Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
y
there are no signs of disease;
y
they have sufficient stores of honey and pollen;
y
they have sufficient room for the queen to lay eggs and for the
foragers to store honey;
y
the colony is growing; and
y
there are no signs of swarming.
Treat your hives against varroa.
Carry out swarm-prevention measures and, if required, swarm-control
measures.
Every time you pass your hives, carry out a quick, external hive
inspection.
Utilize methods to increase your honey harvest and to make apiary
management easier.
At this time of the year you should carry out these inspections at least every
two weeks. Don't hurry them, however, and make sure you are satisfied that
you have seen everything you want to see before closing a hive.
Commercial beekeepers with thousands of hives often take at most a
couple of minutes over a hive inspection and are able to 'read' immediately
the signs of something being amiss. They need to do this because of time
and money factors, although I have seen apiaries with hives full of American
foul brood that have been missed in the early stages of the disease because
of hurried inspections. These bees have to be destroyed and the hives burnt
or otherwise treated, which leads to huge extra costs and a very much
reduced harvest. So, even for the experts, hurried inspections can be a case
of more haste, less speed, causing a large hole in their wallets!
