I don't know if you will ever see this but I love, love, love watching your videos! you are so honest and fun to watch plus I learn tons from you!. Please continue taping video and loving your bees, yes even the Russian hive. Thank you!!!
Foothills of western NC: I commented a few videos ago about getting a new package of carni's and how much they have impressed me... and continue to impress me. If those queens run the hive like the my new carni colony, I think you'll be happy with em. p.s I have a russian hive we call the hudini hive because we can never find the queen lol
A Michael Bush tip: If you have warm enough weather at night, you can put the queen cage on the floor of the hive, under the frames. This keeps them from building weird comb in the gap between the 2 frames or comb on her cage. I did it that way with my split and it worked great. Just pulled the empty cage when I went in to make sure she was out and accepted. I can't wait to see how yours turn out!
I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen Sunday. Wanted to do a slit from a 4 high 5 frame deep hive. I looked and looked and never found the queen, just like you. Came back a couple of days later and FINALLY found her. Only difference for me is I didn't have queens, just wanted the FULL hive to make the queen, but wanted to pull the queen and a few frames to move to a nuc... Life's good!
First of all. Your videos have encouraged me to get involved with bees. I am from Costa Rica and I have been investigating the whole deal with the bees here since I found about your channel. Your passion about it is nothing but inspirational. I have watched almost all the bee related videos you have, also some of the others to be honest. I am really in to your style of video production as well. I also like your bee keeping approach, even though you say it is somehow "ignorant", is actually very procedural and biased towards observation. As a computer guy, I really love it. You are discovering via experimentation and documentation, not forgetting the hive satisfaction. * proceed to remove my hat and bow to you* Bravo! My challenges here are more towards bee species, the rain (60%-70% of the year) washing all the pollen and nectar during our wet season, and the huge amount of production during the summer, the latter usually encouraging the bees to migrate when they feel confident enough. Another important challenge here is the fact that we have hybrid bees. The "Africanized" bees coming from Brasil since the 70's have already covered almost the entire continent, even reaching south parts of the US. So bees here are a little more aggressive due to this mixing of species. My plan was to start somewhere around the beginning of summer here (early Nov) Buuuuuut... looks like nature has a different plan. I literally just found a hive right in the front yard. It is hanging from a small tree, as easy to get them as you can possible imagine. This weekend I will try to prepare a location for what looks like my first hive. Already contacted local beekeepers to assist me with this, so I will probable keep the hive with them until I am ready. I'll send you some pictures via Instagram or something, and will try to record as much as I can with my phone. Perhaps creating some sort of channel here in UA-cam so others can get the knowledge, in Spanish. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others. Keep them videos coming and good luck with the splits!
Luis Eduardo Valverde Marín UA-camRS: This is the proper way to leave a comment! Congratulations on what sounds like a colony finding YOU. You must have been ready! That's very exciting. I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement. I definitely think you should do a Spanish bee channel! All the best of luck with your new found bees. Stay in touch.
Finally, you can’t find the queen. My heart goes out to you. I have 20 hives and have challenges finding any queens.... Welcome to my life. I like the Carnolian ides and local to boot. Looking at my 3rd apiary this weekend
wannaknowit I have a pretty strong back and I’m flexible, so I don’t have back problems. A little sore after a long day. This is definitely not a hobby for people with bad backs.
@@vinofarm Thanks for the quick reply- yeah then I am not gonna be a beekeeper:) Hurts after just a few seconds of being bent. Apologies I am not a native speaker...:(((( I like your vids- have already seen a few of them:)
I really appreciate the hard work you show to others. There are young people that can see what is involved in beekeeping and understand the effort. Every kid that eats honey should see this. All you need is a cameraman and some close ups, and you would have truly educational tools. You have good instructional insight. Thanks from and old beekeeper!
So proud of your apiary! Thank you for continuing to share your amazing videos. All 4 of my hives made it through the winter and it’s been a learning experience to keep them from swarming this spring. Since I am an urban beekeeper, I can’t have any more hives. I also put the flow hive super on my half Italian split beehive I made last year and they are crazy bursting with honey and bees. I took all my foundationless drone comb from this spring and moved them all to the top for them to fill with honey. This is all such a learning experience, but I finally feel I’m getting the hang of it. I even gave a split from my split to my neighbor and now she has a cute little hive with a new queen. Love the tags, too. As always, great video!!
I am excited to see this! Mine are Carnolian and the queens are awesome. I did my first splits a few days after yours. I checked mine today and I have queen cells in there!!! Part of me is excited the other part is thinking, "I should have bought Italian queens..."
Drew White Sounds like you're on your way! I'm having good luck with Italians, but the winter is a struggle. I'm excited to get to know the Carniolans.
so glad i found your channel a few months ago. i look forward to every new video as it comes out. hopefully starting my own bee adventure this coming spring (Im in Australia) and a lot of your experiences and dilemmas will help me get a great start (i hope!)
14:59. That is a look of pure bliss. I've been watching for over a year now and I'm so happy for you! Your videos have piqued my interest in beekeeping and I intend to get a couple hives when I move out of the city. Thank you for sharing your experiences with all of us.
I have been following your videos for a long time and thanks to your videos I have learnt a lot for my own hive. I am now a week into beekeeping (as you have i am documenting everything on UA-cam) and just again wanted to send my up most thanks for everything you have posted and taught me so far. Wishing you all the best from England.
Great video, love the resource hive. After you showed me yours I got one for myself. Now the only thing you are missing is a few swarm traps. Not that they will swarm, but so you can catch them in case they do. I can't wait for this adventure to run its coarse over the next few months. I will be waiting on the next one.
Another great video! I am excited for you as you grow more hives. Cool idea with the plant tags too. Did you know that a lot of the time you can hear what box the queen is in? Next time you are looking for the queen you should try this experiment. Open the hive up and pull the top box of bees and set next to the hive. Give them a minute then listen carefully and you will notice that one box is buzzing louder than the other. Presto you know which box the queen is in! I think this is called roaring when the bees suddenly don't smell the queen anymore and they change their normal contented hum to a louder urgent tone. I hope to become as entertaining with my videos as you are. Keep up the good work!
I’ve wanted try my hand at beekeeping for years now. Watching you succeed and fail has been a huge inspiration for me (I’m a noob too :/ ) I definitely feel more prepared. Thank you!
I'm just sharing what I do and what I learn. It's always tough to try something new but I hope my little videos can demystify the beekeeping experience for people like you. Remember, these are not "how to" videos but more a documentary. Learn from my mistakes! Thanks for watching!
Hi. ty for the video. im a new Bee keeper this year. About bees, going back the the hive they came from, after doing a split. when i got some advice. after capture a swarm in a trap. When i have to move the trap back home. the advice was to leave some branches in front of the enternc. SO the bees comming out is like " wow this is new" and it have to maneuver around the branches. Before its out in the open, and then the bee. Need to reorientate its self, after the wow faktor. Sorry my English. hope you get the idder.
Great video especially the frustration part, getting stung and not finding the queen, I can totally empathize. I'm surprised the new carniolan queens didn't have a couple attendants to feed them.
You were installing your Russian hive right and left when I stumbled upon your channel and been a follower of your videos since that moment. now you've got seven hives! Congrats Vino! loving your channel more :)
Great videos, you seem to really have caught the "bug" with bees. I recognize it quite well, the joys when something works out and the frustration when it doesn't. Your production and editing is extremely well done. Keep it up.
Very nice!. I’m working with two Australian beehives, they are great! The begin working just before sunrise and go to sleep after sunset. If you around then often they get use to you and are very friendly; lots of honey too. Very good for Canadian weather eh.
That's the queen cloaking device Mike Palmer talks about, lol. Things are looking great my man, good job! I love my carnies, also my Saskatraz queens have been fantastic.
I got mine from a producer in Iowa last year, Lappe's Bees. Very good customer service. They wintered very well and hit the ground running hard this spring. I made splits off of them and they've also done well so far. They made their own queens so I now have some kind of freakazoid hybrid queens that mated with no telling what, lol. All I care about is that they're filling frames and boxes and aren't too pissy. I still wear nitrile gloves so they have to be pretty irritable before I care too much, lol.
It makes it easier to take the gloves off...I'm a new beekeeper so I'm working my way up to it but with the reputation these bees have I get more comfortable every time I'm out near the hive.
And I’ve heard of sugar patties but never syrup and in the winter you may ha e to feed them or else the hive will die out ! Ijs all my family ha e always had bees and let me tell ya the honey was great !
Something that you might consider is to use two rubber bands to hold the queen cage on the frame. Also spread open the frames so the bees can feed the queen through the screen on the queen cage while she waits to be released. This is how I introduce a queen when I do splits. Just another way of doing it for your information tool box. You are doing a good job and going in the right direction for sustainability.
I have a hive of carnolias ,mine don't draw out comb very well lots of burr comb, And they have absconded 2 times this season,both times were at noon when i was just coming home from work and i got them back. I have taken draw comb from Italian hives putting in there hoping they will pick up the pace.
Hey mate, I just wanted to say, thank you for your videos. Because of you I started last year doing beekeeping and I currently have 1 hive who is doing amazing, filled 4 deep supers of honey, this year I plan on splitting my hive and getting a nuc as well to expand to 3 hives. Out of all the youtubers out there your videos are the highest quality and I always look forward to your videos
Love your videos. I've been learning beekeeping from you and totally inspired. Keep those affiliate links and whatnot up to date I'm excited to be able to support you
These videos have become my favorite things on UA-cam. It made me feel better that you sometimes have trouble finding a queen, too! Question: what would you have done differently if the bees had balled up on the queens?
Mary Miller Hey, its Twitter Mary! Hi again. If the bees had balled up the queen, I would have waited another day and tried again. Let them be queenless for a little longer. If they still didn't like her, I probably would have swapped out a couple frames and tried again.
Ideas to save time finding the queen: 1.Choose frames of bees that you want to shake, shake them over a queen excluder. 2. Don't try to find her, shake into nuc. Check back in a day, try to find fresh eggs in the nuc or hive
Loving it! You give me hope to start using Instagram and Twitter one day.... So since all my bees left late last year, and the ones I ordered all arrived dead, I put myself on a Swarm catcher register, I caught a swarm a month ago and started again. It was my first swarm I ever caught and it was quite an awkward, not so smooth event, with the gentleman who called to remove the swarm from his garden probably wondring why he called such an amature, but they are now installed and the queen is huge and laying. You have motivated me to try a split too. I have no idea what my bees actually are but they are quite calm and I will try one split this year soon. Since I am more of a Noob than you I cant help you out much with advice but I simply love your posts. I started with the idea of a flow hive but like you have never used the flow frames either. I want to end up with 5 hives. We will see.
I own a mountain cabin in north central PA, four adjoining property owners and I maintain a 'wildflower commons' area on approximately 11 acres; there are also around 100 different fruit trees there, mostly cherry and plum. A beekeeper located two hives there nine years ago; their average winter die-off (last 3 years) was 60%, Varroa was a problem. In May of '17, he re-queened both hives with VSH hybrid queens, and this winter's die-off was less than 30%, however, they don't seem to populate the hive as well as the Carniolan queen's did.
Winter is always the BIG issue for us. I started with two hives and lost one the first winter. Last winter I went in with 3 and lost one. This year I should be going into winter with at least 9 hives. I'm hoping for a 60% survival.
We're in similar situations, at a similar altitude, but we're in more of a valley than your property is. I'm going to alert the gentleman who takes care of the hives on our property to your videos. I don't believe that he is "computer savvy", but we'll make adjustments for that. BTW, we each kick-in $100 every spring "just to see clover, have raspberries, and enjoy a decent yield from our trees and gardens". The beekeeper said that he was happy without 'having to split the honey' (with us). It turns out that 'orchard honey' brings a higher price than the wildflower variety. He was talking about adding two more hives next year, depending on this years results. Good luck, and thank you!
These videos are really making me consider getting into beekeeping. The problem is I don't have the space at home, I would have to use my uncle's property...and he's got about 50 acres but we use it for hunting, and we try very hard to leave the property as undisturbed as possible in the off-season. If I were to put hives on his property, that would obviously change. So I'm still in the brainstorming process here. Not sure if I'm going to do it, but the temptation is definitely there. For the last 6 months or so I've been getting more and more fascinated with honey bees. I do have the time and patience to work with them and treat them with care, it's just a question of logistics and space at this point. Gonna be something to think about for the remainder of the year, that way if I decide to go through with it, I can be prepped and ready by late winter next year.
RetroCNY - Since your uncle has the property, ask and if Yes, start now planting and establishing multiple small plots of local flowering native plants. The easiest and BEST you can do for the environment as well as the bees and local game, is give them what grows well within your region. By selecting, planting, and propagating local perennials, you'll have established feed and attractants for more than just the bees. Add a small orchard or two of apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, and what ever else you enjoy that grows regionally and you'll also have more deer than ever before waiting in line for those trees to bear fruit. It's a blast watching does spar over the best spots to eat, and they can make it look like a cage match early and late in the fall! LOL ~Best of Luck~
some beekeepers use a "filter box" to find the queen, just an empty box with a queen excluder attached below, duct tape around the top (apparently bees hate crawling on duct tape). then just shake the frames into the filter box, the regular bees exit through the queen excluder leaving the queen inside
Instagram is nice. If there was no youtube, I'd live on Instagram. I don't really care for Twitter, but I'm trying to learn how to use it. FB is dead to me!
Excluders: - If excluders are used the queen lays more compactly & a lot easier to find (in a single brood super) - I have been using single brood supers for over 55 years . . . After the queen has been laying for minimum 30 days (in our Nuces), we mark & clip a small part of the right wing for even years - left wing for odd years before transferring into honey production hives The queen is a lot easier to find when marked
Why not use a shaker box? That way you won't have to worry about finding the queen when doing splits or moving bees. A shaker box is a box with a queen excluder on the bottom. Bees go in the top and a little smoke encourages them to go into the hive below. The queen gets stuck on the excluder and can be placed wherever she needs to go.
instead looking for queen , you could shake brood frames and move them above a queen excluder. After hours when they got full of nurse bees you can move them to your new split.
I think when I reach that day of keeping bees for like 100 years I just might understand about half of what it takes to keep bees. I made splits today as well.
You don't need to see the queen. Just split the frames between the original box and the nuc, wait a bit, and listen which box has calmer bees. The queen is with the calmer box.
So, when will you take the next step, and start grafting your own queens??? I tried once at the beginning of spring, and have now completed a class at Dyce Lab, lots of fun, and cool to watch the progression... Good Luck
Good luck with it, looks good. Since the only reason to find the queen was to not transfer her, I've seen some people simply shake the desired bees off a target frame and through a queen excluder (box on top to contain the bees). If the queen is on that frame she will be stopped by the excluder. The frame is placed in the new box and the bees go back on the frame from where they came.
They can still just be shaken off frames, which is what you did in the end with the other hive. You don't need to find the queen, you just need to keep her in the original box, which is why some people shake them through a queen excluder. I had to find a queen yesterday to mark her so feel your pain, but other than that I don't think it's very common to actually need to find the queen, and evidence of her work is much more valuable. Look at it this way, you'd be kinda pissed too if somebody broke into your house, wandered around trashing the place for over 2 hours, and finished up killing a bunch of your kids (chilled brood). :) I really like your videos and enthusiasm for your bees, you guys do it tough up there in winter, so well done and good luck for this season. My tea leaves predict some queen rearing in your future and I'll look forward to that.
I don't think I chilled any brood. It was sunny and 80ºF. The reason for locating her was so I didn't accidentally transfer her over to the nuc and then introduce another queen on top of her. I HAD to find her and make sure she stayed in the original box. I knew she was laying and I know EVIDENCE of a queen is enough when inspecting, but I was removing frames. She was so well hidden I really ran the risk of bringing her over to the nuc. Locating her and getting her into a cage was essential for this operation. THe excluder trick would work in an emergency, but it's insanely disruptive. I don't know if you work with Russians, but they get really hot and stingy with the slightest jostling.
I think I've been misunderstood. You don't need to find the queen, you only need to ensure she isn't transferred. You find the frame you want to put in the nuc, you put a queen excluder under an empty box and on top of the nuc (I've seen some commercial guys make up a dedicated plastic tub with a queen excluder attached to the bottom just for this purpose), shake the bees off the frame and into the nuc through that excluder and give them a puff of smoke if required, they will go through the excluder and into the nuc. Put the now bare frame in the nuc. The bees will go straight away back onto the frame. Repeat for the other frames. If the queen happened to be on any frames (including the one you liked but discounted because the queen was on it), she will be stopped by the queen excluder. There is no chance of transferring her and finishing up with two queens in the same split. I know there's lots of ways to skin a cat but just mentioned it because I've seen commercial guys do it this way. It only takes them (literally) a minute to do a split and is therefore good for the bees despite those in the split being shaken. Mind you we don't skin cats so to each their own. Here's a couple of videos of Canadian commercial beekeepers illustrating the idea of splitting without finding the queen. They are splitting slightly differently to you by leaving the top box/nuc in place to allow the bees to come back up through the queen excluder. Same principle though. ua-cam.com/video/wDcHqh-6Ki4/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/YbA-P_l13QM/v-deo.html&
I saw something looked like a large bird dive low and appear at 13:30 plus a few seconds. What was that? Top right of the screen as Jim is talking to us, knelt by the resource box.
next split you can save time by shaking all the bees onto one box then when you are putting the hive back together separate the brood boxes with a queen excluder. The nurse bees will go back up to the top box where the brood is and the queen will be in the lower box. You won't have to see her you will just know where she is.
The thing about the Balboa hive is she (and her mother) are not crazy layers, but they're survivors. They came back from the dead twice, went through two winters and self made an emergency queen REALLY late into last season. They're JUST like Rocky... Slow and steady. Survivors. This new queen is a show off and an amazing egg factory... but we need to see how she handles winter.
You scared me with that title. I thought something really bad happened and I was already feeling bad for you. I can definitely tell that you see these bees as part of your family. Over the last three days I have watched all your videos about your beekeeping from beginning until now. My husband and I have talked about doing this ourselves in a couple years. Please keep the videos coming. I really enjoy them and they are great learning opportunity for people like myself who are thinking about getting into this.
Awesome vid brother...also a noob who got himself stung right on my big ol forehead this morning pooking around in one of my hives..lol.. been a noob fer 27 days now😎..love it..4 hives
Them dam Russians😏. At 13:08 when you said your so very awkward at this whole thing. I thought that was so honest bcse it’s actually very noticeable how much your learning at it all. Appreciate your honesty.
Don't feel bad i got a hive that only consist of a medium box and it took me 2 days to find her. My queen is small, she is barely bigger that the workers so there was nothing to make her stand out.
Sometimes it is like that if she is not very well mated,or old and near its end or she was in emergency sells that have been raised by weak hive ( Not enough bees to take care of sells and later on queen)
note--as a last resort to find the queen.You can attach a queen excluder to a deep box. Set all frames in a empty near by. Shake all bees through excluder box and smoke them down. The queen will be running around on the screen. etc etc etc
Yes, I am aware of that method. As I've been replying, though, it gets a bit hectic and Russians are pretty hot and stingy when they get excited. I didn't want to disturb them by shaking two deeps through a queen excluder. I knew that was an option is necessary. Thanks for writing!
New sub. Love bees and gardening. Noticed you are in north central ma. I am too. Just on Townsend line. Any advice or local resource advice for beginners ?
did you block the screen on the queen cages when installed? they need to feed her and remove her waste until they get through the fondant.
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Dear friend ( I’m not quite sure what your name is), I’ve seen pretty much all of your videos and I wanted to congratulate you, I’m sure that everyone does, because your videos are truly quality content. First of all, in the beautiful craft of beekeeping there are no rules and no universal laws, and I wanted to start by saying this so that I can give you two important advice: 1. A way of making sure that the bees will accept or reject a queen is if you observe that they are looking to feed the queen when they are piled up around her, or if they are looking to bite her. If you move your index finger gently through the bees that are piled up on the net, there could be two possibilities: a) they immediately fly away (in this case the queen is accepted) or b) it is very difficult to get them to lay off the queen (in this case, they don’t want her). This can be very subjective if evaluated in isolation, so it’s crucial to observe and do the finger test additionally. 2. I’ve seen a lot of techniques for putting a new queen in an orphan hive. A technique that I like goes Iike this: you put the cage on a 45 degree angle in the center of the frames with the candy looking at the bottom and the net looking at the top, the reason I choose to do this is because this prevents the queen from being attacked, if the net is looking at the bottom, the queen is vulnerable and the worker bees could hurt or even take the queen’s legs off if they reject her. I also put it in the center of the frame and not at the top of the frame because in the center there is no honey storage, contrary to the top, if you put it at the top, the honey, if there ir any, can get inside the cage and drown the queen. Finally, I want to say that I admire your work and I wish you success in all that you do.
Rubén Alejandro Ricaño I will try the finger technique next time. There was no aggression with these queens in the video. I'm pretty sure the installation went OK. I put the queen at the top of the frame in an area that just had bare comb. No honey squeezing out. I am careful not to drown the queen! My name is Jim! Thanks for watching and commenting!
iMaximusRex I hope to be planting a new acre of summer flowering stuff this weekend to get through August. I'll feed if I need to. This year is all about building. Get the hives strong before September.
I've been watching you since last year and have been thinking hard about getting into beekeeping. Only problem is I have a higher chance of being highly allergic to beestings so before I do anything I'm going to have to get an epipen then deliberately piss off a bee to see. Not something to look forward to. Still working up the courage at this point, plus I dont have the land to be able to do it yet.
catherine scholz I don't have any allergies but I admit I was nervous to get my first sting with these bees because I hadn't been stung since childhood. The first couple stings swelled up pretty good, but it's been more mild lately. I think I'm developing a tolerance. But again, I wasn't allergic to begin with. Be careful.
Vino Farm I will be watched by my mom who also happens to be a nurse practitioner so i.will have no worries no matter the outcome. And fyi, for most stuff you can build up a tolerance so reactions go down. You should still keep an eye.on your reactions because a person can suddenly develop an allergic reaction to something they've been exposed to for years. Except poison ivy. With that stuff the more you are exposed the more allergic you get.
Last year I got 3 Italian queens. And I'm disappointed. They make to much eggs even if they have very less honey. Find macedonian melifera and try it you'll see
Yes, I have a local guy I can call for advice, but I found from the very beginning that UA-cam offered WAY more suggestions with a much broader and deeper well of knowledge. There were LOTS of comments to wade through to get to the relevant information, but what I've learned from my commenters is light years beyond what my mentor had the capacity to teach. Not to say he wasn't of value, just that my commenters offer immediate feedback and hundreds of points of view. My mentor might take a few days to get back to me and usually has one way of doing things. Also... my mentor has never been to my bee yard. I've been to his, but we mainly communicate by text... so, not ideal.
Hey I just got my first bees and I am wondering how the queen is doing cause I have not seen her but the bees have stayed at are hive and they are building so do think the queen is ok?
Truthasivebeen Shown No, I feed them when they have no food and forage isn’t available. Do you think I *want* to feed them? I’m trying to keep them from starving. Not everyone has continuous nectar flows all summer long.
Oneofdazzz correct. If the Carniolan queens are layers and the colonies survive, all bees in there should be Carniolan by the time they go into winter.
Russian queen WAS marked. Balboa is easy to spot. She's gigantic. I just ordered pens and will be RE-Marking the Russian queen and maybe giving Balboa a mark as well.
Sounds like italian bees are the way to go. Maybe you could train them to make fresh pasta.
italians for warm climate and early year production. carniolans for cold and humid climate and late season boom
I don't know if you will ever see this but I love, love, love watching your videos! you are so honest and fun to watch plus I learn tons from you!. Please continue taping video and loving your bees, yes even the Russian hive. Thank you!!!
I read all the comments! New video will be up tomorrow and it has news about the Russians. Thanks for watching!
Two words: shaker box. Effective, time efficient, saves a lot of frustration, swearing, scotch consumption.
Foothills of western NC: I commented a few videos ago about getting a new package of carni's and how much they have impressed me... and continue to impress me. If those queens run the hive like the my new carni colony, I think you'll be happy with em. p.s I have a russian hive we call the hudini hive because we can never find the queen lol
A Michael Bush tip: If you have warm enough weather at night, you can put the queen cage on the floor of the hive, under the frames. This keeps them from building weird comb in the gap between the 2 frames or comb on her cage. I did it that way with my split and it worked great. Just pulled the empty cage when I went in to make sure she was out and accepted. I can't wait to see how yours turn out!
Its really cool how you take so much care of your bees
I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen Sunday. Wanted to do a slit from a 4 high 5 frame deep hive. I looked and looked and never found the queen, just like you. Came back a couple of days later and FINALLY found her. Only difference for me is I didn't have queens, just wanted the FULL hive to make the queen, but wanted to pull the queen and a few frames to move to a nuc... Life's good!
First of all.
Your videos have encouraged me to get involved with bees. I am from Costa Rica and I have been investigating the whole deal with the bees here since I found about your channel. Your passion about it is nothing but inspirational. I have watched almost all the bee related videos you have, also some of the others to be honest. I am really in to your style of video production as well.
I also like your bee keeping approach, even though you say it is somehow "ignorant", is actually very procedural and biased towards observation. As a computer guy, I really love it. You are discovering via experimentation and documentation, not forgetting the hive satisfaction. * proceed to remove my hat and bow to you* Bravo!
My challenges here are more towards bee species, the rain (60%-70% of the year) washing all the pollen and nectar during our wet season, and the huge amount of production during the summer, the latter usually encouraging the bees to migrate when they feel confident enough.
Another important challenge here is the fact that we have hybrid bees. The "Africanized" bees coming from Brasil since the 70's have already covered almost the entire continent, even reaching south parts of the US. So bees here are a little more aggressive due to this mixing of species.
My plan was to start somewhere around the beginning of summer here (early Nov) Buuuuuut... looks like nature has a different plan.
I literally just found a hive right in the front yard. It is hanging from a small tree, as easy to get them as you can possible imagine.
This weekend I will try to prepare a location for what looks like my first hive. Already contacted local beekeepers to assist me with this, so I will probable keep the hive with them until I am ready. I'll send you some pictures via Instagram or something, and will try to record as much as I can with my phone. Perhaps creating some sort of channel here in UA-cam so others can get the knowledge, in Spanish.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others. Keep them videos coming and good luck with the splits!
Luis Eduardo Valverde Marín UA-camRS: This is the proper way to leave a comment!
Congratulations on what sounds like a colony finding YOU. You must have been ready! That's very exciting. I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement. I definitely think you should do a Spanish bee channel!
All the best of luck with your new found bees. Stay in touch.
I'm so interested to follow along! I want to know what happens. If you do a channel in Spanish, I'd watch it!!
Finally, you can’t find the queen. My heart goes out to you. I have 20 hives and have challenges finding any queens....
Welcome to my life.
I like the Carnolian ides and local to boot.
Looking at my 3rd apiary this weekend
Ha ha... yes, it was very very frustrating. I'm going to learn how to mark queens and re-mark her soon.
@@vinofarm You spend a lot of time in a bent (bended??) position...doesn't your back/ waist hurt like hell????
wannaknowit I have a pretty strong back and I’m flexible, so I don’t have back problems. A little sore after a long day. This is definitely not a hobby for people with bad backs.
@@vinofarm Thanks for the quick reply- yeah then I am not gonna be a beekeeper:) Hurts after just a few seconds of being bent. Apologies I am not a native speaker...:(((( I like your vids- have already seen a few of them:)
I really appreciate the hard work you show to others. There are young people that can see what is involved in beekeeping and understand the effort. Every kid that eats honey should see this. All you need is a cameraman and some close ups, and you would have truly educational tools. You have good instructional insight. Thanks from and old beekeeper!
This is really nice to hear. Thank you.
So proud of your apiary! Thank you for continuing to share your amazing videos. All 4 of my hives made it through the winter and it’s been a learning experience to keep them from swarming this spring. Since I am an urban beekeeper, I can’t have any more hives. I also put the flow hive super on my half Italian split beehive I made last year and they are crazy bursting with honey and bees. I took all my foundationless drone comb from this spring and moved them all to the top for them to fill with honey. This is all such a learning experience, but I finally feel I’m getting the hang of it. I even gave a split from my split to my neighbor and now she has a cute little hive with a new queen. Love the tags, too. As always, great video!!
Great going! Anxious to see how this works out.
I am excited to see this! Mine are Carnolian and the queens are awesome. I did my first splits a few days after yours. I checked mine today and I have queen cells in there!!! Part of me is excited the other part is thinking, "I should have bought Italian queens..."
Drew White Sounds like you're on your way! I'm having good luck with Italians, but the winter is a struggle. I'm excited to get to know the Carniolans.
so glad i found your channel a few months ago. i look forward to every new video as it comes out. hopefully starting my own bee adventure this coming spring (Im in Australia) and a lot of your experiences and dilemmas will help me get a great start (i hope!)
Matthew Robert Williams That's why I'm making videos! Thanks for watching.
Awesome! Having fun is #1! Good luck
Your editing style is so refreshing! Love it! Keep up the good work 👍👍
14:59. That is a look of pure bliss.
I've been watching for over a year now and I'm so happy for you!
Your videos have piqued my interest in beekeeping and I intend to get a couple hives when I move out of the city.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with all of us.
Jacob Sikora u don't have to wait for the country u can keep a small hive in the city as long as ur neighbors aren't allergic.
Thanks, Jacob. Best of luck with your future bees! And yes, I hear city bees do pretty well
Is it just me or did those 2 new queens look beautiful
They're pretty spicy. I can't wait to get to know them.
That title made me pretty anxious
You should have been there during the filming!
ikr? I thought maybe his splits failed or something!
jajaja We now #mielflorea #esenciasymiel, thanks good video from mexico my partner my partner showed me your channel
I have been following your videos for a long time and thanks to your videos I have learnt a lot for my own hive. I am now a week into beekeeping (as you have i am documenting everything on UA-cam) and just again wanted to send my up most thanks for everything you have posted and taught me so far. Wishing you all the best from England.
Good luck on the new queens. Hopefully they and all the girls will adapt to their new queens and homes. :).
Thanks! I hope to provide them with a nice place to live. Just don't tell them about our winter.
Great video, love the resource hive. After you showed me yours I got one for myself. Now the only thing you are missing is a few swarm traps. Not that they will swarm, but so you can catch them in case they do. I can't wait for this adventure to run its coarse over the next few months. I will be waiting on the next one.
Another great video! I am excited for you as you grow more hives. Cool idea with the plant tags too. Did you know that a lot of the time you can hear what box the queen is in? Next time you are looking for the queen you should try this experiment. Open the hive up and pull the top box of bees and set next to the hive. Give them a minute then listen carefully and you will notice that one box is buzzing louder than the other. Presto you know which box the queen is in! I think this is called roaring when the bees suddenly don't smell the queen anymore and they change their normal contented hum to a louder urgent tone.
I hope to become as entertaining with my videos as you are. Keep up the good work!
I'll have to try the listening trick someday. Thanks!
When I cannot see her. I hear her. Likely in the bottom box. In a Way Leave me Alone :-)
I’ve wanted try my hand at beekeeping for years now. Watching you succeed and fail has been a huge inspiration for me (I’m a noob too :/ ) I definitely feel more prepared. Thank you!
I'm just sharing what I do and what I learn. It's always tough to try something new but I hope my little videos can demystify the beekeeping experience for people like you. Remember, these are not "how to" videos but more a documentary. Learn from my mistakes! Thanks for watching!
Awesome job! Keep on feeding, and your bees will grow fast!
Hi. ty for the video. im a new Bee keeper this year. About bees, going back the the hive they came from, after doing a split. when i got some advice. after capture a swarm in a trap. When i have to move the trap back home. the advice was to leave some branches in front of the enternc. SO the bees comming out is like " wow this is new" and it have to maneuver around the branches. Before its out in the open, and then the bee. Need to reorientate its self, after the wow faktor. Sorry my English. hope you get the idder.
Great video especially the frustration part, getting stung and not finding the queen, I can totally empathize.
I'm surprised the new carniolan queens didn't have a couple attendants to feed them.
You were installing your Russian hive right and left when I stumbled upon your channel and been a follower of your videos since that moment. now you've got seven hives! Congrats Vino! loving your channel more :)
iamziano Glad to have you along for this journey. Thanks for the support!
Great videos, you seem to really have caught the "bug" with bees. I recognize it quite well, the joys when something works out and the frustration when it doesn't. Your production and editing is extremely well done. Keep it up.
Very nice!. I’m working with two Australian beehives, they are great! The begin working just before sunrise and go to sleep after sunset. If you around then often they get use to you and are very friendly; lots of honey too. Very good for Canadian weather eh.
That's the queen cloaking device Mike Palmer talks about, lol.
Things are looking great my man, good job! I love my carnies, also my Saskatraz queens have been fantastic.
I just heard about Saskatraz. I want to collect the whole set. ALL THE BEES!
I got mine from a producer in Iowa last year, Lappe's Bees. Very good customer service. They wintered very well and hit the ground running hard this spring. I made splits off of them and they've also done well so far. They made their own queens so I now have some kind of freakazoid hybrid queens that mated with no telling what, lol. All I care about is that they're filling frames and boxes and aren't too pissy. I still wear nitrile gloves so they have to be pretty irritable before I care too much, lol.
saskatraz?
Yeah, they're sarsaparilla flavored.
a northern climate deep cold bee -> www.saskatraz.com/
I just got 2 full frames of Carniolan brood w/established queen this week to start my bee journey! They are a pleasure to work with!
I keep hearing that Carniolans are great. I look forward to meeting them once we start getting some brood.
It makes it easier to take the gloves off...I'm a new beekeeper so I'm working my way up to it but with the reputation these bees have I get more comfortable every time I'm out near the hive.
Awesome job brother ! keep it up! Subbed !!! I LOVE the fact you got local mated queens , that's how you win in the bee game !.....
Thanks! I'm hoping for a good summer.
And I’ve heard of sugar patties but never syrup and in the winter you may ha e to feed them or else the hive will die out ! Ijs all my family ha e always had bees and let me tell ya the honey was great !
Something that you might consider is to use two rubber bands to hold the queen cage on the frame. Also spread open the frames so the bees can feed the queen through the screen on the queen cage while she waits to be released. This is how I introduce a queen when I do splits. Just another way of doing it for your information tool box. You are doing a good job and going in the right direction for sustainability.
I make sure the fondant plug is accessible and the screen is facing DOWN. So they have access to her from the bottom. Thanks for the tips!
I have a hive of carnolias ,mine don't draw out comb very well lots of burr comb, And they have absconded 2 times this season,both times were at noon when i was just coming home from work and i got them back. I have taken draw comb from Italian hives putting in there hoping they will pick up the pace.
A Queen that is Laying will bee accepted. No matter what hive. I emphasise Laying Queen.
Back away from the Russians . Give Buckfast and Italian hybrid a shot ? You rock buddy !
Hey mate, I just wanted to say, thank you for your videos. Because of you I started last year doing beekeeping and I currently have 1 hive who is doing amazing, filled 4 deep supers of honey, this year I plan on splitting my hive and getting a nuc as well to expand to 3 hives.
Out of all the youtubers out there your videos are the highest quality and I always look forward to your videos
Thank you! Congratulations on your bees.
So entertaining
went from 1 hive to 3 already. All queen right. Making brood like mad.. Keep going.. Dont get so frustrated, lol. keep going..
Little frustrations. Always moving forward.
Love your videos. I've been learning beekeeping from you and totally inspired. Keep those affiliate links and whatnot up to date I'm excited to be able to support you
Thanks! Keep watching and spread the word!
Cool stuff. Getting pretty close to checking the walk aways.
This weekend will be about 14 days. I will probably have a peek. (For science.)
I love me some Carniolans. Seriously, I loved them more than I did my Italians. Overwintered better and faster Spring buildup.
I can't wait to welcome them to the yard! I'll be checking for eggs tomorrow!
Yes , i currently have carnies , i am however going to try Saskatraz from now on , hope it works out...
These videos have become my favorite things on UA-cam. It made me feel better that you sometimes have trouble finding a queen, too! Question: what would you have done differently if the bees had balled up on the queens?
Mary Miller Hey, its Twitter Mary! Hi again.
If the bees had balled up the queen, I would have waited another day and tried again. Let them be queenless for a little longer. If they still didn't like her, I probably would have swapped out a couple frames and tried again.
Ideas to save time finding the queen: 1.Choose frames of bees that you want to shake, shake them over a queen excluder. 2. Don't try to find her, shake into nuc. Check back in a day, try to find fresh eggs in the nuc or hive
Loving it! You give me hope to start using Instagram and Twitter one day.... So since all my bees left late last year, and the ones I ordered all arrived dead, I put myself on a Swarm catcher register, I caught a swarm a month ago and started again. It was my first swarm I ever caught and it was quite an awkward, not so smooth event, with the gentleman who called to remove the swarm from his garden probably wondring why he called such an amature, but they are now installed and the queen is huge and laying. You have motivated me to try a split too. I have no idea what my bees actually are but they are quite calm and I will try one split this year soon. Since I am more of a Noob than you I cant help you out much with advice but I simply love your posts. I started with the idea of a flow hive but like you have never used the flow frames either. I want to end up with 5 hives. We will see.
Alison Neri I hope to catch a swarm someday! And go get on Instagram. What are you waiting for?
I think that's the nicest apiary I've ever seen :) love your videos!!!
I own a mountain cabin in north central PA, four adjoining property owners and I maintain a 'wildflower commons' area on approximately 11 acres; there are also around 100 different fruit trees there, mostly cherry and plum. A beekeeper located two hives there nine years ago; their average winter die-off (last 3 years) was 60%, Varroa was a problem. In May of '17, he re-queened both hives with VSH hybrid queens, and this winter's die-off was less than 30%, however, they don't seem to populate the hive as well as the Carniolan queen's did.
Winter is always the BIG issue for us. I started with two hives and lost one the first winter. Last winter I went in with 3 and lost one. This year I should be going into winter with at least 9 hives. I'm hoping for a 60% survival.
We're in similar situations, at a similar altitude, but we're in more of a valley than your property is. I'm going to alert the gentleman who takes care of the hives on our property to your videos. I don't believe that he is "computer savvy", but we'll make adjustments for that. BTW, we each kick-in $100 every spring "just to see clover, have raspberries, and enjoy a decent yield from our trees and gardens". The beekeeper said that he was happy without 'having to split the honey' (with us). It turns out that 'orchard honey' brings a higher price than the wildflower variety. He was talking about adding two more hives next year, depending on this years results. Good luck, and thank you!
These videos are really making me consider getting into beekeeping. The problem is I don't have the space at home, I would have to use my uncle's property...and he's got about 50 acres but we use it for hunting, and we try very hard to leave the property as undisturbed as possible in the off-season. If I were to put hives on his property, that would obviously change. So I'm still in the brainstorming process here. Not sure if I'm going to do it, but the temptation is definitely there. For the last 6 months or so I've been getting more and more fascinated with honey bees.
I do have the time and patience to work with them and treat them with care, it's just a question of logistics and space at this point. Gonna be something to think about for the remainder of the year, that way if I decide to go through with it, I can be prepped and ready by late winter next year.
Ask him , if he's fine with hunting , he will be fine with bee's , and the bees will bring in more wildlife , and game.....Win / WIn..
RetroCNY - Since your uncle has the property, ask and if Yes, start now planting and establishing multiple small plots of local flowering native plants. The easiest and BEST you can do for the environment as well as the bees and local game, is give them what grows well within your region. By selecting, planting, and propagating local perennials, you'll have established feed and attractants for more than just the bees. Add a small orchard or two of apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, and what ever else you enjoy that grows regionally and you'll also have more deer than ever before waiting in line for those trees to bear fruit. It's a blast watching does spar over the best spots to eat, and they can make it look like a cage match early and late in the fall! LOL ~Best of Luck~
snartmonkey777 you're definitely wise too! I agree 110%
Great video, thanks. :)
some beekeepers use a "filter box" to find the queen, just an empty box with a queen excluder attached below, duct tape around the top (apparently bees hate crawling on duct tape). then just shake the frames into the filter box, the regular bees exit through the queen excluder leaving the queen inside
nickt I am aware the of that method, but will save it as a last resort. Thanks!
Thank you, No twiter, no instagram, no facebook...I really don't like them in my life.
Thanks for all of this at your youtube channel.
Fred.
Instagram is nice. If there was no youtube, I'd live on Instagram. I don't really care for Twitter, but I'm trying to learn how to use it. FB is dead to me!
Excluders: - If excluders are used the queen lays more compactly & a lot easier to find (in a single brood super) - I have been using single brood supers for over 55 years . . .
After the queen has been laying for minimum 30 days (in our Nuces), we mark & clip a small part of the right wing for even years - left wing for odd years before transferring into honey production hives
The queen is a lot easier to find when marked
This queen WAS marked. It was just a really packed hive and Russians are sneaky.
So disappointed I don't have room for a hive. Living inner city has it draw backs... Really enjoying the video's keep up the great work...
Look around. Maybe you can have a stealth hive on a rooftop. City hives do well, I hear.
Oh my... all of a sudden the roof of the garage looks like a real option... time for some research!
Why not use a shaker box? That way you won't have to worry about finding the queen when doing splits or moving bees.
A shaker box is a box with a queen excluder on the bottom. Bees go in the top and a little smoke encourages them to go into the hive below. The queen gets stuck on the excluder and can be placed wherever she needs to go.
I was so worried about the splits you made! Hopefully they are doing well! :)
MartellaNutella I'll have a look this weekend. Next video will be updates!
instead looking for queen , you could shake brood frames and move them above a queen excluder. After hours when they got full of nurse bees you can move them to your new split.
I think when I reach that day of keeping bees for like 100 years I just might understand about half of what it takes to keep bees. I made splits today as well.
Shake all frames through a box that has a queen excluder at the bottom! It would save a lot of time.
You don't need to see the queen. Just split the frames between the original box and the nuc, wait a bit, and listen which box has calmer bees. The queen is with the calmer box.
So, when will you take the next step, and start grafting your own queens??? I tried once at the beginning of spring, and have now completed a class at Dyce Lab, lots of fun, and cool to watch the progression... Good Luck
I doubt I'll ever get to that point. I can't see having more than 20 or so hives and I'll be there in a year with splits... but who knows?
Good luck with it, looks good. Since the only reason to find the queen was to not transfer her, I've seen some people simply shake the desired bees off a target frame and through a queen excluder (box on top to contain the bees). If the queen is on that frame she will be stopped by the excluder. The frame is placed in the new box and the bees go back on the frame from where they came.
Yes, it sounds easy on paper. In reality it's a swarm of bees. And the Russians are kind of testy.
They can still just be shaken off frames, which is what you did in the end with the other hive. You don't need to find the queen, you just need to keep her in the original box, which is why some people shake them through a queen excluder. I had to find a queen yesterday to mark her so feel your pain, but other than that I don't think it's very common to actually need to find the queen, and evidence of her work is much more valuable.
Look at it this way, you'd be kinda pissed too if somebody broke into your house, wandered around trashing the place for over 2 hours, and finished up killing a bunch of your kids (chilled brood). :)
I really like your videos and enthusiasm for your bees, you guys do it tough up there in winter, so well done and good luck for this season. My tea leaves predict some queen rearing in your future and I'll look forward to that.
I don't think I chilled any brood. It was sunny and 80ºF. The reason for locating her was so I didn't accidentally transfer her over to the nuc and then introduce another queen on top of her. I HAD to find her and make sure she stayed in the original box. I knew she was laying and I know EVIDENCE of a queen is enough when inspecting, but I was removing frames. She was so well hidden I really ran the risk of bringing her over to the nuc. Locating her and getting her into a cage was essential for this operation. THe excluder trick would work in an emergency, but it's insanely disruptive. I don't know if you work with Russians, but they get really hot and stingy with the slightest jostling.
I think I've been misunderstood. You don't need to find the queen, you only need to ensure she isn't transferred. You find the frame you want to put in the nuc, you put a queen excluder under an empty box and on top of the nuc (I've seen some commercial guys make up a dedicated plastic tub with a queen excluder attached to the bottom just for this purpose), shake the bees off the frame and into the nuc through that excluder and give them a puff of smoke if required, they will go through the excluder and into the nuc. Put the now bare frame in the nuc. The bees will go straight away back onto the frame. Repeat for the other frames. If the queen happened to be on any frames (including the one you liked but discounted because the queen was on it), she will be stopped by the queen excluder. There is no chance of transferring her and finishing up with two queens in the same split.
I know there's lots of ways to skin a cat but just mentioned it because I've seen commercial guys do it this way. It only takes them (literally) a minute to do a split and is therefore good for the bees despite those in the split being shaken. Mind you we don't skin cats so to each their own.
Here's a couple of videos of Canadian commercial beekeepers illustrating the idea of splitting without finding the queen. They are splitting slightly differently to you by leaving the top box/nuc in place to allow the bees to come back up through the queen excluder. Same principle though. ua-cam.com/video/wDcHqh-6Ki4/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/YbA-P_l13QM/v-deo.html&
I saw something looked like a large bird dive low and appear at 13:30 plus a few seconds. What was that? Top right of the screen as Jim is talking to us, knelt by the resource box.
You need to start marking your queens!
next split you can save time by shaking all the bees onto one box then when you are putting the hive back together separate the brood boxes with a queen excluder. The nurse bees will go back up to the top box where the brood is and the queen will be in the lower box. You won't have to see her you will just know where she is.
Sean Clawson I agree this is the best and quickest method to use
Good golly man your title gave me a scare. Glad the splits turned out well. Balboa really has some competition with that new package queen!
The thing about the Balboa hive is she (and her mother) are not crazy layers, but they're survivors. They came back from the dead twice, went through two winters and self made an emergency queen REALLY late into last season. They're JUST like Rocky... Slow and steady. Survivors. This new queen is a show off and an amazing egg factory... but we need to see how she handles winter.
Ohh the frustration :( but then the Elation whot hoot. Looks like your are having fun keep enjoying yourself vino farm.
I just love learning. Every day is a new lesson.
You scared me with that title. I thought something really bad happened and I was already feeling bad for you. I can definitely tell that you see these bees as part of your family.
Over the last three days I have watched all your videos about your beekeeping from beginning until now. My husband and I have talked about doing this ourselves in a couple years. Please keep the videos coming. I really enjoy them and they are great learning opportunity for people like myself who are thinking about getting into this.
Thanks for watching the videos! There will be a lot more coming up. Best of luck getting started on your bee adventure.
whoop whooooop KRAJNSKA ČEBELA
Awesome vid brother...also a noob who got himself stung right on my big ol forehead this morning pooking around in one of my hives..lol.. been a noob fer 27 days now😎..love it..4 hives
Welcome to the club.
I'm just sitting here thinking you're *CRAZY* touching all those *BEE'S* without *GLOVES* on!!
Them dam Russians😏. At 13:08 when you said your so very awkward at this whole thing. I thought that was so honest bcse it’s actually very noticeable how much your learning at it all. Appreciate your honesty.
Don't feel bad i got a hive that only consist of a medium box and it took me 2 days to find her. My queen is small, she is barely bigger that the workers so there was nothing to make her stand out.
Shannon Sargent Is she mated? Laying? They are usually a bit larger after mating.
Sometimes it is like that if she is not very well mated,or old and near its end or she was in emergency sells that have been raised by weak hive ( Not enough bees to take care of sells and later on queen)
note--as a last resort to find the queen.You can attach a queen excluder to a deep box. Set all frames in a empty near by. Shake all bees through excluder box and smoke them down. The queen will be running around on the screen. etc etc etc
Yes, I am aware of that method. As I've been replying, though, it gets a bit hectic and Russians are pretty hot and stingy when they get excited. I didn't want to disturb them by shaking two deeps through a queen excluder. I knew that was an option is necessary. Thanks for writing!
keep posting bee videos i love these most interesting thing i have seen .
quince maxwell I promise to keep posting bee videos.
Looks like an interesting flipper knife you have there. What is that?
At least you have empty cells and brood. I have 4 or 5 hives basically honey bound. I don't even have supers on yet.
New sub. Love bees and gardening. Noticed you are in north central ma. I am too. Just on Townsend line. Any advice or local resource advice for beginners ?
PharmSilver For beekeeping? Join Worcester county beekeeping and take the class. Watch my videos. Read a few books and get ready for next spring!
ahhhh sweet :) i always hoped you would try a carniolan hive, always heard they were really gentle
I'm looking forward to getting to know them.
did you block the screen on the queen cages when installed? they need to feed her and remove her waste until they get through the fondant.
Dear friend ( I’m not quite sure what your name is), I’ve seen pretty much all of your videos and I wanted to congratulate you, I’m sure that everyone does, because your videos are truly quality content.
First of all, in the beautiful craft of beekeeping there are no rules and no universal laws, and I wanted to start by saying this so that I can give you two important advice:
1. A way of making sure that the bees will accept or reject a queen is if you observe that they are looking to feed the queen when they are piled up around her, or if they are looking to bite her. If you move your index finger gently through the bees that are piled up on the net, there could be two possibilities: a) they immediately fly away (in this case the queen is accepted) or b) it is very difficult to get them to lay off the queen (in this case, they don’t want her). This can be very subjective if evaluated in isolation, so it’s crucial to observe and do the finger test additionally.
2. I’ve seen a lot of techniques for putting a new queen in an orphan hive. A technique that I like goes Iike this: you put the cage on a 45 degree angle in the center of the frames with the candy looking at the bottom and the net looking at the top, the reason I choose to do this is because this prevents the queen from being attacked, if the net is looking at the bottom, the queen is vulnerable and the worker bees could hurt or even take the queen’s legs off if they reject her. I also put it in the center of the frame and not at the top of the frame because in the center there is no honey storage, contrary to the top, if you put it at the top, the honey, if there ir any, can get inside the cage and drown the queen.
Finally, I want to say that I admire your work and I wish you success in all that you do.
Rubén Alejandro Ricaño I will try the finger technique next time. There was no aggression with these queens in the video. I'm pretty sure the installation went OK.
I put the queen at the top of the frame in an area that just had bare comb. No honey squeezing out. I am careful not to drown the queen!
My name is Jim!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Phew. All worked out in the end.. *touch wood*
The roller coaster continues.
Bee prepared for no new queens force queen to swarm prep , learn to graft cells, or a nico system from ebay
i never thought of bee comedy lol then you get stung llol
Followed you :) love these vids
I was thinking about building me two of them resource house the one with the solid box and then the two nukes on the sides how do they work out
Looks like the bees are going great. Hope you don't get that mid summer foraging doldrums you've had in the past.
iMaximusRex I hope to be planting a new acre of summer flowering stuff this weekend to get through August. I'll feed if I need to. This year is all about building. Get the hives strong before September.
How far are you moving you splits when you do them? I've heard 2.5 miles? I thought I saw on 1 of your videos you just moved them 10 feet.
10 feet. They're fine.
I've been watching you since last year and have been thinking hard about getting into beekeeping. Only problem is I have a higher chance of being highly allergic to beestings so before I do anything I'm going to have to get an epipen then deliberately piss off a bee to see. Not something to look forward to. Still working up the courage at this point, plus I dont have the land to be able to do it yet.
catherine scholz I don't have any allergies but I admit I was nervous to get my first sting with these bees because I hadn't been stung since childhood. The first couple stings swelled up pretty good, but it's been more mild lately. I think I'm developing a tolerance. But again, I wasn't allergic to begin with. Be careful.
Vino Farm I will be watched by my mom who also happens to be a nurse practitioner so i.will have no worries no matter the outcome. And fyi, for most stuff you can build up a tolerance so reactions go down. You should still keep an eye.on your reactions because a person can suddenly develop an allergic reaction to something they've been exposed to for years. Except poison ivy. With that stuff the more you are exposed the more allergic you get.
Last year I got 3 Italian queens. And I'm disappointed. They make to much eggs even if they have very less honey. Find macedonian melifera and try it you'll see
Oh no... looks like I'm not going to want to see this one. Watching now... :( EDIT: Oh hey! that's not so bad! :)
don't think,a queen will not change the box while you working on it. :)
Do you have a mentor to help you out or are you just researching and taking care of them from what you see going on in the hives?
Yes, I have a local guy I can call for advice, but I found from the very beginning that UA-cam offered WAY more suggestions with a much broader and deeper well of knowledge. There were LOTS of comments to wade through to get to the relevant information, but what I've learned from my commenters is light years beyond what my mentor had the capacity to teach. Not to say he wasn't of value, just that my commenters offer immediate feedback and hundreds of points of view. My mentor might take a few days to get back to me and usually has one way of doing things. Also... my mentor has never been to my bee yard. I've been to his, but we mainly communicate by text... so, not ideal.
Hey I just got my first bees and I am wondering how the queen is doing cause I have not seen her but the bees have stayed at are hive and they are building so do think the queen is ok?
Collin Hannagan If there are eggs and larvae, there is a queen.
But you feed them way much most people only do that when it’s cold not all summer long !
Truthasivebeen Shown No, I feed them when they have no food and forage isn’t available. Do you think I *want* to feed them? I’m trying to keep them from starving. Not everyone has continuous nectar flows all summer long.
Do you use beescource?
Shakerbox :-)
So eventually all the bees would be carnilian as the queens are al ready mated correct?
Oneofdazzz correct. If the Carniolan queens are layers and the colonies survive, all bees in there should be Carniolan by the time they go into winter.
Regarding the difficulty finding the Russian queen, I've always wondered why you haven't marked the Russian and Balboa queens for easier visibility.
Russian queen WAS marked. Balboa is easy to spot. She's gigantic. I just ordered pens and will be RE-Marking the Russian queen and maybe giving Balboa a mark as well.