Відео

Check out Randy Oliver's website if you want to know more about using sponges, I was just trying them out in this video, I don't have much experience with them. While I am sure they work, they are too expensive here in New Zealand to be viable. Cheers

Hi Anderson, unfortunately I have stopped delivering those course for the time being as I am now looking after 500 hives and there aren't enough hours in the day to fit them in. Sorry.

@@KiwiWildman hey that’s a shame, thanks for reply though. I’m looking at Dunedin courses as well, hopefully I’m not to late🤞

A small percentage of my hives do, most have solid floors. The loss of vapor is very noticeable when vaporizing the vented floor hives, if I had more I would block them off beforehand. But vaporization is just part of my mite control program, I also use slow release OA strips, so I am not totally reliant on the vaporization.

​@@KiwiWildmanthanks. I'm here in New Zealand as well. I used the same instavap as you use. Apivar for wintering.

Hi Claudia, I have PM'd you in Facebook, well at least I hope I got the right Facebook profile :) Only 2 Claudia Cowart's came up in my search so I guessed which one might be you. Cheers Chris

Thanks. I just got home from checking hives in Naseby, Ida Valley and Alexandra yesterday. I slept the night next to the Manuherikia River last night :) (at the Alexandra Holiday Park). The sweet smell of Thyme filled the air while I was at the Alexandra hives and we have a private buyer that takes all the Thyme honey from that site. Most of our hives are further east and south, but I love the trips to central. Cheers Chris

@@KiwiWildman we've had a lot of rain in central so I think it's going to be a great year for thyme honey 👍the willows are popping early and most people are dropping hives into pollenation blocks, hopefully the rain settles down and we get a good pollen crop off the willows on the clutha. My thyme honey goes straight back into my bee's 😂 except a little which Ill give away, fantastic you've got a private buyer, thyme honey can be hard to sell. I want to concentrate on my hives in waitahuna for honey production which produce flowering gum honey from a large block of trees and no one else is doing around central 👍 great locations for apairys though especially Naseby and ida valley 👍👋

Good spotting, and yes, the extra day is a good idea, although it doesn't make a huge difference to the results.

Thanks.

It depends on the mite levels. I do some sample tests to check before treating. If the levels are up at all (above 1-2 per hundred) I OA vape as well. Cheers

@@KiwiWildman Thx very much!

Neither of those things are a concern to me, in my opinion what matters is that despite that the strips kill the mites and my hives thrive as a result. Cheers

Hi, they are available now, the contact details for enquiries are in the description. Cheers

Yes, I have. It depends on the time of day and weather. If it is good weather and the bees are flying that is better. The bees in the top box should know they are queenless after a couple of hours, but the process of bees migrating into the top box won't be complete, so your bee numbers in the top box won't be as high and your success rate might be lower. It is better to wait the full 24 hours if you can.

That a good reason to wait. Thanks again.

Hello Chris. Question about mated queens. Did you ever have a queen that laid some good eggs and some drone (two or more eggs) in a cell but then straitened out and started to lay good. I have a mating mini nuc that have good eggs and some have more than one. Is that a bad queen or is that something usual? Thanks

@@andrewk1191 Hi Andrew, yes, I have seen that and the queens went on to be good queens. Sometimes they take a while to get going as newly mated queens. Its probably more common than we know as we may not see it if we aren't checking them often. If she was doing that in the first week I wouldn't worry about it. If it goes on longer I would consider replacing her. Cheers Chris

@@KiwiWildman Great. I will be doing my last graft of the season tomorrow. 6th one this season!!! Glad I found your channel last year. Using your method and have good success with it. Always have queens for my apiary (17 hives) and some to sell on a side. Thanks again!

I don't, because I want the strips down close to the brood where the mites are emerging from under the capped brood as the new bees emerge. The strips don't do much damage to the comb, no different to synthetic strips in my opinion. The bees tear them down and remove them eventually. I would rather accept what little impact they have in return for a more effective treatment. If laying treatments across the top was as effective then that is how we would be told to apply synthetic strips. The reason swedish sponges are laid on top is that is the only way to get them in the hive. It isn't practical to try to drape them down into the brood. And they are only really effective when laid between two boxes of brood. They don't work so well if you are running a single brood box. But if you try laying the cardboard strips on top of the frames and it works for you, let me know, I am always open to new ways of doing things, as long as they work :)

Haha, in a way. I am drowning in work, no time to edit videos. Still filming though. Busy time of year in the bees, I have worked 18 days straight. But the end is in sight, then some videos will follow. Sorry for the delay.

Hi Andrew, I am enjoying your questions, you are obviously getting right into it. Swarm control in a Cloake Board hive is the same as in any other hive, as long as the queen has somewhere to lay they will stay put. I manage that by putting empty drawn frames in the lower box as soon as I see signs of plugging. To put new frames in you have to remove some. My preference is to take full honey frames first, but there always has to be some honey in there in case they have a cold snap, so as a last resort I will take out brood frames. And yes, I have put a honey super on in times of a really strong flow. If it fills up I remove it, put it on another hive and replace it with an empty one so that working the hive is simpler. I have never had one swarm, yet. Lol. The more bees in the hive, the higher your grafting success rates, so it is a game of pushing the limits and letting it get as close to swarming as possible, but not too close. Make sure you give them a couple of weeks between grafts to recover. The manipulations you do can be hard on the queen and I have lost a few by pushing them too hard. If you want to make more queens, better to set up another Cloake Board hive, I run 4-6, or more. at the peak of the season, and rotate through them. Good Luck :)

Thank you so much. Very good.

Yes, I check the whole hive before starting, mainly to make sure the queen is below the queen excluder. It is not uncommon for hives to have 2 queens, so once you have found a queen and put her in the bottom box, keep looking! After that the cloake board does the rest, ensuring that the bees migrate up into the top box. I check the graft 2 days after I put it in just to see how well it went and I also check the top box after about 5-6 days in case they have made queen cells on any of the frames (except the graft frame of course), these need to be torn down. Don't lift the cloake board mid way through the process as bees from the top box might return to the bottom box where the queen is.

You can graft earlier, but because they have larvae in the frames that are the right age to turn into queen cells their attention is spread between them and your graft calls, so yes, the success rate goes down if you don't wait the 4 days. Having said that, if I am in a hurry and not too worried about success rates, I will do the same thing. The biggest risk of doing that is that you miss one of the cells on the frames and it emerges. Then you have a virgin queen running around the hive, that might not affect the first graft if you get your cells out before she emerges, but she is small enough to slip through the queen excluder and it might affect the next graft after that.

@@KiwiWildman Thank you Chris. I will shake off the bees and check each frame to make sure no cells are pulled. Next time will wait 4 days :) Thank you so much for a quick response.

One more question, Seems like you don’t have an entrance for the top box during the process. Only one opening on the bottom box. Since there is a queen excluder between boxes, how do drones get outside? Won’t they die in the top box and clog the excluder? Thanks

@@andrewk1191 Yes, a few drones do die, but offsetting that, my grafting hives are in a yard with lots of queen mating hives. So I have virgin queens returning from mating flights to that yard. It would only take one to fly into the top box of the cloake board hive, if there was a top entrance, and it would tear down all the cells. Virgin queens returning to the wrong hive from mating flights is quite common, even with lots of unique colours and shapes on the mating hives to help them recognise home. I have never had the queen excluder blocked by dead drones.

@@KiwiWildman thank you!

No, far from it. But I have been swamped this last couple of weeks. I have a video half edited, hope to finish it tonight, if I can stay awake :) I have just taken on two channel related projects, building a canoe and repairing a boat so I can do some interesting adventures. I am unsure whether the projects have a place on the channel? What do you think?

@@KiwiWildman as long as meg is in vid i say great , make sure she has a life jacket of course, great news

Glad you enjoyed it

Any time!

I will give it a go, not sure if it will work.

@@KiwiWildman I have faith in you to come up with something.

I haven't tried that, what does it do?

Nice work! Not sure if the tips were that good, I didn't land any in this video. But there is another episode coming tomorrow where I give it another go. I will give the sock a try, sounds like a good idea

Meg is a huntaway, that is a breed of NZ sheep dog. They are descended from collies crossed with lots of other breeds and their purpose is to bark at sheep or cattle to "hunt them away" while you are mustering or working stock in sheep yards. They are a very intelligent breed and learn easily.

Yes, I bet that would work

Thanks, the knife I was carrying in that video is a Svord, but I have modified the shape of the back of the blade. They are made here in NZ abd they are excellent knives that really hold their edge. I have 3 of them, that one, as well as both his medium and large pig hunting knives. The guy that makes them has a video where he punches one of his knives right through a 44 gallon drum a dozen times then shaves a bit of paper to show it is still razor sharp But it is just one of about 15 knives I use. I will think about the sit ups and press ups. I'm a beekeeper so I get a daily work out hefting heavy bee boxes :)

@@KiwiWildman hey ive had another idea , make an possum pie , that be awsome

@@xbtusd7501 Sounds like a plan

Hello there!

Sounds great!

It is certainly commonly believed that drones drift about the colonies, but I don't have any evidence to prove that they do, or that they don't. But you are right, if they do, that is another major conduit.

Thanks

Me too!