Never Been Inspected | Opening Up Three Abandoned Beehives and Finding the Worst Conditions.
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2024
- Join me on an adventure as I explore three abandoned bee hives in desperate need of attention. In this video, I uncover the eerie yet fascinating world of forgotten bee colonies and assess their conditions. From neglected frames to overgrown boxes, each hive presents its own set of challenges. But with determination and care, I embark on a mission to revive these once-thriving communities. Watch as I inspect the hives, discuss their plight, and devise a plan to restore them to their former glory. Whether you're a beekeeping enthusiast or simply curious about nature's delicate balance, this video offers a glimpse into the world of bee rescue and conservation. Don't miss out on this journey of discovery and hope for our buzzing friends!
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Lots of comments here about saving the bees. Bees do just fine without us. They built those hives the way they wanted them. If those boxes weren’t adequate, they’d find a new home on their own. The things we do with boxes and frames is for our convenience as beekeepers. We aren’t saving the bees, we’re making their honey easier to harvest.
I’m not being negative about what he’s doing. I’m a beekeeper and I’d do the same. I just don’t look at it like I’m saving them unless their lives are threatened in their current location
totally agree, bees have been around and doing well for themselves many times longer than we've been here lol. beekeepers just optimize honey extraction, when it comes down to it.
💯
I think you are exactly right but I do look at all beekeepers as saviors without the bees gardeners like me would not have the Bounty that we have I feel if they'er going to put them in a box, might as well take care of them. Leaving them as an unwanted house guest to a new home owner could have resulted in a far worse outcome. Thank you all for your hard work.
True, however you could say that a beekeeper that breeds strong queens IS helping to save the bees. any swarms that release back into the wild from well kept and bred queens will have better genetics in the wild.
@@stevenbell1888 can't overlook that point
Looks to me that someone intended to come back to put more frames in and straighten everything but something disastrous happened in their lives where the bees weren't the priority. I think they got interrupted by life, it has all the hallmarks. They just didn't ever make it back to put frames in. I'm thinking the people you got them from inherited them, probably with the property. You just never know so I try not to criticize anyone, esp in a situation like this.
Nothing ever really free,but looks like you got some good stock to work with. And won't take long to get them up to par!
Truely a wise comment, no need to assume malice where it’s not needed.
yeh my hive has been neglected for a long time because I became ill. ive have new medicine, treatment, more medicine, and now I'm coming good, a little. So im starting to do things around the property again and that includes wanting to inspect, fix Bee Hive and transfer Bees n Queen to a new hive. While I have neglected my bees, I actually do love them. At the same time I became ill, my mentor for Bees passed away and to the best of my knowledge, there was no one else in my town (1800 ppl) that could look after my bees. So thats why I'm here. looking up information to prepare myself for looking after my bees properly.
@@kh7794 yes they probably died all of a sudden
@@JasonBlack66 best wishes.
The bees were so well tempered, you could say they were.... as sweet as honey.
Haha
The previous owner who started it definitely knew what they were doing. But something happened to them. For sure
Now that's what I call a beautiful mess 🐝💜 glad to see the colonies look good and are all queen right. What a save 👍😁 Cheers!
@@jessicafairfax_Bens_Bees most interesting. Know nothing about beekeeping. Appreciate those that do. Alot of activity there! 😳
This doesn t look too bad.
Looks like hives that hasn t been checked for a couple years. Still they are healthy and surprisingly nice. Good breed.
I saw this once, the beekeeper got cancer, went into chemo and couldn t take care of his hives, then died a couple months later 😢.
His family gave the hives a year after that.
So they hadn t been cared for for 2 years.
The frames were messy, but getting a couples hives for free was worth it. 😅
Still gift them a couple pots of honey each years as a thank you. The granddaughter is considering picking up the hobby too. So maybe i ll gift her her grandfather s hive descendants one day. 😊
Far left hive is PROTECTIVE and will be the best of the bunch. They probably are raising some drones, because bees are very protective of drone brood during build up before mating season. Protective bees are a perfect source of capped brood that can be added to a weak hive and build the defense.
On box #3, if you put an empty medium box with frames and no comb, and an excluder, most of the bees will go to whichever box has queen. Wait a day or two and come back. Hopefully they are closest to brood & you can take the box without a bunch of bees and put it about 10 yards away at night. The foragers will leave by mid day. They will return to the spot they orientated to. Then all you have in the box is a fraction of the bees. Get your rubber bands and a window screen. Any comb you salvage can be placed on the piece of screen, lay frame over it, slide rubber bands. I’m sure you know this. Posting for someone reading this that doesn’t. I enjoyed this video way too much. Like treasure hunting. That defensive hive is going to be the best of all 3 in terms of production. Better make queens out of their eggs.
It is pretty cool that bees can be neighbors and not go to war against eachother
Until one gets too weak.... Then they will rob them out :)
@@Trigrhpyx came to same the same thing….. punch on too
I think I would bite the bullet, and start swapping out some of the frames for wired foundation. Taking out all the honey you can, and moving the brood into the top super. Over a few inspections, you would remove all the chaos and restore order ( for the human that is). I wish my bees were as calm as those 'Neglected' hives. Thank you.
That’s the plan in the brood boxes.
In the upper boxes I’ll just take them off in one hit.
I won't offer my 2 pence worth because Aussie Beekeeper seems to know what he's doing.
@davidhorsley4657 that’s debatable
Sweet bees indeed.
They are likely calm because no one has been opening their hive every week for several years.
Bring a bucket and lid or 2 with you when you visit your bees, if the lids got honey and they are putting fresh stuff in clean it out. Leave the lid full if there is nothing around, they are getting nasty because they are short of food or coming into winter.
Never throw your wax on the ground around the hive unless you like having stuff stuck to your foot wear or inviting pests and diseases. Every bit of comb can be melted down and cleaned or burnt as fuel for other beekeeping activites (fire boiling water for uncapping or melting out other dirty old frames... 🎉 😮 😅
I am not a bee-keeper but I thought the same about throwing wax on the ground... that's messy bee-keeping. Also worried when he slides the frames back into the hive as there were a lot of bees at the bottom of the frames.... many bees probably got squashed.
That very interesting to see how people in other countries, and different climate zones keep the bees. Fantastical lessons!
Greetings from Poland
Those frames look like there was at one time a bad wax moth invasion by the holes in the wood. I have saw hives this bad before but thank goodness I did not have to clean them up. Good luck. Thanks
Amazing, those hives looked in bad condition at first sight & yet they were all pretty good 🐝 loved seeing ur rescued hives & those hard working girls 🩷
Those poor ladies, stoked you're going to give them a good home and the proper beekeeping they need.
Gotta remember… bees are wild insects even though we try to do our best. They know what to do without us intervening. Those 3 hives were doing quite well without human intervention. I’m sure they populated the area by swarming. The only bad side of not tending to them is box rot. If it rots too much they’ll move to a better home. We beekeep for ourselves…. Not the bees. They thrive in the wild…. Would do much better if we’d stop spraying chemicals and mowing or killing important weeds and trees in the US. Big farming is the cause of 50% loss in the US every year.
I saw the boring in the top bars from wax moth larvae , destructive lil buggers !
I didn’t realize they did that until later
Looks like you're going to have a lot of fun renovating these boxes.
I am
Make this the bottom box of two brood boxes, come late winter / early spring time to reverse boxes but the bees will all be up in the upper box, and you can safely remove the bottom box, it will be unlikely that there is any brood in it, because they move upward to conserve heat in the hive over winter.
🇦🇺 well done. Here in SA,
I recently helped someone do full transfers to new hiveware, as the old boxes and frames were in worse condition than those ones you had.
Abandoned hives in suburbia for 5 yrs, due to owner getting dementia.
8 triple boxes, I've still got to go back and do the last 2.
The borer holes are wax moth, 2 hives I worked had been decimated by wax moth. I took some clean comb, and brood from another hive at home and did a careful shake out. Trying not to get wax moth larvae in the new boxes.
2 boxes either died off or swarmed, 3 boxes transferred well and are doing well at my farm. One had to have euthanasia, as they were extremely angry aggressive bees. They wouldn't leave us alone and we coped a lot of stings. It was too difficult to transfer them to the country.
3 City beach hives, now doing well in the country having a tree change. LOL
Where are you located?
THAT WAS SO, SO INTERESTING... I EVEN STARTED LOOKING UP WHAT YOU WHERE MEANING, BROOD ECT ECT... EXCELLENT VIDEO, STAY SAFE
Think in that case I would provide a new box for each hive with new frames and try to alternate frames and over about 3 months replace the old hardware with new. some of that bur honeycomb would be good chunks for jars. Also if I found the queen I would restrict her to the new box long enough for that brood to hatch out and so disposal of the old comb would be easier (You can always feed the honey back after crushing and separating the wax)
I'm here for the lesson and learning. A wonderful and fascinating video!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it
Never watched before, watched from start to end, wow well done and why do I suddenly want to have my own hive... Oh no!
Do it! :)
While this hive hasn't been abandoned and not inspected and doesn't fit the norm of left, right, left, straight and perfect. I think we forget that bees in the wild. As when they live in homes or trees or anywhere else don't build straight framed. C** headline hives. Probably don't look the best. However, what I find amazing is without all the inspections. The virumite treatment the win reservation, the feeding. The constant observation that these bees have made it and continue to survive, not to mention the fact that they probably had swarms where they contributed to the local environment. Thank you.
With that first super with wonky comb. What I do is scrape the top off turn it upside down on a table and cut around the frames inside the box and then lift the box off the frames. You can then separate them out a lot easier.
Did you ever locate the Queens? Or is that a waste of time? Should you get rid of Queen cells, if they're superseding? Or buy another Queen instead? Nice hives, I'm sure someone loved them just life got in the way of their proper care. Glad you came along to rehome.
It’s really too late in the season to buy queens so I’ll just let them sort it out themselves.
I did find two of the queens last inspection.
I’m really just hailing she is on a brood break.
Im just glad those people called you so you could help those bees out
The bees are fine
Very interesting:)
I am not brave enough to handle a bee colony, but I admire those who do this :)
Wow, the tutorial at 2:15 is so detailed and easy to understand! I love how you explained it. I’ll definitely apply it to my farm!
I just stumbled across your channel I love watching beekeepers to me these videos that I've just seen the last three of yours posted are like an ASMR beekeeping savior I love the way you take us on the journey I love the way you love your bees thank you so much for sharing this I can't wait to delve back and watch more of your videos God bless keep doing what you do
Hey thanks!
You don't swear ! God Bless you for that because too many of us Australians swear so I unsubscribe. But you didn't and did a great job and am enjoying your material. I am from Victoria and Spring is well and truly here.
What a mess! I hope you can bring these hives back to some semblance of order. Would you consider just transferring the frames to new boxes, I think you said in the previous video that it looked like at least one box had rot or something?
That last hive was a real state - were there really only two frames in it?! You might be able to salvage the comb that's not in frames; Texas Beeworks uses elastic bands to secure comb into frames when saving hives - check out the Texas Beeworks youtube channel.
Looking forward to seeing the rest of the journey as you go through with sorting the mess out - at least you've got a load of honey to start off with!
I've seen those elastic bands used by a lot of other beekeepers when saving/removing hives.
Nice to see Australians displaying things love it
Just the sweetest bees. 🥰🥰
Great video lots to do but, that’s what we do. Awesome job 👍🐝🍯
Yes we do
I haven't sighted ant SHB. That's gotta be a bonus.
The temperament resembles the Buckfast ladies. I love those girls and wish we could get them in the United States.
Wow what a gift you had mate!
What a mess! 🤩 Good job on cleaning these hives up. 💥
New to all this, fascinating, thank you :)
Good or bad I would have started with fresh hives and transplanted them. Awesome job taking care of them once getting them.
"Gonna Shake it"
Proceed to yeet the bees away. I can't stop laughing about it
I guess you've not seen a slatted rack before. There are several reasons for these, the main one being to prevent comb being built right to the base of the hive. Personally, I think the bees know what to do and I don't use them.
As regards cross combing. When I started beekeeping, I was encouraged to use foundationless frames with just a thin strip of wood at the top of each frame for the bees to start from. However, this turned out to be a complete nightmare, as the bees filled the entire hive with cross comb worse than seen here. I made several attempst to ge the hives into some sort of order, but they kept cross combing every time. Hence, where I live, in Tasmania, I'd recommend using foundation unless you want to trash your hives every time you need to inspect.
I thought a slatted rack was to reduce congestion and help with keeping brood cool in the summer.
@@aussiebeekeeping & I thought they were supposed to be in line with the frames not perpendicular.... but I've never used them either.
@@aussiebeekeeping that's not a typical slatted rack. Sooner or later, you'll have to rip that off and put it on a standard bottom. They're too low to the ground anyway.
I would clean off tops and bottoms of frames load them into new boxes in the same order with new bottom boards and covers and fill the boxes with foundation frames leaving only bee space so they can't cross link.
Bees optimize their hives for airflow. They will make their hives where they want at the end of the day
Those holes in the timber frames are from wax moth cocoons, anything timber gets trashed from them, usually they just burrow into comb and make a mess. But if the box is stored unattended or there are big lumps of that dark properlis or wax say between you bottom box and your queen excluder they get in where the bees can't see or chase them lay grubs/maggots they cocoon themselves there and chew/bore holes into the timber as they wrap the cocoons up ! 🎉 😮 😊
New subscriber. Looking forward to your channel and journey. Mostly your accent! I love it. ❤️ God bless you all and many prayers 🙏🏻 Nurse Judi in Scottsdale AZ and Eucharistic Minister ☦️ 🙏🏻 💙
So I'm still fairly new to this, when you got into the lower part of the first hive, there was a lot of comb that appeared to have a flat grey covering on it. It looked distinctly different from the brood. I don't think I have ever seen that before. Whats going on there?
these hives looks like they can use some renovations asap!
Thank you so much Aussie Apiary Culture Association. God bless Australia Continent
No worries!
29:50 honestly looks like the bees tried their best to keep the structure of the frames in spite of their absence
My gues is at least 2 of the hives were left empty for a while, and new swarms went and set up home in them possibly not just neglected? 🤔👍
theyre rather quite cute actually, when you get a close look at them.
100%
Excellent thanks
Clean that bottom super. Place a new second super with extra new frames to fill in. Transfer best frames. Rejuvenated hive
2 month out from winter?
It's interesting to think of bees as having a temperament.
Some bees are very chill and nice, some bees are round wasps.
Odd question but would you be willing to sell the honeycomb and honey to America? Im just on my own little homestead research adventure and they say honey tastes differently depending on the areas theyre in and what plants are native there.
100%
I have honey available but no comb until after winter.
@@aussiebeekeeping how about that rhododendron honey that makes a person trip
Im surprised you didnt say "house keeping!" When you first knocked on them lol. Id have to say it.
Fascinating, thanks for video
Do you ever worry about squishing bees taking the boxes in and out?
I dont
Nicely filmed account. I think iI'd have transferred the bees into clean hives. Greetings from north Wales, UK.
I love honey and honey bees, I couldn''t make mead if it didn't exist.
Best unboxing video!
Personally I would have added a box on under the messed up box of honey on the first hive. It will give them room to add honey in a correctly oriented box. It will make pulling the messed up box off without hurting the hive.
1 month out from winter you would do this?
Thanks for sharing I learnt somthing I didn’t no
Why would someone just abandon hives? They aren't exactly cheap
Not sure. The people I got them off were moving and couldn’t take them so took them. They said they had never inspected them.
Lovely your get eggs and a lot of every thing
I was told old frames with that dirty old black comb makes bees progressivly smaller as the cells get smaller from old cocoons and they get less and less wax like and more like wax cardboard, and was told to put at least 3 fresh in the brood box yearly to keep them fit and healthy.
My got to methodis after i put and empty box on is to take the 2 outer most frames in the brood box if possible they are usually full of pollen and some honey and maybe a tiny bit of brood, and put them in the box above until its full or the brood has hatched out and keep an eye out if they start a queen up in warmer weather.
They get new frames down the bottom regulary, keeps them fit strong and healthy, the old frames get steamed melted, rewired and waxed if savable otherwise brand new frames replace condemned frame keeping a constant fresh supply of frames to replace old and worn out frames! 🎉 😮 😅
Wow, that's interesting. Where I live we are learnt to change at least 50%of frames every year, frames cannot be in give for morę than 2 years
I don´t know, but they seem pretty fine and healthy. Seems they suppressed any fungal or other threat with propolis. Well, it´s question of time till they would look for new home (seems a bit stuffy in there), but that would happen in brand new bee hive. Of course, who wouldn´t help them out if they knew they were abandoned and a bit of tidying up never hurts, right?
Your doing great mate and so cram mine was higeldy pigaldy as well no stability and every thing fell out but all ok now
I would argue these are not the worst conditons. The hive was alive.
I would bring new boxes and put the queen in the new with new foundation and put a queen excluder on and put the old hive on top until the brood is born and then remove the old boxes
A month out from winter?
@@aussiebeekeeping o ok didn't know that
5:08 did that bee have 4 wings? look on the bottom left as he pans over the top of the hive... i always thought they had 2
I'll take that amount of honey any time. Nothing beats honey straight from the comb! Especially smeared out as it's still in the comb. That is so so delicious, although I'll rather pass on ingesting the comb when it's this insanely aged haha
That third lid though... I'll take that 🥵🤤
What an awesome informative video, really enjoyed this
What is a swarm sell though?
Wow what fantastic
Those are some really mellow bees!
Good brother ❤
12:08- *SQUISH* He's not worried about it 🤣
Correct
Omg. That last box.
Yep
@aussiebeekeeping you did great job going through them.
It’s so cool what bees will do if you just leave them in there lol. No frames? That’s cool, we don’t need them.
When I read "abandoned" I thought there would be no bees!!! 😅
Someone moved and they just left the hives and hoped for the best. What else can a guy do?
The beekeepers were living at the address when I collected the hives.
Hopefully you got each box for a good deal
Free. :) that’s a good deal
The things we do with boxes and frames is for our convenience as beekeepers
Surprised how easy it came part
29:45 I feel like they need more than a cut-out. Maybe a migration to a new box. Sad.
That will happen this season.
I think the cross comb was because of more space as one frame was missing, 7 instead of 8 frames
Nice vid!
Not a beekeeper so it strikes me that because of the congestion there is little room in the hives and a deeper box to host more frames would be the obvious thing to do. Also obvious it's not the thing to do because you are not suggesting it, so what are the things to consider about size of the boxes and number of frames?
looks like they used the same rego number on 3 hives, or maybe they just split a hive up into three with new supers or brooders or whatever.
Ther was two rego numbers on the hives, all marked the same. I can’t remember if you can see it on the video but one is painted and one is carved. And, the person that transferred them to me had a different number.
They look like they are living… a bit of a mess, but they build how they want to build.
Thank you!
For what?
SOOOO MANY BEES
bee's are cool
Hii, so is that sort of merky grey looking covering just old wax? Or something worse?
Hi, out of curiosity, can I ask what the price of a kg of honey is at retail or to the consumer, thanks, hello from Italy
I sell mine for $20 per kg
Only in Australia is punching bee hives the safest way to work with animals.
🤣
I was dissapointed to see no queens inspected from these 3 hives.
You were told that box was aggressive so that you'd not bother to look inside it and see how it was left. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
Do you they thought I was never looking inside?
@@aussiebeekeeping I don't know what they thought, only what they hoped to achieve.
Know…
Mine didn’t have any thing they were left to own devices but now fixed