Mid-winter Take Aways
Already by mid-winter, we have seen some losses in our apiaries. This is either due to the cold snap we had around Christmas or just plain starvation. And we're not out of the woods yet, with more potential cold snaps to come. It's always sad to see a hive loss whenever we do inspections. Here are some strategies we implement to better prepare and what to look for in this roller coaster of weather we have here, in central Texas.
Firstly, preparation starts well ahead of wintertime- soon after the honey harvest. Different regions have different climates. What works in the northern states does not necessarily work in the south. While our temperate weather is in our favor, we have more time to prepare before getting into freezing temperatures.
To begin, we want to test mite levels before the cold weather season. Colonies should be below the economic threshold, which means less than 3% mite sample. If there is a 3% or higher mite population, immediate pest management is required.
Another important step is weatherization. We place entrance reducers on the entrances of all of our hives, blocking cold air and allowing bees just enough aperture to enter/exit. We also check our equipment for any cracks and wear that would allow cold air to seep in - migratory lids and bottoms boards. We replace any damaged equipment. If you are in a pinch, you may use duct tape to cover cracks or address leaks from bowed migratory covers. Meanwhile, the honey bees will make their own weatherization, sealing cracks and gaps in the box and at the entrance with their propolis.
Second, as we get closer to the fall season, we'll start supplemental feeding our colonies making sure each hive has adequate resources for their consumption. We provide sugar-syrup and pollen patties. Reference here on bee nutrition. Around January we do another check to make sure our hives have not used up all of the stored resources. In this case we'll start with supplemental feeding again.
Sometimes honey bee colonies have plenty of honey but still starve. They are too weak and few in number to access the food stores in freezing weather. They want to remain in their cluster to preserve heat. This photo shows starved bees clinging in their honey comb, too cold to get their food.
This is where managing weak colonies comes in. You can combine the two weak colonies together in one hive box and let themselves work out which queen prevails. One strong colony going into winter has better survival chances than two weak colonies. Another option is to piggyback a weak colony on top of a strong colony with a double-screen division board that will allow the heat from the strong colony to rise up and help out the weak colony keep warm in the cold weather. There are other variations of these methods as well.
Sadly, hives losses are just a part of beekeeping. Some are expected, others are not, but it’s always a troubling sight. Overall, it is always a good idea to be proactive and stay ahead of the weather, rather than reactive with your bees. Reach out to us with your questions.
Preparing for Swarm Season
Swarm season will be soon upon us. In central and south Texas, it's not unusual for swarms to be active from early spring to late fall, while different natural flora bloom throughout these months. Some regions will have more of a prolific nectar flow season than others around the same time of the year. Our big nectar flow is mainly in the spring, followed by a small nectar flow in the fall.
Swarms tend to happen with the onset of the nectar flow. There are many other reasons why swarms occur throughout the year. It could be that the colony has outgrown its space, congestion, lack of ventilation, lack of laying space, strong colony, disease infestation, and or reduced queen pheromones.
When colonies swarm, roughly three-fourth of the bees along with their mother queen will leave the hive. Whereas each individual honey bee, of any caste (worker, queen, drone) works for the totality of the colony, swarming equates to its reproduction, the birth of a new colony.
Did you know that scout bees (older than the foraging bees) are the ones to search for a new home for their swarm?
PachaMama Bee’s services include removing colonies and swarms from unwanted places. Whether they've been established in some structure for years or recently perched on tree branches, we see how quickly swarms can establish themselves into cavities of homes just within a few days of arriving. They quickly build fresh comb and the queen starts laying; foragers are already coming back with pollen and nectar. They do not waste any time making themselves at home in their new location (and getting ready for the next big season, so they can survive winter).
Though we cannot alter this biological imperative, there are ways to work with Mother Nature. Enter swarm management. To begin, the beekeeper must know his/her goals with the hive. For PachaMama Bees, the goal is to propagate our colonies. Loosing seventy-five percent of a colony’s bees due to swarming, can be a bit of disappointment. But if you ever get to see a swarm happen in action, sit back and enjoy it. It’s a beautiful thing.
In short, here’s what we do to manage to prevent swarming.
Set up swarm traps
Clip the wings of queens
Add more brood space to colonies
Cut queen cells
Split colonies with new queens
We prepare way ahead of time. Securing spring queens by ordering in the fall. Fall is also the time we build up inventory, assemble equipment, and do a bit of equipment painting. We assemble and make ready nuc boxes.
Inside the hives, we make sure that our colonies have plenty of food resources to make it through winter. We'll supplement as needed by feeding by sugar water and pollen patties.
In the first months of the new year, hive inspections are revealing our colonies have plenty of food resources and are at full strength. Proactive measures taken in the fall have paid off; not to mention checking and treating for varroa mites.
In early spring we'll start looking for swarm queen cells. Swarm queen cells are usually located at the bottom of the comb. But they can be found in other spots in the comb as well.
If we find queen cells in a hive, we'll cut most of the queen cells and leave only the largest two queen cells in the comb. Then take two frames of brood with nurse bees and a frame of honey/pollen. These frames along with the queen cells in the comb are placed in a nuc box. The original hive is moved away to another spot in the yard. The nuc is placed in the spot that the original hive was located, with the same entrance orientation. This is because the foraging force of bees will help the nuc grow, reestablishing themselves in their new home while the original hive will rebuild its population on their own with the help of the nectar flow. Later in the season, we’ll requeen the older queen from the original hive.
We perform this action over again with the rest of our apiaries with newly mated queens. Some colonies will requeen themselves without our intervention. While there are many methods of hive splitting, we mainly focus on colony splits with a mated queen. Strong colonies are chosen for hive splits. Sometimes we’ll get two or three hive splits from one colony- and that is why it’s so important to manage for swarms.
References
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN970
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjUwMWU5OC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MjMyYTY1MjYtN2Y1Yi00MDYxLThhZjgtYjA5MjQ2YTE5YWJk?ep=14
The Resourceful Beekeeper
Anybody involved with beekeeping knows it’s a constant learning process as new research comes out, new products hit the market, or unexpected freezes and abnormal amounts of rainfall take your season on a new course. I’m continuously learning and filtering information that is out there to help grow my hives and to help you with yours. In this blog, I put together a collection of free resources suitable for both the novice and experienced beekeeper. Find my description of the content and format so you may choose what interests you most.
First, a word to the wise for those thinking of just letting nature take her course, or becoming convinced to do so by someone advocating for this hands-off approach. You are keeping the bees, you are their manager. This is not nature. Don’t forget, bees in the wild have a high mortality rate. So you don’t want to lose your investment and probably don’t want to harm the bees of your neighbors either by spreading pathogens. If you want your bees to stay alive, thrive, be healthy, and possibly harvest honey from your hive, be a proactive beekeeper and be informed!
From The University of Florida Extension Lab, this podcast interviews master beekeepers, commercial beekeepers, field research scientists, and more. I listen to this when I'm on the road. Find it on online here: https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honey-bee/podcast/#
Randy Oliver has a mountain of knowledge. He does the legwork we can all benefit from. His website articles break down the why, how, when in beekeeping.
https://scientificbeekeeping.com/
The interactive Varroa Management Decision Tool - answer a few easy questions and the program will generate seasonal treatment options for managing varroa in your colonies. Bonus, there are videos to go with it for those that enjoy visual learning.
Remember, It’s always important to follow the label. Like those podcasters in ‘Two Bees in a Pod’ say “The Label is the Law”.
https://cantilever-instruction.com/varroatool/story_html5.html
Additionally, the Best Management Practices for Bee Health are downloadable on The Honey Bee Coalition’s website.
https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/hivehealthbmps/
The University of Guelph Honey Bee Research Centre has put out good educational beekeeping videos. They’re located in Canada but a lot of their educational material applies far.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3mjpM6Av4bxbxps_Gh5YPw
Bob Binney does not hold anything back, as he lays out large-scale honey production as a commercial beekeeper. His sourwood honey has earned top honors as the "Best Honey in the World."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDyga7OtRJSzHzXXXurYCmQ/videos
Geek out on scientific research papers on honey bees related articles at
https://www.researchgate.net/
Or cut to the chase with those 12-page, jargon-filled articles with this helpful recap of the latest research on pollinator health science in Notes from the Lab, https://blogs.cornell.edu/mcartlab/notes-from-the-lab/
DIY kind of person, build your own equipment.
http://www.michiganbees.org/beekeeping/in-the-beekeepers-workshop/
The deep plunge, becoming a Master Beekeeper. The University of Florida Research and Extension Lab has online courses you can take.
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honey-bee/
Or if you are here in Texas, Texas A&M offers an online course, but with in-person testing.
https://masterbeekeeper.tamu.edu/master/
And there’s more…. Follow PachaMama Bees on social media and this blog for updated resources, tips, and best practices.
Proactive Feeding: Spring
First of all, I’d like to thank all the researchers and beekeepers that have put in decades of work to help us understand better the world of bees and beekeeping. And there's a whole lot more to learn ahead of us. While beekeepers try to optimize and have success with honey bees for whatever goal we have, it's up to us to lead into the next generation of beekeeping.
Personally I've been beekeeping for a handful of years, and I expect to do this as long as possible, or physically allowed. As a beekeeper I’ll always have an evolving path for growth and experience. I've had many successes with my hives, but I've also had failures. Hive losses have become an expected part of beekeeping. Some years I've ranged from 25-40% hive gross losses. Fortunately, they're usually made up with requeening, hive splits, and swarm captures. I’ve raised survivor stock year after year, but that was a small hobby and ended selling my hives only to buy more. The survivor stock always comes through and makes up for the rest. I strive to decrease the amount of hive losses that occur every year. There are factors that affect our hive losses. The number one is varroa mites. They spread disease and weaken hives, ultimately killing the hive.
So how do we optimize our own beekeeping practices? Well, there are tons of research articles and practices. Before diving into this, I’m not endorsing products or practices. There are many recommendations and proven techniques, so it's up to you to make your mind on how you would like to approach your path to becoming an experienced beekeeper, and perhaps help others along the way.
Usually, honeybees are able to acquire all of their dietary needs from available flowers or stored resources in the hive. Under normal circumstances, bees are able to forage and store enough pollen and honey to provide for their nutritional needs throughout the year.[1] Why do anything at all to the bees? Don’t they already take care of themselves in the wild?
Well, my friend, we don't live in the wild or own undeveloped, undisturbed land with thousands of acres of prime natural resources readily available to us. Not only that, we have taken honey bees from their natural environment and placed them into hive boxes.
Tom Seeley talks about ‘Darwinian Beekeeping’, and mentions Darwin’s Black Bee Box where natural selection is allowed to take place without interference. Natural selection is a very fascinating subject with honey bees. Though it may work for a hobbyist, it will not work for a sideliner or commercial beekeeper.
Once we start spending more time and money on beekeeping, one question to ask yourself could be. What’s your purpose with your hives? If your purpose is to harvest honey from your hive or do hive splits, then you're counting on having a good nectar flow in your area, that means having enough resources for your bees to forage and produce excess honey from their hard work they put in, that means you need to have a strong hive going into the nectar flow season, that means your hive needs to not swarm right before that nectar flow starts. Among other things, that means being prepared for it.
Supplemental feeding during nectar dearth has been a part of my feeding regimen, which I intend to keep on doing. Why? Because natural resources are not optimal throughout the year for bees to thrive season after season. Sometimes you may get a drought, really hot summer, or some natural disaster that can have a domino effect, honey bees end up having the short end of the stick. This equals poor nutrition.
Furthermore, honey bees require carbohydrates (sugars in nectar or honey), amino acids (protein from pollen), lipids (fatty acids, sterols), vitamins, minerals (salts), and water. Additionally, these nutrients must be present in the right ratio for honey bees to survive and thrive.[2] What do you mean by the right ratio? Many studies have shown poly-floral pollen diets are superior to a single species of pollen, this factors into the health and longevity of the honey bee. If this ratio is off balance and their food source is poor, honey bees will underperform.
What if your hive is not strong enough? By strong I mean having about 40-60 thousand bees in your hive. A weak hive would be about 10 thousand bees, this is about 3 frames of bees in your hive. To help out the weak hives to get ready for the spring nectar flow. You will need to start taking measures. Six to eight weeks beforehand, they need supplemental feed, (e.g. pollen patties, sugar water syrup). You can do research on how to make your own or buy it ready made to feed your bees. Pollen provides the only natural protein source for bees. They need quantity and quality to raise their young and become healthy fat bees. Feeding supplemental patties early in the season will stimulate them to start raising young, because the natural pollen they otherwise would be foraging is not necessarily available. There must be discipline in this, a regular visit to check on your bees is necessary to keep on feeding them, and making sure they don’t swarm off right before nectar flow starts, otherwise their brood production will stall. Put in the time to do your own research!
Nectar flows stimulate hygienic behavior.[3] It’s also important to be able to nip the varroa mite population from growing along with your bees. Seasonally in a trend of time, the mite population tends to have a rising curve right after the curve of brood increases during nectar flow. This is because they feed on the brood, adult bees, and reproduce inside the capped cells during the brood rearing period. In other words, the mite population increases after the brood population increases if left untreated. The hygienic behavior of bees is best when they're at full strength hive. Healthy colonies groom themselves, remove dead and dying adults. They employ nature’s resources and they use propolis. It helps keep a clean hive, and kill foreign bacteria. Due to its waxy nature and mechanical properties, bees use propolis in the construction and repair of their hives for sealing openings and cracks, smoothing out the internal walls, use as a protective barrier against external invaders like snakes, lizards, and so on, and against weathering threats like wind and rain.[4]
In order to optimize a honey bee colony at full strength as beekeepers we would need to take necessary measures. Pollen patties and sugar water syrup are a good source of help, as well as treating your hives for mites. A weak colony will need a boost. Their chance of survival dramatically decreases if there are very few natural resources available to them. Therefore supplemental feeding is necessary in order to give the weak hive a fighting chance. There are other factors to consider as stated before. Being prepared for the nectar flow season requires investing time and resources to follow through in keeping your hive strong and alive.
[1] https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/18/36/ad/0755bd1756238e/US20120308686A1.pdf
[2] https://bee-health.extension.org/honey-bee-nutrition/
[3] https://www.bvbeeks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Fat-Bees-Skinny-Bees.pdf
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872021/
Propolis, A brief education
Many people are familiar with the benefits of local honey and the versality of natural bees’ wax, but the bounty of the honey bee hive has another special provision, and that is propolis.
“Propolis” comes from the Greek words “pro,” in front of, before, and “polis” meaning, city. Together, it is “in defense of the city.” Such as a defensive wall, propolis is used as a sealant to protect and extend honey bee hives. Propolis is a sticky resin made from a mixture of bee saliva and tree pollen. Also called “bee glue” it actually reflects the type of trees, sap, and other botanical sources collected by the honey bees. In some parts of the world, propolis is green (from Brazilian baccharis dracunculifolia) or red (from mangroves). In Texas, propolis is mostly yellow and brown.
Like honey, people have used propolis far back as we know in history. Incans drank it reduce fever, ancient Greeks used for treating ulcers, bruises, and sores, the Chinese used it for dental pain, and its use is recorded among ancient Persian, Roman, and even French militaries in the 19th century for treatment of wounds. All of these applications make sense, as modern research has shown propolis contains flavonoids, which have antibiotic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidants.
To collect a bit of propolis, beekeepers can simply scrape it off the hive box with their hive tool. Those producing propolis on a large scale, use a propolis screen below the inner cover, then take it out for removal when it’s filled.
Ready for human consumption, propolis can be found in liquid form, in a liquor or water-based tincture. It is also available in capsules or a granular form, that can be sprinkled over a salad or blended into a smoothie. You may find health-focused coffee shops or juice bars offering propolis in their beverages. If you could benefit from antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, antifungal- and who couldn’t – try some propolis! It’s PachaMama’s (Mother Earth) medicine.
Our Sweet, Gentle Honey Bees Gone Wild!
Photo credit Jose Gutierrez
Why have our sweet, gentle honey bees gone wild, so to speak?! Our gentle honey bee breeds became more defensive. Few factors attribute to this:
Weather
It’s hotter plus there is humidity, so you can imagine how someone might not be their best with these conditions. Bees will work more to keep themselves cooled. Inside their hive, they will fan their small wings to direct airflow out of the hive. The normal hive temperature inside is 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature also allows them to produce honey.
Nectar dearth
This is a shortage of nectar-producing flowers. Summer is when nectar dearth happens, little rain, high temperatures, and drought. The honey bees’ stored food they worked hard to collect during the spring nectar flow comes into play. Since they are not able to find much food during nectar dearth, they’ll be on guard of their food storage. Yes, that means more stings! So be careful, as a beekeeper one should be fully protected and have the smoker ready. This is no time for-show-and-tell your beehive to your friends. Spring and fall are recommended for any apiary tours you might have in mind. Make sure that they have a water source nearby, this will help greatly. Or you’ll have honey bees cooling themselves in your pool, perhaps drinking your beer because it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.
Honey Robbers
Give to the poor, take from the rich. Or bigger is bully. Let’s face it we all know that humans do all the taking, it’s been like this for thousands of years, season after season and it’s not going to change, so honey bees have developed this instinct to protect themselves and their honey storage. Usually, after the spring nectar flow, honey harvest happens in summer. As a good steward for our honey bees, we want the best for them and to see their success. The other robbers may be the next door hive, other insects, rodents, and mammals. It’s nothing compared to how much we rob from these hard-working little beautiful insects.
Queenless
A colony that has gone queenless, will be a bit cranky, nervous, perhaps lethargic. Listen to the sound of the hive. It will be a higher pitch than your usual buzzing sound. Install a new queen if this is the case.
As the season changes, your honey bees will go back to their normal, sweet gentle behavior.
Quick comments/thoughts on neighbors, feeding, and treating
Installing hive beetle trap with safe, food-grade oil
Hives and neighbors, that’s a good one to tackle. What do you do if you’re neighbor gets stung? Own up and hopefully they’re nice enough to let you know what happened. This way you can address the situation accordingly. Honey bribes may work. Smooth things over with a little sweetness.
Need to mow the lawn and there’s a hive on your yard? Few things. Be quick. Wear a head veil. You can also place a temporary board leaning against the front entrance of the hive so they can’t see you mowing in front of them.
Feeding and treating for pests, I think there are many options available to you. Tons of research has been poured into treating and feeding bees to maximize strength, health, honey yield, and breed of the colony. It sounds like bees are turning into the next cattle for ranchers. In my view feeding is great for bees when they need it. Help bees before they need it. Treating, introducing chemicals into the hive to treat your bees will create an imbalance in their ecological system, this will affect them over a period of time. Although it will get the job done, the choice its entirely up to you. We’ll discuss more of this in future posts.
Being able to identify what your bees are doing? How they are doing? What to look for? Smell? Sound? This knowledge comes with research, experience, and plenty of reference. So, you may join a bee club, ask for a mentor, perhaps a coworker is a beekeeper. Do your research online, get books, attend seminars and beekeeping classes. And a big one for me, plain old trial and error. There’s nothing like first-hand experience of success and failure.
Preparing yourself and your equipment
A gentler breed is preferred when staring out with your first bees, because one way or another you will learn to respect bees. It’s better to get few stings with a beginner hive than hundreds of bees aiming their stingers at you! Have the proper equipment. Hive suits, one larger size is recommended to give you slack and ventilation when moving around, also bees will not be able to get their stingers through so easily. You’d be surprise that they can sting through two layers of clothing. To cover major parts, I wear a hat veil with strings to cover my head, long sleeve shirt, and jeans. During the hotter months and higher humidity levels, there’ll be some sweating going inside your bee suit. To prevent sweat from running down your face and into the hive you can wear a bandanna on your head. For people with long hair, tie it up, don’t let it get in your way of your inspection.
A lot of the things mentioned may sound simple, common sense, and practical. The best advice I’ve heard from experienced beekeepers is “let the bees be.” Sometimes I think that’s silly after all the work I put in all these years. But looking back sometimes you can do too much, and also not enough. Have your focus, have your goal set to when you’re working with bees. They’ll appreciate you as a handler, and of there will be course less casualties on both sides. Move carefully, just as you are watching them, they’re also watching you. A bunch of little eyeballs looking at your hands moving around. When their little heads lined up in row are sticking out between the frames and watching you, you may puff a little smoke on them. It only takes one sting to trigger the alert pheromone for the colony. In that case, with your smoker you can puff at the place of sting, to mask the pheromone. A honey bee sting is an unforgettable experience, or any stings for that matter.
Be prepared to treat your sting(s), have something readily available to treat it, I use an anti-itch topical cream. Since bees are protecting their home you can’t blame them for trying. They have a whole ecological system going on down there.
Tools and equipment. Pick your weapons of invasion carefully! Just kidding though it could be seen this way from the bees’ perspective. I inspect multiple hives throughout the day. Over the years, I found a bucket organizer (a sleeve with pockets that go around a 5-gallon bucket) the most practical and convenient set-up to carry from hive to hive. In this bucket organizer I have a hive tool (j hook), frame grabber with manipulator (good for wood and plastic frames), frame perch, 9-frame spacer, bee brush, heavy duty scissors, flashlight, black permanent marker (for labeling on tape), roll of white duct tape, a couple of entrance reducers, couple small blocks of wood (wood wedges to help prop up spacing between hive boxes), lighter, smoker wood plug, 2 queen clip cages, fillet knife (why, am I gutting fish? No, it’s to cut comb as needed), and needle-nose pliers.
Last but not least it’s the glorious smoker. Get a good quality smoker, as it will save you countless hours of keeping the smoke alive. I keep my smoker in a different bucket, on top of my fuel (wood shavings). Understand how the smoker works - inside the smoker there is an inner round, base that is perforated with metal legs, the breather plate. If you’re able to fix these legs to the bottom of the smoker with the legs touching the base of the smoker, and just above the air inlet, then you’ve won half the battle. This will allow air as you squeeze the bellow to flow into the chamber easily to create mix with heat and fuel, thus creating smoke and potentially a flaming mini torch if you’re not careful. This can burn the little wings of your bees. Technique, technique, technique.
To use a smoker is sort an art, that must be mastered ASAP. Rule of thumb to starting up the smoker, fill it with your preferred choice of fuel one third of the chamber full. Fuel will vary, based on region and what you have access to. Dried wood shavings, pine, pellets, etc all work fine. Some say one quarter full, but one third is good. Light it up with your match or lighter. Let it catch on fire a bit. You can hold it momentarily parallel to the ground so that the flame moves up across the surface area. When this is going, and there is a flame across the surface, start pumping the bellow. When the flames have a nice ember color, and it starts to grow taller than the smoker, quickly add more fuel while continuing to pump the bellow until chamber is full, be careful with your hands. The smoke should be white and cool to touch. It should not feel hot. If hot, retry the process from the beginning. You will use your smoker until the end of your beekeeping career, so to keep it from building up tar around opening lid, just scrape off the stuff.
The hive components quality is most important to your bees. Your hive boxes should be flush with the bottom board and to each other. As this will keep other insects from getting in there, less weather damage, and bees won’t spend energy on trying to seal it up with propolis. It is recommended the hive faces the morning sun and not the afternoon sun. We all in Texas know how hot it gets here. Again, bees can focus their energy into growing the colony and making delicious honey, instead of trying to cool themselves all afternoon long. The hive facing the fence works too.
Getting Started with Beekeeping
I’d like to begin by welcoming you and congratulating you for your first steps into becoming a beekeeper. It’s an exciting venture and wonderful personal skillset to learn. When I first started beekeeping, it was out of curiosity. Then it became a personal drive of its own, as many of us have been blessed with a passion for taking care of nature and the cycle of life. I think you will find this an ever-rewarding experience.
First, my thoughts about what to do when starting beekeeping? Like I say in music, “Your first lesson is free, that is, pick your instrument.” With beekeeping you’ll have to line up your first hive or hives depending on what you wish to handle. In this blog, there’ll be a bunch of tips for both beginners and experienced beekeepers. I’m always learning. Personal growth is something to be proud of and I’m happy to share what I’ve learn with you.
For beginners, get two hives to start with. This way you can compare hives, have reference points, use the stronger hive to help the weak one if that’s the case. Make hive splits to grow your hives. Don’t harvest honey right away. Be observant, study patterns, and take notes, refer back to them. E.g. inspection date, hive number, number of frames full of bees, brood, honey, pollen, queen breed, growth progress, status of hive, location, feeding season, how many bees flying in and out, pollen on their legs, queen present? (you can tell by seeing fresh 1-3 day old eggs in cells if queen is not seen). Get my hive inspection checklist here.
The ugly truth is that you will lose hives over a period of time. This happens seasonally, it happens randomly, for other factors you may not be aware of, it happens instantly, it happens when you least expect it, when you least want it to happen, and of course, by beekeeper error or lack of skill. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. Talk it out. There are gains and losses; it’s part your experience. This will make you a better beekeeper.