Is There Brood Inside My Beehive? Checking For Brood Break To Target Varroa With Oxalic Acid

They say you should never, ever go into your beehives in winter to do any sort of inspection. But today I'm going to inspect that colony there, and I'm going to inspect that colony and go through every single frame. So the reason they say to never go inside your colonies of bees over winter is that you're going to let the cold in. You add in loads of risk by pulling through the frames and maybe maybe you're going to damage your queen. There's no real reason to ever go in. So why have I just taken the roof off? The reason I'm doing this is so you don't have to do this at home. So the main reason that people might want to go into their colony over winter is to work out if there's a natural brood break. Varroa mites are very susceptible to treatments if there's no brood inside the colony, so beekeepers want to time their varroa treatments with a point where the colony is naturally broodless. Now there is no way of telling, even by opening up the colony like this and getting a really good close look in, I cannot tell if this is on a brood break or not because I need to take the frames out. So that is exactly what I'm going to do in this video today. I'm going to go through this colony here, pull out every single frame, and we're going to see if they're having a natural brood break. I'm going to do it on the big 14x12 hive as well. It's the back end of December 2025, it's about 3 or 4 degrees here, we've had lots of cold frosts, I reckon there's not going to be much brood inside either of these beehives. So before I go in and start cracking out the frames, I will double down, treble down even, on what not to do here. Do not inspect your colonies in winter. There is no benefit whatsoever. You're much better off having a slightly lower efficacy of treatment or using multiple treatments and guessing where the brood break is than going in, confirming there's a brood break, getting the highest efficacy treatment possible, and killing your queen in the meantime. There are no replacements. If I roll the queen here, I will be killing every single bee. Oh, even that one there who's just stung me right on the nose. That is a sign. Get my veil up, get my gloves on. Let's get inside, see if there's any brood. I'm still recovering from that sting to the nose there. That was very, very painful. But this colony here is on the Abello Mini National Plus mating system, and you can Overwinter big mating nucs like this. You'll see huge strong colony in here. The risk here is the queen. I'm gonna be so careful. I'm gonna take my time. I'm gonna make sure that I do not kill that queen. And in the process, I'll probably find her and I'll show her to you as well. But the mission here today is simple. I wanna work out, is there a natural brood break going on in this colony? And can I share that information with you? Please do not try this at home. So going into colonies at this time of the year is very risky business. All of the frames are super stuck down, and you can see even some of the stores there have started to crystallize. So before I put this frame back in, or before I put it down, I'm just doing a thorough check to make sure that the queen is not on here. If I want to make sure that every single bee in this beehive survives, I need to make sure the queen survives first. So I'm confident she's not on there. I'm just going to rest it in place here. But there is no brood on the first frame. The first frame is just stores. Really taking my time. Do not want to roll my queen in here. So second frame, definitely no brood. Can see an area here where the brood would've previously been. This band here is stores, and then this area here is just empty. So next frame along, we've got a little cluster of bees at the bottom there that I definitely don't want to drop off. But again, no brood whatsoever. So fourth frame, I have found my queen, and she is hiding. So I'll give everyone a little chance to see if they can see her. So there she is, pinked marked queen right in the middle of that frame. We're on 4 frames in and there is no brood whatsoever here. I'm going to place this frame off very, very carefully back into the beehive. The queen is there, all is good, but let's check those last 2 frames to see if there's any brood. So 5th frame, again no brood whatsoever, tiny little bit of stores on that one. And then I have to say it'd be very, very unlikely for there to be any brood on the outside frame when the first 5 had none in. Much more likely to be a frame of stores. And then look at that, a big cluster of bees on the bottom. So no brood in the mini mating hive. Going to get their nice insulated roof back on as soon as I possibly can. Let's take a look now over in the big 14 by 12 hive and see if there's any brood inside. So no brood over in the little mini mating hive. Let's take a look in this big 14 by 12 colony. Surely if there's going to be some brood in this apiary, it's going to be in here. So this is where the bees are drawing out wax in December. Very funny, but that is the edge of the brood nest there. You can see foundation on this side here, and then that is where the bees are starting to draw that out. So then we get into the stores, and that is a ridiculously heavy frame. Really, really heavy. That's probably about the max capacity the lugs have got there. I felt them flexing very much as I did that, but this frame here is just 100% stores. And then that shape in the middle there, you can see where the brood once was, but there's nothing left there anymore. It's just empty cells ready for future storage. Get a good close-up of those cappings there, really nice dry white cappings. They would make some beautiful beeswax candles. So I'm being as careful as I possibly can not to agitate the colony. Remember, I'm only doing this so you don't have to do it on your own beehives. So again, another nice heavy frame, remnants of where brood used to be, But no brood is there anymore. Oh, I do miss the beekeeping. The smell of the colony is just fantastic. And check out all that wild comb that's going on at the bottom there. Lots of stores, lots of wild comb, but no brood as of yet. And I've not seen that queen. Well, part of the mission is complete because I found the blue-marked F1 Buckfast queen from Black Mountain Honey straight there in the middle. But there is no brood whatsoever. And if I just move away some of those bees around by the queen, this is where you would expect to see the brood, right by the queen. But all of those eggs are empty and there is definitely no capped brood. So next frame along after I found that queen is, oh, I would say 80 or 90% stores on that side, and then close to 100% stores on that side. And then just peeking down into the rest of the colony here, I can see there is no more brood. I can see everything else is stores. So the mission is complete. The colony here is completely broodless. It's the 28th of December today. So there we go. For the records, I'm going to do this every single year. We'll open up a couple of colonies and we will tell you if they're broodless or not. 2025, 28th of December, both of the colonies were completely broodless and would've been primed for an exceptional varroa treatment using oxalic acid-based treatments. If you want to learn more about beekeeping, head over to 14daybeekeeper.com and check out our online course that turns you from a beginner to a competent beekeeper in just 14 days.