Preventing Problems In the Beehive – What You Should NOT BE Doing

My first few years as a beekeeper, I was very unsure of myself. I was clumsy and making a lot of little mistakes. Let's talk about things you can do to make the process of inspecting a hive easier and common habits beekeepers get into that can lead to problems down the road. No matter how many years we've been keeping bees, there's always things we can improve upon and new things to learn, so let's dive in.

Take the Time to Light Your Smoker Properly

Proper smoker lighting is crucial. First, check to see if that road plate in the bottom of your smoker is open and standing on its legs inside the smoker, so that your fuel isn't sitting on the bottom of the smoker. 

Then, use two types of kindling (quick-lighting to start and then slow-burning materials) to get the smoker lit. Light the quick-lighting kindling first and drop it into the smoker. Squeeze the bellow to add air until it is smoking and you see small flames just starting to peek out the top.

Continue to add a little bit more fuel and then bellow to give it air. Do not pout a lot of material in at once and let it fully ignite to the point the fuel you just added is smoking and lit before adding more. 

The key to lighting your smoker is making sure each layer or fuel is fully lit before adding more. If you stuff the smoker with fuel without letting the fire make it's way up, it will go out due to lack of air. 

Tips to making sure your smoker stays lit:

• Take your time and wait for the flame to reach your kindling.
• Do not overstuff the smoker.
• Continue to bellow it every few minutes even if you don't need to use the smoker so the flame doesn't go out.

Staying Safe While Using a Smoker:

• Light your smoker in a safe place, such as a concrete or gravel driveway.
• Do not leave a lit smoker unattended.
• Do not leave a smoker in the grass or on a flammable surface.
• Do not drive with a lit smoker in your car.
• Have a plan for how to put out your smoker safely.

Best Smoker Fuel

Here in PA, my favorite smoker fuel is pine needles. I leave them out in the sun to dry and make sure they're not moldy and they're FREE.

In Hawaii, I used to use the bark from the Ohia tree. It shed its bark often and was easy to find on the ground by the trees.

A word about burlap. Some burlap is chemically treated, so make sure yours is not before you use this material. Personally, I found this to burn too hot. I also prefer natural materials over burning synthetic ones.

There's a lot of quick igniting kindling in every house. Dryer lint, paper egg cartons and balls of brown paper work really well.

On to the next tip!

Every Beehive Inspection Is a Practice

What doe this mean? Starting at a couple of weeks after you install your bees, every time you inspect your bees you want to work on your beekeeping skills. That would be queen spotting skills, egg spotting skills, you want to train your eyes and your ears to get to know what the bees' buzzing sounds like when they're content versus when the hive has been open a long time. Get used to observing the laying pattern and how many bees are on the frames and how this changes over the course of the seasons. You don't have to memorize this or take pictures. You, simply, want to begin to train yourself to get to know bees and their behavior.

Queen Spotting Tips

Practice queen spotting by checking for her immediately when pulling out the first frame - look for a differently-colored bee walking distinctly, and scan each frame side for 5 seconds (and no longer) before flipping it over and looking on the other side. Watch the video above for more queen spotting tips!

Prevent Robbing

You can prevent robbing from EVER happening, but there are things you can do to discourage robbing and there are things you can do to encourage robbing.

Ways to Keep Robbing to a Minimum

• Keep hive inspections short (20 minutes maximum).
• Space hives apart rather than clustering them together.
• Never leave honey, beeswax, or propolis outside the hive. These can attract robber bees and wasps.
• Plant flowers or allow your grassy areas to grow tall, so the wildflowers pop up. The food there is for the bees, the less they will rob each other.

Don't Pull the Cork Out!

When introducing a new queen to a beehive, it is common practice to pull one cork out so the bees can access the candy cork behind it, freeing the queen bee. Do not do this! Instead, leave all of the corks in place and put the queen into the hive. After 3 days, manually check on her to ensure the bees have accepted her by observing their behavior around the cage. If the bees are aggressive towards the cage, leave her in the cage and check on her in a day or two. If you see their proboscis sticking out, trying to feed her, they have accepted her and you can release her. 

To manually release a queen, take the cork out that does not have candy on the other end, and put your finger over the hole. Place the cage down at the bottom of the hive, under the frames and take your finger off the hole. Once the queen ha walked out of the cage, put all the frames back into the hive and close it up as fast as possible.

It's Easier to Maintain Healthy Hives Than Fix Struggling Ones

Use preventive measures like freezing used equipment, installing beetle traps early, and treating for Varroa mites before winter bee production to keep your bees healthy and the pest population low.

Maintain Proper "Bee Space"

Bee space is 3/8 inch and this space is crucial when spacing out frames inside the hive. Ensuring there is proper space between frames will prevent cross-comb building. This is very easy to do! Use the correct number of frames for your box size and ensure the hive is level.