In the beginning beekeeping classes, I encourage new beekeepers to go into their hives at least every seven to 10 days to see how things are going. While a healthy colony of bees in a healthy environment will follow a generally predictable course, growing in population as spring advances, swarming, building again, then capitalizing on the summer honey flows, there are a lot of variations on this theme and a lot can go awry in a relatively short time. Problems tend to propagate themselves if not dealt with early, a small problem uncorrected becomes a bigger problem, then an even bigger problem, then a disaster. The beekeeper’s role is to keep things on course.