the hive much more than needed. The bees probably would appreciate a break from being constantly manipulated and inspected by sometimes overzealous novices. I don't think more than once a week is needed.