“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt
Well as Rocky wounce said. It’s not a matter of how hard you hit it more about how you can take a hit and keep coming back. I would start back to basics and not throw large $$$ at it. But I’ve been wrong before. Bee business is a lesson in humility. Count your blessings every day.
It’s impossible not to admire your thought and persistence to nurturing that brilliance you know means health and prosperity in your colonies. One can feel the weight of 100% of your heart and mind going into your operation and your videos are fantastic for the community! Rooting for success with all your efforts Ian!!
If you have a nosema problem your equalisation rounds will spread nosema even more. A stronger colony can have a lot of spores without showing symptoms. I had some nosema problems a couple of years ago and I've become very reserved on moving frames between colonys and I'm melting all wax from smaller, weaker colony when pulling them out aswell as I desinfect all my feeding boxes the season. That solved the problem for me.
Good luck. Its stressful when you don't know what the main cause of the problems is. Holding thumbs that time and some natural pollen and propolis will help them turn around.
Having had the very same issue as you, I now just took the good queens out of all the strong colonies and placed them cadged with a frame of brood in the location of the weak ones after taking the weak ones away and uniteing those on top of those queenless strong colonies. I also killed the queens from the weak ones before the uniting on top of the queenless strong colonies. Now I have the same amount of colonies and queenless supper strong colonies with no larve to feed just before the honey crop. I could also make a few small splits from the excess brood now in all the strong colonies. But I had treated all my colonies before that for varroa too and only used the brood from the good queens for the splits, from the strong colonies, not the brood that was now also present on top in my strong colonies. They are making lots more honey now and the brood is hatching out now. The flow just started and I plan to give honey and suppers full of bees to any nucs that makes a queen after the honey flow ends. It is worth metioning too that we are ahead of you, our main late flow is now starting and the bees are much bigger in size. The weak colonies did benifit from the equalisation, but many just did not catch up enough to say the queens are laying that well compared to some that did. It is easy to see the good and bad queens in that situation. Just my two cents worth, but dont have that many colonies to work with as you.
Have you put any thought into your dark comb and how that affects brood/ overall health? Can't recall who it was that put out a video years ago on the correlation between dark (well used or over used) comb and brood /overall bee health/survivability but it was eye opening. They did testing on the pathogens/bacteria that builds up on comb over time. Every casualty I had this past winter (15% loss out of 70 colonies) here in MN, I noticed those particular colonies had more dark comb than the colonies that survived. It was night and day and I see some of your comb is darker than mine. Just food for thought.
We lost a battle with a grizzly and cubs out here in BC this spring. It kept coming back until we moved the whole yard out. I hope your bear gets a good zap and buggers off!
Last year had a similar disappointing pace of growth. We opted to make "old queen nucs" and put them in a separate yard, if they bounced back, we worked them back into any hives that went queen less in the summer, and if they died, they pinched themselves. Gave us a good boost of extra nucs to catch us up this year.
Old queen nucs work well, why kill them every year if they can give so much. My best queen is at least 2 years old. A laying machine with good crops of honey.
Had the Queen issues myself, I blame the up and down temps. They aren't sure the good weather is here to stay. It will turn around. Just remember how fast they can pick up the pieces and run with it.
Ian something we need to talk about is sugar water and mold... IE water treatment as to bleach treatment using what I learned as a water treatment operator.... Bottom line we to kill off the water-born disease like as we do with human water treatment. Double check with testing
Thank you Ian With time things will turn for the better As you have said previously " keep feeding them " I'm currently retrieving a hundred to a hundred and twenty Supers from a northern hive site 300 mile away ( 6 and a half hours drive each way .... ) The weather has begun to give a couple of days of sunshine ...... 3 , 2 , 1.... rain . LoL its going to Keep going I say .
I live in the U.P of Michigan I have the same charger 3 ground poles 3 hot wires with a ground wire in-between. I want the bears eyes to click if he or she comes around
Wow the same thing happened to me alot of nosema and dwindling. Ive rebounded rapidly with packages and new stock. I also used italians intentionslly for the first time and am pretty impressed. Im taking same risk with import queens...
Here in Ontario on May 22 I saw a very young beautifully formed honeybee on a dandelion for the first time this year. Looked like she must have been just graduated out of the classroom. Small victories keep us all going Ian.
For my 2 Bobs worth, 1. Think about whats in the feed suplement you where using at years end ,whats actually missing! As this carries into your winter shed .. 2. You're a farmer with all the best toys, spend the money on selected flower seed that produce pollen sept
@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog I understand the clean gut idea, its more what feedsub they store and eat if any during cold storage. I noticed my bees when not feeding supplements in autumn dysentery stopped altogether come the following spring. Br stav , p,s I never actually checked for Nosema after seeing the results over 36month.
We're in the same boat rebuilding.. I think part of it is caused by feeding in October November.. I'm seeing deadouts with 3" of dead bees.. some have no bees that's virus problem . Thinking late feeding I'm getting some fermentation and gut problems.. so this year stop feeding in September.. keep doing splits and think I'll just keep with the apivar make sure I'm mite free ..
Had a bear show up here too but didn't do damage... took that down the road to another persons apiary sad to say. Tried bringing in new genetics... what a failure that turned out to be. Queens were not mated or not mated well and all became drone laying queens destroyed countless frames of fresh new comb with their popcorn drone pattern. Lots of bees, lots of nectar/honey frames but no worker brood and now no queens! Wasn't anticipating such a mess this year. Will carry on - its all fixable given enough time which is in short supply! Keep On Keepin On as my Uncle Hank would say!
Thank you for all the videos, Kent Williams used to work for a commercial Beekeeper, the man had him try all sorts of things for nosema besides antibiotics. They found that bleach in their syrup worked the best.
My favorite bee keeper uploaded another video :) Another danger that doesn't occur anywhere: BEARS. Also sickness. Stay strong! Pray and hopefully fate turns around.
Maybe you can take the queens from those packages and use them to requeen any trouble hives and then use the package bees to boost colonies for honey production?
A point i would add take it or leave it - one should not put a frame into the middle to two laying frames, this breaks the chains of command of the nurse bees, it takes them 2 days to find another way. And eggs and larva weaken to disease.
I have two of the exact same solar chargers that I don't use. I put them up because of racoons on my grapes but found squirrels and rabbits would just go right under them. You have to make sure you have the eight foot grounding rod deep.
I am not a fan of bring bees in from out of my area but need must they might strengthen the gene pool hope everything comes good for you Ian ,love your videos by the way
Hey Ian, sorry about you getting beaten down the past couple seasons. I was just telling my wife a couple weeks back when you had all that snow that a year ago you were dealing washaway hives from the floods. Poor guy can't catch a break. How about converting some old boxes into double nucs by ways of a solid bottom, a divider and entrance disks? Then letting them work those, build up and super them with your boxes as usual and then split graduate them back into the ten frame boxes at the end of the season to overwinter? 🤷♂️
Hey Ian , same thing here in the Red River Valley, slow growth this spring my weak hives just never had enough bees to pull through. With the lack of bees in my “ bigger hives” I couldn’t rob them of bees or brood to supplement the weaker ones. Another strange year. I haven’t seen many drones either, crazy we are almost June !!
You’ve got this. Great plan to manage the late packages in your nucs(smaller space for them and they go in your head as queen replacements and brood builders) Re: bear fencing, don’t fail like me and put the charger outside the wire. Those young male bears like to nose up anything new and with human scent. He busted my charger and I lost an entire nuc yard. Bee health: midgut and hindgut biome issues often show as delayed loss of vigor in a colony. Overwinter survival and then bam, they just don’t grow. All the stuff you’re thinking is spot on. Nosema, nonlethal chemical dosage etc. Requeen and balance brood, treat, feed.
See if you can get a Double size pkg with only 1 queen? That would at least get you a huge boost. Keep the Nosema group 5 miles from all other yards. I am curious why you put the empty queen cage back in the box after finding the queen (4.33) lol
My opinion : Pollen Patty. Try to boost some colonies with patties. It will strenghten their immune system. Avoid syrup feeding. Their pollen on frame is inadequate .
In Wisconsin, since the State pays for Bear damage (wolves too btw) the DNR DEPT NATRUAL RESOURCES loans beekeepers and other affected farmers a solar powered electric bear fence; they also will come and trap the bear (to release it somewhere else by other beekeepers lol)
Two observations, one why Italian Queens as the are more suited to a warmer climate than you have will they survive your long long winter the other is your packages from New Zealand again will you not have the same problem as regards the climate
Where I live on the sunshine coast in BC we had 95% losses. It was biblical. Bad spring last year led to bad gut health. Mites were extreme nothing seemed to touch them. The the wasps were relentless in August. Nosema killed the rest by November. I spray fumigillin/sugar water in the colonies everytime i open them now.
If it's not varroa but some other disease try essential oils in the water sugar. French beekeepers have plenty of information, try huiles essentielles pour abeilles.
Brad from Faith Apiaries has a lot of problems with nosema too :( You said in another video that you couldn't grind the pails to let the accumulated nosema ridden water evacuate. What about a very small drill hole: 2-3 of em spaced around the rim shouldn't compromise the integrity of the pail (assuming that was the issue).
I believe he said the problem with grinding the rim from the bottom was that the bottom was the the bottom was a bit concave and still held water even without the rim.
Smaller yards in the fall. 1000 colonies shared open feeders last fall. Treated for mites with OA one hive at a time while the bees shared open feeders. By the time you started the first hive and finished the last, the first hives were infected again. No way would i put 5%of my problems in an open feeder with the other 95% healthy. The better the fall forage the longer the bees live, supplement nutrition the bees are short lived. If fall nutrition is lacking the size of the bee yards need proper management for the carrying capacity of the land. You wouldn't put 50 head to the acre and expect them to be get fat feeding them construction hay full of weeds?
I think it would be a real shame to turn your back on your years of breeding. If I were in your position I would focus on breeding from those of your colonies that showed the most resistance to nosema. Perhaps assemble a breeding yard of those best colonies. I think its also a year to have a bit of patience with queens with small colonies, as long a they show signs of growing. Who is to say an introduced queen from outside would have done better in the same circumstance? I also had several colonies hit hard by nosema this year, but after a bit of babying most of them are starting to take off. My season started about 2 weeks earlier than yours this year, so hopefully your colonies will be booming soon too. What genetics are your introduced queens?
Hi Ian, what kind of grounding rod(s) are you using for your electric fence? I've had quite a few issues using wimpy energizers (Patriot PS5) coupled with poor grounding. I've found that two 4-foot 5/8" copper rods driven at the energizer and caddy-corner across the opposite corner attached to the center wire helps keep a good ground across the fence, and if any bears try to sneak through the bottom and middle/center wire they'll get a solid shock still. Here's a paper published in 2005 that evaluates ground rod conductivity (and degradation) over the course of years. It looks like you're using a Parmak-12 or 6 which seems like a skookum energizer. I empathize with you regarding the queen dilution and replacement through packages. I find myself in a very similar situation this year supplementing with packages, and while it feels like a bit of a step-backward (a great man said buy equipment, not bees..) it's reassuring seeing that I'm not alone in this decision. We're moving our graftable survivor stock back to the nursery and hopeful we can have a decent drone stock to propagate quality queens, but we'll see how things actually shake out next year.
Couple questions and a comment. Were the end posts on your fence non conductive? Didn't see insulators. Had a bear in our old neighborhood. Put up a similar fence around the hives. Hung some lunch meat on the strands so the beat would get zapped in the mouth. Not sure if he ever bit into it, but he never bothered the hives. Also, why'd you put the empty queen cage back in the hive?
what if you were to do some test on some open feeding with Indvidual supplements in the feed starting with 1 to 1 and add iron, iodine, sodium, separately just to name a few, if you get a significant difference in one, the bees would be telling you what they need. It could just be sodium - electrolytes. I think you have a gold mine in those sick bees because you have a way to run some test, chop chop
Have you considered to put peat bales besides the hives. I´ve heard the humic acid is doing the bees good to deal with nosemosis. Limiting the breeding space to two or three frames or whatever might help to keep the breeding area compact. Bordering it with the bubble wrap covering the frames. Anyway I hope you can step back and look at it like it could be even worse, just to ease yourself
Just one question; I noticed you left the queen cage in the box even though she was out. Was there any reason for that, or did you just not want a pocket full of cages?
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog lol, I figured. You never can tell when someone has a tidbit of bee-keeping knowledge you can capitalize on. Best of luck with everything! Everyone is rooting for ya.
Here in Alaska I can’t afford not to put electric fence up. Between the moose and bears, they can devastate his short time. It is heartbreaking when it happens..
@Eric Winslow I bet. I have a friend with 325 acres if wild woods north of me. I've been trying to convince him to get bees but he says the bears would prevent it. Do you have any sort of special hive that is bear proof or anything? I was thinking a metal safe with a hive in it, lol. He gets moose and black bears but even a back bear can be pretty destructive.
On a personal experience level Carnies do not handle Nosema as well as my northern mutts. And Nosema is always there in the north....waiting....waiting...waiting for any stressor that interferes with the bees ability to deal with it. You are dealing with Nosema, a Grand Solar Minimum (causing a late season) and what else? And one last comment - The sun is the ultimate sterilizer. Open and angle your empty, idle equipment to the sun and pool shock is cheap too. I am out the door to deal with my bee headaches. Later.
Northwest NJ has a super high black bear population due to hunting bans by softhearted liberals but last year we had an emergency hunt. I have several lurking around getting into anything not protected by an electric fence. So far they are staying clear of the bees, lambs, chickens and hive equipment for several years at my place.
Check your HFM levels in your corn syrup. You could be making you bees sick from that Especially if it was made last year or if a lot of heat was applied
Your bee season is so different this yr. Our mild winter with no snow set the girls off a month early, luckily the trees followed the same pattern so they had forage. Peak flow has just passed and like the start, the end will be early. I have a talk on swarms in mid March and told the group I already had hives with 6-8 frames of brood and that I wouldn’t be supposed if the first swarms would happen in 2 days. We had rain, so they waited 4 days. Many of the beeks hadn’t event been in their hives yet. A crazy yr here in the mid Atlantic.
In a year like this. A 10 frame strong hive is stronger than two 5 frame hives. If you don’t mind the more regular work use a strong 10 framer as bee engine to harvest brood rather than equalising all hives down to 5. And you bring a 5 framer straight up to 9 frames so it can then pump next round. It’s more work but slightly faster build up. Tight rope of swarming.
Just spitballing. Can you choose one yard, or a subset of a couple yards, and put them on your homemade patty recipe in place of the purchased product? It is one huge variable that has changed since last year. Can it be ruled out?
Yes you are correct, but from my in house control testing (which I do all the time with everything) the non fed patty hives are already dead …. So the patty has kept me alive so far.
If you get 200 more packages maybe combine 2 into 1 for honey crop. Then you have a hundred new queens leftover to Jumpstart 100 existing hives. Just a thought!
Perhaps it's worth risking one season's honey harvest, just to fully stockpile the colonies, both nucs and 10frame ones. Last year floods, this year also misey, and purchase of packages.. I think the biggest income for every beekeeper are the bees, not honey, wax or pollen. Bees and queens. So you can sell a whole bunch of them next year and yeild a huge honey harvest as well. Fingers crossed 🤞
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt
Well as Rocky wounce said.
It’s not a matter of how hard you hit it more about how you can take a hit and keep coming back.
I would start back to basics and not throw large $$$ at it. But I’ve been wrong before. Bee business is a lesson in humility. Count your blessings every day.
Exactly, and I agree
It’s impossible not to admire your thought and persistence to nurturing that brilliance you know means health and prosperity in your colonies. One can feel the weight of 100% of your heart and mind going into your operation and your videos are fantastic for the community! Rooting for success with all your efforts Ian!!
The Sun will shine, Bears will be bears, Ian's gona get new jeans... You are my Hero: Lache pas la patate! Cheers for sharing your videos.
If you have a nosema problem your equalisation rounds will spread nosema even more. A stronger colony can have a lot of spores without showing symptoms. I had some nosema problems a couple of years ago and I've become very reserved on moving frames between colonys and I'm melting all wax from smaller, weaker colony when pulling them out aswell as I desinfect all my feeding boxes the season. That solved the problem for me.
My heart goes out to you, buddy. It's a year of rebuilding for some of us. I wish you the best, and that you get a decent crop despite this setback.
Cheers 🥂
Recovery will happen. The good news is I have good yards within the bunch. It’s a year full of lots of work.
Good luck. Its stressful when you don't know what the main cause of the problems is. Holding thumbs that time and some natural pollen and propolis will help them turn around.
I have had both agricultural business and technology companies - the roller coaster ride called Beekeeping is by far the wildest ride of all.
Having had the very same issue as you, I now just took the good queens out of all the strong colonies and placed them cadged with a frame of brood in the location of the weak ones after taking the weak ones away and uniteing those on top of those queenless strong colonies.
I also killed the queens from the weak ones before the uniting on top of the queenless strong colonies.
Now I have the same amount of colonies and queenless supper strong colonies with no larve to feed just before the honey crop. I could also make a few small splits from the excess brood now in all the strong colonies. But I had treated all my colonies before that for varroa too and only used the brood from the good queens for the splits, from the strong colonies, not the brood that was now also present on top in my strong colonies. They are making lots more honey now and the brood is hatching out now. The flow just started and I plan to give honey and suppers full of bees to any nucs that makes a queen after the honey flow ends. It is worth metioning too that we are ahead of you, our main late flow is now starting and the bees are much bigger in size. The weak colonies did benifit from the equalisation, but many just did not catch up enough to say the queens are laying that well compared to some that did. It is easy to see the good and bad queens in that situation.
Just my two cents worth, but dont have that many colonies to work with as you.
Have you put any thought into your dark comb and how that affects brood/ overall health? Can't recall who it was that put out a video years ago on the correlation between dark (well used or over used) comb and brood /overall bee health/survivability but it was eye opening. They did testing on the pathogens/bacteria that builds up on comb over time. Every casualty I had this past winter (15% loss out of 70 colonies) here in MN, I noticed those particular colonies had more dark comb than the colonies that survived. It was night and day and I see some of your comb is darker than mine. Just food for thought.
everythiong always seems so depressing here it depresses me
We lost a battle with a grizzly and cubs out here in BC this spring. It kept coming back until we moved the whole yard out. I hope your bear gets a good zap and buggers off!
Last year had a similar disappointing pace of growth. We opted to make "old queen nucs" and put them in a separate yard, if they bounced back, we worked them back into any hives that went queen less in the summer, and if they died, they pinched themselves. Gave us a good boost of extra nucs to catch us up this year.
Old queen nucs work well, why kill them every year if they can give so much. My best queen is at least 2 years old. A laying machine with good crops of honey.
Had the Queen issues myself, I blame the up and down temps. They aren't sure the good weather is here to stay. It will turn around. Just remember how fast they can pick up the pieces and run with it.
Queens looking good. Steady, steady, steady. 🙌😎👍💪🏻
Ian something we need to talk about is sugar water and mold... IE water treatment as to bleach treatment using what I learned as a water treatment operator.... Bottom line we to kill off the water-born disease like as we do with human water treatment. Double check with testing
Thank you Ian
With time things will turn for the better
As you have said previously
" keep feeding them "
I'm currently retrieving a hundred to a hundred and twenty Supers from a northern hive site 300 mile away ( 6 and a half hours drive each way .... )
The weather has begun to give a couple of days of sunshine ...... 3 , 2 , 1.... rain . LoL its going to
Keep going I say .
So sorry to hear this. Wonder if you would do a serious look at what they did in Cuba and as well the Weaver company in Texas?
Can you elaborate a little more on what was going on and what action was taken and the results
I live in the U.P of Michigan I have the same charger 3 ground poles 3 hot wires with a ground wire in-between. I want the bears eyes to click if he or she comes around
Wow the same thing happened to me alot of nosema and dwindling. Ive rebounded rapidly with packages and new stock. I also used italians intentionslly for the first time and am pretty impressed. Im taking same risk with import queens...
I think you should get ready to catch swarms! This year, every bee counts!
I am in HI and spring seems 6 weeks late. Wth?! I feel your pain.
im not the only one, then having to do this. Had to run out and buy posts, spools of wire and chargers too! smh.
Here in Ontario on May 22 I saw a very young beautifully formed honeybee on a dandelion for the first time this year. Looked like she must have been just graduated out of the classroom. Small victories keep us all going Ian.
A tip from Bob Bennie make your middle wire the ground/earth the bear will get the full hit. Good luck Ian a frustrating situation.
For my 2 Bobs worth, 1. Think about whats in the feed suplement you where using at years end ,whats actually missing! As this carries into your winter shed .. 2. You're a farmer with all the best toys, spend the money on selected flower seed that produce pollen sept
I traditionally stop feed supplements before or into September to ensure a clean gut from bulk waste (especially patties)
@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog I understand the clean gut idea, its more what feedsub they store and eat if any during cold storage. I noticed my bees when not feeding supplements in autumn dysentery stopped altogether come the following spring. Br stav , p,s I never actually checked for Nosema after seeing the results over 36month.
Hello sir, greetings from Argentina, you make a beautiful beekeeping, your videos are very nice
Sometimes the patience is the hardest part... Hope things really take off for you Ian!
We're in the same boat rebuilding.. I think part of it is caused by feeding in October November.. I'm seeing deadouts with 3" of dead bees.. some have no bees that's virus problem . Thinking late feeding I'm getting some fermentation and gut problems.. so this year stop feeding in September.. keep doing splits and think I'll just keep with the apivar make sure I'm mite free ..
Had a bear show up here too but didn't do damage... took that down the road to another persons apiary sad to say. Tried bringing in new genetics... what a failure that turned out to be. Queens were not mated or not mated well and all became drone laying queens destroyed countless frames of fresh new comb with their popcorn drone pattern. Lots of bees, lots of nectar/honey frames but no worker brood and now no queens! Wasn't anticipating such a mess this year. Will carry on - its all fixable given enough time which is in short supply! Keep On Keepin On as my Uncle Hank would say!
Thank you for all the videos,
Kent Williams used to work for a commercial Beekeeper, the man had him try all sorts of things for nosema besides antibiotics.
They found that bleach in their syrup worked the best.
We use it for scours (diarrhea)in luvestock as well i can be fatal it works for eliminating
My favorite bee keeper uploaded another video :) Another danger that doesn't occur anywhere: BEARS. Also sickness. Stay strong! Pray and hopefully fate turns around.
Maybe you can take the queens from those packages and use them to requeen any trouble hives and then use the package bees to boost colonies for honey production?
A point i would add take it or leave it - one should not put a frame into the middle to two laying frames, this breaks the chains of command of the nurse bees, it takes them 2 days to find another way. And eggs and larva weaken to disease.
I have two of the exact same solar chargers that I don't use. I put them up because of racoons on my grapes but found squirrels and rabbits would just go right under them. You have to make sure you have the eight foot grounding rod deep.
I am not a fan of bring bees in from out of my area but need must they might strengthen the gene pool hope everything comes good for you Ian ,love your videos by the way
You're right Ian patience, patience, patience.
Time to retire a pair of pants lol😂
Yeah, family show here, at least the mom’s happy they’re clean undies 🫢
No, those are classic!
The weather has been bizarre this season, I bet the season will turnaround as soon as the weather swings in your favour.
Praying for you
Hey Ian, sorry about you getting beaten down the past couple seasons. I was just telling my wife a couple weeks back when you had all that snow that a year ago you were dealing washaway hives from the floods. Poor guy can't catch a break.
How about converting some old boxes into double nucs by ways of a solid bottom, a divider and entrance disks? Then letting them work those, build up and super them with your boxes as usual and then split graduate them back into the ten frame boxes at the end of the season to overwinter? 🤷♂️
Hey Ian , same thing here in the Red River Valley, slow growth this spring my weak hives just never had enough bees to pull through. With the lack of bees in my “ bigger hives” I couldn’t rob them of bees or brood to supplement the weaker ones. Another strange year. I haven’t seen many drones either, crazy we are almost June !!
Oh I’m not the only one, that’s not good but it feels good not being alone. I missed massive losses and it caught up to me this year
Well, I kinda missed last years losses lol
Have same slow growth down here in florida. My yards and other beekeepers I'm hearing
You’ve got this. Great plan to manage the late packages in your nucs(smaller space for them and they go in your head as queen replacements and brood builders)
Re: bear fencing, don’t fail like me and put the charger outside the wire. Those young male bears like to nose up anything new and with human scent. He busted my charger and I lost an entire nuc yard.
Bee health: midgut and hindgut biome issues often show as delayed loss of vigor in a colony. Overwinter survival and then bam, they just don’t grow. All the stuff you’re thinking is spot on. Nosema, nonlethal chemical dosage etc. Requeen and balance brood, treat, feed.
Stfu. You got this. How gay. This guys a multi millionaire. He does not need your lane encouragement
See if you can get a Double size pkg with only 1 queen? That would at least get you a huge boost. Keep the Nosema group 5 miles from all other yards. I am curious why you put the empty queen cage back in the box after finding the queen (4.33) lol
Better than Christmas checking on new bees good therapy!!!
How about cleaning them up with some Mycelium....
I'm only a sideliner... But, no more Amatraz for me. Had your issue 2 years ago. learned my lesson!
good afternoon friend, could you provide me with a site that sells this screen plug. and congratulations for the work
Ian, I wish you well in these times.
Respect for your work and your devotion. Why don't you send some bees to a bee Lab to make sure what's the problem? Greeting's from Greece.
Yes. My tests have shown nosema Infection
My opinion : Pollen Patty.
Try to boost some colonies with patties. It will strenghten their immune system. Avoid syrup feeding.
Their pollen on frame is inadequate .
In Wisconsin, since the State pays for Bear damage (wolves too btw) the DNR DEPT NATRUAL RESOURCES loans beekeepers and other affected farmers a solar powered electric bear fence; they also will come and trap the bear (to release it somewhere else by other beekeepers lol)
Two observations, one why Italian Queens as the are more suited to a warmer climate than you have will they survive your long long winter the other is your packages from New Zealand again will you not have the same problem as regards the climate
save the bees for the next season. this way you will only cause stress to already weak colonies, and there won't be honey anyway.
Where I live on the sunshine coast in BC we had 95% losses. It was biblical.
Bad spring last year led to bad gut health. Mites were extreme nothing seemed to touch them. The the wasps were relentless in August. Nosema killed the rest by November.
I spray fumigillin/sugar water in the colonies everytime i open them now.
Skunks and bears really been bothering my bees.
So sorry your having a hard time with your bees hang in there
If it's not varroa but some other disease try essential oils in the water sugar. French beekeepers have plenty of information, try huiles essentielles pour abeilles.
not enough heat, not building up here either. N.E. Iowa
Heat in Saskatchewan is doing alright for us, a little chock brood setting a box a little back.
when every thing fails just to replace 2 frames with new to draw out each year.
Brad from Faith Apiaries has a lot of problems with nosema too :( You said in another video that you couldn't grind the pails to let the accumulated nosema ridden water evacuate. What about a very small drill hole: 2-3 of em spaced around the rim shouldn't compromise the integrity of the pail (assuming that was the issue).
I believe he said the problem with grinding the rim from the bottom was that the bottom was the the bottom was a bit concave and still held water even without the rim.
Step by Step, it can take a while to recover from set backs.
Smaller yards in the fall. 1000 colonies shared open feeders last fall. Treated for mites with OA one hive at a time while the bees shared open feeders. By the time you started the first hive and finished the last, the first hives were infected again. No way would i put 5%of my problems in an open feeder with the other 95% healthy. The better the fall forage the longer the bees live, supplement nutrition the bees are short lived. If fall nutrition is lacking the size of the bee yards need proper management for the carrying capacity of the land. You wouldn't put 50 head to the acre and expect them to be get fat feeding them construction hay full of weeds?
True in many ways
Throw them in the 6's and make honey. When life gives you bee's make honey!
Hardwork without a doubt. Would be great to be able to prove if your in house genetics are highly susceptible to nosema. Onward and upward. 👍
did you add a few drops of tea tree oil to the sugar water?
I think it would be a real shame to turn your back on your years of breeding. If I were in your position I would focus on breeding from those of your colonies that showed the most resistance to nosema. Perhaps assemble a breeding yard of those best colonies.
I think its also a year to have a bit of patience with queens with small colonies, as long a they show signs of growing. Who is to say an introduced queen from outside would have done better in the same circumstance?
I also had several colonies hit hard by nosema this year, but after a bit of babying most of them are starting to take off. My season started about 2 weeks earlier than yours this year, so hopefully your colonies will be booming soon too.
What genetics are your introduced queens?
So it goes.
Hi Ian, what kind of grounding rod(s) are you using for your electric fence? I've had quite a few issues using wimpy energizers (Patriot PS5) coupled with poor grounding. I've found that two 4-foot 5/8" copper rods driven at the energizer and caddy-corner across the opposite corner attached to the center wire helps keep a good ground across the fence, and if any bears try to sneak through the bottom and middle/center wire they'll get a solid shock still. Here's a paper published in 2005 that evaluates ground rod conductivity (and degradation) over the course of years. It looks like you're using a Parmak-12 or 6 which seems like a skookum energizer.
I empathize with you regarding the queen dilution and replacement through packages. I find myself in a very similar situation this year supplementing with packages, and while it feels like a bit of a step-backward (a great man said buy equipment, not bees..) it's reassuring seeing that I'm not alone in this decision. We're moving our graftable survivor stock back to the nursery and hopeful we can have a decent drone stock to propagate quality queens, but we'll see how things actually shake out next year.
Whoops, the paper: www.lightningprotection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/negrp-grounding-rod-comparison.pdf
Everyone likes getting masonry for free, 33 loads worth please!
Couple questions and a comment.
Were the end posts on your fence non conductive? Didn't see insulators.
Had a bear in our old neighborhood. Put up a similar fence around the hives. Hung some lunch meat on the strands so the beat would get zapped in the mouth. Not sure if he ever bit into it, but he never bothered the hives.
Also, why'd you put the empty queen cage back in the hive?
00:17:12 empty storage?
Once she starts laying we can mark off the hive tags correctly. Safest place to keep the cages is in the hive.
Wow, electric fences! That’s a first isn’t it?
what if you were to do some test on some open feeding with Indvidual supplements in the feed starting with 1 to 1 and add iron, iodine, sodium, separately just to name a few, if you get a significant difference in one, the bees would be telling you what they need. It could just be sodium - electrolytes. I think you have a gold mine in those sick bees because you have a way to run some test, chop chop
Have you tried DFM microbials for their gut health? A powder and you just sprinkle it over the tops and between the frames.
I love your enthusiasm and calmness because I'd freak out. Those combs look very dark, I think you should switch them out more frequently.
perhaps, last year hit you harder than thought, Ian.
Yes I believe it did and I didn’t respond accordingly
Man you guys out east just can not catch a break!
Have you considered to put peat bales besides the hives. I´ve heard the humic acid is doing the bees good to deal with nosemosis.
Limiting the breeding space to two or three frames or whatever might help to keep the breeding area compact. Bordering it with the bubble wrap covering the frames. Anyway I hope you can step back and look at it like it could be even worse, just to ease yourself
hello my friend i am following you from azerbaijan what do you use in the fight against nosema please reply me about this Thanks
Mmm honey bear roast.
Just one question; I noticed you left the queen cage in the box even though she was out. Was there any reason for that, or did you just not want a pocket full of cages?
Not wanting a pocket full of cages lol
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog lol, I figured. You never can tell when someone has a tidbit of bee-keeping knowledge you can capitalize on. Best of luck with everything! Everyone is rooting for ya.
Here in Alaska I can’t afford not to put electric fence up. Between the moose and bears,
they can devastate his short time. It is heartbreaking when it happens..
@Eric Winslow I bet. I have a friend with 325 acres if wild woods north of me. I've been trying to convince him to get bees but he says the bears would prevent it. Do you have any sort of special hive that is bear proof or anything? I was thinking a metal safe with a hive in it, lol. He gets moose and black bears but even a back bear can be pretty destructive.
Also once she starts laying we can mark off the hive tags with the correct lineage. Safest place to keep the cages till then is in the hive.
Is nosema not affected by fumagillin anymore?
maybe take the next packages and make those triple nukes you should still get average supers off of them
On a personal experience level Carnies do not handle Nosema as well as my northern mutts. And Nosema is always there in the north....waiting....waiting...waiting for any stressor that interferes with the bees ability to deal with it. You are dealing with Nosema, a Grand Solar Minimum (causing a late season) and what else? And one last comment - The sun is the ultimate sterilizer. Open and angle your empty, idle equipment to the sun and pool shock is cheap too. I am out the door to deal with my bee headaches. Later.
Northwest NJ has a super high black bear population due to hunting bans by softhearted liberals but last year we had an emergency hunt. I have several lurking around getting into anything not protected by an electric fence. So far they are staying clear of the bees, lambs, chickens and hive equipment for several years at my place.
Your the man
Check your HFM levels in your corn syrup.
You could be making you bees sick from that
Especially if it was made last year or if a lot of heat was applied
I use sucrose as a rule.
I'm sorry, can you explain to me what HFM is?
Corn syrup shortens the life of the bee by 1/3. Sugar 1 part and 1.1 part water is best Is said by the egg heads who know. Nectar is best.
What do you do for the ants around the colonies?
Heavy ant poison
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog what kind of poison are you using that doesn't harm the bee's
Ian, do you use Fumidil B?
Not for a long time
Your bee season is so different this yr. Our mild winter with no snow set the girls off a month early, luckily the trees followed the same pattern so they had forage. Peak flow has just passed and like the start, the end will be early.
I have a talk on swarms in mid March and told the group I already had hives with 6-8 frames of brood and that I wouldn’t be supposed if the first swarms would happen in 2 days. We had rain, so they waited 4 days. Many of the beeks hadn’t event been in their hives yet.
A crazy yr here in the mid Atlantic.
Cinnamon drives ants away
could you buy packages without queens and merge the bees with the weak colonies.
Yes you can and some beekeepers do exactly that simply to boost populations in their overwintered colonies.
In a year like this. A 10 frame strong hive is stronger than two 5 frame hives. If you don’t mind the more regular work use a strong 10 framer as bee engine to harvest brood rather than equalising all hives down to 5. And you bring a 5 framer straight up to 9 frames so it can then pump next round. It’s more work but slightly faster build up. Tight rope of swarming.
Maybe not possible with your volume of hives. And doesn’t help with bears.
Why did you leave the queen cage in the hive?
Once she starts laying we can identify her and mark the tag on the hive. Then the cage can come out.
Would Honey B Healthy or Hive Alive in your sugar water help?
Perhaps
14:30 why did you do that?
Just spitballing.
Can you choose one yard, or a subset of a couple yards, and put them on your homemade patty recipe in place of the purchased product?
It is one huge variable that has changed since last year. Can it be ruled out?
Yes you are correct, but from my in house control testing (which I do all the time with everything) the non fed patty hives are already dead …. So the patty has kept me alive so far.
If you get 200 more packages maybe combine 2 into 1 for honey crop. Then you have a hundred new queens leftover to Jumpstart 100 existing hives. Just a thought!
Do those fences work on raccoons they pulled the screens off about 1/2 my pails and dumped the syrup out
Little buggers get through the fence
I guess eggs are the solution for them just like skunks
Winne the pooh
Perhaps it's worth risking one season's honey harvest, just to fully stockpile the colonies, both nucs and 10frame ones. Last year floods, this year also misey, and purchase of packages.. I think the biggest income for every beekeeper are the bees, not honey, wax or pollen. Bees and queens. So you can sell a whole bunch of them next year and yeild a huge honey harvest as well. Fingers crossed 🤞
Is the current malaise somehow tied to the atmosphere in which they winter. Is this going to be a Hertel for you each year now going forward?
I suppose you are going to breed the daylights out of any of your queens that can bounce back from the nosema?
Next years focus indeed