Chapter 5 Quiz: Working Your Bees

33 questions from lessons 31–41. Answer from memory first, then check the lesson if you're unsure. This quiz is for your own practice; nothing is graded.

Lesson 31: Before You Open: Weather, Time of Day, Staying Calm

1. Why are bees usually calmer on a warm, sunny day with lots of foraging?
2. Name two things to avoid wearing or doing before an inspection.
3. You see bees fighting at the entrance and trying to squeeze in at the lid seams. What's happening?

Lesson 32: Lighting and Using the Smoker ★

1. Why should the fire be at the bottom of the smoker, not on top?
2. Your smoke is hot and has sparks in it. What should you do?
3. What's the first place you puff smoke before opening a hive?

Lesson 33: Opening the Hive and Handling Frames

1. Why take out an outer frame first?
2. Why hold frames over the open hive while you look at them?
3. How should you turn a frame to see the other side?

Lesson 34: Reading a Frame: Eggs, Larvae, Capped Brood and the Brood Pattern ★

1. Where on a healthy brood frame do you usually find pollen?
2. Name three things that can cause spotty brood.
3. What do healthy larvae look like?

Lesson 35: Telling Honey, Nectar, Pollen and the Different Cappings Apart ★

1. How can you tell nectar from capped honey?
2. What do healthy worker brood cappings look like?
3. You see bullet-shaped caps bulging out of worker-sized cells all over the brood area. What might that mean?

Lesson 36: Finding the Queen, or the Signs She's There ★

1. You can't find the queen, but you see eggs standing one to a cell and young larvae. Is she there?
2. What's a retinue, and how does it help?
3. You find an unmarked queen in a hive where you'd marked the queen last year. What happened?

Lesson 37: Queen Cells: Swarm, Supersedure and Emergency

1. Are empty queen cups a sign a colony is about to swarm?
2. Where are swarm cells usually found? Supersedure and emergency cells?
3. You find a capped queen cell with a neat round hole at the bottom. What does it mean?

Lesson 38: Closing Up Without Crushing Bees

1. How can you clear bees off the top bars before putting a box back on?
2. Why shouldn't you leave scraps of burr comb or honey near the hive?
3. When should you take your veil off?

Lesson 39: Feeding Sugar Syrup: Ratios and Methods

1. Which syrup would you feed in the fall to build winter stores, and why?
2. Why shouldn't you feed your bees store-bought honey?
3. Why feed pollen patties in small pieces?

Lesson 40: Taking a Bee Sample

1. Why take mite-check bees from a brood frame rather than the entrance?
2. About how many bees are in half a cup?
3. Why shouldn't you mail a brood sample in a plastic bag?

Lesson 41: Keeping Hive Records

1. Name three reasons records are worth keeping.
2. How would you rate a colony whose brood frames are about 40% covered with bees?
3. What should you record whenever you treat for mites?

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Answers

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Printed in the next issue, or check them now if you've finished.

1. Many older bees, which are more likely to sting, are out foraging, and well-fed bees are less defensive.
2. Any two of: perfume, scented soap/shampoo, alcohol, heavy sweat, dark clothing, fast movements.
3. Robbing: bees from another colony trying to steal honey.
4. Air comes in at the bottom, goes up through the burning fuel and out the top, so fuel above the fire cools the smoke.
5. Add more fuel on top to cool it; don't smoke bees with hot smoke.
6. The entrance.
7. It's least likely to have the queen, and removing it makes room to slide the other frames without crushing bees.
8. If the queen falls off, she lands back in the hive.
9. Keep it upright and turn it end over end, rather than tipping it flat, so fresh nectar and new comb don't fall out.
10. In a narrow band bordering the brood.
11. Any three of a failing queen, queenlessness, varroa mites, inbreeding, or brood disease such as AFB or EFB.
12. Pearly white, glistening, curled in a "C" on the bottom of the cell.
13. Nectar is unripe and open in the cell, glistening, and may splash out; capped honey is sealed under pale, flat wax.
14. Tan to medium brown, slightly domed, and without holes.
15. Drone brood being laid in worker cells: a failing or unmated queen, or laying workers.
16. Yes. Eggs mean a queen has laid within the last few days.
17. The ring of workers facing and touching a mated queen; that circle of heads pointing inward helps you spot her.
18. The colony replaced the marked queen (supersedure or swarming).
19. No, colonies build them all the time; a cup only matters once there's an egg or larva in it.
20. Swarm cells: usually along the bottom and outer edges; supersedure and emergency cells: usually toward the middle of the comb.
21. A queen has emerged from it.
22. A light puff of smoke across the top, or gently brushing them aside.
23. They attract robbing bees and pests.
24. After you've walked away from the bee yard.
25. Heavy 2:1 syrup: it's thicker, so bees can store it with less drying.
26. It can carry American foulbrood spores that can infect your colonies.
27. So bees eat them quickly, before small hive beetles can lay eggs in them.
28. Mites ride mostly on nurse bees in the brood nest, so that's where you get a true count.
29. About 300.
30. Plastic traps moisture, so mold grows and ruins the sample.
31. Any three of: remembering what you did, judging whether it worked, avoiding repeated mistakes, spotting trends, tracking time and money, knowing queen ages.
32. Moderate population.
33. The date, method/product used (and as the label requires), the mite count before, and a follow-up count after.

★ = a topic on the Georgia Certified Beekeeper exam list.