In this episode of Zane's First Nuc, the hosts conduct a hands‑on hive inspection during an unusually hot, dry period, opting to forego a smoker to avoid fire risk. They first examine the supers, noting heavy, fully capped honey frames and comparing drawn comb to foundation‑based frames, explaining how comb type affects honey storage speed and extraction stability. They then move to the brood box, confirming the presence of a healthy, mated queen by locating eggs and abundant capped brood, and verify the absence of swarm cells. Throughout, they discuss seasonal constraints—only three to four weeks left before winter treatment is required—and set concrete productivity goals (aiming for two to three supers filled). The tone is instructional and cautionary, with practical tips for hobbyist beekeepers on safe inspection practices, hive assessment, and end‑of‑season management.
Chapters
We've genuinely not been in or looked. We have no idea, do we? And it is a warning to everyone. It's very easy to cause fires with your smoker.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Bad thing. So I never like it if you're opening up a colony like that and—
wow. Yeah, geez, look at that.
There was no chance they were getting up into that top box. Zane's First Nuc, episode 14. Let's jump straight in. No smoker this week because it is way too hot to be lighting a smoker. I do get a bit worried about smokers.
Yeah, it is very hot. Luckily, that's a nice little spot for it there, isn't it?
Instead of lighting the smokers, I've been like spray painting them and getting some branding on them.
Using them for something.
Yeah.
Now they're just props.
They're just props. What do you reckon, Zane? What do you reckon is going to happen inside your hive today? We've genuinely not been in or looked. We have no idea, do we?
Surely decent progress. We've had good weather. Yeah, I'd like to maybe see if we can get another super on today.
Okay, ambitious.
Well, no, no, because the queen has still only just been reintroduced, so we're gonna— it's a couple of weeks before— Couple of weeks, yeah. Okay.
I'm gonna put my veil up though, 'cause I've not got a smoker on, and they're just a bit touchy at the moment, the bees. So I'm gonna go veil up straight away, Zane. I think you should do the same.
Yeah.
It's difficult with it being so dry, and it is a warning to everyone who's out beekeeping at the moment. Don't be the cause of like big forest fires or any fires. It's very easy to cause fires with your smoker. So I'm doing my best to not have any smokers at the moment, Zane. What are you seeing, Zane?
They seem very buzzy.
Seem very buzzy.
Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Bad thing.
Yeah. Great.
So I never like it if you're opening up a colony like that and they're kind of coming out like Angry, but also just, yeah, not coordinated. I would say I wouldn't worry too much though, because we've still got an empty super.
Okay.
And that is probably what it was. A few bees up in the empty super and we disturbed them.
Right.
But the top box is still empty, Zane.
Yeah.
And remember we said that last week, like there was no chance they were getting up into that top box. But let's have a look. So you just wanna get it in a couple of inches. That's it. And then you leave it up and then you just wanna make sure that none of the frames are getting stuck. That's it. Perfect.
Okay.
So this top box here is still completely empty, a few bees buzzing around, but no work and just foundation in there. And then what we've got there, Zane?
See, they've definitely filled out more of these frames.
Well, you can see from the top there, there's lots of honey in those ones there. Should we pull a couple out and have a look?
Yeah, yeah, that's a really heavy frame, that.
Wow.
Yeah, geez, look at that.
So what are you thinking, Zane?
Yeah, that's Really heavy, and that's just full of honey there, isn't it?
Yeah, full of honey, completely capped over. Like, that is ripe.
Yeah.
You know those jars we had before, the little 8-ounce jars?
Yeah.
There's 8 of those jars there in one frame, apparently.
No way.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
You get a lot of honey in it.
See, if I didn't know, I would have said maybe 1 or 2.
Yeah.
Okay, that's a good sign.
Cool.
Let's move this over.
And there's quite a lot like that in there. If you pull a couple of the other ones out.
Yes, same again.
They're looking good, aren't they?
Yeah, this one's, uh, this one's not the best. I just— oh, hang on, no, there's a bit of honey there. Yeah, like it's capped.
There's not many frames in here that are not looking good, and as a heavy frame, there's not much space. They'll finish capping all of that over. Yeah, and then some of the outer ones like that, you can see, Zane, A bit of nectar in it.
Yeah, yeah.
So out of frame, still empty on one side, but they're working the other side, which means that once they fill this box up, then they will start working on the one above it.
See, that's weird though. There's, there's 3 frames here.
Yeah.
Middle one is full of nectar.
Yeah.
Like ram-packed, but these 2 are just, just kind of only just being worked.
So pull them out, let's have a look, see what they're coming out like.
That one Not much going on there. Just starting to put a bit of nectar in that one.
Yep.
And then this one is basically ready to be capped over.
You know what the difference is between the two?
Go on.
So see this one here? See how dark it is?
Ah, yeah.
Previous comb where, like, they would've had honeycomb directly to go into.
Got you.
Whereas that one's foundation, so they've had to do some work to get it to a point where they can keep the honey in it.
That makes sense.
It is a great observation though, Xander, and useful for anyone at home to realise that, that if you've got drawn comb, you're gonna end up with much quicker results, much more honey. Whereas if you've got foundation, The extraction is gonna be a little bit more wobbly 'cause the frames can blow as well, but it will be a bit slower. Takes the bees kind of a bit of energy to even get them to this point here where they can start to store that honey because they have to draw all of that wax comb out. But anything like that, you can take these ones, the ones that you're not happy with, then if you put them closer towards the middle, they should work them a little bit quicker. This one.
Mm-hmm.
Move it over there. So there we go. So that one's got the space maintained and then we've got plenty of space over here. Yeah, so that's the one, that's going to be the one to look for next week, which is the 1, 2, 3, the 4th one in. It's got tons of space above it that can draw the frames out that way and there's really like not that much going on at all.
Yeah, so the 4th and 5th there, if we see those filling up, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?
Yeah. Okay, let's go in the brood box then. So this is hopefully where we're going to see Some real action. We want to see the queen, we want to see eggs, we definitely want to see some nice capped brood, and we don't want any swarm cells, Zane. So come on, let's cross our fingers.
Okay, yeah.
Good?
Yeah, it's got some good weight.
Happy with that? Okay, nice. If you pop that on there, Zane, and then we can get the queen excluder off. It's getting late on in the year now, yeah, the wasps are around, there's robbing bees around. Do you want me to show you how I would do an inspection on this colony if we weren't doing it on a video, yeah?
Yeah.
I'm liking what I'm seeing here already though, which is lots and lots of capped brood. And then I'm just looking for one thing really. I'm looking for eggs. I want to go in there and I want to see eggs. Right, eggs found. Yeah. Also perfect capped brood from the eggs. That means the queen that we put in is perfectly mated. We knew she was going to be. This is where people get it wrong. They think now they need to go and find the queen. You definitely don't need to see her. We've got eggs, so we know the queen is there. And she is there.
Just by there. That's good news, mate. Yep.
So we've seen eggs, we've seen the queen, we've seen capped brood. The only thing that I'm looking for now is swarm cells. And this is kind of how quick I would do the inspection to look for swarm cells.
So easy as that.
No swarm cells. Like, as easy as that. And this is where people spend too much time doing their inspections and adding risk in there. We know where the queen is. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Just going to put this in a bit of a safer space. I knew the queen was somewhere around there. I didn't want to shake the bees near her or squish her.
Mm-hmm.
But this is a really safe way of putting the bees back in to not roll any queens. So you shake the bees off and then put the frame back in. So simple as that, Zane. We'll get everything back on. Your brain's not working right. Zane's brain is not working. I'll fill it in. That is good news, Zane, we are back on track. Yeah, like properly back on track. That next super might get filled next week, but I wouldn't think we're going to get any more than that.
Okay, and how long have we got left in the season then?
Don't know, because the, the rain is really like compressing it down. Not going to have that long left, but we are quite high up here and the season's quite late up here, so I think we've still got maybe 3 weeks left for this one.
Is that it?
Yeah, 3 or 4 maybe. It's heather, so you can go quite late here, but we need to We need to treat the bees and get them nice and healthy going into winter. We can't do that with honey on.
Okay.
So we just have to—
So yeah, you've got to call it and say, right, let's take the honey, now it's time to treat them.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I think that's 2 or 3 weeks away.
Right, I will be happy if we could, even if we just get the 3rd super on at some point.
Okay.
And we get a couple of frames in there.
Yeah.
Although, right, I say that, I'd be happy with 2 supers.
2 supers is good.
I am happy. If we can get a 3rd on there, get a couple of frames in. Job done. That's the, that's the high end of the mission. Okay, bottom end is we've got to have 2 4-sweepers.
Okay, Zane has set the parameters for success there. Yeah, yeah, and we have to achieve it.
You need a goal. You gotta aim for something, haven't you?
So enough talking, it's time to get out of this very hot bee suit. We will see you all next week.
