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Mistakes Made During Spring Inspections – Spring 2025

Maybe I am Unlucky to see just These Videos:

“How Not to Inspect Bees in Spring” - Dominate the Internet?

I have viewed dozens of videos on YT about this year's spring inspections - a tragedy - the same repeated Mistakes and in fact a demonstration of how not to do inspections under any circumstances. Only in three videos did beekeepers protect the bees from hypothermia during the inspection.

1. Let me remind you: bees put in a lot of effort to maintain 34.5 degrees Celsius with the brood. The safe limit for bees is a temperature of plus 10 degrees Celsius, not zero degrees. Of course, this limit value may change because in bad weather even plus 14 degrees Celsius is not always safe for flights, but on the other hand - a sunny, windless day and the bees will safely fly out of the hive and return at plus 4-8 degrees Celsius - this applies to flights. For inspections, even a temperature of plus 20 degrees Celsius is still cooling the nest, so the time and scope of inspections should be limited to a minimum. Let me remind you: the brood temperature is 34.5 degrees Celsius so if an inspection is done at, for example, plus 14 degrees Celsius, the bees must heat the nest by 20 degrees Celsius after such an inspection! Any beekeeper's intervention in the hive that is too long disrupts - and for several days - the functioning of the hive.

2. The films show a lack of ability to assess how much food there really is in the hives, how much of this food is enough for the bees, or whether it is properly arranged. I remind you: when the cluster is formed, the monthly consumption of food is around 1.5 kg, but when the brood starts, the consumption jumps to around 9-12 kg per month. Only one of the beekeepers was able to use the so-called weighing of the hive, i.e. lifting it slightly once from the right side and once from the left, which provides information about the evenness of the distribution of food and the amount of the supply.

3. Unnecessary cooling of the hives in order to search for the queen is common, when it is clear from the brood whether the queen is there and how she is doing. About 15 seconds is enough to fully assess what is on the frame - only two beekeepers were aware of this and thanks to this they did not cool the frames.

4. Quite often the frames were taken out of the hives and inspected outside the light of the hive, so if the queen fell, the beekeeper would have suffered a loss. And now the details in order:

Mistake 1 - working in gloves - out of 20 beekeepers, only three worked with bees without gloves. Does it matter? Maybe the rest are allergic? There are beekeepers who are allergic to venom, but such cases are one in a hundred, not 18 in 20 beekeepers. And what bothers me when they work in gloves? They usually use thick gloves, so these beekeepers have no sense and squash the bees unnecessarily. The bees reward them with stings and such a glove smells of "beekeeper's Mistakes" from previous inspections, unnecessarily arousing aggression.

Mistake 2 - you can often see in films rummaging through all frames, and it is enough to watch three - Extreme, Extreme and Middle, i.e. the 3xS method. Only sometimes in this 3xS method the inspection is extended when one of these three frames shows unusual features, e.g. lack of food, doubts about brood, etc.

Mistake 3 - Why dig further if you can see that there is brood - why cool it down?

Mistake 4 - it's a pity that beekeepers do not follow Jerzy Tombacher's recommendations, i.e. "if during the spring inspection we have doubts whether the outermost frame is occupied, we withdraw it." Yes, some withdrew these frames, but only one placed the withdrawn frame with food on the floor to feed the bees. Empty frames must be moved behind the valve, but with food you have to give to the bees, and the best way is to give it flat on the floor.

Mistake 5 - no valves, no insulation on the side of the nest. It's an epidemic - only in half of the cases did beekeepers use valves. When I pointed this out to one of them, he said that in his case the foundation frame acts as a valve! And that means he doesn't know how poor insulation is not only a foundation frame but also a frame with light wax. It's not without reason – even when using valves - old beekeepers put dark, old, multiply brooded frames as the outermost frames for the winter because they have very good thermal insulation. I think only three had both valves and insulation on the side of the nest. So the norm is incorrect operation and hence losses in spring.

Mistake 6 - looking for the queen while holding frames outside the hive - in the event of shocks the queen will fall to the ground first and the beekeeper won't notice it - all manipulations with the removed frames are performed only above the hive.

Error 7 - frames not covered during inspection - full blowing of the hive - during the inspection, a chimney immediately forms - warm air rises through the gaps between the frames upwards, cooling the hive and, worst of all, also the brood - if the inspection is performed at plus 10 degrees Celsius and the brood must be 34.5 degrees Celsius, how much time and energy do the bees need to restore these 34 degrees Celsius? And what if the brood gets cold And the bees that hatch have problems with memory - with beehive they will fly out but they will not return and the beekeeper will not even know about this phenomenon. The drop in brood temperature from 34.5 degrees Celsius to 33 degrees Celsius causes memory problems in the bees that hatch from such supercooled brood. No one will even notice this because the bees will look normal and will work in the hive, but when their time to work in the field comes, they will simply fly out and not return.

Mistake 8 - opening several hives at the same time, which effectively cools several hives unnecessarily - the inspection should not take more than three minutes and can be done in a minute. In early spring, weak families are not fed with brood. Why? I will leave you to search for the answer yourself.

Mistake 9 - I have not seen thermometers in hives on any of the YT videos, and it is an excellent tool to assess brood or its absence without looking - a thermometer costs about 2 Euro and how much time does it save us? We can assess the condition of the family both at night and in bad weather. When I pointed this out to beekeepers, they gave different answers:

1. Why do I need a thermometer when I can feel with my hand whether it's warm - yes, you can feel the heat and you'll be able to tell if the nest is 20 degrees, i.e. there's a cluster, or 34.5 degrees Celsius, i.e. full of bees? Can you feel if it's 34.5 degrees, i.e. correct, or only 33 degrees Celsius, i.e. the bees are not warm enough?

2. For hundreds of years, bees and beekeepers have managed without thermometers, so there's no need to use them today. Has nothing really changed in the world of bees themselves and their environment over the last 40-50 years? Didn't beekeepers try to use them to learn about the thermal conditions of hives and bee families as soon as thermometers appeared? Of course they tried so much that putting it in and taking it out of the hive to take a reading disturbed the thermal conditions of the bee family – nevertheless they were used and in many ways. Electronic thermometers with probes are a great tool supporting the work of beekeepers, wise beekeepers:

1. they allow assessment of the condition of the family in any weather without looking into the nest,

2. they indicate which hives require immediate intervention and which do not,

3. together with "weighing" the hives with the hand and acoustic eavesdropping [see the article in Beekeeping from 1984], they allow assessment of the condition of bee families without looking into the hives at any time of day or night and in any weather.

Mistake 10 - keeping bees in single-walled hives – this is a longer lecture why they work in Canada and not here! But maybe it is worth at least briefly. I will start with practical experience:

1. apiary, four rows of single-walled hives - every year, in winter, the outermost colonies in the rows died - they were most exposed to cooling by winter winds. In Canada, single-walled hives are additionally protected against heat loss in winter, and even snow itself, heavy snow, sometimes up to two meters protects against cooling by winds!

2. single-walled hives are heated, used twice as much electricity as in insulated hives, In our winter, it happens that the temperature passes through zero degrees Celsius 60-80 times, while in Canada there are only a few such passages.

What does it matter? Well, from the moment the cluster is formed, the thermal conditions of the hive and food consumption change diametrically - usually about 1.5 kg of food per month is enough for them. Because the temperature system in Canada is different from ours in winter, only exceptionally does it happen that bees start laying eggs too early, while here it is a common phenomenon. When queens start laying eggs, food consumption increases from 1.5 kg per month to 9-12 kg. But that's not the end of the problems, because:

-when queens start laying eggs, bees need about 3 liters of water per week, which is 60 thousand flights

-when there is a time with temperatures below ZERO, flying bees die en masse flying out for water!

Mistake 11 - leaving strips in hives for the winter - the effect is dead queens in the nuclei,

Mistake 12 - warm housing - and how do bees arrange combs in conditions where they can choose to place them in relation to the entrance? In warm housing, there are problems with ventilation! Mistake 13 - focusing - during inspections - on searching for the mother and brood, leaving the assessment of the amount of food, and in most cases of these assessed films, the bees have food for maybe a week, maybe exceptionally for two weeks, even if they have taken the cake, they will still lack the first harvest. Let me remind you: a kilo of cake will be enough for them for 3-4 days of the time when the mother is laying.

Mistake 14 - the story with the coverings is a whole poem - the foil as a covering, so nothing worse could be thought of. How is that, beekeepers are surprised - it is tight and water condenses on it, which is so necessary for bees.

These statements are true, but:

- condensed water has the same properties as distilled water! This is good - no, this is very bad in the case of humans, drinking distilled water can lead to hemorrhages. But bees are not people and the bees can supplement their microelements from honey or bee bread. This is partly true, but if the demand of a bee family is at the level of 3 liters per week, then What percentage of this demand will be filled by water condensed on the foil? 10% and what else?

- Water condensed on the foil takes on the smell of the foil and now the question is: where will the bees look for water outside to supplement their demand? And they will look for water on the foil…

Mistake 15 – disabling comments under the film, in my opinion this is unacceptable – as you show, there are two sides to this game - you and those who watch.

Mistake 16 – “weighing the hive with your hand” – an excellent tool that I have described and shown in the films, which allows for the assessment of the state of food supplies in the hives and its distribution. Only one of the beekeepers used this method, but… instead of before the inspection, only after the inspection. What is this method and what does it give?

A quote from my book "Modern apiary economy":

"- a simple, easy-to-learn method of checking the approximate weight of hives and the evenness of food distribution is useful all year round - also in winter. How to do it is shown in several of my films. After "weighing" several hives it is easy to learn to determine the approximate and comparative weight of the hive and the distribution of food yourself. [see e.g. the YouTube film SJS210412 time 3:10 and 9:10]... it is helpful to be able to determine the amount of food and its distribution based on "weighing", i.e. lifting the hive a few millimeters on one side and then the other. Even a person who uses this method for the first time will easily determine whether one side of the hive is definitely heavier than the other, but to determine the approximate weight of the supplies in the hive, some practice is required. But even without practice, if we check subsequent hives of similar construction, it is easy to find those that differ in weight from the others. Finding the one that weighs the least and the one that weighs significantly more than the others will facilitate quick intervention, e.g. by taking the outermost frame of food from a heavy hive and putting it on the edge of the one that weighs the least. This will always save the hive for at least a few dozen days. Such a procedure - if done quickly - can be done even at negative temperatures.”

Mistake 17 - fighting varroa - or more precisely, “to smoke or not to smoke - that is the question”. The omnipresent opinion: “You must not smoke when there is brood” has done a lot of harm - this is a dangerous nonsense. Firstly - few people isolate queens and secondly, it often happens that queens lay brood all year round - also in winter!

And what is my opinion?

Varroa is not only "eating the body of the bee" but also the accompanying nosema which does more harm than varroa itself. Any action reducing the number of varroa individuals in the hives makes sense within the framework of information provided in the leaflets for medicines. Here is an important note - the Apiwarol instructions given the lower air limit at which fumigation can still be performed and it is plus 10 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the most important thing is the temperature in the hive and in my opinion it must be above plus 27 degrees Celsius because it means that the cluster is not bound and therefore the smoke will reach every place. But how can a beekeeper determine the temperature without thermometers in hives? Many beekeepers will say - I check with my hand if it is warm! Yes, except that "heat" is a relative concept and you certainly can't feel with your hand whether it's a temperature above 27 degrees Celsius. In heated hives, you can smoke even at negative outside temperatures - the temperature in the hive is what counts - because that's where we distribute the smoke – and not outside.

Is that the end of Mistakes?

And no way - the rule works here: "The number of Mistakes is unlimited - there are only a dozen or so correct actions" so the continuation looks like this:

- fight against varroa, fight against nosema - only trace information is given in these films about spring inspections of bee families, it is not known when and what treatments were performed,

- I mentioned the Mistake of leaving strips for the winter - in small hives there were losses in queens and in large hives? Maybe breeding varroa already resistant to drugs?

Mistake 17 - food quantity assessment - in almost all films, either the assessment was cursory and not very reliable or was fragmentary. Sometimes viewers noticed a lack of symmetry in the distribution of food and sometimes their actions made the hives even messier. In no case was there a calculation of how much they would need and when to expect the harvest. Only in half of the cases was the food uncapped.

Mistake 18 - concern for insulation - in less than half of the cases, beekeepers appreciated the role of insulation of the hives in spring,

Mistake 19 - placing frames with bees on grass or flat on a hard surface without a spacer - the bees underneath are crushed,

Mistake 20 - too long a review, unnecessary review of all or most frames. There are only two cases when you need to look through all of the frames or most of them - looking for a queen, e.g. to replace her, and checking for diseases, e.g. foulbrood. A sensibly conducted inspection of the entire hive takes about one minute per hive. And what does it look like in the movies? Check it out for yourselves.

Stefan Jerzy Siudalski 15.03.2025