BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > NATURAL & ORGANIC BEEKEEPING METHODS

Inspections, the good ol? days.

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Skeggley:
Hi guys, just a question for the beekeepers who kept bees back in the good old days pre varroa and SHB. Without these pests how often were the brood inspections? I?d imagine much less frequent, possibly never.
Thanks.

Ben Framed:

--- Quote from: Skeggley on October 04, 2019, 08:03:39 pm ---Hi guys, just a question for the beekeepers who kept bees back in the good old days pre varroa and SHB. Without these pests how often were the brood inspections? I?d imagine much less frequent, possibly never.
Thanks.

--- End quote ---

Since no one from the good ole days has answered, I will say that I would like to have known the pleasure of keeping bees without these pest.  Shame that we have to deal with these now. I look forward to the day that a REAL solution will be achieved, especially for the SHB. I have heard of a product now available here in the America. I look forward to hearing keepers that I know report on this device. I have yet to use it but look forward to doing so next season. Its called the guardian. Heard of it?
Phillip

BeeMaster2:
Skeggley,
My father and my father in law kept bees back in the 80s and 90s.
Wh n I started in 2010, per the books I was reading I was inspecting the bees every week.  When my father came to visit, I went out to do an inspection and it was my fourth one. He jumped all over me. Said I was causing problems doing them. When he kept them, he installed the bees and then removed the honey. He only inspected when he saw something that did not look right.
My father in law told me when I started that he used to average-20 pounds of honey. He kept 20 hives. He told me that with all of the new problems, that I would bee lucky to average 60 pounds per hive. He was right.
Jim Altmiller

The15thMember:
People who used to keep bees in gums obviously couldn't really do brood inspections ever, and they used to keep bees pretty successfully like that.  I remember reading about this in the Foxfire books.  They'd just pop open the top of the gum to get to the honeycomb without ever disturbing the brood nest. 

TheHoneyPump:
Regardless of the pests and diseases, the natural seasonal cycle of the honey bee colony has endured.  Meaning when they brood, when they do not, when they mass forage, when they swarm, when they slow down, when the cluster tight and go near dormant etc etc.  From the ages of old:  10 to 14 day inspection cycle in the spring to manage population size and curb swarming.  Zero inspections through the honey flow.  One, maybe two, inspection in the fall after the honey came off and just before feeding/wrapping for winter.  Perhaps 5 inspections total over the course of a year.
Now due to all the challenges, add shorter inspections of 5 to 7 days in spring, and add 1 late summer check on mite load.  No change in fall inspection frequency.  Once, maybe twice.

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