❹ First Hive Inspection of the year! How are they doing in February?

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  • Опубліковано 24 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 16

  • @KajunHomestead
    @KajunHomestead 9 місяців тому +2

    Good looking Bee hives Brian

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому +1

      Thanks Kajun! I hope to see how the rest are doing today. 74F here today. I hope you are doing well.

  • @russellkoopman3004
    @russellkoopman3004 9 місяців тому +1

    Looking good. Nice hive wrap.

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому

      Thanks! They all seemed to be doing well. I have stripped the insulation as of last Sunday so I could do inspections on all of them.

  • @WildwoodsBeekeeping
    @WildwoodsBeekeeping 9 місяців тому

    Nice hive Brian, looks great 👍 Have a great day 🤙😎🐝🐝

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому

      Thanks! You have a great day too Grayson.

  • @dcsblessedbees
    @dcsblessedbees 9 місяців тому +3

    Looks like your hives are doing great to me but I have decided I don't know how to keep bees, so take it for what it's worth. Have a great day Brian, your girls are looking good.
    I don't have a single colony that looks remotely close to anything I see in videos, never have. Doesn't matter if they are Northern hives or not, 1 year I get good bees and don't know anything and the next I get nothing but crap queens so it's almost a waisted years effort. Sorry Brian didn't mean to vent on the comment to ya, I'm just very frustrated atm.

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому +1

      So far so good here, the next few weeks may be the hardest though.
      Your climate is way different than anything I've seen. It's very wet and cloudy a lot of the time.
      Last I checked you had 7 hives and I only have 6 so I would say you are doing just fine. 7 goes to 21 pretty quickly even without ordering in queens.
      Since some of your bees survived the winter those are the bees I would use to produce new queens from so you can create queens for your area from your survivor stock.
      Consider the lost colonies a test in genetic selection, but with the benefit of drawn comb and extra equipment available for this years bees that will be better suited to your climate.
      You got this! We are only human and we learn from our mistakes but it's always better to look towards what will be this year than what could have been. Best of Luck DC, I feel you are off to a great start this year. It's good seeing you on the live chats too!

    • @dcsblessedbees
      @dcsblessedbees 9 місяців тому +2

      @@BrianCooper901 Thanks Brain.
      I agree with everything ya are saying pep-talk received.😁👍
      Man this time of year gets hard. I ordered some of the apis pollen patties so I think as soon as it gets here I'll give them a bit to try and help them get started. So small atm.
      What I am seeing is wet uncapped sugar syrup, it's like they took in all the Fall feed and couldn't ever get it dry enough. So now it has fermented and turned on them and that's no good. I think that the only reason they have been surviving is the shelter and the sugar bricks.
      Step by step, next year will be better.
      I have new plans of just going in to Winter in packed singles. I'll have to supply Winter feed va sugar shims but that actually helps with my moisture. It appears the ones that are doing the best are the ones that had the least open Fall syrup in them.

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому +1

      @@dcsblessedbeesThat's crazy. I just inspected and found one of my hives was weaker and in the upper box and the lower box had fermented bubbling nectar in some open cells in the bottom. I don't know if that's due to being a double deep and it being too cold for them to dry down or if it was the insulation with no upper vent. They are now in a single deep and my fingers are crossed.

    • @dcsblessedbees
      @dcsblessedbees 9 місяців тому +2

      @@BrianCooper901 That is exactly what I am seeing. But a lot of it, I was talking with Harris, he thinks I might have a higher levels of ambient native yeasts in my environment with it being so damp. I'm beginning to wonder if that might be a contributing factor.

    • @atlas4225
      @atlas4225 9 місяців тому +3

      Don't beat yourself up. If your north of Va you likely bought your bees from someone who buys packages and queens from a vendor down South.
      If thats the case the deck is stacked against you. Any success is a major win!

  • @SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands
    @SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands 9 місяців тому +1

    looks more like 15 degrees with those clouds...

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому

      We did have a little rain that evening but it didn't drop below 56F.

  • @SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands
    @SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands 9 місяців тому +1

    65 everything would be dead or burning, that's crazy..

    • @BrianCooper901
      @BrianCooper901  9 місяців тому

      It would be if it was Celsius! Thanks for commenting!