[music] So we're going to do a
colony inspection here. We've already learned in
the previous video about "Working with
Bees" how to use the smoke and how to
disassemble the hive. Now what we'll be
doing is precisely that smoking the hive and
disassembling it, but we'll be inspecting
it for all the normal kinds of conditions that
you will see within a beehive. So I'll puff some smoke
just across the frames there. We've got a beautiful sunny
day, the bees are in a good mood, they're bringing
in lots of nectar from dandelion flowers,
from apple blossoms, and everything is
going quite well. We've got a nice warm day. So we'll pry this third frame
away so that we can take the second one out,
pry that one up and then just slowly
pull the frame up out of the box. So this frame's got
lots of honey on it, which you'll see here now. We've got stored honey
that's been stored for quite some time, you can see the older
cappings on there, and then we have fresh
nectar in here where you see all the shiny cells
and then there is some pollen stored in some of
these cells as well, and we can see a number
of drones on the frame. They hang out on the
outer frames. So we've got basically
food resources in this frame here. No evidence of
any eggs or larva. So we're just going to lean
that frame against the far corner of the box like so,
and then we'll move further into the hive and
inspect the hive. There we go. Looks like more of the
same on this frame. Basically food reserves and
fresh food that they've just put in. Some drones, some
worker bees just working away
on the frame. There are some empty
cells on this side, but no eggs or larva, so we'll just put that
frame back in and when we're inspecting
the colony, we just work our way
frame to frame and what we are looking
for on each frame as we pull it out we're
looking for the queens so I'll look at the next
frame to see if I see her on there, then I'll
look at this side of the frame and I don't
see her there, but we can now see something
different, we've got drone pupa here. So these are drone
sized cells, the larger cells you can
see some empty drone cells right in here and
then when they are in use with the pupa they
are quite bulged out, so we can recognize that
they're very different looking than the
worker pupa, which we'll see
momentarily. Lots of pollen in this frame, tons of pollen in there. So we'll just put that
frame back in. I do see eggs on this side of
the frame and to see eggs you really need to clear
bees out of the way, so if I lay my my hand
on there all the bees will run out of the way
and then we are able to see into the cells
underneath and to see those eggs you'll hold the
frames so the sunlight is shining directly into
the bottom of the cells and you have to tip the
frame a little bit this way, a little bit that way
until those eggs show themselves at the
bottom of the cells. OK, so back to the frame
handling here. We'll set that frame
back into the box, pry the next frame over and we should be getting
into a little bit more brood in this frame. I'll look for the queen
on the next frame. Don't see her there so we'll look for the queen
on this side of the frame and I don't see her. OK so now what we have
here we have worker larva and worker pupa. See the caps of the pupa
are slightly domed, but they don't bulge out
like the drone pupa do. So we have worker larva
and worker pupa. this will be all eggs
and young larva in this area here. We can see pollen all
around the periphery and a little dome of
honey at the top. A mix of workers and
drones, it's a good healthy growing colony. And we'll move on to
the next frame. As you pry the frames
just hold on to them so they don't snap free
sending vibrations through the hive. OK we'll look at the next
frame for the queen. Don't see her. We'll look at this side of
the frame for the queen and I don't see her. Well this frame is kind
of a mess. It's got some holes in it
that the bees have filled up with drone pupa. They do need drones,
it's normal that they are raising drones so it
doesn't hurt to have the odd frame that's
like this. But there we can see
side by side drone pupa and worker pupa. Worker pupa have the flat
capped cells and the drone the big bulgy
cells there. When the weather is warm
like this today the frames are a little easier to take
out because the propolis isn't as brittle and
the wax is softer and so it is a little
bit easier to dismantle the hive. So we'll look at the next
frame for the queen, don't see her there. This would be a good spot
to find her because there's lots of open comb where
she could be laying eggs it's within the brood area. OK there she is, just where
we thought she might be. See how she likes to go
around to get to the dark side of the frame? If she can find an opening
to move through, she'll go around to where
it's shaded there and so it's often easy
to miss finding the queen because she has
done just that. I'm going to turn the frame
over and we'll see now that she is on
this side here. So just to keep the queen
safe I'm going to put her in a cage and I'll show
you a video about that a little later but for now
we'll just put this frame back in the colony and temporarily cage
the queen so we can carry on
with our inspection. So on this frame we have capped pupa and then
larva off to the side and some pollen
stored here. I even see some pollen
from horse chestnut. It's a bright red colour so
there's quite a variety of different colours of pollen
this time of year. So we just move through
frame by frame inspecting the colony
and we are wanting to see that everything
looks normal. If a colony is preparing to
swarm we'd be looking for queen cells. We're always keeping an
eye out for any sorts of diseases. We might see chalk brood
for example or sac brood or heaven forbid American
fowl brood, so you do need to be looking through
the colony to inspect it on a pretty regular basis
to make sure that none of those diseases
are present. So just one more frame
of brood here. The outside frame in the
box is usually honey, but we've got a nice capped
frame of brood here, lots of brood there and then the last frame
will be food reserves. So we've got lots
of pollen lots of honey fresh nectar
in there and you can see this is where the drones
are all hanging out near the outside edge
of the cluster. We have lots and
lots of drone. So now that we're done
our inspection, it's just a matter of moving the
frames back into place. Now what we'd be doing
is releasing the queen and closing the
colony back up. The next video we
are going to show we'll be talking about
supering this colony because it is ready to be
adding a honey super. So stay tuned for that.
