>Most large beekeepers hire semi-skilled labour to work their hives. A skilled beekeepers can judge a hive's development by eye and can equalise hives accordingly but not so semi-skilled labour.

I wouldn't want semi-skilled labour working my hives unsupervised.  They might be opening hives for feeding, however and do a gross evaluation from the patty consumption and general cluster size.  Even untrained crew can spot obvious duds.  

In such a case, the instructions were to simply throw obviously poor hives onto the truck and drop them in a nurse yard near home for later evaluation by a beekeeper. 

We didn't worry about losing flying bees in the yard since they would find a home next door, and before leaving the yard if bees were flying, we just threw a loose tarp over them to stop the bees from coming out into the light.

If the whole yard was obviously poor compared to other yards, the hives were left as-is and the crew marked that on the report.  The yard was then scheduled for an early visit from a pro who was therefore prepared to do an intensive work-over.

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