To be good beekeepers, we have to intervene. There’s no getting around it. Especially if we live in an urban environment. We don’t want to be responsible for a swarm freaking out neighbors or moving into a wall cavity.
People ask me “how often should I do an inspection”. That’s a hard question to answer. We should be aware of the status of the colony at all times. If the strength of a colony starts to dwindle at the wrong time of year, that’s when we need to intervene to find out if the colony has gone queenless or the colony has sucumb to a disease, or something else. If the colony population is blowing out, we need to intervene in order to prevent a swarm.