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How long to see eggs?
BeeMaster2:
Austin,
It depends on your area, mainly if Small Hive Beetles are a problem and the reason for doing the inspection. SHBs Rome around the hive and start laying eggs right after a heavy inspection and do so until the bees are able to fix everything that was disturbed. Then the bees have to remove all of the eggs. I have seen this take over 2 days, in my observation hive. On day 3 the SHB larvae starting to hatch and the bees have to remove them immediately or they can slime the hive.
If you are new to beekeeping, you do it more often to learn about the bees and what is going on in the hive. I recommend that you spend a lot of time just watching what is going on at the entrance and then compare it to what you see when you do inspections. Once every 10 days is okay preferably, alternating between hives.
I recommend that you get a screen top board. This will enable you to see what is happening on the top of the hives without actually disturbing the bees and you can look as often as you want.
I only inspect all of my hives in the spring and fall. Then I inspect hives when needed. I feel the weight of the hive and check the upper frames to see if they need Supers.
The entrance traffic and the top of the hive tell you a lot of what is going on in a hive.
Jim Altmiller
The15thMember:
--- Quote from: AustinB on May 10, 2021, 08:10:46 am ---Thank you Jim. I have been searching for info on the negative impacts of disturbing the bees too much, and haven't seemed to find anything very concrete. How often do you recommend to perform normal hive inspections throughout the summer? I have heard a range of opinions tbh.
--- End quote ---
I have between 6 and 8 hives generally. I try to inspect each hive once a week in the spring so I can keep a close eye on how the hives are building up and watch for swarm cells, but once everything has settled into the summer routine, I inspect a given hive every 2 weeks by doing like Jim says and inspecting half the hives one week and half the hives the next week. When I have a hive making a new queen I don't inspect at all until that new queen should be laying, 3 weeks or so after I did queen cell reduction.
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