I don't monitor my hives, although I know I should, and eventually I'll run into a problem that I could have caught early but didn't. Generally I only open my hives a few times a year. I check them every 6 weeks or so during the growing season. It's not ideal but it has worked for a long time for us. I feel like in your case if you went a very long time (several months) without checking the hives they'd probably be okay.