County Inspector Visit 6/16/12

Summit County Bee Inspector Laura Durban called ahead Friday evening (very courteous) to announce her availability and intent to inspect my apiary Saturday 6/16/12.  I asked that she not inspect hives actively rearing queens (denoted with bricks on top of hives, queen right hives have rocks weighing down the telescoping outer covers).  I accidentally had a brick on top of Hive 6, so it was not inspected even though it is queen right.

She came after I had left for Father's Day related adventures, so I was not present of the inspection.  She left the following report:

We went last year with an AWOL county inspector and therefore no inspection.  Welcome, Laura!

5/29/2010: County Bee Inspector and Fourth Inspection

Conditions: Sunny, 76F
Present: Summit County Bee Inspector and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 12:30pm. Inspected numerous frames.

The summit county bee inspector dropped by on Saturday 5/29 and we checked out the hives together. I was particularly interested in talking about my decision to reverse the upper and lower chamers on the overwintered colony and if that was working outwell. He said the old queen is laying all over the frames in the deep now (which is now on top) and he said everything looks great, very normal. So I guess it was a good move. No diseases noted in either hive and very low levels of mites. Lots more bees in the old colony compared to the new, but the new has more food stored up (from the previous colony), so they have a bit less work to do. Not quite time to super either hive yet, so I continue to feed sugar syrup. I will go ahead and ready some additional frames to super, maybe as soon as next week in the old colony. They'll have to build out comb in those supers, but they should produce some surplus honey, at least from the overwintered colony. I'm excited to super!

9/16/09: County Bee Inspection!

Conditions: Sunny, 76F
Present: Cuyahoga County Bee Inspector
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11am? Inspected all frames.
Background: So I get a call at work from Annie, my wife, saying someone is here and they are opening up the beehives. Someone official. They said they could not call ahead as I did not provide a phone number. I have heard some horror stories about county bee inspectors transmitting all kinds of diseases from other apiaries due to infected hive tools and protective equipment. My poor wife, I freaked out on her and told her to tell the inspector not to inspect my hives until I was able to speak to them. Except when Annie called me, the inspector was already in the Russian hive inspecting... Annie was upset because I had never told her not to allow an inspector to inspect without my permission, and reasonably so. It all worked out. I got to speak to Lisa Wright, the Geauga and Cuyahoga county bee inspector, and she was able to reassure me that she is just as concerned about the biosecurity of my bees as I am. When I spoke to her she had completed the first inspection and was about to move on to the next hive. We're planning on moving in October and she issued me a Transfer Permit and wished me luck. When I got home, I had report #49 waiting for me.

Observations: From the report I can discern that Lisa observed varroa in both colonies, and both colonies have twisted wing virus, which is a disease transmitted by varroa. The Russian hive has sacbrood, a seasonal malady they should be able to recover from. She recommended replacing the old comb (that we put in there to give them a head start) next spring, which we were planning to do. The Italian hive had dysentary and "k"-wing, which is a possible sign of Nosema, which is more serious. She recommended treating them with Fumagellin during fall and spring feeding. Despite that list of maladies, her general comments to me (verbal) were that things looked good and smelled wonderful. I think she just likes the smell of beehives. She commented that in general I should adopt the practice of keeping all frames pressed tightly together and centered in the hive body, and that I should "adpot practice to prevent leaving dead bees between where hive bodies come together." I'm not sure what practice this is, since the bees are pretty comfortable placing themselves between hive bodies before I can stack the next super on there... When there are 60,000 in a hive, a few get squished. All in all, it was nice to get a mostly healthy report on the bees. I would have liked to be there to observe her inspection practice and see the twisted wing, "k"wing, signs of dysentary, etc. Maybe next year. I guess I'll provide a phone number next time I register.