Help Harvesting Honey

Hi Shiva—I have a few questions that a experienced beek will probably ask you, anyway, before they come out to your place. Posing these questions will help other newbees with understanding bees.
How often have inspections of the hives been done? Without this regular “looking into” it is impossible to determine if they have excess honey that you may take honorably. We only want to take if it is in EXCESS. Depending on your floral sources and their abundance, the bees may have nothing to yield , may have just enough to make it the rest of the year, or have a excess you may harvest. Not all parts of the LA basin are the same, though you say you are in the Palisades.
Typically, in Spring and Summer we would want to assess the health of the queen and her work force by checking for eggs every 3 weeks to a month. Has this been going on? Beekeeping is more than taking honey, but managing and working with the bees at all times. Sometimes problems occur that we are not aware of till things have really collapsed. Checking on the health of the brood and queen every month can help you spot things before they have gone too far. Also, bees that are worked with regularly are usually more compliant about you getting in and taking honey than bees that rarely interact with you. Let us know what is going on.
thanks Susan, Moderator