When the weather is optimal, it is the best time for you to open a beehive. Bees are fussy, and they don’t like the dry, overly cold, windy, or rainy weather. Do not open a beehive when a thunderstorm threatens, as the bees will experience stress.
On the contrary, once you have gained more experience, you will be able to work bees at nearly any time of the day you want.
The Rationale for Opening a Beehive
Beekeeping can be so much fun that it’s tempting to open the hive and inspect your bees every day, and it isn’t that good for the bees. It’ll be great to have a weekly inspection throughout the season from spring to fall. You’re not supposed to disturb them, if at all possible, throughout winter.
The most exciting and amusing part of beekeeping is probably spending time inspecting your bees. It would be best if you inspected the hive to find out how your bees are getting on. You can see personally inside the colony and obtain a great deal of information concerning your bees. You should typically look for this information when checking on the bees: is the queen present and laying? Has the colony been given enough space? Do pollen and honey have ample stores in the colony? Is it a safe colony? And are there any queen cells in there?
It is good to go through these points in mind before you start the inspection. You can find it useful to note the answers to these questions, so you can compare the hive’s condition from the last review you have done.
Things to Consider in Opening a Beehive
When opening a beehive and checking on the bees, it is good to take these matters into account their health status, suiting up, and use a smoker for your protection.
Colony Health Assessment
Beekeepers are prompted to observe their hives from the outside on a weekly or regular basis so you can see if your bees are bringing pollen or even catching an unwanted ant invasion. It’s also a sensible move to find out what’s usual for your bees. This is in terms of frequency, including the number of bees flying in and out of the hive. How many dead bees are near your hive? If and when they do happen, you should notice any changes.
Given these advantages, direct observation is no substitute for opening your hive and inspecting the combs inside. Even when a concern can be detected from outside the hive, it’s far from being addressed. Hive inspections will detect problems early when done correctly and give you the chance to fix them before too much damage is done. They will also give you an excellent opportunity to learn.
For that reason, it is advisable that new beekeepers inspect their hives once every two to four weeks, but not more often than that. The process of opening your hive is exhausting for bees. This disrupts the highly monitored atmospheric conditions inside the hive; this is why many experienced beekeepers undertake less frequent inspections on their older, more established colonies.
It may sound like a difficult circumstance for a newbie. Still, new beekeepers should periodically check their hives for learning purposes. Their colonies are also likely to be new and less stable.
Suiting Up Properly
You may see clips of professional beekeepers checking their hives with no bee suit on, and you may think you can do the same. Seasoned beekeepers get stung, but if they act out, beekeepers know how to keep the bees calm and what to do. And perhaps you even did an inspection during which the bees were relaxed, and you thought you might get away with doing the next one without protection.
Many factors influence bee temperament. Even if you don’t have an allergy, too many stings may cause you to be in the hospital. Often follow suit and double-check your zippers and weak spots before you open your hive. Neglecting this lesson may seriously threaten your health and can hastily put you off beekeeping.
Use a Smoker
Beekeepers use smoke to take the focus away from bees. It makes them believe a wildfire is nearby and causes them to gorge on honey so that they don’t lose their entire honey supply when they need to flee. Smoke often inhibits chemical signals that bees send to each other to help them organize a defense attack against you. This can all sound incredibly stressful to a new beekeeper, so you might choose not to use smoke anymore. This is not advisable.
The bees will respond aggressively if you don’t use your smoker, sting your bee suit and die. You may end up killing a large number of bees in this way. You may also be putting your neighbors at risk if the bees become particularly agitated. Neighbors who get stung don’t seem to be forgiving. Use a lot of smoke when the weather is not cooperating.
Common questions about the best time to open a beehive
When Not to Open a Beehive?
Environmental temperature is an essential factor. Aside from this, it is crucial to consider appropriate timing when to visit your hives. Perhaps, not during bee sleep hours because it may cause problems for your bees. Usually, they don’t like their sleep to be disrupted, and so the bees are not in the best mood to receive a visit.
Consider these situations in opening a beehive: Don’t work bees when temperatures are low, such as below 50°F (10°C). Hold any inspections rather short so that the hive does not chill. Never work beehives in cloudy or stormy weather as well. The same goes for windy conditions. Honey bees at this stage appear to be ill-tempered; do not check hives when it rains. Bees in the rain are not able to fly appropriately, so they prefer to remain in the hive, and they’re not in the best of moods if they’re not busy. On top of that, you don’t want to let water and humidity into the hive and don’t visit your hives after dark. The bees are inside and don’t like being disturbed. Remember, less is better than more when it comes to hive inspections.
How Long Should an Opening of the Beehive Take?
It should take around half an hour to monitor your bees per hive. It is essential to try to keep the inspection time down to a minimum to reduce the stress on the bees.
This should be done this way so that bees in the processing of making honey can never be adversely disturbed, and this includes the quality of honey in the honey extractor.
What’s the Ideal Hive Inspection Temperature?
It would be best if you allowed time until the temperature goes up 60°F (15°C) or so before working your beehives. The optimal time to check the hive is when the bees feed out. Bees cannot fly when the temperature has been reduced to around 50°F (10°C). Honey bees are rarely removed from the hives when the temperature exceeds 100°F (38°C).
Temperature is not the only factor affecting the bees’ mood, and several other aspects should be considered when choosing the right time to visit the bees.
Conclusion
The ideal time is when the foragers are out, and temperatures are up. The best time of the day is the sunniest time of the day. Opening the beehive too early in the morning risks chilling the brood while being too close to sunset risks bees being annoyed and aggressive.
