# Live Q + A plus brood inspection and queen hunt

**URL:** <https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/live-q-a-plus-brood-inspection-and-queen-hunt/29841>\
**Category:** Flow Beekeeping Live with Cedar\
**Created:** [March 30, 2021, 12:58am UTC](https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/live-q-a-plus-brood-inspection-and-queen-hunt/29841 "2021-03-30T00:58:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Freebee2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.honeyflow.com/freebee2/32/18643_2.png) [@Freebee2](https://forum.honeyflow.com/u/Freebee2)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 12:58am UTC](https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/live-q-a-plus-brood-inspection-and-queen-hunt/29841/1 "2021-03-30T00:58:06Z")

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Hey Forum Folk,

This week Cedar inspects a weaker hive and looks for signs that the queen is still in residence as well as responding to live questions from viewers.

Topics of discussion included:

- Observing from outside
- Using your smoker & suiting up
- Opening your hive & ants
- Frame inspection
- Replacing frames
- Closing the hive

Questions included:

- How long can a colony survive without a queen?
- Why is the comb so brown, if there’s no brood in it?
- There’s been lots of rain here, should I feed pollen to the bees? (Hunter Valley, Australia)
- There’s been a lot of rain here lately, now that there has been a break, is it normal for the bees to be doing orientation flights? (Australia)
- When I am installing a nuc, where should the empty frames go?
- What is the difference between the package of bees and the nuc?
- There is a colony in the wall of my shed. Can I remove it and place it in a hive?
- My hive is producing lots of drones but no honey for harvest, should I requeen?
- How can I tell the difference between a few incidental ants and an outright infestation in my hive?
- Is there a suitable or recommended sized area needed to keep bees? (Trinidad & Tobago)
- None of your hives have two brood boxes. Is that recommended or is it because of your location?
- Nectar is getting into the collection channel in my Flow Hive. I have to turn the round plugs every week. I checked the frame is properly aligned with the key.
- How long before you can add a super to that hive?

Here is the video recording: [https://youtu.be/gtc2zS4iEaQ](https://youtu.be/gtc2zS4iEaQ)

and the transcript: [Live brood inspection Q & A with Cedar – Flow Hive AU](https://www.honeyflow.com.au/blogs/livestreams/live-brood-inspection-q-a-with-cedar-210324)

Hope you all enjoy the recording - and, as usual, please let us know if anything needs clarifying or raises further questions for you, or if you wish to comment on any of the content - we’d love to hear from you 🙂

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**Author:** ![JeffH](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.honeyflow.com/jeffh/32/7192_2.png) [@JeffH](https://forum.honeyflow.com/u/JeffH)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/live-q-a-plus-brood-inspection-and-queen-hunt/29841/2 "2021-04-01T20:03:55Z")

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I like what Cedar said at the end about keeping the bulges apart when replacing the frames, as a hive beetle mitigation strategy. Sometimes I’ll flatten those smallish honey bulges out by simply pressing on them with the flat side of my hive tool. The minor honey spill quickly gets cleaned up. It’s not always possible to replace frames in the same order while manipulating frames to cycle out or while doing swarm control splits, etc.