CHAOS in the Bee Yard. Queen-less Hives and Laying Workers
Вставка
- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- For more frequent updates in between videos please visit the Bug Farmer Instagram page: / thebugfarmer
About this video: This was supposed to be a quick video to inspect the rest of the beehives at the farm and prepare for splits. After inspecting the first hive all plans went out the window. Today we will encounter our first queen-less and laying worker hives of 2024. I hope I have taken the correct actions to kick start the offending hives. Splits need to be done and the hives have to be in order first.
This Channel:
Although this beekeeping channel is primarily about beekeeping I am also a quasi pepper who believes in becoming self-sufficient. With that in mind, I have started a garden, planted fruit trees, replaced the hedges in front of my house with blueberry bushes, and have recently built a chicken coop. In short, I will share a lot more than beekeeping on this channel.
A little about me:
I am a person who believes you are never to old to learn something. Be it beekeeping, farming, raising chickens, painting, filming and editing video, making wine, beer, bread, cheese, and other fermentation consumables, play guitar etc... If I see something I want to try I start it immediately. If there is one thing I could choose to pass along to my children this would be it. Never be afraid to try. My wife famously told me once that if you are not willing to be bad at something, you will never be good at it. I am bad at quite a few things.
I hope you find my beekeeping videos fun and entertaining as well as get something out of them. I hope I inspire someone to get out and try something new. If you do enjoy my videos, please take a moment to spread the word about this channel and help it, and myself, grow. Have a great day and BEE Happy!
###############################################################
The gear I use:
Primary Camera: Sony FDRAX53/B 4K HD
Secondary Camera: Sony FDRAX53/B 4K HD
Primary MIC: Sony ECMXYST1M Stereo Microphone
Secondary MIC: Sony ECMXYST1M Stereo Microphone
Tripod: GEEKOTO Camera Tripod
Editing Software: Adobe Premier
Graphics Package: Adobe Photoshop
Learning Final Cut Pro
00:08:56 the queen left capped brood on right!😊
Holy crap Batman! That is her. She looks like a new queen. I am going over there today to have a look and paint her. Thanks a ton!
@@BugFarmerBees that's thanks to your video training... I love your enthusiasm!
Always an adventure each week. See you next Friday!! 🐝🐝🐝🐝
Good morning Ken. It't great to hear from you. I miss the weekly poem but I hope you are enjoying the time off. Here spring is springing and the bees are in the air. I hope it is starting to warm up in your neck of the woods and the sun is shining down on you.
I always enjoy watching my friend
Thanks MSC. It is always nice to hear from you.
I agree with Randy. Divide those problem colonies up and use them in your splits, don’t waste time and resources trying to fix. Thats a more efficient use of your resources.
I will be adding queens and nurse bees from the bee barns to the problem hives.
Last year I had a problem accepting a queen in early spring and was able to fix it with a charged cell after dropping in some new brood. Breaking down the hive and starting fresh is a good idea after being queenless for several weeks.
I love the longer videos. Usually watch them with the morning coffee. Thankyou so much for posting. Up in massachusetts we are at least a month away from being able to truly inspect a hive and I'm going crazy waiting. It's weird how much we miss them. 😊
It's funny you said that. It is kind of the topic of next weeks video. :-)
You are developing a good eye for queens. It takes a while.
My thoughts Jim - once you have laying workers (Plural) all the bees are old and they will refuse to take a new queen and just kill your new queen. I'd dump them on the ground, plug the entrance and a few days later start out some splits in those boxes. Good luck, them bees keep a person scratching the old noodle. LOL
Thanks. I do have an itchy noodle this spring. Hopefully I can get everything to settle down by the time the flow ramps up. There is already a peach tree in full bloom at the farm. The nectar shouldn't be far behind.
Shake the Queen less hives out use the box and frames for your splits
Maybe later if I cannot get this issue resolved. I really want as many bees gathering nectar as possible.
Agreed, don't use good resources over bad bees.
Long videos are just real beekeeping
So true. :-)
I think I learned my lesson about throwing good resources after bad late last year with a hive that had a queen issue. Hopefully you are early enough in the year they can make something worthwhile for you.
I agree that you may be throwing away resources. With a laying worker, her pheromone may be too strong and they wont create a queen with appropriate age brood. Your best bet is to add a queen, or wait until your other hives create queen cells and put those in the failing hives.
It's just crazy how the hives made it to the precipice of spring and then ran out of steam. Oh well, we will solve the problem and move forward into the flow :-)
Love all the videos, im envious of the bee castle yard...
Thanks a ton. It's a lot of hard work and people like you make it worth while. Take care.
Meanwhile here in Alaska I had to recut the ice steps down to get into the workshop. Still 3 ft of ice on the ground in Kiana, AK 😅
Yikes! Cutting ice steps sounds tiring. The thaw is coming your way soon. Thanks for stopping in to have a look and for taking the time to comment. Take care.
Never raise a queen from a laying worker!!!
I don't. think that is possible. Laying workers lay only drone eggs.
What is in your pocket that your hive tool sticks to? I love how it is always close when you need it! I need whatever it is as I am always laying mine down and losing it 😅
I use a fishing magnet with the eye cut off. Here is a link: a.co/d/8REiMJ8
Enjoyed the video - Keep up the good work!
Thank you. I really appreciate you stopping in to have a look.
@@BugFarmerBees Been wanting to ask you, I noticed you dont wear a full suit, do you get stung much through the jeans?
Okay I seriously hope you actually read these because I need an answer and Google just is a disappointing endless black hole of responses. So I have a problem and a question that follows, I had a hive that I absolutely adored and took pride and a lot of care in. No matter the precautions I took, they still died. So I was super sad. Then I found you. Which was literally a godsend. So thank you for existing lol. And I built me a hive heater for my bougie bees for next winter. So hopeful I'm more prepared. Well since my whole hive was dead, I opened it up to confirm after seeing the masses of bees at the bottom of my hive, it looked like the massacre during the 300 movie... This is spartaaaaa so anyway, i bought a new colony I am 100% committed to getting this bee thing right. So I got carniolans and felt really good about my purchase.... Well out of nowhere I now have bees in my hive. I know they're not mine, and it's a really nice warm day and it's been a week or two since I noticed their activity so I decided to check on em. And there aren't any larvae that I could see but there was a huddle of bees in the middle of the main brood box and am thinking there's a queen in there. At the moment I don't mind them there especially if there is a queen, I'm more than happy to help the bees have a home. SO AFTER ALL THAT HERE'S MY QUESTION: so of there's a queen and it's a weak colony and I mean week could I mix my carniolans with the Italians? Or should I just get a second hive?
Okay, where to start.... First, I do read and respond to all of my comments :-). Now let me thank you. I have never been praised for just existing, this makes me happy, happy, happy so thank you. Now, before we get to the question at hand let's try to understand why your colony died. There could be several reasons why your bees didn't make it through winter but the two most common are sickness, usually caused by mites, and starvation. If this happens again have a close look at the dead. If the there was food in the hive and the girls don't have their tongues hanging out of their mouth chances are they got sick. Mites can be controlled easily and there are a gazzilion videos on UA-cam showing how to win the battle against these little buggers. Now for the question. It depends. Can you mix two varieties of bees successfully, yes. I have done it several times with no issue. That said, anytime you force two colonies together there is a chance they will kill each other. Again, many UA-cam videos out there to show you how to combine with screen or newspaper. All of that said, if they have a queen and spring is breaking in your area as it is in mine, I would give them a pollen patty and some 1:1 sugar syrup to help them build their numbers. I have had baseball sized swarms survive and turn into robust hives. Please understand, I have only been at this for 6 years and still have a lot to learn myself so please do some research. For a new beekeeper I would highly recommend @FrederickDunn (www.youtube.com/@FrederickDunn). He is very knowledgeable and has been a "go to" for me for years. I hope I have given you enough information to act as a starting point. Thank you for being out there and I hope you enjoy your journey in beekeeping. Oh, one more thing.... As for the hive heaters, I have several video out there showing how to set up and use them so I hope you have a look. Don't forget to use a diffuser board above the heat box and I recommend a set temp of 65F. Take care.
@@BugFarmerBees well I'd like to say thank you so much for responding. It means a lot. I did a mite wash before I did my winterizing varroa treatment and the wash there was (I'm not even kidding) none. Which I did a second one because my numbers were fabulous and felt like I could spare there was like 5 mites. But I treated anyway before winter and called it good. I did leave them a ton of honey (I let them keep it all cuz it was my first year and all) and when I checked in after finding them all dead, there was still a few frames that were filled. Which I did leave in there for the bees as well as the candy board of patties. Once it got warmer and I noticed the new bees around and inside my give I did do a 1:1 and have been filling it up every two days (that seems how fast they've been sucking it down) the only thing I can think of is they froze. 😅 Only logical explanation I could come up with. I decided to check on them in a few weeks and get a new hive if they're doing really well. So we'll see what happens. I really appreciate you. Kinda saved me there.
Definitely everything Bug Farmer said. You may have caught a small swarm which would bee awesome. I would definitely make sure there's no laying queen before combining tho. I'd personally feed and watch to see what happens. ❤Free Bees 🐝
Hey why don't you just take 2 of the deep frames and add it to the colony that you painted red would probably work I'm talking about the 1st queen
That's a good idea. However, after recent inspections I have decided to do splits on the bee barns and haul some 2nd year queens over to the farm to join the troops in the failing hives. That way I can get first year queens in the bee barns, stave off swarms, and not miss a beat at the farm as the flow begins. :-)
did you make that queen ring ?
No. I purchased it at Better Bee. Here is the link: www.betterbee.com/marking-tools-and-queen-cages/qmt2.asp