How do you manage the hive bodies - frames and supers?

[JIbata]

The more boxes I add to the colony - the more difficult it is to manuever and handle the frames.  Should I be checking each box individually every time I open the hive up?

[asleitch]

I just lift off all the supers and dive into the brood box. I look in one super now and again just the check everythings is OK, and only lever a central frame out when I'm doing that. I trust you are using a queen excluder, and if so, theres unlikely to be anything of interest in the super, other than to estimate how much stores they have, do they need more space.

Adam

[Beth Kirkley]

Mostly I only look were I need to. When I inspect, I have a plan, and questions I want answered - how are they doing on the new frames? how much honey is capped? how much room does the queen have to lay?

So I only go in to the box I've got questions on. Some days I'll look in two boxes of one hive - at each frame. But by the time I'm done with two, the bees are ready for me to quit tearing things apart.

Beth

[Archie]

when you inspect your hives, record what you have done and what you have seen in each hive in a journal.  this will help when you go back into the hives for a comparason.  I find that I forget some things I have seen or have done or need to do.  the journal keeps me out of potential trouble.

Archie

[Queen Bee]

First thing I do when I enter the apiary is to watch the fronts of the hives--notice how many bees are coming and going, are they bringing in pollen, nectur? are they thousands of bees at the enterance fanning? Few or no bees? This seems to tell me, If they are having problems.  Then I do a deep inspection on any hive that is not doing as well as it was the last visit. I will break it down to the brood chamber and see if there are brood,eggs, etc.  

If there are lots of  bees  coming and going, (normally for that hive)I just check to see if they need more supers..

As stated above--keep a record of your hives and study them each.. Get used to what is normal for that hive and you'll know at a glance what needs to be done and when... Good luck