Hive Inspection June 17, 2020

My grandchildren helped me do this hive inspection. Dylan who is 14 did the video and Lark who is a rising fifth grader helped in many ways. It is sharply shot and shows up great on Quicktime, but uploaded to YouTube kind of fuzzy. Here it is:

We had so much fun that Dylan came back the next week to film my inspection again!

No Weed-Whackers, No Wind, but an Emergency???

During the coronavirus consciousness about social distancing and not gathering in groups, we are not having in-person hive inspections for MABA, my local bee club. I'm the chair of the hive inspection committee and have felt a great responsibility to figure out a way for the newer beekeepers in the club to have the opportunity to see inside a hive.

Zoom call hive inspection

My solution, albeit not at all professional, has been to video my hive inspections with my iPhone. I dutifully bought a light tripod from Amazon which is easily added to my kit that I carry to the hive. I put the phone in the mount on the tripod, push the "video" button, step in front of the camera and start my hive inspection.

I've run into numerous issues. I always seem to go to the hive when someone in the area is weed-whacking - either in the yard next door or Georgia Power has sent their yard guys to weed-whack the community garden. The wind up on the hill is always blowing like it's March every single time, making loud whooshing sounds as it goes over the mic on the phone. And sometimes someone, urging commands, walks their dog right past my hives.

And then there's my iPhone itself. It has a mind of its own.

I'll go through a whole hive and then find that right in the middle of my inspection, the phone simply turns itself off. Once it was because my memory was full, but I've deleted everything so that doesn't happen but even now, it just turns itself off with no obvious cause. Bees often fly into the phone screen while I am filming, but that shouldn't turn off the video unless they perfectly head bump the round circle with the little red square in it. I would think that would knock them unconscious and maybe I am missing their tiny bodies, lying unmoving on the ground at the base of the tripod.

I prefer to blame it on the iPhone having a mind of its own.

So this Thursday, it's a miracle - no wind, no weed-whackers! I set up the iPhone in the tripod and like Santa Claus, checked it twice, and it appeared to be running in video mode. Blissfully chatting about what I am seeing in the hive, suddenly I hear a voice from the phone: "What's the emergency?"

I ran to the tripod to find that the iPhone had called 911 and the operator was patiently waiting for me to describe whatever tragedy I was enduring. "I'm sorry, M'am," I said. "I'm a beekeeper filming a hive I am inspecting with my iPhone. I guess the phone called you by mistake. I'm fine. Please don't send anyone!"

Thankfully, she believed me and the fire truck, the ambulance and the police did not appear at the community garden!



PS: If you push one of the volume buttons and the button on the opposite side of the iPhone at the same time, your phone will call 911. #nowIknow  That's what was happening as the tripod gripped the iPhone horizontally.

Inspecting the community garden hives on June 4, 2020

In this inspection, my plan was to take a frame of bees from one of the strong hives and give it to the smaller nuc hive to help it build up its numbers. However, we found that the tall hive had a new queen who had not laid in the medium boxes - so we couldn't take a frame. However, we made an entrance reducer for the nuc hive out of wine corks. I'll try to visit that hive and take a frame of brood and eggs from my strongest hive at home to help the nuc hive build up.

Meanwhile, here's the inspection. There are instructions and video on how to make a solar wax melter from a styrofoam beer cooler (I first posted about this in 2006) at the end  of the inspection movie.

Learning to inspect your beehive in the time of the coronavirus

Since we are supposed to stay at home, it's difficult for new beekeepers to learn what to do in a hive inspection and how to inspect your beehives. I am the chair of the hive inspection program for the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers and have now done two inspections by video to show to the inspection groups in a Zoom meeting.

It's not as good as the hands-on, in-person version of our hive inspection program, but it's better than not getting to go. I had the first of my three inspections in person. The hives being used for this program are in a community garden in Atlanta. One hive is a swarm that I caught in Inman Park on March 11.

The swarm was on a hurricane fence and very challenging to capture since on the other side of the fence was a dense hedge of azaleas and neglect. Here's the swarm:

I put it into a hive at the community garden.

The other hive at the community garden is a nuc hive that was installed on March 21.

I did not film the March 21 inspection. We were still allowed to gather in person, but twelve people were signed up for the inspection. I asked them to divide and come one week apart. So six people came in person to this inspection. For the sake of social distancing and protection, I also asked them to put on their jackets and veils at their cars and come to the inspection with gloves and protective gear already on.

So the second inspection was on March 29 with the other six people and by then we were unable to gather in any size group in the city of Atlanta. So we had that one virtually. When I filmed at the community garden, the wind was blowing and it was hard to hear. But I will post it here anyway. I plan to post my inspections every week to help new beekeepers unable to attend inspections in person.

Then I did a second inspection on April 3, 2020. This time the wind was less bad but in the noonday sun, I couldn't see through my veil to see what was being seen by the camera on the individual frames. So this one you can hear but can't see the detail as well. I urge you to pause the video in both to see the frames better. Maybe for my next video, I can combine what I have learned from the first two and do a better job! 

It's hard to be the camera person AND the hive inspector, but that's what we do in the time of the coronavirus!