In this informal field recording, Laurence (Speaker A) and Zane conduct a rapid inspection of a newly established nuc colony under rainy, cold conditions. They discuss how poor weather forces bees into a maintenance mode, reducing foraging and brood rearing (the June gap). The conversation moves through assessing whether the colony needs additional space (supers), interpreting frame weight and brood patterns, and deciding on frame configuration—advocating a reverse‑checkerboard layout to keep stores close to the brood during energy‑conserving periods. Laurence then demonstrates a two‑minute inspection technique, emphasizing the need to locate the queen or her eggs, check for swarm cells, and evaluate brood and stores. They find few eggs, no swarm cells, and conclude the queen is likely present despite not being seen. The dialogue ends with plans for possible emergency feeding if weather does not improve, and a brief recap of the quick inspection’s efficiency. The tone is conversational, instructional, and pragmatic, reflecting real‑world beekeeping decision‑making under suboptimal conditions.
Chapters
Zane's First Nuc, episode 8. Right, we need to be a little bit quick today because it's rubbish weather. We got soaked earlier on, there's showers all around, the bees are a little bit aggy. Have to do the inspections though when the weather is rubbish, so we have to be quick, Zane. But what I'm going to show you today is how to do a very quick inspection.
Yeah? Yeah, like the sound of that.
Let's do it.
Yeah, you get stung all the time.
Yeah, that's true. I always lean here, very casual. No, we went to another apiary there and we went to go and catch some queens, and it's been a bit of a crazy day. And then Zane got stung on the hand and got stung on the nose. And firmed it like—
Did you think? I was crying inside.
I didn't actually see any sort of sting on the nose though, so I think maybe a bee buzzed around your nose.
No, no, no, you can see it there clear as day. Let's have a look.
Mate, there's nothing there. Oh no!
I 100% got stung. My eyes were watering.
Right, so fact. Yeah, I got stung there earlier in the day. I've got a red mark. No.
I got stung on my hand as well, so that's twice. But anyway.
Do you not remember the finger one I got?
Listen, it's not a competition, all right?
They're angry bees today. Right, let's get into it. Do you think you're going to be right or wrong about not adding a super next week? Oh no, I said not super, didn't I? And you said adding a super.
Yeah.
What do you think, going to be full or not full?
I reckon they'll be ready for another one.
Okay. I reckon they're going to have gone backwards. Yeah, they were only covering like that, kind of like that much of the super, weren't they? Yeah. So we'd be expecting that bit to be full.
You think backwards? Yeah. Okay, it's not looking good, is it?
How far backwards have they gone there?
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't look anywhere near as good. And is that because of the weather?
Yeah, it's the weather and it's cold.
Okay.
So when it's cold, they got to maintain the brood nest.
Yeah.
And Their priorities just go from doing anything nectar-related to going back downstairs. So remember when I said, remember when I showed you how they'd all come up? Supposed to be doing a quick inspection, aren't I? Remember how I showed you how they'd all come up and we were surprised at how many bees were up here?
Yeah.
And I thought, oh, they'll be more sparsely populated downstairs than they were.
Yeah.
I would say the opposite today.
So they've all just, do you reckon they've all just gone down, filled the brood nest and left the super a bit empty?
Yeah.
Okay.
So first thing is, do they need any more space in the supers?
That's a no. That's a definite no.
Definite no. But I would say an important lesson here though, Zane, yeah, and this is where you have to temper your expectations a bit. What did you want to do last week?
Super.
Super. What did I want to do last week?
No super.
And it's not like right or wrong, yeah, it's knowing the state of the season and knowing what your bees are doing and knowing kind of how they're going to respond to things. It was a good guess because they've gone right backwards this week. And if you open up this here, like the brood box, it's not even that packed downstairs in the brood box. Like, they're just maintaining space, aren't they? Check the queen's not there.
Yeah, that's a big difference.
And if you were going to do something like this, you can go in and heft as well at this point. It's useful to heft. Right, so what do you think on theirs then? If you give that a little lift and see what you think.
Oh no, not good.
Why not?
It's really light.
Really light. Yeah, so this is what happens when you get the massive like lack of flow, the June gap, the poor weather, the bees just go into this maintenance and they'll eat up all of that food. So if you leave the bees like this for much longer, they are going to die. Like, they really are. Look at some of these frames here. Yeah, we've still got a frame of foundation.
Mhm.
Yep, nothing going on there. We still got kind of what, frame of foundation, bit drawn out, isn't it? But yeah, nothing going on there. And then I'll show you how to do the inspection in a bit, but what do you think we should do when we put it back together? Do you think we should just like keep it in the same configuration or do something different?
Well, I would say the configuration was— it must have been working though, because they were progressing, weren't they? It's just the temperature.
Yeah.
So I don't know, for me, I would say maybe leave.
Maybe leave it. All I would say is when you're putting frames in and doing checkerboarding and stuff, you're taking advantage of the flow and you're trying to suppress swarming a little bit and you're trying to help them expand. But when they're trying to conserve energy like this, a big frame of foundation in the middle is a real pain them. Because look, what's this over here? Stores. Yeah, but that's going to be separated away from the brood nest. So all I would do is I'd kind of like do a bit of reverse checkerboard and I'd just get that one back in there. Okay, put it into like a maintenance zone like that. Also, what you're likely to see though is the bees becoming a little bit more—
Yeah, you can see that. They're a little bit, definitely a bit more, not aggressive, but just buzzy.
Buzzy. It's because they've not got anything to do.
Yeah.
Like you look at the entrance, it's dead.
Okay.
They don't want to be there. So all I'm going to do is I'm just going to quickly show Zane how to do like a 2-minute inspection. This is how I would inspect this colony if I was doing it myself, Zane. Yeah. So I'll talk you through it as I go.
Yeah.
So I'd pick that up. That'd be a frame of stores. Right, next frame. Got a decent amount of weight, but there's no brood on there. Bit of pollen. So no inspection needed. Right, next one. I can see you've got good capped brood. Now, if I was doing this quick, Zane, what I would do if I wanted to do a really quick one is I would just chuck them off like that. Yeah, and I know that seems a bit harsh, but you can, you kind of get into the swing of shaking them off, and it means that you don't miss any swarm cells. But when they're sparsely populated like this, you can kind of, kind of see what's going on anyway. So there we go, no swarm cells there. Remember, all I need to see is the queen. Yeah, and if I can't see the queen, I want to see her eggs. And if I'm seeing all of that and they've got enough space and there's no swarm cells, then they're good to go. So I'm like halfway through, I've not seen the queen. But I'm just taking a look a bit deeper in some of the cells now. There's no swarm cells. Not seen eggs yet, but it's rubbish weather and the queens will stop laying when you get poor weather like that. So it's not always a case that you will see eggs. Nice to see eggs. And yeah, I can't see the queen, I can't see any eggs, but definitely no signs of swarming. So even, even if there was an issue here, I'd be inclined just to put them back together again and let them crack on with it.
Yeah.
So there's the first egg that I've seen. You see it?
How have you spotted that?
Yeah, wow, there's not many. There's quite a lot of open larva everywhere, and that frame there, really running low from stores, but there are a few eggs on that one as well. So then final frames then, but have a look in there and see if you can see any eggs. But you know how to see eggs, don't you, when you hold it on the lugs?
Okay, I can see larva.
So this is what it's like everywhere. So what's happened is the queen, the colonies sense what's going on, there's no flow coming in, they're into survival mode. So the queen stopped laying. All of the eggs that are there will still hatch out and go through larva into pupa and to young bees, but there's no queen. Now I'm not worried because I reckon she's in here somewhere. If she wasn't here, we'd see emergency cells.
Yes.
So there's no emergency cells, Okay, we've not seen eggs. We've got an explanation for it. I'd be happy to put it back together again. I can feel the rain going, but should we just go for one last find the queen?
Yeah, go on. We've got to, haven't we? Right. I tend to get lucky finding the queen. We're going to put that luck to the test. We're going to go.
Okay. Yeah, go on. Push it. Yep. I will have a guess. This is a good game. Okay, you're going that one.
I'm going to go this one.
Okay. I'm already calling this one.
Okay. Come on, don't let me down. Don't let me down. Nah, it's not looking good, is it? Okay, right, so that's my attempt.
This is fun.
Put this over here.
Oh, there's no chance. As soon as I pulled it out, I was like, oh, she's not going to be on that frame either.
See, I should have actually—
Let's keep on going.
I went for the wrong frame, sorry. I meant this one. I meant this one here. How silly of me. Right, ta-da, there she isn't.
No, she's like easy, blue marked queen, isn't she? So she should be really easy to see. Right, go on, I'll pick another one then.
You go for it.
So I think this is classic example, yeah, of we don't need to see the queen. Let's put it back together, we don't need to see her.
Okay.
Yeah, I teach people all the time they don't need to see them, and then there's me trying to find her. But cool, she'll be all right, she'll be there next week. Something to come back to, eh?
Yes. Yeah, I suppose like you said, there's no swarm cells. There is a couple of eggs, so yeah, I'm confident she's there. Yeah, makes sense.
Okay, should we put it back together?
This one in.
Feel the rain.
Yes, it's coming in.
So it doesn't take long to do a quick inspection like that, and look how small they look. Like, it looks like a small nuc again, doesn't it? They don't grow that fast. Unless you give them all the ingredients, and the weather's a very, very crucial part of that. So I'm hoping the sun comes back. Supers are looking good.
Could she— no, she can't be up there, there's a queen excluder, isn't there?
You've got to have a check though, haven't you? You do get queen excluders that let queens through. Obviously don't buy them. No, we're all good upstairs. So there we go, we didn't find the queen. We probably loitered Little bit too long trying to find her. If the weather doesn't improve and stop raining, I reckon we'll be emergency feeding these next week. We need a couple of days of good weather, and we need to come back and find this queen. Oops.
Good? Yeah. Well, apparently it's meant to be picking up next week, isn't it? Bit more sun. Fingers crossed. All right, see you next week. One. Ah.
A little bit quick today because.
Ah.
Dead.
Don't do this to me. Yeah, that was really good. That was really good.
