1) Is a double queen hive more productive than a single queen hive with a double-deep? 4:16 2) I'm trying to liquify some honey, but part of it remains crystalized, what can I do? 9:27 3) I would like to build a Purple Martin House and add it to my backyard. Should I be concerned that they will reduce my bee population? 13:12 4) A two queen system can be a lot to handle, not recommended for new keepers. 22:38 5) With a two-queen system, if one queen dies on one side will they just spread their pheromone through both brood boxes? 34:58 6) I had to replace my queen and chose VSH stock, are they smaller than other bee stock and will they require new queen excluders? 42:03
I just hope my grandson doesn't claim that hive as his own... he's a little shifty, and I find his name on random bee equipment (';')( ';').... it's going to ge a fun year in my opinion :)
Fred, to decrystallize my small jar honey (1-3 ibs.) I submerge the jars in a crock pot of water set on warm. The water temperature is about 100 degrees if you leave the lid off the crock pot. Overnight is all that's necessary for 1 lb jars. Sometimes I need to invert the quart jars of fall honey for additional 8 hours. I have a different method in mind for my 1-3 gallon jars.
Quinn, you are the man! ...I have Phoebes and Wood Peewees, both members of the flycatcher family of birds... they hang out on the bee yard electric fence and eat bees...
Here in Tasmania our locally adapted honey bees are small, dark and feisty. I find the flow super a real Godsend, because if I'm in any of my hives for more than a few minutes, they get fed up with me and start trying to drive me away. They also tend to congregate on top of the frames, and aren't particulary bothered by my smoker, either. Trying not to squish them when reassembling the hive after an inspection can be very challenging. One thing I found helpful was to gently brush them off the top of the frames, down the front of the hive, towards the entrance. This sometimes causes less upset than trying to smoke them, which you might find surprising! Local colleagues keep offering me queens to replace my feisty genetics, but I do love my grumpy girls, and they are very productive.
I have one grandson who's 5. When we all go out to pick up firewood kindling, he stops in front of every little stick "grandfather, how much if I pick this one up" (';')( ';')... this is what I'm up against. How about you get to be warmed by a nice fire. "well I'm not picking up any sticks then".
My great uncle always kept bees, and had purple martin houses set up for his garden. He said it was a trade-off, just like the rat snake that would visit his chicken house. He believed the occasional occasional bee and the occasional egg were a small price to pay for quality pest control.
Love the deer seemingly attracted to the noisemaker! Looked like she was trying to find the product number. Maybe a different frequency would be more threatening? Re purple martins, I don't have them in my Maryland yard, but the catbirds like to sit by the colonies and grab a few bees as they fly in or out. I am happy to see them and they don't do much damage - fun to watch.
That deer was more stubborn than the others. There were five of them. That last one finally stopped coming, but you're right, it was annoying... she only stayed 20 seconds. :) Before the noise-makers, they would remain for 30 minutes or more at a time. :)
When I had 2 queens in one hive, a mother and her daughter, and both were laying. It was an 8 frame Langstroth with a medium honey super and a flow super. This Flow super was my first most successfully filled flow unit. So many bees!
Great job Quinn! Great job granddad on passing down such high intelligence too! Fred, quick question. I see towards the end of your video. You have a hive that’s elevated on top of a Beesmart hive instead of it sitting directly on it. What is the reason? Thank you
I like your take on Purple Martins, survival of the fittest is really important! I had a large colony of Purple Martins several years ago and waged war on European house sparrows and starlings using traps and my marksmanship skills, both invasive species ignorantly introduced to North America in the 1890's and 1920's (starlings in the 1890s and European house sparrows in the 1920's)! Those two have done more to take out our native songbirds than any other combination that has ever happened in North America, they aggressively take over nesting cavities, I've witnessed it myself. I'd love to say more but, I'll stop my comment here, just true observations and having read the history of them.
Watching bird lovers provide housing for House Sparrows and boost their numbers is a source of frustration for me. My own sister in law allowed House Sparrows to take over her entire Purple Martin Hotel. We've had house sparrows peck Bluebirds to death on their nest. It's a grizzly behavior. I wish more people understood why house sparrows are all that you see in suburbia and cities, becuase they have pushed nearly all of the native song birds. I understand, it's hard for some people to act against any bird species. I wish they knew more about the issue.
@FrederickDunn I agree, but what can you do about sparrows? I put bird feed out, mostly sunflowers and 90% goes to sparrows. Enough cardinals, titmice, etc to keep me putting it out. Glenn
@@glennsnaturalhoney4571 Usually it's only millet in my area that attracts the house sparrows. The European house sparrows don't have beak power to crack open black oil sunflower seed like Cardinals, Grosbeaks, and other woodpeckers that manage to get past the shell. Those European house sparrows are easily mistaken for our own native sparrows, especially on the female side of things. Only the adult male has that distinctive black patch on their chests. The juvenile male and female birds are look so close to our native sparrows that it is nearly impossible to tell them apart at the short glance they give us.
Got fondant on about 15 or so colonies and even packed down 2 ,that needed less space ,going to bee cold,so we were lucky to get to 56°f yesterday,snows pretty much gone ,made me happy to get a peak at them
Summer of 2023 we had a pair of Cardinals that would snag bees as they left and returned to our hive. Last summer they left the bees alone. What did Quinn do to win his award? Congratulations to him.
Fred, never had one side of a Keeper's Hive turn into a laying worker. Yes, if you kill the queen on one side they will make emergency cells but if that emergency queen does not result in a new laying queen they do not develop into laying workers... all the bees just eventually work the other brood box and you are left with a one queen hive.
Oh, that's great information! Very interesting, even though some say they do get laying workers when one queen fails. Sounds like a healthy dabate is on the horizon. Does the Keeper's Hive configuration aid in preventing the laying worker issue if one side loses their queen?
Welcome healthy debates. Appreciate your public service announcement of the dangers of keeping two queen hives. It is hard to fully appreciate what it is like to have a colony with over 100,000 bees. What makes the Keeper's Hive design nice is you dont have to tear it all apart to do the brood inspection.. Thankfully! Weighing supers is not advised until you shake off all the bees and get the boxes into the honey house or you will be running for the forest.
Well fred, the deer are hungry! You should plant a big strip of turnips and radishes for them to dig up in the winter. Ever find shed antlers laying out there?
Antlers in the woods... there is plenty of forage out there :) I'm not planting anything to bring them in. In the past, they ate my holly bushed down to twigs (';')...
I love purple martins and miss them a lot. We had beaucoups of them in Houston, but have failed utterly to attract them here in the Panhandle. Our western kingbirds (flycatcher family) eat a few bees daily but don't make a dent in a strong hive.
For Apimaye, I pull the bottom tray and dump it out. I wish they had a difference entrance that would permit dead bee removal at the entrance. This is how I do OA in an Apimaye: ua-cam.com/video/yYpnqrjK_xg/v-deo.htmlsi=BwaDDiClS6liZhwU
I have a bunch if opossums on my property and I've never seen them show interest in my hives. They usually truck along between them eating ticks. Is this a winter behavior?
They eat dead and living bugs mostly on the ground. Hard to resist frozen bees on a landing board when you consider that those bees also may have honey remnants in their abdomens. I consider them to be low, to no, stress on a bee colony.
Maybe you need a motorized scarecrow that’s connected to your alarms to add some motion to scare away the critters not affected by the noise and lights.
I used to be concerned about predators like assassin bugs, jumping spiders, dragonflies, praying mantises, etc, but I made some observations “did the calculus”and realized that at least in my area of SE coastal VA, predation is no big deal mathematically, except when queen rearing, where one eaten queen can ruin your day. I don’t have purple martins though, so made no purple Martin observations.
@@FrederickDunn I have 8 hives over wintering in Ky near Nashville may lose 1 hive but that's okay. I can still make 30 hives through the season using double screen boards
31:08 Something to be aware of is legal consequences of “warning” signs on your property. I have been told that if you have “Beware of Dog” or other “Caution” signs, that it can possibly be read legally that you were “aware of danger.” That your dog, or in this case, bees, were dangerous, and therefore if they bite, or sting, you are responsible for any injuries acquired on your property by such subject. Even if the injured party is trespassing illegally, including with “no trespassing signs.” This is probably a state by state thing though, but here in MD, it’s definitely a possibility. The signs around my apiary just state “honeybees hard at work.”
maybe for a little quicker reaction to the warning siren...we add a sound file similar to what Kevin used on Home Alone...a tommy gun...guessing that's one that will frighten them away quickly.
I can't make that connection at all. When you consider how and why honey crystalizes, a glass or plastic container shouldn't alter that. I only use glass for my honey.
@ I have bottled in glass and plastic the same day, and the plastic has crystallized, but the glass has not. I did some research online and that’s what I found out.
@ Please share any studies you have. I can't find any scientific resource that supports crystallization based on plastic vs glass. www.thepharmajournal.com/special-issue?year=2021&vol=10&issue=5S&ArticleId=6213
Dragonfly’s are the #1 predator of adult mosquitoes and martins love dragonfly’s and that’s why I backed out of putting up marten houses and went with a huge bat house instead. I have both bats and dragonfly’s to eat mosquitos. Dragonfly’s eat much more mosquitoes than martens from my research. The dragonfly’s aren’t flying much when the bats are active. Maybe just 30 minutes at dusk when my bats leave their house to feed.
Since the mosquitoes are most active just after dark, how are the Purple Martins finding them? We have bats here also. Hummingbirds also eat mosquitos, and they hunt them in the woods. All very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I stand on being a stat against what you stated. We purchased the Elevator sparrow trap and got rid of 95 house sparrows this year. Not for the faint of heart tho. Ya feel like crap but we don’t keep purple martins (yet) but we do have blue bird and tree swallow nesting boxes in our pasture which the invasive English House Sparrows will invade and kill the nesting native birds. With the trap you do have to make sure a native sparrow doesn’t get in there by mistake. A few times we had to rescue a tree or white crowned sparrow. So you have to know your birds if trapping to dispatch them.
Oh, you mean what the PurpleMartinSociety put out regarding most women not being willing to dispatch sparrows and other predators of Purple Martins. journals.lww.com/coas/fulltext/2019/17030/resisting_extinction__purple_martins,_death,_and.1.aspx
@@PYehl1 Yes, I was surprised that they said that. I've included the link/source. My sister-in-law falls into the category of not defending her Purple Martins. I'm glad you are someone who does :)
At this moment, it's raining and 2°c (melting the snow) and as the day goes by, its going to cool off to -10°c today, and the next cpl days its lowering even cooler to -20°c. Normally my winters stay around freezing, with minimal snow but go and figure, the winter i start keeping bees, i have a horrible winter lol 😅
I'm curious how you knew that it was the Purple Martins that nabbed your virgin queens? What time of year to the Purple Martins show up? Would it be possible to do your mating/splits earlier than the Martin gathering? Just tossing out thoughts here. Thanks for sharing.
@@FrederickDunn After I removed the martin boxes I have not had any trouble getting mated queens back. You could sit out and watch the martins dive bomb the hives about 30 to 50 ft. above them.
Thank you, Fred. Congrats to Quinn. Similar to the others, I can't wait till spring so I can follow the series on the keeper's hive / flow frames combo.
Never heard of a purple martin till now. I see they are apparently in my area( eastern KY). Have yet to notice any. Are they pretty loud or any distinct sound?
You can google purple martin sounds and listen to their chatter... their nests are high up. I hear tree swallows quite a bit. I haven't had a Purple Martin Hotel...
I am trying ti find someone around me who has wax dipping equipment. I’d love to get all my wooden ware dipped. I saw Randy Oliver’s “Current Research” session where he shared his observation of wax-dipped wood.
I think there are two phases.... the first hot-dip isn't bees wax, I think it's a paraffin mix so it can be raised to higher temps to displace any moisture in the wood. Then there is a final coating of beeswax.
yeah, Randy’s research was to evaluate different wax mixes for efficacy. His year-long experiment showed that pure microcrystalline wax held up the best over time.
1) Is a double queen hive more productive than a single queen hive with a double-deep? 4:16
2) I'm trying to liquify some honey, but part of it remains crystalized, what can I do? 9:27
3) I would like to build a Purple Martin House and add it to my backyard. Should I be concerned that they will reduce my bee population? 13:12
4) A two queen system can be a lot to handle, not recommended for new keepers. 22:38
5) With a two-queen system, if one queen dies on one side will they just spread their pheromone through both brood boxes? 34:58
6) I had to replace my queen and chose VSH stock, are they smaller than other bee stock and will they require new queen excluders? 42:03
Thank you Adam
A Great BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Quinn!!! That's 'The Way To Bee', Quinn!!!🐝💛
Looking forward to watching you with keeper's Hive 😊. Thanks Fred 😊
I just hope my grandson doesn't claim that hive as his own... he's a little shifty, and I find his name on random bee equipment (';')( ';').... it's going to ge a fun year in my opinion :)
Wonderful discussion on purple martins!
Thank you, George :)
Dziękujemy.
Thank you, as always, for your kind generosity. :)
Fred, to decrystallize my small jar honey (1-3 ibs.) I submerge the jars in a crock pot of water set on warm. The water temperature is about 100 degrees if you leave the lid off the crock pot. Overnight is all that's necessary for 1 lb jars. Sometimes I need to invert the quart jars of fall honey for additional 8 hours. I have a different method in mind for my 1-3 gallon jars.
Thanks for sharing what you do :)
Quinn, you are the man! ...I have Phoebes and Wood Peewees, both members of the flycatcher family of birds... they hang out on the bee yard electric fence and eat bees...
Here in Tasmania our locally adapted honey bees are small, dark and feisty. I find the flow super a real Godsend, because if I'm in any of my hives for more than a few minutes, they get fed up with me and start trying to drive me away. They also tend to congregate on top of the frames, and aren't particulary bothered by my smoker, either. Trying not to squish them when reassembling the hive after an inspection can be very challenging. One thing I found helpful was to gently brush them off the top of the frames, down the front of the hive, towards the entrance. This sometimes causes less upset than trying to smoke them, which you might find surprising! Local colleagues keep offering me queens to replace my feisty genetics, but I do love my grumpy girls, and they are very productive.
Wow, I'm just impressed that you live in such a unique part of the world! :) Thank you so much for sharing where you are and what you do.
Hilarious Fred! Enjoyed the "destroyer of your labor pool" by overpayment claim. Grandma must not be watching this! LOL.
I have one grandson who's 5. When we all go out to pick up firewood kindling, he stops in front of every little stick "grandfather, how much if I pick this one up" (';')( ';')... this is what I'm up against. How about you get to be warmed by a nice fire. "well I'm not picking up any sticks then".
Congratulations Quinn, thanks Fred for another informative and entertaining stream, have a great weekend!
You are very welcome, and Quinn is an over achiever for sure. :)
Totally like the intro
Aren't dragonflies great for mosquitos? I say we leave them all alone :) Nature has a way of working itself out.
Everyone will make their own decisions. The Question was about Purple Martins specifically, and if they eat bees. I think we're ok overall :)
Love Purple Martins.
Was awesome to meet you and your wife at NAHBE 25!
Thank you so much, and same here :)
My great uncle always kept bees, and had purple martin houses set up for his garden. He said it was a trade-off, just like the rat snake that would visit his chicken house. He believed the occasional occasional bee and the occasional egg were a small price to pay for quality pest control.
Love the deer seemingly attracted to the noisemaker! Looked like she was trying to find the product number. Maybe a different frequency would be more threatening? Re purple martins, I don't have them in my Maryland yard, but the catbirds like to sit by the colonies and grab a few bees as they fly in or out. I am happy to see them and they don't do much damage - fun to watch.
That deer was more stubborn than the others. There were five of them. That last one finally stopped coming, but you're right, it was annoying... she only stayed 20 seconds. :) Before the noise-makers, they would remain for 30 minutes or more at a time. :)
Thank you for answering my question! I think I'm going to get a double queen keepers hive.
That's great news Ross. I'm looking forward to this year of beekeeping... lots of new ground for me to cover :)
When I had 2 queens in one hive, a mother and her daughter, and both were laying. It was an 8 frame Langstroth with a medium honey super and a flow super. This Flow super was my first most successfully filled flow unit. So many bees!
That sounds like a perfect recipe for high production and cooperation without separation!
Great job Quinn! Great job granddad on passing down such high intelligence too!
Fred, quick question. I see towards the end of your video. You have a hive that’s elevated on top of a Beesmart hive instead of it sitting directly on it. What is the reason?
Thank you
That's just to get the entrance out of skunk range. The beesmart stands are too short unless I shim the legs, or add a spacer/booster. :)
I like your take on Purple Martins, survival of the fittest is really important! I had a large colony of Purple Martins several years ago and waged war on European house sparrows and starlings using traps and my marksmanship skills, both invasive species ignorantly introduced to North America in the 1890's and 1920's (starlings in the 1890s and European house sparrows in the 1920's)! Those two have done more to take out our native songbirds than any other combination that has ever happened in North America, they aggressively take over nesting cavities, I've witnessed it myself. I'd love to say more but, I'll stop my comment here, just true observations and having read the history of them.
Watching bird lovers provide housing for House Sparrows and boost their numbers is a source of frustration for me. My own sister in law allowed House Sparrows to take over her entire Purple Martin Hotel. We've had house sparrows peck Bluebirds to death on their nest. It's a grizzly behavior. I wish more people understood why house sparrows are all that you see in suburbia and cities, becuase they have pushed nearly all of the native song birds. I understand, it's hard for some people to act against any bird species. I wish they knew more about the issue.
@FrederickDunn I agree, but what can you do about sparrows? I put bird feed out, mostly sunflowers and 90% goes to sparrows. Enough cardinals, titmice, etc to keep me putting it out. Glenn
@@glennsnaturalhoney4571 Usually it's only millet in my area that attracts the house sparrows. The European house sparrows don't have beak power to crack open black oil sunflower seed like Cardinals, Grosbeaks, and other woodpeckers that manage to get past the shell. Those European house sparrows are easily mistaken for our own native sparrows, especially on the female side of things. Only the adult male has that distinctive black patch on their chests. The juvenile male and female birds are look so close to our native sparrows that it is nearly impossible to tell them apart at the short glance they give us.
Got fondant on about 15 or so colonies and even packed down 2 ,that needed less space ,going to bee cold,so we were lucky to get to 56°f yesterday,snows pretty much gone ,made me happy to get a peak at them
We could have used a warm spot like that around here :)
Summer of 2023 we had a pair of Cardinals that would snag bees as they left and returned to our hive. Last summer they left the bees alone.
What did Quinn do to win his award? Congratulations to him.
It's kind of a good citizen award. Great with teachers, follows rules, looks out for other students and helps out. :)
Good for him. We need more good citizens.
Fred, never had one side of a Keeper's Hive turn into a laying worker. Yes, if you kill the queen on one side they will make emergency cells but if that emergency queen does not result in a new laying queen they do not develop into laying workers... all the bees just eventually work the other brood box and you are left with a one queen hive.
Oh, that's great information! Very interesting, even though some say they do get laying workers when one queen fails. Sounds like a healthy dabate is on the horizon. Does the Keeper's Hive configuration aid in preventing the laying worker issue if one side loses their queen?
Welcome healthy debates. Appreciate your public service announcement of the dangers of keeping two queen hives. It is hard to fully appreciate what it is like to have a colony with over 100,000 bees. What makes the Keeper's Hive design nice is you dont have to tear it all apart to do the brood inspection.. Thankfully! Weighing supers is not advised until you shake off all the bees and get the boxes into the honey house or you will be running for the forest.
We keep Purple Martins, but only keep a 4 gourd pole. We DO have a dragon fly problem in the fall. Maybe we need more grouds.
Hi Fred, you had a website where you can see which fields around were sprayed with pesticide. Would you mind sharing that?
BeeScape.Org
Well fred, the deer are hungry! You should plant a big strip of turnips and radishes for them to dig up in the winter. Ever find shed antlers laying out there?
Antlers in the woods... there is plenty of forage out there :) I'm not planting anything to bring them in. In the past, they ate my holly bushed down to twigs (';')...
I love purple martins and miss them a lot. We had beaucoups of them in Houston, but have failed utterly to attract them here in the Panhandle. Our western kingbirds (flycatcher family) eat a few bees daily but don't make a dent in a strong hive.
Maybe you'll be able to bring them back? I had not idea how dependent they are upon old men (';')( ';').... we have flycatchers too :)
Thanks for all information you share. How do you remove the dead bees from an apimaye hive and how do you apply the oxalic acid vaporizer? Thanks
For Apimaye, I pull the bottom tray and dump it out. I wish they had a difference entrance that would permit dead bee removal at the entrance. This is how I do OA in an Apimaye: ua-cam.com/video/yYpnqrjK_xg/v-deo.htmlsi=BwaDDiClS6liZhwU
Thank you, this is my firts year and I have apimaye hives. Thanks for all information
I have a bunch if opossums on my property and I've never seen them show interest in my hives. They usually truck along between them eating ticks. Is this a winter behavior?
They eat dead and living bugs mostly on the ground. Hard to resist frozen bees on a landing board when you consider that those bees also may have honey remnants in their abdomens. I consider them to be low, to no, stress on a bee colony.
Maybe you need a motorized scarecrow that’s connected to your alarms to add some motion to scare away the critters not affected by the noise and lights.
Hi Michael, they did finally walk away, but deer are a challenge once they know something worth eating is there. It's fun to figure out deterrents :)
I used to be concerned about predators like assassin bugs, jumping spiders, dragonflies, praying mantises, etc, but I made some observations “did the calculus”and realized that at least in my area of SE coastal VA, predation is no big deal mathematically, except when queen rearing, where one eaten queen can ruin your day. I don’t have purple martins though, so made no purple Martin observations.
Fred you rock
Thanks, David :)
@@FrederickDunn I have 8 hives over wintering in Ky near Nashville may lose
1 hive but that's okay. I can still make 30 hives through the season using double screen boards
I figured to lose 6 of 30 in my factors
Ayyyye Fred! Love the intro, as always!
1:36 Congrats Supervisor Quinn!
10:14 😂
I am so glad :) So nice to see your comment as always :)
31:08 Something to be aware of is legal consequences of “warning” signs on your property. I have been told that if you have “Beware of Dog” or other “Caution” signs, that it can possibly be read legally that you were “aware of danger.” That your dog, or in this case, bees, were dangerous, and therefore if they bite, or sting, you are responsible for any injuries acquired on your property by such subject. Even if the injured party is trespassing illegally, including with “no trespassing signs.” This is probably a state by state thing though, but here in MD, it’s definitely a possibility. The signs around my apiary just state “honeybees hard at work.”
Congratulations to Quinn
Congrats to Quinn! Try to stay warm, I saw they are predicting a polar vortex coming in soon. (I’m in Northern CA, so not going to get too cold).
Martins are awesome mosquito catchers.
I just heard about Tung oil, do you have any experience with it?
Requires frequent refreshing and takes quite a while to set. I've used it back in the 80's but not my choice for bee hive boxes.
@FrederickDunn thank you. I had just learned of it and was curious
maybe for a little quicker reaction to the warning siren...we add a sound file similar to what Kevin used on Home Alone...a tommy gun...guessing that's one that will frighten them away quickly.
They eventually stopped coming. It was a slow-deterrent, but finally worked. :)
Fred,
Is it true that glass jars won’t crystallize as fast as plastic?
I can't make that connection at all. When you consider how and why honey crystalizes, a glass or plastic container shouldn't alter that. I only use glass for my honey.
@ I have bottled in glass and plastic the same day, and the plastic has crystallized, but the glass has not. I did some research online and that’s what I found out.
@ I am transitioning to all glass this year
@ Please share any studies you have. I can't find any scientific resource that supports crystallization based on plastic vs glass. www.thepharmajournal.com/special-issue?year=2021&vol=10&issue=5S&ArticleId=6213
Dragonfly’s are the #1 predator of adult mosquitoes and martins love dragonfly’s and that’s why I backed out of putting up marten houses and went with a huge bat house instead. I have both bats and dragonfly’s to eat mosquitos. Dragonfly’s eat much more mosquitoes than martens from my research. The dragonfly’s aren’t flying much when the bats are active. Maybe just 30 minutes at dusk when my bats leave their house to feed.
Since the mosquitoes are most active just after dark, how are the Purple Martins finding them? We have bats here also. Hummingbirds also eat mosquitos, and they hunt them in the woods. All very interesting, thanks for sharing.
🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌
I stand on being a stat against what you stated. We purchased the Elevator sparrow trap and got rid of 95 house sparrows this year. Not for the faint of heart tho. Ya feel like crap but we don’t keep purple martins (yet) but we do have blue bird and tree swallow nesting boxes in our pasture which the invasive English House Sparrows will invade and kill the nesting native birds. With the trap you do have to make sure a native sparrow doesn’t get in there by mistake. A few times we had to rescue a tree or white crowned sparrow. So you have to know your birds if trapping to dispatch them.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "stat against what you stated"? What are you against? ua-cam.com/video/oUhrXfiXTUA/v-deo.htmlsi=VsQIvsp-WxxkQMl2
Oh, you mean what the PurpleMartinSociety put out regarding most women not being willing to dispatch sparrows and other predators of Purple Martins. journals.lww.com/coas/fulltext/2019/17030/resisting_extinction__purple_martins,_death,_and.1.aspx
@ just meant when you said women don’t take care of the house sparrows.. we dispatched them- 2 women.
@@PYehl1 Yes, I was surprised that they said that. I've included the link/source. My sister-in-law falls into the category of not defending her Purple Martins. I'm glad you are someone who does :)
At this moment, it's raining and 2°c (melting the snow) and as the day goes by, its going to cool off to -10°c today, and the next cpl days its lowering even cooler to -20°c. Normally my winters stay around freezing, with minimal snow but go and figure, the winter i start keeping bees, i have a horrible winter lol 😅
In spite of all of those weather challenges, I'm glad you are able to winter your bees :)
@FrederickDunn so far so good 🤞🏻
Fred, you got 2 . 2 k views
Good job sup!
I had to remove my Purple Martin houses as I could not get virgin queens mated and returned to the hive.
I'm curious how you knew that it was the Purple Martins that nabbed your virgin queens? What time of year to the Purple Martins show up? Would it be possible to do your mating/splits earlier than the Martin gathering? Just tossing out thoughts here. Thanks for sharing.
@@FrederickDunn After I removed the martin boxes I have not had any trouble getting mated queens back. You could sit out and watch the martins dive bomb the hives about 30 to 50 ft. above them.
@@FrederickDunn Martins scouts show up here the end of February or first of March
Thank you, Fred. Congrats to Quinn. Similar to the others, I can't wait till spring so I can follow the series on the keeper's hive / flow frames combo.
I am so ready! :)
Never heard of a purple martin till now. I see they are apparently in my area( eastern KY). Have yet to notice any. Are they pretty loud or any distinct sound?
You can google purple martin sounds and listen to their chatter... their nests are high up. I hear tree swallows quite a bit. I haven't had a Purple Martin Hotel...
PS: I feed house sparrows to my snakes..
I approve this message... (">
Great use for them!!!
Poor hungry things...
I am trying ti find someone around me who has wax dipping equipment. I’d love to get all my wooden ware dipped. I saw Randy Oliver’s “Current Research” session where he shared his observation of wax-dipped wood.
I think there are two phases.... the first hot-dip isn't bees wax, I think it's a paraffin mix so it can be raised to higher temps to displace any moisture in the wood. Then there is a final coating of beeswax.
yeah, Randy’s research was to evaluate different wax mixes for efficacy. His year-long experiment showed that pure microcrystalline wax held up the best over time.