I have a fear of bees and wasps and I saw one of your videos pop up on my recommendations. Thank you for helping me sort of get of my fear.. and its awesome to see everything so up close.
Jim, brother, I think you're managing very well. Your hives look great. I only have 1 thing.... Dude.... those capped frames are purple ribbon winning frames at your local fair. Please enter them. Or at least the best on of them. It's very rare you see a frame like that. 99.9% capped. Nice work bees. Grab your entry rules... You've got a best of show winner. Congrats my friend.🍻🍻🍻
You're a better man than I am! I would have been hard-pressed to resist taking one of those frames of capped honey. That whole box is truly a thing of beauty!
Your Italians are amazing. Fairly calm and filling up fast. It's impressive! I've also got a name suggestion for your New Package Queen, Queen Anthea, it's a Greek name, meaning flower or blossom.
@@erinyamada5873Anthea, not Athena. Anthea "blossom" in Greek, was an epithet of the Classical Greek goddess Hera, and is used as a female given name in English.
I love how he glovelessly yeets those bees right off the frame and just evicts the other bees into a new home. God bless you and your farm. I hope you prosper greatly
On the 4th of July one of my hives swarmed and went up into a tree next to the hives. It took us a couple hours to get it down and into a new hive box. This is my second year and I feel my hive swarmed because of the queen excluder. This is such a learning experience. I love it. Great job on the work you are doing.
I know your fields will help with resources. Wish I had that much space to plant. My neighbors like to claim they are the source of my honey with their flowers, but I remind them, In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited. A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey. One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year. An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
Thomas Gordon when you put it that way the sunbelt being demolished to make room for more subdivisions seems like a plausible explanation for the Bee population problems, kind of a macrocosm of what happened to Eagles and Condors
Your neighbors are just reminding you that your bees are using their flowers as well. Be kind and share the love give them a couple of jars of free honey.
For most of my life I had a crippling phobia of bees, to the point where I would refuse to go outside at all. But after I began taking anti anxiety medication I have been completely cured of this phobia, and have begun to love and appreciate bees. I love watching these videos now. Thank you for being nice to bees.
I mark my queen cell frames scratching an 'x' with the hive tool on the top pf the frame. One advantage of using all mediums is I can move a frame up and move the honey frames into a new split with SO much ease. Love the planting plan you got going!
Checking back in for the first time since spring, sorry, just realized I didn't have my notifications on. I am so so so happy to see how good you are doing! Congratulations!
I love your videos, I started watching a couple months ago and went all the way back to your first bee videos. Before watching those I knew nothing about bees but I've learned so much already. I enjoy the way you make videos and you're very good at talking to the audience through the camera. Keep up the great content I always have notifications on! Cheers from Victoria, British Columbia Canada
Jared Harper You sure have a natural affinity to the back side of a camera! That's hard to do, and you just do it naturally. We back up and watch them all, too. Bears in the front yard, and dancing a jig, makes our little Benjamin giggle like mad. You're a kick to watch!
Remember when your building hives, the flow is always on when you feed, and if the food stops flowing in, the egg laying will slow or stop too. But since now you see how and at what speed the hives move their resources around. You can easily calculate when you need to stop feeding and add supers, so the bees are storing the nectar flow in your supers, not sugar water. That way the disruption in feed doesn't diminish brood production and comb building. So the bees stay in a full force growing mode, yet you can still maximize your honey harvest when the flow is there. Bees wont take feed like pollen substitute or syrup if they have natural resources available, but those durths sure do stop the hives from keeping up the momentum of growth. Congratulations on all your bee successes. You're becoming a pro!
I just watched two of your older videos today, (also left a comment on one) and to me it looked like you and your bees where struggling to survive. And now I stumbled over this one and I'm like WOOOOOW, SO MANY BEES!!! I'm completely euphoric right now and very, very happy that your bees are thriving!! :)
I love how you said the new package needs were out performing Balboa and then once you get into Balboa's hive shes kind of spanked the new package down. I'm not saying it as a criticism because the new package IS rocking the shit, but the point I'm making is, as we've seen since you first adopted Balboa, never underestimate her. Over all you're doing a great job and watching your journey with your hives has made me want to start beekeeping as well.
Be patient ...... the virgin queens keep you on your toes. I thought mine were gone and lo and behold I found them! I was trying to introduce a bought queen and I heard the virgin piping. Pulled the bought queen away, dug deep and there was the virgin. Came home and did a split ....will introduce the bought queen tomorrow. Don’t forget your mite population is growing now and the queens will start slowing down. Get your mite treatments done once your supers are off. I am in the Hudson Valley and are dearth is starting. I will treat starting 7/15. So happy for you and your progress.
If the flow is still on put a empty deep on and leave the excluder on. Then put the medium frame above the excluder then put the deep with the honey above the medium. If they fail to draw out the second empty deep brood box you still have the deep frames to drop down later. Like I said before things happen fast and it's a different ball game getting honey without getting back filled.
Russian honey badger hive, Put an empty deep where you removed the honey . Put the excluder above the second deep(empty). If there is a strong flow they MIGHT draw out the empty deep . You can either put a medium super above the excluder or leave it off and put the honey deep above the excluder. It's just a suggestion. If they fail to draw the new empty deep , you still have the honey in the deep super for resources. They may or may not move it down. Mine did when we went into a drought and the flow shut off fast. The queen shut down on laying and they condensed the resources to below the excluder. You will have to monitor the progress to make needed changes. When a flow shuts down and nothing is available they may need the honey to feed the brood that was already layed and the rest of the bees. Another suggestion is to break up the videos since you are getting more hives and it makes it kinda difficult to keep on track with commenting.
I had the same problem with my hive. I took the excluder off and moved a brood frame to the top. I probably should have split them but I'm new to this so I left them alone. I didn't see any queen cells so I don't think they're going to swarm.
Hey mate, keep the queen excluder on, put a small amount of syrup feed on top to get them to move up into the new super. I had to do this on my hives to get them started. Once I put some feed up the top they filled the box super quickly
Wow! Your bee yard is really filling up this year! I have been watching from New Zealand since you started bee keeping and it is so exciting to see the bee boom this year! Another great video!
Boom!! They’re crushing it this year! Gotta Say: front runner for my favorite episode So far! 😎🐝🌻☘️. Hahaha. It’s all looking amazing man! Your hard work & and attentiveness are really paying off. Congrats! You deserve it. It’s great to see the bee yard really flowering. Pun intended-🤔 maybe. Cheers!
Foothills of western NC: We pulled a honey super from our carni hive last night... left 2 full medium honey supers on the hive. For a 1st year nuc I'm very impressed. The medium box filled our 5 gallon honey bucket about half way full, but I'm not sure how much it weighed. I've got a hive across town @ my parents garden that I'm looking forward to extracting some honey from so we can compare tastes. The hive across town are russians and I did make a split off them early spring so I probably won't pull much honey... depends how they look.
IV been browsing beekeeping vids for a while now getting my knowledge and info up to snuff and I feel from what IV seen you are by far the most successful keeper IV seen
That is amazing!! A lot of honey. First time I leave a comment my husband watch's your channel and I got hooked. Your bravor than me. Keep up good work. I am trying to learn about making soaps and candles wax.
looks like you should re-queen the Russian with a new queen from more friendly stock and get rid of the more aggressive genes. Also are you making your resource hives or buying them from some where?
should put on your flow frames now, lol. I had a serious problem when i found my queen out side almost dead the day before winter down here in Australia. Now at that time I was freaking out but the good thing was it was to cold to open the hive. Middle of winter we had a few day where it was 25C so i opened it and found a queen. Bee have been doing this for only a few million years so i was happy they knew what they were doing. I hope she comes back soon for you. awesome videos, i have been studying them and they have helped me heaps. thanks.
Your doing sooo much better then when you started! I have several russian honey bagger hives myself. Looks good doing a great job keep the vids coming.
I have no idea what you're talking about, as I am ignorant about bee keeping, but I've ordered a book about bees, and plan on watching and learning from you and others, as you are so cute and knowledgeable, thanks!
I have finally gotten through all your videos and caught up to the very first video of yours that UA-cam suggested! Only took me...4 days? Not a bad way to spend a Labour Day weekend lol. Now to rewatch from here to the end, just so I'm reminded of what happens and will be all up to date when you post a new video!
I know very little about bees, but i think you should consider checking each nest for veroa before winter. We dont want history to repeat itself when the hive got veroa attack before facing winter. Other than that, keep up the good work, never thought your bee farm would get this big. Its huuuuge. Glad i found your channel. Greetings from malaysia
Always keep your smoker lit of course but I have several hives that if they get smoked they get vicious. I spritz with sugar water and a few drops of lemon grass oil and it gentles them.
that honey bound hive I would harvest some of that honey to give the queen room to lay; your Balboa should have two supers- you must keep ahead of them; you Mass guys are having an epic honey year
As soon as I discovered the honey bound situation, they got a second super and four empty frames in the brood nest. If I had put that second super on just one week earlier, everything would have been fine. I just had no idea there was any kind of nectar flow happening. Last two years at this time I was feeding syrup.
Care full with that italian package. If it's too honey bound she will swarm. Open up that second brood box with some deep frames so she can lay. That's how mine swarmed in May it was packed with bees and honey. I actually took a few frames this week, Most amazing spring honey I ever tasted. I think it was Linden Trees. Very Floral and very light. I don't use queen excluders and my queens have stayed out of the medium supers....so far. And yes this has been a Great Year in the Northeast for bees. I have too been amazed at what they have foraged this year. Oh and another thing. Some people go 3, 4, 5 Deeps for brood. I have a hive with 3. I have heard having giant brood hives can be massively productive.
that's good news, i am in new england and we are startng our first beehives this spring. there are beekeeping classes i am going , wow, Linden trees,,,, Very interesting,, thank you.
Early in the spring you said you were less concerned about harvesting honey then building up hive numbers. Now with the heavy supers it looks like you should have your best honey harvest yet.
Most definitely. This year is all focused on expansion... but the bees are doing their best to produce. So I will certainly be harvesting the excess. Win-win!
Interesting series. I am a fourth year beek (started when I was 15) and currently manage 30 hives. This year, I am running all single brood boxes with an excluder and supers above for max honey production. I have found that even an extremely prolific queen can't fill more than about 9 frames with brood which makes the double brood box seem a bit pointless to me. The single brood box way of managing makes inspections much easier since there are only 10 frames that I have to inspect for swarm cells, disease, etc. Granted, swarm pressure seems to be greater with this method, but removing capped brood for splits, etc. and replacing with foundation seems to work great along with pinching cells. Devan Rawn and Canadian Beekeeper (both commercials beeks) on UA-cam do it (that is where I first learned about it). Just wondering if anyone else out there manages colonies in a similar way since double brood box seems to be pretty standard.
Where are your hives? I know the Canadians do the single brood box thing, but around here it's double deeps or triple mediums. I'm not focused on production yet. Just trying to build the bee yard and figure out wintering.
Central IL. This is my first year trying this and it is working pretty well. We will see how they winter though. Winter can really mess up beekeeping plans.
Just went back and looked, Sorry missed that somehow lol Just finished building another 5 resource hives inspections day after tomorrow so will need them
Nucs are your resources. Don’t weaken the production hives. Ride the wave and use drawn comb from the nucs. That’s their job. If you spin, you can return beautiful comb back for them to fill. Congratulations on the good flow. It’s a very slow year in California
Since you are adding a lot of new frames all over, I found it helpful to write the year in black marker on top of the frame. That way you know when they are 3-4 years old and you can rotate them out if you want.
You know, the way your hive populations are exploding, once you've finally put a cap on the 'everybody's swarming' thing.. you might just be ready for a flow super. It's been a heck of a journey.
NICE! Proud of your progress buddy, congratulations of the wonderful year. The bees look utterly and ridiculously fantastic. I've had the same kind of year way over here in MO/KS with the bees. Things are slowed way down here now though, we're in a mini drought and pretty hot weather. I've also been too busy building ponds and spraying beans to do anything with bees lately but I'm certainly enjoying watching you work yours. Keep up the success!
Thanks, Brent. We just got the heat wave last week. Nasty, nasty heat for 5 days and tonight I'm wearing a sweatshirt. It all just got chilly and will be more normal next week. Last two years we were well into our dearth at this time, but these bees are finding nectar! No feeding at all right now. Stay cool over there!
Too late this time, but you could have under-supered here - put the empty box under the full box and left the queen excluder on. But seeing as you could barely lift it, that presents other problems later. - great job - I've got to split my "slamming" hive too!
Don Rota Do you mean put a medium super under the brood box? I've never heard of that. Or do you mean above the brood box but UNDER the full super? Because that's what I did.
They always say to keep the equivalent of 2 empty supers on a hive during a nectar flow. We ran into the same honey bound issue on a couple of our hives this year.
The thing is, I didn't know we were in a nectar flow! I've never experienced a spring/ early summer flow. The past two years I was feeding syrup from May right though to August. It totally caught me by surprise. After the dandelions ended, I figured whatever flow we had was over and just left a super on "in case" anything started. Came back a week later and it was overflowing.
Vino Farm It is tough to know when the flows actually hit but it’s just something to watch for! Do you have a local bee association that would maybe have some people that know when the flows are hitting?
If in the queenless hive, you don't have eggs or expecting emerging new brood, I'd suggest moving in a frame with eggs and a frame of almost emerging brood, the existing ones are aging. Put in some extra nurse bees that are on the frame. Even if you have a queen it won't harm.
So here's a spoiler alert... This video was shot last Saturday and the little medium hive was queenless and eggless. I checked them Wednesday and saw EGGS and capped brood! But after a very quick examination, I saw no queen. So I went back up yesterday to have a closer look. There was still no queen to be found, but I did see eggs and capped worker brood. (Not drone brood.) I had a fear that maybe I had a laying worker, but in that case the brood would be drones, right? The population is not huge and every single bee in that hive was clearly visible. I know I didn't see a queen, so I'm a little concerned. I'm going to have one more look tomorrow.
Wow! Not sure exactly what you're doing, other than just providing a healthy environment, but the bees obviously love it!! 'Wait and see' apparently works for your girls. That one queenless hive is a bit of a mystery, though. You'd think that they would have addressed the lack of a queen by now, wouldn't you? BTW, with what you described as growing in those nearby fields, you may not have to worry about a 'July dearth!' Certainly not trending in that direction thus far!! Looking forward to your next installment. After two years of three very conservatively kept hives (to all appearance, anyway), this year you get more daring, and *PRESTO!* Look at what happens!! :-)
It all came down to having strong hives coming out of winter. I had never had hives in May before! Also, I got really lucky with the New Package I got in April. Plus learning how to split, having more confidence... lots of factors. But getting through winter with relatively strong hives made the biggest difference. Thanks!
Winters around here (I'm only about 35-40 miles away, tops!) being what they are, my hat's off to anyone who can successfully get hives through the worst of January and February. You did something a bit more drastic, this past Winter, in terms of insulating your hives, didn't you? I don't claim to understand everything about bees, but it seems that people who have a strong-ish colony of survivors, once Spring finally rolls around, generally do well the rest of the year (as opposed to almost starting from scratch every Spring). Also, just my own opinion, but I think that this year you seem to be leaving the girls to their own devices....'fussing' with them a lot less than previous years. THAT may actually be contributing more to this year's 'breakthrough' success than almost anything else. Just letting nature take it's course, with only a little gentle assistance. Regardless, you can't argue with the results, and I couldn't be happier for you! It's good to see you genuinely having fun (and success) with growing colonies of healthy bees. :-)
@kitty lover when the bees are making honey, they bring in nectar from flowers, and process it and dehydrate it until it is honey. the beekeeper knows its honey when they put wax caps on the cells, storing that honey for future need. for brood, there are of course eggs laid by the queen which must be tended by the nurse bees, from eggs to larva. When the larva pupate in the cells, the bees put wax caps on the cells and the pupa is protected while it changes into an adult bee. When the bee is ready - it frees itself by cutting off the cap from inside the cell, emerging and starting its life as a nurse bee.
1st video... nice digital camera. Like other, I have watched a few videos on Bees and I am a member of the bee club at the University of South Florida. I am still learning and not an active hobbyist or professional. You have an interesting setup and some that I have watched would have split the Italian and German into 2-3 more hives preparing for the dearth to be over. Since you have so much resources already. Love the hive. Very strong and I look forward to learning more as I watch.
I'm new to keeping but found my bees were not using the honey super so i removed my excluders too. I havent been back in but noticed they are using the opening on that box now.
Well done, Jim. That first winter was heartbreaking; what a contrast with your success now. Are you now turning your thoughts to the inevitable honey harvest? Centrifuge, honey jars/lids, labels? Maybe even get that Flow super on one of the hives?
I'm 100% focused on the bees right now. It is exhilarating to see that honey, but it's just not on my mind yet. I don't even have an extractor or plans to get one this year. I might borrow one if I need it. Next step is mite testing and planning for the fall, treating and I definitely will be supering for the fall flow. I do expect a harvest, but it's not a priority. The goal is to go into winter with 10 strong hives and get as many as possible to spring. (Then we'll talk about labels!)
speaking for my self. personally i think queen excluders are honey excluders. ive used them in the past but i find without them i have more honey yields nice video thanks for sharing
So you think you have a system? Did you run that by those bees first? One thing I've learned... Bees are everything but predictable, especially when I want or need them to bee.
I wouldn't say a 'system'... more like a vision with a lot of different paths to get there. My previous experiences help me figure out course corrections. But yes, every day they throw something new at me. Not a big deal. It's all learning.
So true, I hope you didn't take this as criticism as I wrote as a tongue in cheek comment. I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us, it gas been informative, fun and impressionable on me at least. Keep the journey going!
Just curious but, why didn’t you collect the honey from the italian hive? I’d love to see some videos showing you collecting the honey, so satisfying to watch these!
This is really a good year for your. I watch all your videos since first year and every year get better. Maybe you should start using flow hive in Italian bees (Balboa or new one) I think they will can filled this year. Don't forget to send me some honey :)
No one edits their bee vlogs better than this guy, and clearly explains everything perfectly. Keep up the great work man. Thanks for your videos.
Edit ✨🖤
I’m so scared of bees yet can watch this stuff all day
bigGisnumber1 honestly me to
Same xD
I wonder how he can touch them without being sting does he oil his hand or out sth 😂
Me to
Honey bees are very docile, I used to pick them up as a kid.
They won't attack if you don't harm them or damage anything. Smoke isn't really required.
Wow, I wasn't expecting this. It's very strange to hear my name right from the get go. That darn west coast Spencer Brennan throwing me for a loop. :)
Spencer Brennan I love that I have TWO commenting Spencer Brennans on my channel!
What the- what- wa- okay...
This whole series is just so fascinating, never clicked a youtube notification so fast before!
Susie Thurogood Agreed. This is such a great channel.
Stacey Mayer (this is a series?)
Ok don’t judge me for not knowing lol
I have a fear of bees and wasps and I saw one of your videos pop up on my recommendations. Thank you for helping me sort of get of my fear.. and its awesome to see everything so up close.
Well, it's always nice to experience new things on youtube. Glad to have you here.
Jim, brother, I think you're managing very well. Your hives look great. I only have 1 thing.... Dude.... those capped frames are purple ribbon winning frames at your local fair. Please enter them. Or at least the best on of them. It's very rare you see a frame like that. 99.9% capped. Nice work bees. Grab your entry rules... You've got a best of show winner. Congrats my friend.🍻🍻🍻
Ha ha! That's funny. I don't know enough about fairs OR capped honey to know any better, but yes, that was glorious to see. All 8 were like that.
You're a better man than I am! I would have been hard-pressed to resist taking one of those frames of capped honey. That whole box is truly a thing of beauty!
@@vinofarm hi
Oh mah gawd! I'm your biggest fan! Bro! That's good advice!
OK tell us again why New Package is outperforming our Queen Balboa? (evil laugh) MUAH hahahahahah
Your Italians are amazing.
Fairly calm and filling up fast. It's impressive!
I've also got a name suggestion for your New Package Queen,
Queen Anthea, it's a Greek name, meaning flower or blossom.
Izices he could also choose Queen Melissa, which basically means queen honey bee
@@erinyamada5873 it's both
@@erinyamada5873 No problem!
@Lily Mikami
You are correct, but he did not say Athena. He said Anthea, which since its Greek I totally have to take his word for it!
@@erinyamada5873Anthea, not Athena.
Anthea "blossom" in Greek, was an epithet of the Classical Greek goddess Hera, and is used as a female given name in English.
I love how he glovelessly yeets those bees right off the frame and just evicts the other bees into a new home. God bless you and your farm. I hope you prosper greatly
Grandma balboa would be proud
On the 4th of July one of my hives swarmed and went up into a tree next to the hives. It took us a couple hours to get it down and into a new hive box. This is my second year and I feel my hive swarmed because of the queen excluder. This is such a learning experience. I love it. Great job on the work you are doing.
Thanks for watching. Every day is a learning experience with bees!
I know your fields will help with resources. Wish I had that much space to plant. My neighbors like to claim they are the source of my honey with their flowers, but I remind them, In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited. A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey. One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year. An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
Thomas Gordon when you put it that way the sunbelt being demolished to make room for more subdivisions seems like a plausible explanation for the Bee population problems, kind of a macrocosm of what happened to Eagles and Condors
Your neighbors are just reminding you that your bees are using their flowers as well. Be kind and share the love give them a couple of jars of free honey.
Once again, Benjamin and I, then the rest of the family, really enjoyed your enthusiastic delivery of, adventures in beekeeping!
Thanks for watching. Tell Benjamin I said hello!
Your management decisions have gotten so much better. Nice apiary.
Mark Webber Thanks, Mark!
For most of my life I had a crippling phobia of bees, to the point where I would refuse to go outside at all. But after I began taking anti anxiety medication I have been completely cured of this phobia, and have begun to love and appreciate bees. I love watching these videos now. Thank you for being nice to bees.
I mark my queen cell frames scratching an 'x' with the hive tool on the top pf the frame. One advantage of using all mediums is I can move a frame up and move the honey frames into a new split with SO much ease. Love the planting plan you got going!
Your video has so much quality, without doubt the best beekeeper youtuber.
I am so incredibly happy for everything that's going on here!
So am I!
Are you going to rename the Russians to "The Honey Badgers"?
Checking back in for the first time since spring, sorry, just realized I didn't have my notifications on. I am so so so happy to see how good you are doing! Congratulations!
So happy! Always click so fast when I get the notification. Emotionally invested in your bees!
I love your videos, I started watching a couple months ago and went all the way back to your first bee videos. Before watching those I knew nothing about bees but I've learned so much already. I enjoy the way you make videos and you're very good at talking to the audience through the camera. Keep up the great content I always have notifications on!
Cheers from Victoria, British Columbia Canada
Jared Harper You sure have a natural affinity to the back side of a camera! That's hard to do, and you just do it naturally. We back up and watch them all, too. Bears in the front yard, and dancing a jig, makes our little Benjamin giggle like mad. You're a kick to watch!
Thanks for the kind words, Jared! I've been to Victoria. Lovely place!
Probably your best video to date.. You sound like a bee keeper.. Welcome..
Well that's a nice compliment!
wow, what a packed box with every cell filled with capped honey..oO never see that so completly and perfect filled.. they´re crazy and insane.
This guy is the most sophisticated beekeeper I have ever seen.
Then you've never seen Frederick Dunn.
I'm so scared of bees but I love watching your videos. I don't know why but you make me smile. Keep doing what you're doing!
Looking good! The progress you've made over the past few years is amazing.
Remember when your building hives, the flow is always on when you feed, and if the food stops flowing in, the egg laying will slow or stop too. But since now you see how and at what speed the hives move their resources around. You can easily calculate when you need to stop feeding and add supers, so the bees are storing the nectar flow in your supers, not sugar water. That way the disruption in feed doesn't diminish brood production and comb building. So the bees stay in a full force growing mode, yet you can still maximize your honey harvest when the flow is there. Bees wont take feed like pollen substitute or syrup if they have natural resources available, but those durths sure do stop the hives from keeping up the momentum of growth. Congratulations on all your bee successes. You're becoming a pro!
I just watched two of your older videos today, (also left a comment on one) and to me it looked like you and your bees where struggling to survive. And now I stumbled over this one and I'm like WOOOOOW, SO MANY BEES!!!
I'm completely euphoric right now and very, very happy that your bees are thriving!! :)
I love how you said the new package needs were out performing Balboa and then once you get into Balboa's hive shes kind of spanked the new package down. I'm not saying it as a criticism because the new package IS rocking the shit, but the point I'm making is, as we've seen since you first adopted Balboa, never underestimate her. Over all you're doing a great job and watching your journey with your hives has made me want to start beekeeping as well.
You’re high on life Brother....Great to see your enthusiasm!
After two years of constant frustration, this year has been amazing.
Be patient ...... the virgin queens keep you on your toes. I thought mine were gone and lo and behold I found them! I was trying to introduce a bought queen and I heard the virgin piping. Pulled the bought queen away, dug deep and there was the virgin. Came home and did a split ....will introduce the bought queen tomorrow. Don’t forget your mite population is growing now and the queens will start slowing down. Get your mite treatments done once your supers are off. I am in the Hudson Valley and are dearth is starting. I will treat starting 7/15. So happy for you and your progress.
I'm testing this weekend. Can I ask when you are treating with? Are you treating now so you can be ready for a fall flow?
Vino Farm Apivar
Congratulations!!!! You've become one HECK of a beekeeper. 😆
As usual, professional and very good explanation. Love your videos
If the flow is still on put a empty deep on and leave the excluder on. Then put the medium frame above the excluder then put the deep with the honey above the medium. If they fail to draw out the second empty deep brood box you still have the deep frames to drop down later. Like I said before things happen fast and it's a different ball game getting honey without getting back filled.
I'm a little confused, but do you mean to put the honey bound deep ABOVE the excluder so the bees sort of rob it out?
Russian honey badger hive, Put an empty deep where you removed the honey . Put the excluder above the second deep(empty). If there is a strong flow they MIGHT draw out the empty deep . You can either put a medium super above the excluder or leave it off and put the honey deep above the excluder. It's just a suggestion. If they fail to draw the new empty deep , you still have the honey in the deep super for resources. They may or may not move it down. Mine did when we went into a drought and the flow shut off fast. The queen shut down on laying and they condensed the resources to below the excluder.
You will have to monitor the progress to make needed changes. When a flow shuts down and nothing is available they may need the honey to feed the brood that was already layed and the rest of the bees.
Another suggestion is to break up the videos since you are getting more hives and it makes it kinda difficult to keep on track with commenting.
I had the same problem with my hive. I took the excluder off and moved a brood frame to the top. I probably should have split them but I'm new to this so I left them alone. I didn't see any queen cells so I don't think they're going to swarm.
Hey mate, keep the queen excluder on, put a small amount of syrup feed on top to get them to move up into the new super. I had to do this on my hives to get them started. Once I put some feed up the top they filled the box super quickly
Wow! Your bee yard is really filling up this year! I have been watching from New Zealand since you started bee keeping and it is so exciting to see the bee boom this year! Another great video!
Thanks for watching. It's been thrilling this year!
Boom!! They’re crushing it this year!
Gotta Say: front runner for my favorite episode So far! 😎🐝🌻☘️. Hahaha.
It’s all looking amazing man! Your hard work & and attentiveness are really paying off. Congrats! You deserve it. It’s great to see the bee yard really flowering. Pun intended-🤔 maybe.
Cheers!
Those new package Italians are insane! And Balboa.. amazing.
The stars have aligned. I know everything can come crashing down at any moment, but it's been a nice wave so far this year!
Foothills of western NC: We pulled a honey super from our carni hive last night... left 2 full medium honey supers on the hive. For a 1st year nuc I'm very impressed. The medium box filled our 5 gallon honey bucket about half way full, but I'm not sure how much it weighed. I've got a hive across town @ my parents garden that I'm looking forward to extracting some honey from so we can compare tastes. The hive across town are russians and I did make a split off them early spring so I probably won't pull much honey... depends how they look.
Congratulations vino those hives r amazing
IV been browsing beekeeping vids for a while now getting my knowledge and info up to snuff and I feel from what IV seen you are by far the most successful keeper IV seen
That is amazing!! A lot of honey. First time I leave a comment my husband watch's your channel and I got hooked. Your bravor than me. Keep up good work. I am trying to learn about making soaps and candles wax.
I would like to say that I love the set up of your beehives. The are is nice, clean and organized. Amazing.
I'm so seriously allergic to bees, but respect bee keepers. If I could I would. Keep being amazing!
The videos seem to get better and better as you get more hives too 😀
Thanks. I'm learning bees, camera work and editing at the same time. I have the same level of experience at all three aspects of this channel.
This is the year of the bee - Awesome job
Thank You!!!
Going to grab a notebook n pen to take notes!
looks like you should re-queen the Russian with a new queen from more friendly stock and get rid of the more aggressive genes.
Also are you making your resource hives or buying them from some where?
Jim S Purchased from BetterBee.com, but I'll probably be building more over the winter.
Russians seem more of a hassle than anything else. Are You keeping them around just to chase everything else away?
You're having a good year be cause of the bee blight that's affecting other beekeepers. Keep going you're helping the community and the country side.
should put on your flow frames now, lol.
I had a serious problem when i found my queen out side almost dead the day before winter down here in Australia. Now at that time I was freaking out but the good thing was it was to cold to open the hive. Middle of winter we had a few day where it was 25C so i opened it and found a queen. Bee have been doing this for only a few million years so i was happy they knew what they were doing. I hope she comes back soon for you. awesome videos, i have been studying them and they have helped me heaps. thanks.
Thanks for the support!
It is amazing that bees recognize that half comb is safer weigh and struction wise to store their honey rather than laying eggs
Congrats! This are going awesome this summer!!! Consider adding your Flow frames, I think you’ll enjoy them.
Congratulations on the "Italian New Package Hive" I don't even like bees but it seems like a smashing success. :)
I got really lucky with that one. They still need to prove themselves over a winter, but it sure has been an amazing two months!
Woot woot!
You're gonna be a honey daddy this fall.
Your doing sooo much better then when you started! I have several russian honey bagger hives myself. Looks good doing a great job keep the vids coming.
I have no idea what you're talking about, as I am ignorant about bee keeping, but I've ordered a book about bees, and plan on watching and learning from you and others, as you are so cute and knowledgeable, thanks!
You should totally sell shirts that say “holy cap”!! I’d buy it
Thank you for being amazing
From watching honey being harvested to this, I dont know a thing about keeping bees but its fascinating
You've sold me on Italian bees for sure! When I start beekeeping, I'm getting Italians!
I am impressed! Try using the SummerHawk Ranch Hive Jar to gather some honey and lets see what happens.
I have finally gotten through all your videos and caught up to the very first video of yours that UA-cam suggested! Only took me...4 days? Not a bad way to spend a Labour Day weekend lol. Now to rewatch from here to the end, just so I'm reminded of what happens and will be all up to date when you post a new video!
I know very little about bees, but i think you should consider checking each nest for veroa before winter.
We dont want history to repeat itself when the hive got veroa attack before facing winter.
Other than that, keep up the good work, never thought your bee farm would get this big. Its huuuuge. Glad i found your channel. Greetings from malaysia
Testing this weekend! There will be a video after that. Thanks.
Im so so glad I stumbled upon your page!! I just started my first colony!!
Really enjoying watching your success with these bees. Keep it up. =)
Always keep your smoker lit of course but I have several hives that if they get smoked they get vicious. I spritz with sugar water and a few drops of lemon grass oil and it gentles them.
that honey bound hive I would harvest some of that honey to give the queen room to lay; your Balboa should have two supers- you must keep ahead of them; you Mass guys are having an epic honey year
As soon as I discovered the honey bound situation, they got a second super and four empty frames in the brood nest. If I had put that second super on just one week earlier, everything would have been fine. I just had no idea there was any kind of nectar flow happening. Last two years at this time I was feeding syrup.
Vino Farm why didn't you add that flowhive flow frame?
Care full with that italian package. If it's too honey bound she will swarm. Open up that second brood box with some deep frames so she can lay. That's how mine swarmed in May it was packed with bees and honey. I actually took a few frames this week, Most amazing spring honey I ever tasted. I think it was Linden Trees. Very Floral and very light. I don't use queen excluders and my queens have stayed out of the medium supers....so far. And yes this has been a Great Year in the Northeast for bees. I have too been amazed at what they have foraged this year. Oh and another thing. Some people go 3, 4, 5 Deeps for brood. I have a hive with 3. I have heard having giant brood hives can be massively productive.
Thomas Gordon Only Balboa was really honey bound. They both got four empty frames in the brood nest and an empty super.
I see now. I have to stop replying until I finish watching!! Lots Going on there! Bravo!
Thomas Gordon This one got away from me. Probably should have been two separate videos!
that's good news, i am in new england and we are startng our first beehives this spring. there are beekeeping classes i am going , wow, Linden trees,,,, Very interesting,, thank you.
I watched one bee thingy coz I was bored now Ive got like 70 recommendations
You can’t have 70 recs-
Exaggeration
You will BEEcome hooked 😁
Early in the spring you said you were less concerned about harvesting honey then building up hive numbers. Now with the heavy supers it looks like you should have your best honey harvest yet.
Most definitely. This year is all focused on expansion... but the bees are doing their best to produce. So I will certainly be harvesting the excess. Win-win!
Fantastic! Love it keep up the good work 😎 🐝
Forage! Loved it. Great ending. My resource hive arrives Monday from Dadant.
Interesting series. I am a fourth year beek (started when I was 15) and currently manage 30 hives. This year, I am running all single brood boxes with an excluder and supers above for max honey production. I have found that even an extremely prolific queen can't fill more than about 9 frames with brood which makes the double brood box seem a bit pointless to me. The single brood box way of managing makes inspections much easier since there are only 10 frames that I have to inspect for swarm cells, disease, etc. Granted, swarm pressure seems to be greater with this method, but removing capped brood for splits, etc. and replacing with foundation seems to work great along with pinching cells. Devan Rawn and Canadian Beekeeper (both commercials beeks) on UA-cam do it (that is where I first learned about it). Just wondering if anyone else out there manages colonies in a similar way since double brood box seems to be pretty standard.
Where are your hives? I know the Canadians do the single brood box thing, but around here it's double deeps or triple mediums. I'm not focused on production yet. Just trying to build the bee yard and figure out wintering.
Central IL. This is my first year trying this and it is working pretty well. We will see how they winter though. Winter can really mess up beekeeping plans.
Why didnt you just add the super in the middle that would force them to draw it out
UK Here We Grow I put the super between the brood nest and the full super. It is in the 'middle.'
Just went back and looked, Sorry missed that somehow lol Just finished building another 5 resource hives inspections day after tomorrow so will need them
What does honey look like is it white
@@aquatic_baseball8013 its underneath the white caps
Nucs are your resources. Don’t weaken the production hives. Ride the wave and use drawn comb from the nucs. That’s their job. If you spin, you can return beautiful comb back for them to fill.
Congratulations on the good flow. It’s a very slow year in California
I think you should use one of those resource hives, and requeen the russians. Those genes are amazing.
Paul Otis I'll let the Russian queen live out her life. When she goes, she will be replaced with something a bit more friendly.
Since you are adding a lot of new frames all over, I found it helpful to write the year in black marker on top of the frame. That way you know when they are 3-4 years old and you can rotate them out if you want.
Love the milkweed. Thank you from the Monarchs!
nice work...love watching your videos
Love your work.....so enjoyable to watch your videos. I am looking forward to doing something very similar in the near future. Keep the vids coming!
So healthy great hives!!! Keep up the great work.
Alternative to queen excluder is to put another bottom plate in. Queen is less likley to fly out to go up, however the workers probably will.
You know, the way your hive populations are exploding, once you've finally put a cap on the 'everybody's swarming' thing.. you might just be ready for a flow super. It's been a heck of a journey.
NICE! Proud of your progress buddy, congratulations of the wonderful year. The bees look utterly and ridiculously fantastic. I've had the same kind of year way over here in MO/KS with the bees. Things are slowed way down here now though, we're in a mini drought and pretty hot weather. I've also been too busy building ponds and spraying beans to do anything with bees lately but I'm certainly enjoying watching you work yours. Keep up the success!
Thanks, Brent. We just got the heat wave last week. Nasty, nasty heat for 5 days and tonight I'm wearing a sweatshirt. It all just got chilly and will be more normal next week. Last two years we were well into our dearth at this time, but these bees are finding nectar! No feeding at all right now. Stay cool over there!
Too late this time, but you could have under-supered here - put the empty box under the full box and left the queen excluder on. But seeing as you could barely lift it, that presents other problems later. - great job - I've got to split my "slamming" hive too!
Don Rota Do you mean put a medium super under the brood box? I've never heard of that. Or do you mean above the brood box but UNDER the full super? Because that's what I did.
Nice setup. Just subbed. Looking forward to seeing the queen in the small hive.
They always say to keep the equivalent of 2 empty supers on a hive during a nectar flow. We ran into the same honey bound issue on a couple of our hives this year.
The thing is, I didn't know we were in a nectar flow! I've never experienced a spring/ early summer flow. The past two years I was feeding syrup from May right though to August. It totally caught me by surprise. After the dandelions ended, I figured whatever flow we had was over and just left a super on "in case" anything started. Came back a week later and it was overflowing.
Vino Farm It is tough to know when the flows actually hit but it’s just something to watch for! Do you have a local bee association that would maybe have some people that know when the flows are hitting?
If in the queenless hive, you don't have eggs or expecting emerging new brood, I'd suggest moving in a frame with eggs and a frame of almost emerging brood, the existing ones are aging. Put in some extra nurse bees that are on the frame. Even if you have a queen it won't harm.
So here's a spoiler alert... This video was shot last Saturday and the little medium hive was queenless and eggless. I checked them Wednesday and saw EGGS and capped brood! But after a very quick examination, I saw no queen. So I went back up yesterday to have a closer look. There was still no queen to be found, but I did see eggs and capped worker brood. (Not drone brood.) I had a fear that maybe I had a laying worker, but in that case the brood would be drones, right? The population is not huge and every single bee in that hive was clearly visible. I know I didn't see a queen, so I'm a little concerned. I'm going to have one more look tomorrow.
Wow! Not sure exactly what you're doing, other than just providing a healthy environment, but the bees obviously love it!! 'Wait and see' apparently works for your girls. That one queenless hive is a bit of a mystery, though. You'd think that they would have addressed the lack of a queen by now, wouldn't you? BTW, with what you described as growing in those nearby fields, you may not have to worry about a 'July dearth!' Certainly not trending in that direction thus far!! Looking forward to your next installment. After two years of three very conservatively kept hives (to all appearance, anyway), this year you get more daring, and *PRESTO!* Look at what happens!! :-)
It all came down to having strong hives coming out of winter. I had never had hives in May before! Also, I got really lucky with the New Package I got in April. Plus learning how to split, having more confidence... lots of factors. But getting through winter with relatively strong hives made the biggest difference. Thanks!
Winters around here (I'm only about 35-40 miles away, tops!) being what they are, my hat's off to anyone who can successfully get hives through the worst of January and February. You did something a bit more drastic, this past Winter, in terms of insulating your hives, didn't you? I don't claim to understand everything about bees, but it seems that people who have a strong-ish colony of survivors, once Spring finally rolls around, generally do well the rest of the year (as opposed to almost starting from scratch every Spring). Also, just my own opinion, but I think that this year you seem to be leaving the girls to their own devices....'fussing' with them a lot less than previous years. THAT may actually be contributing more to this year's 'breakthrough' success than almost anything else. Just letting nature take it's course, with only a little gentle assistance. Regardless, you can't argue with the results, and I couldn't be happier for you! It's good to see you genuinely having fun (and success) with growing colonies of healthy bees. :-)
What does capped mean
@@skittlekitten75 i think it means the cells of the comb are full of eggs or nectar and the bees sealed off the hole.
@kitty lover
when the bees are making honey, they bring in nectar from flowers, and process it and dehydrate it until it is honey. the beekeeper knows its honey when they put wax caps on the cells, storing that honey for future need. for brood, there are of course eggs laid by the queen which must be tended by the nurse bees, from eggs to larva. When the larva pupate in the cells, the bees put wax caps on the cells and the pupa is protected while it changes into an adult bee. When the bee is ready - it frees itself by cutting off the cap from inside the cell, emerging and starting its life as a nurse bee.
1st video... nice digital camera. Like other, I have watched a few videos on Bees and I am a member of the bee club at the University of South Florida. I am still learning and not an active hobbyist or professional. You have an interesting setup and some that I have watched would have split the Italian and German into 2-3 more hives preparing for the dearth to be over. Since you have so much resources already. Love the hive. Very strong and I look forward to learning more as I watch.
Welcome to the channel. I'm no expert. These videos are documentaries... not how-tos. Thanks for watching!
I'm so happy things are looking so good for your bees!
Flow frames....?
Wow... so dang impressive on production. My bees are too darn lazy.
I'm new to keeping but found my bees were not using the honey super so i removed my excluders too. I havent been back in but noticed they are using the opening on that box now.
Removing the excluder helped on the New package Italians but not the Russians. Balboa hive is totally fine with the excluder. Every hive is different.
Well done, Jim. That first winter was heartbreaking; what a contrast with your success now. Are you now turning your thoughts to the inevitable honey harvest? Centrifuge, honey jars/lids, labels? Maybe even get that Flow super on one of the hives?
I'm 100% focused on the bees right now. It is exhilarating to see that honey, but it's just not on my mind yet. I don't even have an extractor or plans to get one this year. I might borrow one if I need it. Next step is mite testing and planning for the fall, treating and I definitely will be supering for the fall flow. I do expect a harvest, but it's not a priority. The goal is to go into winter with 10 strong hives and get as many as possible to spring. (Then we'll talk about labels!)
speaking for my self. personally i think queen excluders are honey excluders. ive used them in the past but i find without them i have more honey yields nice video thanks for sharing
So you think you have a system? Did you run that by those bees first? One thing I've learned... Bees are everything but predictable, especially when I want or need them to bee.
I wouldn't say a 'system'... more like a vision with a lot of different paths to get there. My previous experiences help me figure out course corrections. But yes, every day they throw something new at me. Not a big deal. It's all learning.
So true, I hope you didn't take this as criticism as I wrote as a tongue in cheek comment. I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us, it gas been informative, fun and impressionable on me at least. Keep the journey going!
Just curious but, why didn’t you collect the honey from the italian hive? I’d love to see some videos showing you collecting the honey, so satisfying to watch these!
2:55 "These bees are A-holes."😂🐝🐝
This is really a good year for your. I watch all your videos since first year and every year get better.
Maybe you should start using flow hive in Italian bees (Balboa or new one) I think they will can filled this year.
Don't forget to send me some honey :)
Thanks for staying around and commenting. I appreciate the support!