Inspecting Buckfast Bees Cross Welsh Black Bees In June. Beekeeping
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- Опубліковано 23 лис 2024
- In this video I take you through an inspection in June. Inspecting buckfast bees that has a little bit of welsh black bee blood in them.
I give a full commentary of the inspection giving hints and tips as we go through the bees. We find queen cells! plenty of brood and eggs.....but a lot less honey than I would have liked.
Hope you enjoy it!
If you would like to follow more of me you can find me on social media on @Gwenyn Gruffydd
Or visit my website on www.gwenyngruffydd.co.uk
Music from Bensounds.com
As always very helpful always willing to help and share his knowledge.Top man
Thanks very informative, just come across your channel, I'm in west wales..got my self a hive by accident, left it empty not having any clue, then some black bees arrived lol. You've inspired me and like you i feel beekeepings chosen me! love the vids thank you..but the only thing is, I'm OBSESSED!!!
Thank you so much for the comment 😊👍🏻
Looks like the bees made up their mind and your now on a Beekeeing adventure!!! 😁😁
Haha!! That’s the thing with Beekeeing it hooks you!!!
Very cool, looking forward to seeing you split this hive.
If I can find the queen!! 😄😂
Thank you Gwenyn for another great video. I'm due to retire next May and am hoping to start beekeeping in February/March so keep the videos coming they are a great help in preparing me for the challenge of keeping bees in South Wales (Abertridwr) 👍🏻🏴
No problem 😊 Remember in the winter the big bee manufactures have their big sales!!! Great time to buy ready for next year!!
It’s great to watch a real bee expert at work - your knowledge and expertise shines through. Another excellent video, informative and educational. Why do you crush the cells?
Thanks Iain 😊 Great question.... if I don't cut them out the bees will try to swarm. If successful the queen will leave the hive and take half the bees with her. I would lose the bees and the honey crop.
once I make a spit (take the queen out and place her into another hive) I will leave the bees make a new queen cell then. They won't swarm. They new queen will take over the old hive and all will be good 😄
Love your videos, was just curious why you'd introduce buckfast to your black bees though?
The two bees work differently. Buckfast bees tend to produce more honey, while the black bees are hardy and consume less food.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages I like to go with best of both worlds. 😊
Thanks for the reply, I understand the black bees are not as prolific but I thought by introducing the buckfast bees you might water the native bees gene poll and cause problems later down the line?
I don’t think that. My bees go back dark after a few lines. The black gene is by far the strongest.
I also like adding fresh blood into the lines. Other animals tend to be healthier if their not pure bred...why not bees?
I know there is a big agreement to be had I’m smack bang in the middle. I like the welsh blacks and buckfast. I don’t use any other breed apart from that.
I think its something to do with the genes working different in animals and insects I really don't know much about it if I'm honest.
Totally agree with it in animals though, except that you can control the lining with say a dog or chicken but bees will be effected locally in other apiarys wherever other subspecies are introduced I was watching and reading about the decline of AMM because of mixing the breeding and imports ect.
I think they say AMM have been around since the last ice age so presumably its taken a long time to adapt but it's interesting your bees seem to be going back to more native strains even after other subspecies have been introduced, maby because you have a higher amm drone count local than anything else?
Yea I would agree with that. Most swarms we catch around here are black bees.
What size brood boxes do you use? We use Danish buckfast and find them so prolific, that we have to double brood on standard national boxes. I'd like to move away from the double brood system. I'm thinking of giving 14x12s a try
Yea they do lay a lot! I’ve got them in single national and single commercial. For me double broods is just to much work... 14x12 is a good box. I’d go Langstroth if I started over though. That’s the best all rounder and cheap to buy.
Would you find them more aggresive then the welsh black
Not really. I find they stay relatively calm
Hi Griff, first time beekeeper loving the videos. We have had a 5 frame nuc for about a week. They've got about a quarter of a frame of pollen... should we feed them a pollen patty? We've been giving apimix feed.
Hi,
How how many frames of brood are they? and how big of a colony? Is the hive full of bees? Feeding a pollen patty won't hurt them but there should be plenty of pollen coming in now as long as the rain holds off for a few days. Apimix is a good feed.
@@gwenyngruffydd Still quite small, only 2 frames. The hive seems very active but it looks like they're bringing pollen in. Ill keep an eye on It, diolch!
Stuart Black if their 2 frames then I would feed syrup.
Well done gruff, found some swarm cells in one of my hives today still three frames of foundation in there for them to draw out but when they think it’s time to go it’s hard stopping them.
I pinched the queen cells and dropped some empty drawn frames from another hive in to buy some time until next week. Do you always split for swarm prevention?
Yes i always split them. once they get the swarming urge they will go. Very hard to get them out of wanting to go.
By making the split you solve the problem and you dont lose any bees. Just take 2 frames out with the queen. The main colony should have plenty of bees left to produce a decent crop.
I notice there are 11 frames in your brood box. Are these typical Langstroth hives/frames or something different?
These are National hives slightly different to langstroth. They are not as good. Langstroth is by far the best of all the hives. It’s just in the U.K. national is the most popular. If I had my time back starting over I would end up going down the langstroth road.
I keep 11 frames in them instead of 12 for easier inspections. I find 12 frames is to tight of a fit.
are they not supercedure cells that you are destroying, does that mean you artificially re-queen every year or two???
the buckfast do look very calm and nice to handle.....
Hi,
No, if they were supercedure cells there would only be 1 or 2 cells. if there are a lot more they are wanting to swarm.
I purchase in queen for later in the year when im making overwintered nucs. But all the main honey colonies are left to make their own queen. If i split them that is. Il only split a hive that wants to swarm.
@@gwenyngruffydd thank you for the reply....... always learning....
Graham Rodriguez no problem 😊
Evening Griff, Have you had any signs of paralysis virus since introducing the Buckfast strain? I have been feeding some colonies that seem bent on turning every drop into bees. It's moving through quite quick, as you said clover and bramble and then its the main season over if there's no heather to get.
Hi,
luckily i haven't seen a lot of it. Currently have zero with it. Thats not to say I won't have a problem later on.
Yes the bucks will turn every drop into bees in most cases. Especially the more pedigree they are! Good for when the main honey flow comes though!
Yes no heather for us so it will all be over in 6 weeks or so here!!
Hey can sheep eat pond/alligator/monkey apples?
hi,
Not sure about those apples but they do eat apples if you chop them up and make them into smaller chunks.
What is the make of your bee suit? I like the hood style.
Its a Swienty Breeze suit. If you scroll through my videos there is a review of it there.
@@gwenyngruffydd Ordered a Swienty suit, used their sizing measuring guide. It arrived - the XL size is far too big. Would you mind letting me know what size suit you have. My height is 5ft 11 inches!
@Gwenyn Gruffydd hi there. There was definitely not a swarmy condition on this hive. Queen cells that you knocked down was superseedure cells. Queen was to old or something was wrong with her! Laying patterns wasn't great also. Best way to keep this collonie in working condition just change queen for new mated good quality queen. I have watched some of your videos - 👍👍King regards. Andrew. UA-cam : Irish bee
Hi Tony,
Sorry I missed this message! I’m 5,8 and I went for a size L.
Hi,
Yes that’s one way you could deal with the situation. If I see 3 or more cells I take that as swarming cells and don’t mess around.
I don’t really like killing the queen and replacing her I prefer to split her into a nuc and let nature take it’s course.
if you have a stud bull that wants to hang with the steers what would you call it? and the name of these bees does not make me feel confident in their ability to breed
Not a fan of buckfast bees?
Hello, great video, thanks for sharing. Did you say the bees won’t store fondant?
thanks 😊 Thats right not 100% true but in 99.9% cases they won't. Bees will only consume fondant if they need it. Thats why you find it all hard at the top of the crown board when they don't need it.
They love syrup and never waste it. If there is room to store it they will store it! Very bad if that's in the honey supers!!
Its perfectly fine to feed nucs or bees without supers syrup in the summer. But my rule is never when the supers are on. Just fondant to be safe.
You don't need to find the queen to do a split; use Bob Binnie's method, you will love it: "Splitting Using a Double Screen Board".
BTW please drop the background music, it is not needed and it is annoying !
Hi,
There are several ways of doing splits and there’s nothing wrong with splitting with a double screen board.
In my case I don’t want to make a 50/50 split more of a 75/25 split. I find making a small split is ideal for that.
Bob is a very good beekeeper and you won’t go wrong following him. In fact I watch all his videos on UA-cam! He is so knowledgeable and I learn a lot from watching him.
But the only thing to consider is I live in Wales in the U.K. Much different climate and we do things a little bit different sometimes. Not better or worse just what suits us.
Thanks for the feedback it’s the only way that I can find out what works as it’s just me and the laptop here! 😊 thanks for taking the time to comment.