Colony Inspection Descriptive Transcript

Summary: Paul Kelly, research and apiary manager, shows how to inspect a honey bee colony. 

00:03 - 00:24
[The video opens with close-up footage of a single bee crawling inside a colony. The text ÒColony InspectionÓ fades in. The video transitions to a montage of seven shots showcasing honey bees and different elements of the research centre, ending with footage of a bee taking off from a yellow flower as the logo for the Honey Bee Research Centre fades in.]

00:26 - 01:12
[Cut to footage of Paul Kelly in the apiary walking over to the bee colony he is going to inspect. He sits beside the hive and puffs smoke around it.]

Paul Kelly: So we're going to do a colony inspection here. We've already learned in the previous video about "Working with Bees" how to use the smoke and how to disassemble the hive. Now what we'll be doing is precisely that smoking the hive and disassembling it, [Paul removes the lid and internal cover from the hive.] but we'll be inspecting it for all the normal kinds of conditions that you will see within a beehive. So I'll puff some smoke just across the frames there. We've got a beautiful sunny day, the bees are in a good mood, they're bringing in lots of nectar from dandelion flowers, from apple blossoms, and everything is going quite well. We've got a nice warm day.

01:12 - 02:24
Paul: So we'll pry this third frame away so that we can take the second one out, pry that one up and then just slowly pull the frame up out of the box. So this frame's got lots of honey on it, which you'll see here now. We've got [Cut to extreme close up of frame.] stored honey that's been stored for quite some time, you can see the older cappings on there, [Cut to close up of frame.] and then we have fresh nectar in here where you see all the shiny cells [Cut to extreme close up of frame showing shiny cells.] and then there is some pollen stored in some of these cells as well, [Cut to close up of frame.] and we can see a number of drones [Cut to close up of drone bees.] on the frame. They hang out on the outer frames. [Cut to footage with entire frame in view.] So we've got basically food resources in this frame here. No evidence of any eggs or larva. So we're just going to lean that frame against the far corner of the box like so, and then we'll move further into the hive and inspect the hive.

02:27 - 03:43
[Cut to Paul removing frame from hive.]

Paul: There we go. Looks like more of the same on this frame. [Camera zooms in on frame Paul removed.] Basically food reserves and fresh food that they've just put in. Some drones, some worker bees just working away on the frame. There are some empty cells on this side, but no eggs or larva, so we'll just put that frame back in and when we're inspecting the colony, we just work our way frame to frame and what we are looking for on each frame as we pull it out we're looking for the queens so I'll look at the next frame to see if I see her on there, then I'll look at this side of the frame and I don't see her there, but we can now see something different, we've got drone pupa here. [Camera zooms in on drone pupa on frame.] So these are drone sized cells, the larger cells you can see some empty drone cells right in here and then when they are in use with the pupa they are quite bulged out, so we can recognize that they're very different looking than the worker pupa, which we'll see momentarily. [Camera zooms out to show full frame.]

03:43 - 04:25
Paul: Lots of pollen in this frame, tons of pollen in there. [Footage cuts to extreme close up of frame showing different colours of pollen, then cuts to footage of full frame being held by Paul.] So we'll just put that frame back in. I do see eggs on this side of the frame and to see eggs you really need to clear bees out of the way, so if I lay my hand on there [Camera zooms in on PaulÕs hand on the frame.] all the bees will run out of the way and then we are able to see into the cells [Cut to extreme close up of cells showing eggs.] underneath and to see those eggs you'll hold the frames so the sunlight is shining directly into the bottom of the cells and you have to tip the frame a little bit this way, a little bit that way until those eggs show themselves at the bottom of the cells.

04:26 - 04:56
[Cut to close up of entire frame being held by Paul.]

Paul: OK, so back to the frame handling here. We'll set that frame back into the box, pry the next frame over and we should be getting into a little bit more brood in this frame. I'll look for the queen on the next frame. Don't see her there so we'll look for the queen on this side of the frame and I don't see her.

04:57 - 05:38
[Cut to extreme close up of frame.]

Paul: OK so now what we have here we have worker larva and worker pupa. See the caps of the pupa are slightly domed, but they don't bulge out like the drone pupa do. So we have worker larva and worker pupa. This will be all eggs and young larva [Cut to close up of full frame being held by Paul.] in this area here. We can see pollen all around the periphery and a little dome of honey at the top. A mix of workers and drones, it's a good healthy growing colony. And we'll move on to the next frame. [Paul returns the frame to the hive.]

05:43 - 06:31
Paul: As you pry the frames just hold on to them so they don't snap free
sending vibrations through the hive. [Paul extracts the next frame.] OK we'll look at the next frame for the queen. Don't see her. We'll look at this side of the frame for the queen and I don't see her. Well this frame is kind of a mess. [Cut to extreme close up of frame.] It's got some holes in it that the bees have filled up with drone pupa. [Cut to close up of frame.] They do need drones, it's normal that they are raising drones so it doesn't hurt to have the odd frame that's like this. [Cut to extreme close up of frame as Paul points out pupa.] But there we can see side-by-side drone pupa and worker pupa. Worker pupa have the flat capped cells and the drone the big bulgy cells there.

06:33- 07:04
[Cut to full view of open hive.]

Paul: When the weather is warm like this today the frames are a little easier to take out because the propolis isn't as brittle and the wax is softer and so it is a little bit easier to dismantle the hive. So we'll look at the next frame for the queen, don't see her there. This would be a good spot to find her because there's lots of open comb where she could be laying eggs it's within the brood area. OK there she is, just where 
we thought she might be. [Camera zooms in on frame where Paul is pointing to the queen.]

07:08 - 07:51
Paul: See how she likes to go around to get to the dark side of the frame? If she can find an opening to move through, she'll go around to where it's shaded there and so it's often easy to miss finding the queen because she has done just that. I'm going to turn the frame over and we'll see now that she is on this side here. So just to keep the queen safe I'm going to put her in a cage and I'll show you a video about that a little later but for now we'll just put this frame back in the colony and temporarily cage the queen so we can carry on with our inspection.

07:55 - 08:18
[Cut to close up of frame.]

Paul: So on this frame we have capped pupa and then larva off to the side and some pollen stored here. [Cut to extreme close up of multicoloured pollen.] I even see some pollen from horse chestnut. It's a bright red colour so there's quite a variety of different colours of pollen this time of year.

08:18 - 09:44
[Cut to close up of frame being held by Paul. Paul continues to extract and examine frames as he speaks.]

Paul: So we just move through frame by frame inspecting the colony and we are wanting to see that everything looks normal. If a colony is preparing to swarm we'd be looking for queen cells. We're always keeping an eye out for any sorts of diseases. We might see chalk brood for example or sac brood or heaven forbid American fowl brood, so you do need to be looking through the colony to inspect it on a pretty regular basis to make sure that none of those diseases are present. So just one more frame of brood here. The outside frame in the box is usually honey, but we've got a nice capped frame of brood here, lots of brood there and then the last frame will be food reserves. So we've got lots of pollen lots of honey fresh nectar in there and you can see this is where the drones are all hanging out near the outside edge of the cluster. We have lots and lots of drone.

09:45 - 09:59
Paul: So now that we're done our inspection, it's just a matter of moving the frames back into place. [Cut to time lapse footage of Paul adjusting the frames.] Now what we'd be doing is releasing the queen and closing the colony back up.

10:01 - 10:11
Paul: The next video we are going to show we'll be talking about supering this colony because it is ready to be adding a honey super. So stay tuned for that.