I find that if you check the first brood frame you pull EVERY inspection and do a thorough frame by frame check twice a year you can keep on top of disease with spending half an hour on each box every time you look in.
I have been known to do my âdue diligenceâ.
âIn preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.â
â Dwight D. Eisenhower
âGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.â
â Abraham Lincoln
And flow detractors said us newbies wouldnât give beekeeping the respect it deserves! Simply because we donât have to borrow/own a centrifuge to get clear honey out! That makes zero sense. I still have to do everything else with the hive.
I donât understand this statement, can you clarify? Are you saying that on my weekly visits I should always pull the same brood frame each time (while also doing a visual inspection of all of the frames from the top)? And then, twice a year, thoroughly inspect every frame?
thanks!
Lorne
Hrmmmm⌠after 10 years of marriage, you think I would have figured that out by now (seems so simple in hindsight). Thanks for the tips!
In the UK, where I keep my bees, I have to look through the brood boxes weekly (10 days if my queens are clipped) during the swarming season.
Mostly it is a quick check to make sure the queen has space to lay and that the bees are not making swarm cells. Itâs a quick inspection and takes about five minutes a colony.
In the Spring and Autumn I must do a more thorough inspection for brood disease. This involves checking all the brood fairly thoroughly. It doesnât take long in the Spring as the colony is relatively small but in the Autumn it is quite time consuming.
If, in your weekly inspections, you have that same good look at the first brood frame you take you will spot disease in itâs early stages when it is easier to do something about it and when it is less likely to have spread to the other colonies. It goes to say that if that frame is healthy the rest are most likely to be as well.
PS. In the swarming season there is no âlooking at frames from the topâ each frame has to be taken out. If I find queen cells then all the frames have to be searched thoroughly by shaking ALL the bees off them
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And of course, âNo plan survives contact with the enemyâŚâ Not that we should think of bees as enemies, although they probably see us that way! 
Every inspection should have an objective - if there are Queen issues looking at the brood nest is the first place you will find it - no not the same frame but looking enough to find eggs and larvae or BIAS (Brood In All Stages) capped and young bees (Nurse Bees) as they will feed the larvae.
If you go into a hive without an objective it can be easily sidetracked - Obviously if you find a problem it needs to be dealt with but not necessarily on that visit. This is whe you should be keeping notes:
Date
Weather
Type of Hive
Queen
QC Queen Cells, Supercedure cells,
BIAS (Brood In All Stages) Eggs, Larvae, Capped and Young Bees and Older Bees and Drones can be noted but tells about the state of the Hive - QR Queen Right
Stores - Pollen, Nectar, Honey (capped)
Disease
Pests
Temper - this can tell a lot about the hive
Treatments
Honey Extraction - Lot, Batch, Apiary, Hive, Date, Filtered, Raw, Heated
You can modernize the record keeping with Hive Tracks or Bee Tight on your mobile device. I didnât use them last season, but I will start using Hive Tracks with our new nucleus in April. I think it even allows photos to be kept with the notes.
Dawn
Being aware of the 1:2:4 ideal ratio wonât get you far wrong
Inspections will now be every seven days, weather permitting. The weather should be
getting warmer and the blossoms appearing. The odd drone will be seen and the population
should be increasing dramatically. A good brood pattern will be in the ratio of 1:2:4; that is
eggs/larva/sealed brood. If you see a circle of sealed brood in the centre of the comb these will
be surrounded with larva and these will be surrounded with eggs. The pattern will change when
the sealed brood hatches it will be replaced with eggs. The larva will then be sealed brood and
the eggs larva. And so the pattern goes on. Supers will need to be put on the hive now.
Depending on brood box stores and bee population in the hive. 
sorry this was for April but I took that off because half the world is up-side-down
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And weather.
I wonât be in mine till April. There is no need. I know they have stores and room for the queen to lay. Every inspection sets them back. Our Training apiary doesnât start till April for that reason.