I am just a small beekeeper in north western Massachusetts with 20 colonies. I’m picking up a lotto very useful information from your channel and thanks for sharing.
Still cool and windy with mixed rain and snow here. The Yukon is just breaking up here now. I have a second box on my bigger hive, its a super of left over sugar syrup. I needed them to clean it up for honey later. The queen is already laying it up. I kept the winter wrap on it hoping to help them heat it up.
All the outdoor wintering yards around here were still wrapped as of last week. I haven't been out and about but I assume they still are. Hasn't been much worry about over heating. The sun is beautiful but that's how fine the line here has been. When the sun is shining the bees are flying and the moment a cloud is covering the sun they all go back in.
Thank you for your valuable videos! I am a new beekeeper going into spring with two colonies. Every week wondering what to do to help them the best I can. It’s helpful to see that even experienced people go through some decision making and hope for the best. Beekeeping is really a balance of knowledge and art. 🐝. I am in Saskatchewan and we have lots of dandelions now.
I like most of what you have to say Ian, you clearly think logically, I've heard of folks chucking on boxes in early spring thinking they are providing space to avoid swarm triggers, it may work but will be due to them being set back by the loss of thermal dynamics rather than 'giving them plenty of space' as you said if the weather is poor and you think they will need the space then Nadir the box rather than Super it, that way as heat rises they aren't wasting energy and resources heating up empty space. I'm with you on the frustrating weather thing, here in the U.K. We had temps into the twenties for a week in February but right now when it should be warm especially for the bees to take advantage of the OSR (Canola?) its wet and single figures! I'm trying to get going on Queen rearing but with the weather the way it is 🙄 Anyway , thanks for the video, here's hoping it warms up for you soon. P.S love that you say 'bloody' such a British cuss word 😁
Im a new beekeeper here in Western Australia and we don't have your cold, but I am still going to try your method by putting space on my brood box from underneath, not on top, your method sounds quite logical.👍
They naturally want to reproduce the colony. We're they to swarm the swarm would be subject to the vicissitudes of what they encounter. That is the swarm may not make it and the colony left behind is suboptimal. If you make adjustment to your practice... Would not they be better off with a extrabox rather than a swarm trigger at this time ? Always asking why and examining the details..... In a way it is a good problem to have....
Thanks for your videos. Don't be afraid to go over things that you have done in previous videos. New Beekeeper here in Northern Wisconsin, much the same weather conditions and tress, however I'm not in a AG area but mostly swampy with plenty of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries around. I have had my 3 hives since 4-16 on new foundations, pollen patties and taking syrup like crazy. Last weekend inspection showed frames are drawn 50% ish from the top of the box down, capped brood, eggs and all stages. I also have lots of capped sugar honey. Should I keep the syrup on them or take it off. I don't want to fill my laying space with sugar but at the same time simulate a nectar flow so she keeps laying. I know I don't have a "BOX O BEES" yet but want to build the nest as fast as possible. Will the queen sense the temperatures and keep the nest tight for heat purposes? Do foragers do much in keeping the nest warm and brood. Will the Queen lay more then the nurse bees can handle and keep warm? Beekeepers get the worst case of spring fever! Thanks again! AF
I had to do mine already including the nucs. Just went under. When it warms up I'll switch em. I threw in some foundationless with starter strips a week ago and they got that all drawn out already. Considering the crappy weather I can't believe how fast they are progressing. I was gonna wait but we all know how reliable weather forecasts are. If all of a sudden we get a bunch of rain or something the bees are set. They're hauling in the pollen hardcore every chance they get and are going nutz on the patties. After this two weeks of crap I gave them some open 1 to 1 yesterday and they took it all by this afternoon. Probably give em a bit more 1/2 of the seconds were foundationless so I want it drawn out fairly soon. Trying to get everything on new brood comb. Lol... Saw my first Dandelion blossom today. 3/4 of an inch tall. It opened in the morning. Said screw that and closed back up by noon.... Hopefully there will be more soon with a better attitude. This is Saskatchewan after all.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog There's a big difference between 4 boxes and hundreds. I had bees in all frames except the outside of the box in all of em. What impressing the piss out of me is if things keep progressing as they are I'll have 3 producers as big as your monsters. Lol... Last summer when I got my bees and ran into your page I was green with envy. Now I'm just green. That'll wash off with more experience. But here is a perfect example of how folks can manage the same in basically the same weather and still can not be monkey see monkey do. I had beginning signs of bad nosema in half my stock so I took them out of the shed early. They started to brood heavy earlier. While they were weaker than your monsters out of the shed they caught up. Maybe the state of the brood would have allowed me to wait those extra days but the weather hasn't exactly been favorable for full inspections. It's just 4 boxes so I erred on the side of caution and put em on. With just 4 hives I cleaned my boxes assembled the frames put in the fishing line and the wax strips assembled the frames into the boxes and placed them under the hives in a single day. You Haven't got that flexibility due to numbers of hives. Plus you have to weigh non profitable expenditures. Boxing under costs more. Lifting each brood box twice in two separate operations costs more than double compared with not lifting them at all with top boxing. For me it was just my labor. For you it's cost benefit analysis and risk assessment. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!!
@Rough . . ., Good for you and you are already thinking ahead to when you have your hundreds. As to the under boxing those under boxes will never become equal to the original box - you actually do have to swap them up later on? Ah, I just see you have a new upload (I was hoping for some new drone views of your locale) I'll get to that next.
@@Don.Challenger two weeks ago when I went in I saw only 1 drone in all the boxes. However on the foundationless frames I put in they made a wack of drone comb that she already had layed out. This is good because I had very little drone comb in either of the hives I bought. This year for me is about major propagation so I want all four hives building drones And I'm gonna be grafting out of all four also. My 2 original queens are now on their 3rd year. I plan on replacing them but rather than pinching them off I'll utilize them in 2 frame nucs building brood. One of the things I plan on targeting in later breeding is longevity. Queens live 5 years and to me it doesn't make sense to have to replace queens annually or after two short years. No reason they cant be bred to be viable for 4 years. it's a lot of work or a huge expense any way you look at it to replace queens. I also plan in the future rearing breeding stock outdoors. Maybe once I accomplish that I'll start selling bee stock. My daughter went to school for vet tech. So the research aspects of all of this including disease are right up her alley and she is vastly interested. Big plans but little money so the first step was buy bees. Now I gotta facilitate the building of stock. LOTS OF STOCK! I can't research without stock and I can't fund it without production. I am not the guy who complains. Never have been. If there is a problem then I find a solution or create a solution myself. Just need the bees so I can endure risk. To your question. As Ian and pretty much every beekeeper worth their salt will tell you, Bees like building up. Bottom boxing is a quick fix when it's cold to provide space but if you want to take off some gorgeous splits fairly quick you gotta position that box on top ASAP to facilitate what the bees want. Bee keeping in a very narcissistic and incorrect term. If you keep bees they'll piss off or die. We are not but facilitators. We facilitate their needs and wants period!!! Do it right and at the right time, it'll be amazing! DO it wrong or at the wrong time, it will be costly! We all must remember. The hive has a big wide door on it. Bees in your box tomorrow is their choice not ours. Don't facilitate properly and they are gone! If they can 't fly due to weather then they are dead. Most CCD is actually forgetting this simple premise.
What do you use for your weather service and do your farm locations have their own weather stations for the on site local situation for your own trend reports.
When you add the second brood box is your intention to create a new colony once she has packed both boxes out? In turn creating two single brood box colonies? Obviously one would need a queen but the resources would then be available.Thank you in advance!
Could you explain how you decide which boxes you split and which ones you make honey from? Do you split the entire apiary? If not how do you remove the energy from the colonies that you don't split? Just trying to understand you swarm management in the spring and how to set up a hive to make honey with out them splitting.
From other videos, I believe he splits the colonies that would swarm otherwise, or when he's wanting to do splits. At other times like before a honey flow, he balances the colonies by taking brood and bees from strong hives and moving them to weaker colonies. And whenever there is a honey flow, he's going to put honey supers on! He times the splitting and balancing to have the hives at the ideal size and about the same energy level in time for the honey flows.
I can’t beleive how far you are ahead of us here in Newfoundland! My queens just starting to lay the first round of brood. And you latitude is higher than mine! Ian, do you think its because you winter indoors?
David -- ditto that. My Newfoundland bees (in Flatrock & Portugal Cove) are just starting lay. Things looked good for a couple weeks near the end of March, but it's been cold since and the queens have slowed down. I have half of my hives reduced to single deeps, which I started doing last year in the early spring, and I noticed those single-deep colonies seem to build up quicker. But right now mine are barely taking down syrup or doing much of anything. I don't expect my colonies will look like Ian's until the end of May.
Will you try a few with the added box under rather than over just to test how that alternative compares - you are suggesting that putting one under won't present as much a potential stress if cool weather lingers on but will it remain different than the original bottom box and require swapping around later?
How often do you control swarm cells? My colonies generally makes swarm cells when the colony has 7-8 frame brood. I give them extra space by adding super but the result is still same.
Arılıkta Bir Gün that's because they want to do REPRODUCTIVE SWARM, not CONGESTIVE SWARM.. some bees Swarm to Reproduce,requeen themselves, and when lots of pollen and nectar coming in they know they have a good chance at success...
Baddest Bees thanks for your response. All my queens are 2018 born. So I don’t think they want to reproduce queen. May be genetic tendency for swarming.
Arılıkta Bir Gün that's what I mean ,they are probably just trying to make more hives to increase their chances of Survival on this Earth..,Now if cups have royal jelly then they could've been cramped,but once it's a actual queen cell and no longer just a cup -extra room won't change their mind usually...
Got my 1st bees yesterday ,, they seem very happy,, here,, I'll put my UA-cam channel soon,, they call it a high-end hive a Russian Hive heated and air-conditioned digitally controlled integrated humidity control system I'll be putting that on pretty soon
"1 brood frame = 3 frames of bees" Thanks. That's good info
I am just a small beekeeper in north western Massachusetts with 20 colonies. I’m picking up a lotto very useful information from your channel and thanks for sharing.
Still cool and windy with mixed rain and snow here. The Yukon is just breaking up here now. I have a second box on my bigger hive, its a super of left over sugar syrup. I needed them to clean it up for honey later. The queen is already laying it up. I kept the winter wrap on it hoping to help them heat it up.
All the outdoor wintering yards around here were still wrapped as of last week. I haven't been out and about but I assume they still are. Hasn't been much worry about over heating. The sun is beautiful but that's how fine the line here has been. When the sun is shining the bees are flying and the moment a cloud is covering the sun they all go back in.
Thank you for your valuable videos! I am a new beekeeper going into spring with two colonies. Every week wondering what to do to help them the best I can. It’s helpful to see that even experienced people go through some decision making and hope for the best. Beekeeping is really a balance of knowledge and art. 🐝. I am in Saskatchewan and we have lots of dandelions now.
This year in Siberia is warmer. Good job Ian.
I like most of what you have to say Ian, you clearly think logically, I've heard of folks chucking on boxes in early spring thinking they are providing space to avoid swarm triggers, it may work but will be due to them being set back by the loss of thermal dynamics rather than 'giving them plenty of space' as you said if the weather is poor and you think they will need the space then Nadir the box rather than Super it, that way as heat rises they aren't wasting energy and resources heating up empty space.
I'm with you on the frustrating weather thing, here in the U.K. We had temps into the twenties for a week in February but right now when it should be warm especially for the bees to take advantage of the OSR (Canola?) its wet and single figures!
I'm trying to get going on Queen rearing but with the weather the way it is 🙄
Anyway , thanks for the video, here's hoping it warms up for you soon.
P.S love that you say 'bloody' such a British cuss word 😁
What is nadir rather than super mean
James it is just the opposite of Super, Super in Latin meaning above or beyond, Nadir meaning in Latin is as I said, opposite, Beneath or lowest. 🙂
@@jeffharris8787 heard, thanks.
Im surely guilty of adding to much space this spring.. hasn't been cold so much as no sun and rain about every day.. here in Michigan
In the spring it is very helpful for you to tell us what the temps are when you are doing different operations, thanks.
Im a new beekeeper here in Western Australia and we don't have your cold, but I am still going to try your method by putting space on my brood box from underneath, not on top, your method sounds quite logical.👍
Research Nadiring Simon.
Thanks for that info Mark, I see, the Warre Hive method, uses nadiring. I will be trying this method.👍🐝
He doesn't add space under .. his second goes on top
@@hootervillehoneybees8664 watch at 2:40
Ryan Nims, I think he is trying this new method, called Nadiring, adding boxes on bottom not top.
I bet you are glad you waited on the second BB considering the cold spring we have had.
They naturally want to reproduce the colony. We're they to swarm the swarm would be subject to the vicissitudes of what they encounter. That is the swarm may not make it and the colony left behind is suboptimal.
If you make adjustment to your practice... Would not they be better off with a extrabox rather than a swarm trigger at this time ?
Always asking why and examining the details.....
In a way it is a good problem to have....
paul dow
Or otherwise, set back.
Hence the move to put under but I’m procrastinating because it’s a lot of work.
Thanks for your videos. Don't be afraid to go over things that you have done in previous videos. New Beekeeper here in Northern Wisconsin, much the same weather conditions and tress, however I'm not in a AG area but mostly swampy with plenty of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries around. I have had my 3 hives since 4-16 on new foundations, pollen patties and taking syrup like crazy. Last weekend inspection showed frames are drawn 50% ish from the top of the box down, capped brood, eggs and all stages. I also have lots of capped sugar honey. Should I keep the syrup on them or take it off. I don't want to fill my laying space with sugar but at the same time simulate a nectar flow so she keeps laying. I know I don't have a "BOX O BEES" yet but want to build the nest as fast as possible. Will the queen sense the temperatures and keep the nest tight for heat purposes? Do foragers do much in keeping the nest warm and brood. Will the Queen lay more then the nurse bees can handle and keep warm? Beekeepers get the worst case of spring fever! Thanks again! AF
I had to do mine already including the nucs. Just went under. When it warms up I'll switch em. I threw in some foundationless with starter strips a week ago and they got that all drawn out already. Considering the crappy weather I can't believe how fast they are progressing. I was gonna wait but we all know how reliable weather forecasts are. If all of a sudden we get a bunch of rain or something the bees are set. They're hauling in the pollen hardcore every chance they get and are going nutz on the patties. After this two weeks of crap I gave them some open 1 to 1 yesterday and they took it all by this afternoon. Probably give em a bit more 1/2 of the seconds were foundationless so I want it drawn out fairly soon. Trying to get everything on new brood comb.
Lol... Saw my first Dandelion blossom today. 3/4 of an inch tall. It opened in the morning. Said screw that and closed back up by noon.... Hopefully there will be more soon with a better attitude. This is Saskatchewan after all.
Rough And Wretched R.A.W. Is it true Saskatchewan is so flat it is the only province you can watch your dog run away for three frickin days?
You did the right thing, I’m procrastinating so I don’t have to flip them around
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog There's a big difference between 4 boxes and hundreds. I had bees in all frames except the outside of the box in all of em. What impressing the piss out of me is if things keep progressing as they are I'll have 3 producers as big as your monsters.
Lol... Last summer when I got my bees and ran into your page I was green with envy. Now I'm just green. That'll wash off with more experience.
But here is a perfect example of how folks can manage the same in basically the same weather and still can not be monkey see monkey do. I had beginning signs of bad nosema in half my stock so I took them out of the shed early. They started to brood heavy earlier. While they were weaker than your monsters out of the shed they caught up. Maybe the state of the brood would have allowed me to wait those extra days but the weather hasn't exactly been favorable for full inspections. It's just 4 boxes so I erred on the side of caution and put em on.
With just 4 hives I cleaned my boxes assembled the frames put in the fishing line and the wax strips assembled the frames into the boxes and placed them under the hives in a single day. You Haven't got that flexibility due to numbers of hives. Plus you have to weigh non profitable expenditures. Boxing under costs more. Lifting each brood box twice in two separate operations costs more than double compared with not lifting them at all with top boxing. For me it was just my labor. For you it's cost benefit analysis and risk assessment. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!!
@Rough . . ., Good for you and you are already thinking ahead to when you have your hundreds. As to the under boxing those under boxes will never become equal to the original box - you actually do have to swap them up later on? Ah, I just see you have a new upload (I was hoping for some new drone views of your locale) I'll get to that next.
@@Don.Challenger two weeks ago when I went in I saw only 1 drone in all the boxes. However on the foundationless frames I put in they made a wack of drone comb that she already had layed out. This is good because I had very little drone comb in either of the hives I bought. This year for me is about major propagation so I want all four hives building drones And I'm gonna be grafting out of all four also. My 2 original queens are now on their 3rd year. I plan on replacing them but rather than pinching them off I'll utilize them in 2 frame nucs building brood. One of the things I plan on targeting in later breeding is longevity. Queens live 5 years and to me it doesn't make sense to have to replace queens annually or after two short years. No reason they cant be bred to be viable for 4 years. it's a lot of work or a huge expense any way you look at it to replace queens. I also plan in the future rearing breeding stock outdoors. Maybe once I accomplish that I'll start selling bee stock. My daughter went to school for vet tech. So the research aspects of all of this including disease are right up her alley and she is vastly interested. Big plans but little money so the first step was buy bees. Now I gotta facilitate the building of stock. LOTS OF STOCK! I can't research without stock and I can't fund it without production.
I am not the guy who complains. Never have been. If there is a problem then I find a solution or create a solution myself. Just need the bees so I can endure risk.
To your question. As Ian and pretty much every beekeeper worth their salt will tell you, Bees like building up. Bottom boxing is a quick fix when it's cold to provide space but if you want to take off some gorgeous splits fairly quick you gotta position that box on top ASAP to facilitate what the bees want. Bee keeping in a very narcissistic and incorrect term. If you keep bees they'll piss off or die. We are not but facilitators. We facilitate their needs and wants period!!! Do it right and at the right time, it'll be amazing! DO it wrong or at the wrong time, it will be costly!
We all must remember. The hive has a big wide door on it. Bees in your box tomorrow is their choice not ours. Don't facilitate properly and they are gone! If they can 't fly due to weather then they are dead. Most CCD is actually forgetting this simple premise.
Could you stack your weaker colonies that you want to salvage on top? That may take off some pressure.
What do you use for your weather service and do your farm locations have their own weather stations for the on site local situation for your own trend reports.
When you add the second brood box is your intention to create a new colony once she has packed both boxes out? In turn creating two single brood box colonies? Obviously one would need a queen but the resources would then be available.Thank you in advance!
Upstate Buzz Worthy Bees
Yes, surplus bees are used for a split
Hi! I can not understand how your winch works. How do you manage it? When she lifts, when she lowers and when she keeps the hive in the air?
Could you explain how you decide which boxes you split and which ones you make honey from? Do you split the entire apiary? If not how do you remove the energy from the colonies that you don't split? Just trying to understand you swarm management in the spring and how to set up a hive to make honey with out them splitting.
From other videos, I believe he splits the colonies that would swarm otherwise, or when he's wanting to do splits.
At other times like before a honey flow, he balances the colonies by taking brood and bees from strong hives and moving them to weaker colonies.
And whenever there is a honey flow, he's going to put honey supers on!
He times the splitting and balancing to have the hives at the ideal size and about the same energy level in time for the honey flows.
As soon as I receive some warm weather I will forward it to you.
He can ask the government to send some politicians over fast for the warmth of their air but his bees might then decide to angry swarm.
Any reason for the plastic frames in the center, or were those frames from nucleus installs .
I can’t beleive how far you are ahead of us here in Newfoundland! My queens just starting to lay the first round of brood. And you latitude is higher than mine! Ian, do you think its because you winter indoors?
David -- ditto that. My Newfoundland bees (in Flatrock & Portugal Cove) are just starting lay. Things looked good for a couple weeks near the end of March, but it's been cold since and the queens have slowed down. I have half of my hives reduced to single deeps, which I started doing last year in the early spring, and I noticed those single-deep colonies seem to build up quicker. But right now mine are barely taking down syrup or doing much of anything. I don't expect my colonies will look like Ian's until the end of May.
@@mudsongs hah, this is so weird to see. Here where I am, we extract honey around May 25th
Hi, is it worth compromising and putting ideals on rather than full depth supers?
Will you pull your mite strips when adding the second box?
goodoleboy11668
Not for the split boxes but yes, for the honey boxes
Box em up, weather's coming. Top up the big ones at least.
That Bee Man at Faith Apiaries
This is one of my things
Will you try a few with the added box under rather than over just to test how that alternative compares - you are suggesting that putting one under won't present as much a potential stress if cool weather lingers on but will it remain different than the original bottom box and require swapping around later?
How often do you control swarm cells?
My colonies generally makes swarm cells when the colony has 7-8 frame brood. I give them extra space by adding super but the result is still same.
Arılıkta Bir Gün that's because they want to do REPRODUCTIVE SWARM, not CONGESTIVE SWARM.. some bees Swarm to Reproduce,requeen themselves, and when lots of pollen and nectar coming in they know they have a good chance at success...
Baddest Bees thanks for your response.
All my queens are 2018 born. So I don’t think they want to reproduce queen. May be genetic tendency for swarming.
Arılıkta Bir Gün that's what I mean ,they are probably just trying to make more hives to increase their chances of Survival on this Earth..,Now if cups have royal jelly then they could've been cramped,but once it's a actual queen cell and no longer just a cup -extra room won't change their mind usually...
What are these strips ?
Marek Bílý
Apivar
now anything is easy,
Hay why not put a box on. The bottom.
William James jr.
soon enough
What are those white strips down between the frames
James Dombroski
Apivar
If Canada used Fahrenheit you wouldn't have so many days with negative temperatures ;) JK.
Got my 1st bees yesterday ,, they seem very happy,, here,, I'll put my UA-cam channel soon,, they call it a high-end hive a Russian Hive heated and air-conditioned digitally controlled integrated humidity control system I'll be putting that on pretty soon
😄
Bee wrangling!