Hey Fuzz, fortunately we don't have shb so inspections are only carried out during this period when the entrance shows issues and swarm prevention is carried out early. I try to keep out but not away. If I do see issues, like you I wait for a good day and calmly inspect in the morning. I see what I need to see, and close up. I use a tea towel to cover the section of the hive I'm not inspecting. Often I'll need to walk through bushes to escape the angry bees. Honey in a squeeze bottle comes in handy to occupy their little minds and move them away from the edges. :)
I have a couple of purchased queens and these colonys are rather placid and the local captured colonys can be a bit testy but on a good day during a flow they're all ok and during our summer dearth they are all like hell spawn.
I tried misting water and sugared water but you can't beat a good smoke....
I have only 10 colonys, all from different areas here in the hills all with different qualities, still looking for good ones. ;)
Honey wise, I used to wait for the bees to start building comb in the lid then add another super but now use the Flow system
It's been another bad season here, pretty much in line with the rest of the country, flowers but no nectar, plenty of new growth. I see Jarrah honey being sold at the markets but it's either old heat treated stock or bullsh# as Jarrah hasn't flowered this year. Again.
I'm in the Hills adjacent to National Park and am in an extreme fire danger area apparently, building codes have all changed as a result, we have just had a couple of rainy days and the fire ban has been extended to the end of the month. The park land used to be control burnt which gave the Firerys handy practice buuut new people have moved into the area, cut down all the trees on their block and complained about the smoke and tree huggers have complained about danger to the local fauna so it's stopped and now is a tinder box...
Metro area hobbyists still seem to use smoke I'm told.