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.

Hive Inspection May 29, 2020

Yesterday my main goal in the hive inspection was to see if the pesticide kill hive were surviving OK. I also looked at the taller hive and at the small hive housed in a nuc tower. Please enjoy the inspection and send any questions you have to me.

Another MABA Hive Inspection

I took a week off for Mother's Day and skipped last weekend, but really made up for it this week. On Monday, the 11th, I moved the little queen castle hive that was only four frames in a two-medium box hive into a nuc. We are going to let it grow in the nuc this season.

On Friday, the 15th, I inspected the two established hives at the garden and gave a quick check to the now-nuc hive. To add a little interest to it all, I did an inspection of my top bar hive which is boiling over with happy bees and honey.

The whole pieced-together inspection (it starts on Monday and ends on Friday!) is below: