Backyard Beekeeping Questions and Answers Episode 183 CO2 Mite Count System and more, winter ready.
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- Welcome to another series of backyard beekeeping topics.
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Today's topics are as follows:
1) Have you completely transitioned to Hive Gates and Wooden entrance reducers, and have you replaced the copper screening?
300 Series Stainless Steel Screens make good entrance reducers when you want to still provide ventilation: amzn.to/3tp1TdG
2) I have been seeing information that says the PH of Sugar Syrups are too high when compared to nature's nectar. Also one person is spraying frames with vinegar solution, claiming that it's helping with varroa control. Would this possibly have something to do with PH?
Learn more about honey vs sucrose: www.nature.com...
3) I'm thinking of switching to the CO2 Method of mite testing. What are your thoughts about this?
These are Amazon affiliate links to products I use for my insect CO2 knock-out system:
Bike Tool Inflator: amzn.to/3hqTCTO
16g CO2 Cartridges in boxes of 10: amzn.to/3URzVTy
Air Fill Needle: amzn.to/3hDoCjL
Mite-Check Jar (drill a 1/8" hole in the lid) amzn.to/3tpXoje
4) I have been reading a lot about small-cell foundation frames. Have you used them, do they really produce smaller bees and do you think they are effective in helping to control varroa mites?
Small Cell foundation studies regarding varroa mite mitigation:
link.springer....
5) I have hives going into winter with two queens, do you see any issues with this?
6) Is it possible for a hive to be honey/nectar-bound going into winter? Is this something not to be worried about?
7) How do you use Apiguard in our Layens Hives?
Happy Veteran's Day!
Today's SHOUT-OUT, please stop in and check on The Walls Bee Man, Tim!
I hope Tim is doing well. / wallsbeeman
THE HIVE LIFE CONFERENCE - you'll make new friends, learn about the latest innovations, and have fellowship with like-minded beekeepers. It's my favorite conference, my only complaint is that it's just too short! www.hivelifeco...
1) Have you completely transitioned to Hive Gates and Wooden entrance reducers, and have you replaced the copper screening? 2:41
2) I have been seeing information that says the PH of Sugar Syrups are too high when compared to nature's nectar. Also one person is spraying frames with vinegar solution, claiming that it's helping with varroa control. Would this possibly have something to do with PH? 6:51
3) I'm thinking of switching to the CO2 Method of mite testing. What are your thoughts about this? 13:54
4) I have been reading a lot about small-cell foundation frames. Have you used them, do they really produce smaller bees and do you think they are effective in helping to control varroa mites? 27:50
5) I have hives going into winter with two queens, do you see any issues with this? 33:10
6) Is it possible for a hive to be honey/nectar-bound going into winter? Is this something not to be worried about? 41:15
7) How do you use Apiguard in our Layens Hives? 45:41
As always an hour well spent!!
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge Fred, very much appreciated.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the video and for your service.
Thank for watching and commenting :)
I am 100% in agreement with your statement "question everything". I gave the same advice at the Oklahoma beekeepers conference when I was encouraging everyone to experiment often and conduct their own studies rather than just sponging UA-cam advice and taking it as gospel. I had a good example of advice I was given early on in my beekeeping career and after sharing that advice with MANY people I discovered it was not true. Egg on my face. :( Thankfully the people I told probably don't remember who told them.
Hi Randy! :) Well, the fun of UA-cam is that everything we say and post, is out there for an undeterminned amount of time. It's great to know you, Randy!
@@FrederickDunn hey hope all is well with u and ya fam. As I am bout to go thru my first winter in the southeastern Massachusetts area, I was hoping for some advice. I use the ceracell top feeder setup thru out the yr when needed. The one that has the for corners and middle piece that u can remove to use liquid or dry feed. Leaning towards no on this question but ya experience is greatly appreciated. For winter should I use the ceracell for dry sugar or fondant for emergency feed? My hives have at least a deep of capped honey. Should I just use the shim and put the sugar on top of the capped deep directly over frames? Or leave the feeder on and fill that with the dry sugar? Thinking if they do end up needing the emergency food source they prob won't make it up and into the feeder but I have no past experiences with winter and the movement of the cluster. Thanks so much. Once again much appreciated for all your experiments and service u provide to all of us in the beekeeping community. Happy holidays in advance to u and yours.
I truly admire anyone with a mind this nimble and busy. Thank you for sharing, Fred
Thank you, Jack!
Winter is here!!! As always I learned something new. Never heard of co2 knocking out bugs. Thank you and all the vets for your service. Great video also.
I did contact Tim Duram's email and was answered by someone there saying that he has now retired and no longer able to do videos. He was a great beekeeper and teacher, loved his end of video joke, got a kick watching him laugh at it more than anything, a nice man
Thank you for that update! I'm glad he's taking time to relax, that's good news.
Really enjoyed this hour and 5 minutes with you! I'm in SW Missouri but we still get very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer! Not sure what the happy medium is. I just know I like the mindset of a person like you that uses proven info to make decisions on doing things. Had bad experiences over 20 years ago with local bee clubs using outdated thoughts and internet searches now seem to show money driving plans for individuals looking to profit off of them. I'm going to have to combine different thoughts and try to make a go of it on my own, I think. Just retired early this past summer and your channel has been helping me find the happy medium, I think. Thanks for being there for me as an option to learn from.
Hi Tommy, I'm so glad that you are finding my videos helpful, and welcome to retirement! :)
Thank you for your service Fred and your dedication to your fellow beekeepers
got a ride in a combine when i was 16,harvesting wheat...added hive alive today as temps are dropping deer on the rut,...
Thank you for your service Sir!
Thank you for your service Fred!
Thanks for your service Fred.
You're welcome :)
Fred, I want to thank you for answering my Question on treating for mites on the Layens Hive.
You are very welcome :)
For whatever it is worth, I have two Layens Hives in the Central Washington area. I modified 5 of the frames around the entrance by routing out space between those frames...like a Langstroth frame. Then as Fred said, installed a shim and cover over those shims, over those frames so that treatments and feed could be put on those hives. Due to the large size of the frames, I nearly lost one of the hives in the spring during its rapid build up and OA was not enough to keep up with the build up of mites. As you may be aware, Dr. Leo is a natural beekeeper, meaning he doesn't do any intervening on behalf of his hives. If I attempted that, I would not have any hives survive is short order. So for this region, that modification I believed needed to be made. Hope that helps.
Thanks For the info as Usual Mr Dunn 🇱🇨👍🏼♥️
My pleasure!
About insulation above your inner cover, in Norway we use 50mm insulation all year long, in summer to keep the hive more chill, in winter to keep the heat in. And no beekeepers I know have vent in the top of the hive. So hopefully your American followers listen to you! And last, but not least, thanks for a very good UA-cam channel, great work you do Mr. Dunn👍🏻😃
Thank you, and yes, there is no reason to alter the insulation for summer or winter, the benefits are year round :)
Thank you Fred as always, have a fantastic weekend. Stay warm ✌️
Thanks, you too!
Happy Veteran's Day to you Fred. Thank you for the informative video.
Great Q&A as always Fred. Got the liquid off my hives yesterday and now have half with dry sugar and half with HiveAlive fondant. I'm curious to see if I can tell a difference in how they overwinter. I took 4 hives through last winter and taking 9 this year. Hope to have around 15 this time next year.
See you soon in Tennessee and happy Veteran's Day to you and your wife!!!
That's a great test to be doing. I did that last winter and noted that the HA hives "seemed" better in spring. But with such a small sampling it's hard to get a real valuable statistic. So, I'll make up for that over months and years ahead. My results were a tad muddied since I also installed insulated inner covers last winter which also enhanced their survival. This year, all colonies will have HA on as well as enhanced insulation on the tops. The observatiion hives and horizontal hives don't Have HA. I'd like to drop to 15-20 strong colonies, but I would say with some confidence that the HA colonies "seem" healthier and they have lower nosema based on dead and dying bee testing. Scraping out the dead bees in winter results in about 10% bees that are still alive but failing, so it's a great opportunity to get them under a microscope.
For the Warner Robin's, GA. question about treating for varroa mites, Warner Robin's is 5 miles east of me and in a Layens hive you'll need to do several OAV treatments simply because we never get a complete brood break here in Mid Georgia, one of my double deeps still had capped drone cells a week ago, about 50 in the bottom edges of the main brood frame, which had about 300 capped worker cells mixed in with scattered eggs and milk brood.
Thanks for sharing, Carl!
Just a thought for treating Dr. Leo’s hives with OAV. If his insulated hives are built as he shows on his website. There is a 1x2 rib down the center of the back side. If you can locate it. You can drill a 1/4 hole through it for the vaporizer. Another option is to drill a 1” hole in the outer plywood. Glue in a 1” wood dowel, cut to size. Then drill the 1/4” hole. As always, thank you Fred for another Q&A.
All great tips, thanks Ross!
Loved the combine intro
When the weather is good, they go for it no matter what time of day or night it is. Worked out well for my bee yard this time around :)
Thanks for the info on checking for varroa. I was interested in what size cup should be used for measuring out 300 bees.
300 bees is 1/2 cup.
@@FrederickDunn Thanks for your reply
Thank you Fred, for the Q&A, always great info. Side note, my husband is a veteran and is uncomfortable with being "thanked for his service" as he feels patronized. I know that people mean well by giving reconigtion to vets. How do you feel about this subject, please feel free to not answer if this is an inappropriate place for this question. Love your high class photography and videos, as always.
When someone thanks me for my service, I just thank them back. :) Each individual will process it in their own way.
I want to thank you for your service, Happy Veterans day.
Another great show, thanks again Fred.
Very welcome
I love your vdo this feels like family
Thanks, Peter :)
Mug up at the Dunn's. Good morning beekeepers. Good morning, Fred, thank you for another Q&A. Dark, warm; 59F and damp @ 4:21AM here in central NH. Storm 'Nicole' has weakened and is passing over head this morning. Enough of that, on to the show...Great photo tips with CO2!I am a 2nd year Layens beekeeper with 3 full sized hives and 4 nucs going into winter. Varroa treatment can be difficult with the Layens configuration. I am considering getting the InstaVap battery powered vaporizer for OAV. In drilling 1/4" hole remember to make sure that inside where the vapor enters the hive, should be between the frames and not blowing directly onto a frame side bar where the flow of vapor is impeded. I think this was mentioned in your recent interview with Janos Fenyosy. In my home build full sized 15 and 25 frame hives I have a pest control tray access door where I can put the OAV treatment access hole that is well below the frames and will possibly allow the OAV to spread the length of the hive more freely. Thanks for all the great info, have a great week.
Could I get information about the Hive Life Conference?
they have a website and facebook page, its in january in Tennessee ,Sevierville, there is a fee,wish i can make it
www.hivelifeconference.com/ oops, I should add this to the video description :)
@@FrederickDunn thank you so much. We don't have a face book and a lot of information is usually just exclusively on there. Happy to see they have a website!!
Another Great Episode--thanks
Frederick, question for you. I purchased the Broodminder Temp and Love it. We are now in the 30's F, and my last temp reaching inside under the inner lid of the top box was 83 degrees? With freezing temps outside, is this is good temp to see for inside the hive?
That says "brood" to me, Brad :) Did you by chance do any testing with other thermometers prior to installing the broodminder in your hive? Penn State found that they had readings all over the place. But 83 degrees outside the cluster makes me think they still have some brood in there.
@@FrederickDunn Yes I did Frederick and it was close to the same but up and down. And yes, my broodminder strip is in the center of the hive so they could be clustering there. And I think the high 83 degrees is because yes--there is still hundreds of capped brood going into freezing temps. Not a lot, but I would say a few thousand. I will keep a close watch and see in the coming week if it does not go down into the 70s. This would make sense to me.
Hello Dear Frederick Dunn 🥰🥰🥰🥰
Happy Veterans Day
Thanks!
Dear Frederick Dunn Hello 🥰🥰🥰🥰
Sir, you do great work. Thanks for your efforts. Are you familiar with the video device called a Bebird? Sold as an ear cleaning camera? Getting older and I see this product as having potential.... It just needs a grafting tool tip. Any thoughts? Mine was 30 bucks from Walmart.
I've not seen that, I do have an endoscope, but haven't considered using it to aid grafting? My thoughts are that anything that works is a good tool to have :)
Happy veterans day. ;) I used apiguard in my top bar hive . I put it in folded index card that was folded so the bees still could get through the index cards. I used 2 index cards with apiguard in each hive. 25g each then put toothpick in top of of index card so dispent them on top of bars. The bees got in there fine. Cleared card out and it was taken through the hive. But after that I looked up Rany Oliver's experiment with hopguard 3 and used his hopguard every 2 week method. I also like my lorrobees vaporizer for clean up late fall. Next year I won't be using apiguard because I will be taking honey. Can't use with honey supers on so apiguard not the best thing for top bar or layens hive.
Thanks for sharing how you manage that. :)
@@FrederickDunn welcome
i have a coupke co2 dispensers for bikes,pretty cool,i know they use a version to inseminate breeder queens,facinating, should get my dewalt batteries tomorrow, for the oa vaporizor, winter really came today ,installed 1 beesmart insulated cover,and the lid over a short shim has double bubble, a little duct tape around and cracks ,even put a few visors on ,actually had some attempting to rob yesterday mid 70s,....warm days are gone now,have a great weekend...
If your buying batteries just for the instavape try the fake ones. Same cells half the cost
@@nickford5549 i was warned by rob at lorobee to avoid knockoff risky quality,roll the dice
Hi Fred,
Qn: can you bring together two 5 over 5 nucs and then add a 9 frame Flow Super on top so two colonies are adding honey to the Flow super? Any advantage??
You'd have to modify the top board across the double-nucleus setup at they won't align exactly. You also need to use a queen excluder which I don't personally use, BUT, nothing stops you from trying that sort of 2-queen system out. :)
@@FrederickDunn … just wondering if it would make sense for you?
For those who don't know mm to inch comparisons 1/32" = .032" or 32 divisions per inch
1mm = .0393" or 25.4 divisions per inch
interesting about two queen setup
i still don't understand, why you need to drill a hole to vaporize the hive? why entrance is not good for that?
I cover the entrance with a damp cloth, It's also where the brood is often concentrated. The damp cloth would cool off the intruduction tube too fast, and the first blast would go directly to the brood depending on the time of year it's delivered.
How is the swarm in the Apimay hive doing?
The swarm is still productive and looking good. They are also fending off potential robbers very well.
There are those out there using a mosquito fogger with alcohol and oxalic acid mixture to vaporize hives. I appreciate it would be much more difficult to approximate how much oxalic acid is applied to each hive, but this may be an extraordinarily inexpensive and easy way to rapidly treat several hives with oxalic acid. What are your thoughts?
Perhaps one way to estimate how much oxalic acid is applied would be to starting with 24 g of oxalic acid and treating 12 hives for approximately 2 seconds until all of the mixture is used up expecting to do multiple passes like trying to spread one pound of nitrogen per 1000ft on a yard by just continuing to walk the spreader until it's empty rather than precisely measuring your dispersion rate and only doing one pass.
All I can say is that there would have to be studies and approval before I could endorse that method.
The co2 is going to revolutionize mite research. It’s hard to get live mites from bees!
Speaking of bees....does the type of chicken feed effect the taste n smell of the egg??...we get our feed from the t.s. store ..dumor 16% i believe..eggs smell very strong..6 isa hen pullets living in tractor that is moved every few days to fresh grass...and also fellow bee guy..year 5.
What chickens eat can definitely have an impact on egg quality, taste, and even smell. Free ranging produces the best eggs I've ever had. That said, Dumor is a good company.
@@FrederickDunn thanks Fred...ill play with their diet and see how that goes.
❤️🐝🐝🐝🐝❤️
How do you keep the glyphosate out of your honey?
There is nothing I can personally do to curb that content in my hives/honey. Where I live and keep bees, agriculture consists of soy beans, or corn in rotation. BUT, we have thousands of acres of untended wild forage along the French Creek Watershed. I hope the bees work that more and limit their exposure. But the short answer is that beekeepers can't control what comes in from agricultureal practices.
Thanks Fred, I enjoy your show, though lately it seems you spend more time talking about mites than bees! Nevertheless, I always pick up some good information while tuning in. Best.
People are concerned about mites, they can indeed dominate many conversations.
I sent a message to tim hope he is ok. I chatted with him before and really new about you fred.
Thank you for that update, Peter! I've been worried about him. He's a great guy. Are you saying he's heard of me? That's funny :)
Small cell beekeeper and its first time ive heard that small cell bees have less room inside for the Varroa to develop.I agree with Mr Dunn on this except:
1- small cell bees hatch a day faster and that disrupts somme of the varroa development.
2- Apis Cerana,the asian honney bee specie thats related to Apis Melifera ,its the natural host of the Varroa mites.
Apis Cerana size its small ,even slightly smaller than small cell Apis Melifera( our bees) and the small argument is that for such small bees Varroa isnt a big problem because they can shake the mites and groom easyer than larger bees.
3- varroa prefers large size bees thats why Varroa grows best in drones cells wich led somme people to make drone frame traps for varroa.
It just makes sence that varroa doesnt like small bees.
Also,smaller bees are more heat tolerant( thats why the larger queen is ,,cooked ,, killed by heat by the bees)more resistant to diseases,live twice and expand in number faster,and they are way more hygienic in behaviour wich is a plus or a minus ( bees are grooming themselves instead of colecting nectar or they are colecting propolis instead of collecting pollen and nectar)
Smaller bees do have shorter tongues and eat more so there is less honney to extract.
They still need varroa treatment in my area or else they die after 3 years of no treatment.
The question was weather this is achieved by using small-cell foundation. The studies I linked have proven that this is not the case. With the addition of other genetics, other species, and other parts of the world, the topic is expanded beyond today's response. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
@@FrederickDunn You should try the small cell bees because you would withness more hygienic behaviour to film.
The small Apis Cerana its soo small but soo hygienic that it even kills the murder hornets ( Vespa Mandarinia).
And i have a feeling that if we get the Apis Mellifera to be the size of the Apis Cerana,then there wouldnt be needed to treat for varroa mites.
But the smallest small cell bees are still quite bigger than Apis Cerana( 4,7 mm small cell bees and A Cerana its like 4,4).
This comparison is my own and nobody tested this.
One thing is for sure that the bees will not become extinct due to varroa.If Apis Mellifera becomes extinct we will grow Apis Cerana.Much less honney but still good and varroa resistant.
Mites do better in drones because they get four extra days before they emerge. Thereby giving the mites extra times to make more mites
First one in watching
You're fast!
Maybe you've already seen this but UA-cam threw up a thread that was pretty interesting called Japanese Natural Beekeeping. Just FYI to get a different take on the hobby.
This is illegal in many countries cause brood disease can’t be checked. That rules out the Japanese method, Armenian, and ware hives
Is foul brood an issue with Japanese bees?