Why Inspections Are the Foundation of Beekeeping
Every hive management decision — treat, split, requeen, harvest, combine — depends on what you see during inspections. Beekeepers who inspect regularly and record their findings make better decisions and lose fewer colonies than those who rely on memory or gut feeling.
The goal of any inspection is to answer one central question: Is this colony thriving, stable, or declining — and what action, if any, does it need today?
Before You Open the Hive
Choose the right conditions: Inspect on warm (above 14°C), sunny, calm days between 10am and 4pm. Most foragers are out during peak daylight, which means fewer bees in the hive and a calmer inspection. Avoid inspecting before rain, in strong wind, or in the evening when foragers have all returned.
Prepare your equipment: Lit smoker (keep fuel in a fireproof container, confirm it is burning steadily), hive tool, bee brush, frame rest or nuc box, and your inspection recording device — either a dedicated hive journal or a smartphone app. Gloves for beginners; many experienced beekeepers work bare-handed after building confidence.
Light your smoker correctly: A properly lit smoker should produce cool, white smoke for at least 20 minutes without relighting. Start with newspaper to establish the fire, then pack tightly with fuel (wood pellets, dried grass, cardboard). The smoker should puff freely without effort.
Opening the Hive
Puff 2–3 gentle puffs of smoke across the entrance before opening. Wait 30 seconds. Lever off the lid and puff another 2 puffs across the top bars. Wait another 20 seconds. Smoke triggers the bees' fire response — they begin consuming honey and become calmer. Too much smoke agitates instead of calming.
Remove the crown board or inner cover slowly. If bees are boiling up from underneath, give another puff and wait. Never rush an opening.
What to Look for — In Order
Experienced beekeepers work through a mental checklist during every inspection. Here is a practical order:
1. Population and Mood
Before pulling any frames, pause and observe. Are there plenty of bees covering the top bars? Are they moving calmly or excitedly? Bees that rush up immediately, fan rapidly, or fly into your face signal agitation — more smoke or a quieter approach is needed.
2. Eggs
Hold a brood frame at a 45-degree angle with the sun behind you, looking down into the cells. Eggs look like tiny white grains of rice standing upright at the bottom of cells. If you can see eggs, the queen was active within the last 3 days. If you cannot see eggs after two or three careful checks: investigate queen status.
Never skip the egg check. A colony can look full of brood and activity but have been queenless for a week. Only eggs prove recent queen presence.
3. Brood Pattern
Look for the proportion of capped cells to empty cells in the brood area. A healthy pattern is solid (85%+) coverage. Patchy or scattered coverage — especially combined with misshapen, sunken or discoloured cappings — signals disease (European or American foulbrood) or a failing queen.
Check cell cappings: healthy capped brood has smooth, slightly convex amber cappings. Sunken or punctured cappings suggest sacbrood, EFB, or AFB — all requiring immediate response.
4. Queen Location and Condition
You do not always need to find the queen during routine inspections — eggs prove her presence. But if you see eggs plus queen cells, or a patchy brood pattern, physically locating the queen is important. Mark her with a colour-coded pen if you can — this saves enormous time in all future inspections.
5. Queen Cells
Check every frame bottom and edge. Emergency cells (multiple cells from young worker-sized larvae) mean the colony thinks it is queenless. Swarm cells (clustered at the very bottom, often 5+ cells) mean the colony is preparing to swarm. Supersedure cells (1–3 mid-frame cells) mean workers are replacing the current queen.
6. Honey and Pollen Stores
Outer frames typically contain honey (capped golden cells) and pollen (multicoloured open cells). A healthy colony needs minimum 10kg of honey at all times. In early spring, a colony on 5 or fewer frames with no honey stores needs emergency feeding immediately.
7. Varroa and Pest Signs
Check drone comb (if present) for varroa by opening capped cells — you will see white mites visible to the naked eye. Check for small hive beetle larvae if you are in a warm climate. Note any wax moth damage on neglected combs.
Recording Your Inspection
The most consistent mistake in beekeeping is failing to record. A notebook left at home means you are working from memory three weeks later. A physical notebook gets wet, lost, and is difficult to search.
At minimum, record for each hive: date, eggs present (yes/no), brood pattern quality, queen seen or inferred, queen cells (none/emergency/swarm/supersedure), estimated honey stores, varroa evidence, and any action taken.
Digital apps let you do this with typed notes or voice. SunnyBee's QUICK mode takes under 60 seconds to fill in the core fields; FULL mode lets you record per-box frame counts, honey levels, and detailed health scores. Both generate timestamped records that build your colony history automatically.