The Complete Hive Inspection Checklist

A good inspection follows a rhythm. Once it becomes automatic, you stop forgetting things and start noticing what changed since last time. Here is the order we recommend — the same one HiveLog's inspection form follows.

Before you open the hive

Light the smoker, keep your tools close, and record the basics before you disturb anything: the date, the weather, and the temperament of the colony as you approach. Calm or defensive at the entrance is information worth keeping.

Frame by frame

• Queen: seen or not, and if seen, her general condition. A missed queen isn't a problem — a quiet, dark hive with no eggs is.
• Brood pattern: solid or spotty. Spotty brood is often the first sign of a failing queen or disease.
• Frames of bees, brood and honey: rough counts tell you whether the colony is growing, steady or shrinking.
• Food stores: can the colony ride out a week of bad weather on what it has?

Pests and problems

Check for mites if your method calls for it on this visit, look for pests and disease, and scan for swarm cells along the bottom edges of the frames. Swarm cells on the frame edge mean the colony is thinking about leaving.

Close and record

Record the actions you took — feeding, treating, adding a super — and any follow-up date. A note as simple as “check again in 10 days” is what turns a log into a management tool. HiveLog stores all of this per hive so the next inspection starts where the last one ended.