What a healthy colony looks like

It's the middle of June. Anne lifts a frame from the centre of her first box and holds it up to the light, the way her mentor showed her. It is covered in bees, and under them is a wide oval of cells capped in a soft brown wax, almost every one of them the same. Around it, a band of cells with shiny nectar and pollen. At the top, a strip of capped honey.

She doesn't know it yet, but this is what a healthy colony looks like.

Every time you open a hive, you are asking a few simple questions. Is there a laying queen? Is the brood healthy? Do the bees have enough food? Is there room? And are the bees calm? This lecture is about reading the answers straight off the frames.

Start with the brood, the eggs, larvae and pupae in the centre of the nest. In a healthy colony, the brood is solid and compact. Almost every cell in the brood area holds an egg, a larva or a pupa. A good queen fills a frame with only a few cells skipped here and there.

To see it properly, you need to get the bees out of the way. Many beekeepers give the frame a sharp shake over the open hive, so most of the bees drop back in, and then look at the comb. If you haven't seen the queen, set that frame aside carefully, or check her first, so you don't shake her out onto the ground.

Look at the larvae. Healthy larvae are pearly white, glistening, lying in the bottom of their cells. That colour matters. As we'll see later, larvae that turn yellow, brown or grey are a warning sign.

Now look at the cappings, the wax lids over the pupae. In a healthy colony they are all about the same colour, and slightly domed, like the top of a loaf. Worker cappings are fairly flat; drone cappings stand up higher and bulge, which is normal too.

How big should the colony be? A strong colony in summer has brood and bees across eight to ten frames. A new nucleus colony starts much smaller, and that's fine, as long as it's growing from one inspection to the next.

Next, food. Ontario's ministry advises that every colony should have at least two frames of honey at all times. You'll usually see honey around the top and outer edges of the brood, and pollen, in its bright colours, in a band between the honey and the brood. If the frames around the brood are empty in a season when they shouldn't be, the colony may be short of food.

You'll also find queen cups, small round cups along the bottom edges of frames. An empty cup is normal. A cup with an egg or a larva in it means the colony has started raising a queen, and you need to find out why. We'll cover that in the lecture on swarming.

And temperament. A healthy colony is busy but calm. Bees walk on the frames, a few fly up, and the hum stays steady. A colony that boils out of the box and follows you across the yard every time is a problem, and the usual fix is to requeen it with a gentler queen.

Now let's change one fact. Suppose Anne's frame looks different. Instead of a solid oval, the brood is patchy, scattered cells of brood with empty cells in between, like pepper shaken on a plate. Some cappings are darker, sunken, or have small holes in them. That spotty pattern can mean a failing queen, but it can also be a sign of brood disease. Anne shouldn't guess. She should look closer, and if in doubt, call an inspector.

The mistake beginners make is judging a colony by how many bees are flying at the entrance. A busy entrance tells you very little. The frames tell you the truth: the brood pattern, the colour of the larvae, the cappings and the stores.

And write it down. Ontario guidance asks beekeepers to keep records of what they see and do. A short note after each inspection, brood, stores, queen, temperament, and anything odd, is how you'll notice change over time.

Here is the rule, in one breath. A healthy colony has solid, compact brood, pearl white larvae, even, slightly domed cappings, at least two frames of honey, and a calm temperament; spotty brood with sunken or punctured cappings means look closer, not guess.

That's the end of module two. Next, we get into the equipment: the Langstroth hive, part by part.