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.

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:

Hive Inspection during the coronavirus - Inspection on May 1, 2020

We can't gather in groups and I continue to offer virtual hive inspections to members of my local bee club, including the people who took our short course this year. Every virtual inspection has about 15 people in attendance and while some people come more than once, I also have new people each time.

In this inspection one of the key things was to notice the difference in honey production between the over-wintered nuc, the swarm I installed on March 11, and the tiny new hive from a three frame nuc in a queen castle. My biggest conclusion after I made this video is that the three frame nuc hive needs to be in a nuc and not in a hive. The space is just too big for them. I will move the hive into a stacked nuc hive before the next inspection.

Inspection of the Community Garden Hives April 24, 2020

On April 24, I videoed an inspection of the three hives at the community garden. In this time of COVID-19, we can't do gathering around the hives to inspect and this is a way to share how an inspection might go with new and old beekeepers.

I have bad timing for these videos. Most of the time, it's windy on the hill, but this time we were plagued with yard guys - incredibly noisy yard guys! First Jeff and I went to the garden to put on the robber screens and the Georgia Power people were weed whacking the garden. They stood to get their photos with us doing our bee work in the background.

Then several days later, I went to the garden to video the actual inspection. This time the yard guys from the house next door began loud leaf blowers or weed whackers as soon as I opened the hive. ARGHHH.

When I show these videos to the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers, we do it in a Zoom meeting with lots of questions and interaction. So far I haven't recorded the meetings. Maybe I should but for now,
here's the video:

Inspection of Community Garden Hives on April 17, 2020

Today we had a virtual hive inspection since we can't gather in groups to do an in-person hive inspection in Atlanta for quite some time to come. Here is the video of the inspection. I didn't know that my iPhone can film video on landscape because my old iPhone couldn't, so going forward I will put the phone in landscape orientation which should be better!

This inspection includes the installation of a nuc as well as the usual inspection of the two community garden bee hives.

Here it is, FWIW:

Fourth MABA hive inspection

This is the fourth hive inspection (third video) done virtually to help those beekeepers who want to be a part of a group hive inspection and are staying at home because of the coronavirus. I am posting a video after each virtual hive inspection. I offer these inspections in my role as hive inspection chair for 2020 for MABA. The advantage of being a MABA member is that you can come to the virtual inspections and be a part of the QandA as well as the discussion, but even without belonging to MABA (MetroAtlanta Beekeepers Association), you can see these videos after the fact.

I thought my video was recording when I opened the first hive and didn't discover that it was not until halfway through the inspection. To make up for it, I added a short inspection of my top bar hive to the end of this video. My hands shake all the time, but they were really shaky during this video because I was so stressed that the video had not been running.




In the middle of the video I put in a slide about how to checkerboard and at the end of one section some photos illustrating how you rubberband crooked comb since you can't see me do the repair in the video.

This one wasn't my best, but I am putting it up for continuity of the record.