I think the reason the Birch bees were so interested in your hive tool was probably because it smelled like their recently deceased queen (RIP). Definitely see your point about naming the colonies rather than the queens, but having a rather soft spot for the Balboa dynasty, I kind of secretly hope you're making an exception for them. :)
Ha ha… that was the joke. If you watch the moment after I dispatched the queen, there’s a literal wave of bees moving towards the hive tool. (And yes, Balboa is an exception and still going strong!)
I understand your point of naming the colony because we shouldn't get to attached to the queen. I like naming the queens because we can follow the genetics. From nostalgia point of view, can you make an exception for Balboa? Jim you have inspired 1000s of bee keepers. Balboa played a little part in it as well. Thanks for always sharing.
Been a subscriber for a long time. Since being a kid. One day I will achieve the farm and beekeeping I want to do. Thank you always for the inspiration.
Jimmy, Take out the queen... *Hive Tool Noise* For a WALK Jimmy! lol That was a great move, replacing a mediocre queen with better genetics, and no need to buy a new queen :)
I'm glad to see more people taking the queen off the pedestal. I name my hives like a sports team based off the color I picked for them, Regal Reds, Yellow Warriors and the like. Then if the queen lays badly or gets agressive it is just like replacing a QB.
I'm glad you talked about having back-up queens incase your queens don't return. I've seen a lot of people on beginner bee groups destroy queen cells not realizing the original queen already swarmed and then have no back up. Love the bee barn idea!
As you were saying you usually found swarm cells on the bottoms f your frames, I was remembering a previous video of yours stating that the bees were making a full ring pattern with the frames now that they didn't o before so it is interesting to see that the swarm cell pattern has also changed along with- well everything else😁
Something to consider, something my mentor taught me is that if you are going to purposely take the life of a bee, whether you consider the queen sacred or not, do it with your own hands/fingers, not a tool. Also, I suggest putting the dead queen at the hive entrance or drop her down to the bottom of the box. The colony has its own thing it wants to do with that body. Also, big love man, been a fan since you were talking about the Flow Hive, but a slight criticism here regarding swarming... and only because you are influencing so many beekeepers. There's something to be said about swarming affecting other people in your vicinity, neighbourhood, city. They can make for a real mess if they move into someone's wall. They can also be the cause of spreading disease or mites if they survive and move forward untreated, so it also potentially affects other beekeepers. I'm with you in the fact that beekeepers shouldn't be *afraid* of swarming, but I can't see how it isn't in all of our best interest to focus on stopping it if we see signs and have the capacity to. I still respect what you did in your own yard and land, but there are so many folks that watch your videos who have much closer neighbours. Two last little tips - give those queen cells you cut out to the front entrance of a hive that needs royal jelly to feed any eggs. It's good, expensive stuff! And - Swarm cells can be anywhere in any type of hive (as you noted). It's just one of those pieces of old misinformation handed down that says they only appear on the bottom. They appear *most frequently* on the bottom of a Langstroth hive, but that's because of the gap design. That's the only reason. With your new design, you are providing evidence that that statement is, indeed, old misinformation handed down. Peace. Good luck with the new queens!
@@Wosiewose Thinking back on that teaching moment, it was something that was said, but not discussed. It stuck with me for some reason. I think part of the wisdom that comes from lessons like that is how you take that piece of advice and apply your own understanding and philosophy to it. For me, my mentor was illustrating the importance of taking a life. It takes away the disassociation of using a tool and forces you to really consider the decision, because you have to physically feel it, the visceral feeling of a creature wiggling to get away as you snap its neck. I feel like it also has something to do with showing respect. I've heard beekeepers with a sort of saying as they pass judgement, a sort of "thank you for your service", a thing said in low whisper. Even in the video here, he has a tradition of showing a field of flowers and some soft music after killing a queen, so whether or not a queen is sacred, there still seems to be some sort of reverence or at least understanding of respect going on. But perhaps I misinterpreted the lesson and it was strictly more practical and was just meant to keep bees from investigating your hive tool... What does the lesson mean to you? Your question also made me think of noble Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, although he does use a sword/tool to pass judgement, I think that's mainly because removing a human's head is tougher with your hands. I would bet if Ned Stark was a beekeeper, he'd snap queens necks with his fingers, not a tool. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Since you have temperature monitors in the hive, it would be very interesting to see how that varied before, during, and after the swarm when compared to the other hives. There could be a signature profile in the graph due to the changes in activity and general volume of bees. In theory, if there was a repeatable signature, someone with more programing skills than I could write software that would flag a hive potentially swarming. Just a thought!
Totally agree with this. It seems really difficult to avoid swarms without making splits, and I don't want to manage more hives than I have. I'd rather just let them swarm. Also I'd think the brood pause while the new queen gets started would help cut down on varroa.
Felt sorry for the (rip)queen…I could have used her about a month ago 😉…. I have seen a hive swarm multiple times to the point that they swarmed to death…by the time it was noticed it was too late.
I assume you killed the queen with the hive tool? Would they have been responding to distress pheromones or chemical indicators of damage from the queen on the tool? Even as you held the tool in your right hand and said "OK, this hive is queenless" so many of them were already flowing toward your right hand.
So glad to hear someone else say that swarming isn't the end of the world that must be prevented at all cost. I don't even bring up at my local club that many times I allow swarms. It is nature giving me new queen and a brood break.
I'm a second year keeper and learned a lot of what I know from books and a few select UA-camrs. I'm glad I started out understanding the reflection of health in swarms and the benefits of brood breaks!
Swarm procedure is a sign of a healthy, thriving colony and I'm with you on "not the end of the world". I still like to save those healthy and highly productive queens anyway, just in case. You're correct, what's left behind should be a younger copy of the queen that left, IF she makes it back from her mating flights and/or if the colony doesn't cast multiple swarms and leave you with a minimal work force that can't police those giant frames from hive beetle damage. When I find colonies with multiple cells on frames it's a great opportunity to use my double nucs to set up small queen mating colonies and if those queens are successfully mated, then i use them to replace subpar queens, if not recombine the bees with a queen that did make it back.
I did the same this year - had my biggest hive swarm on me, and divided the swarm cells between the original hive and a small nuc, just as insurance in case one of the two eventual survivor queens didn't return from a mating flight. But I got lucky and now I have a booming hive that is queen right and also a new nuc that just started laying!
I only named one queen. She is the queen we started our whole apiary with. I have made reverse splits with her because I like her genetics and I want to make sure to keep her and her drones around inthe area. She's only a 2021 queen so some quality laying life left for sure.
For a long time I was not satisfied with being told that what happens in a Langstroth is what happens in the tree. They are totally different environments like night and day. The Langstroth has up to two entrances(one door in a castle is too many), ventilation, and no insulation, the tree hive has one easy to defend entrance and inches of wooden insulation. Not the same...
I stopped naming queens after my second year. I think naming or numbering hives is a better system like you said. I put tags on my hives and number them. I track queens by hive number so that I can track genetics and traits.
The point is not the fact that you wasting a bunch of bees and their queen, but more the fact that you wasted 3weeks before the swarm and about 3weeks after the swarm of a full performance of that particular hive as, they will slim the queen ahead of the swarm and will take that much time for the new queen to catch up to the maximum potential of laying; unless you have the luxury of beekeeping in an extensive months of beekeeping season, having bees swarm on you is loss on the beekeeper's season, least that is how I look at things considering that I beekeep in a very short nectar flow season. If it happens it happens but I try not to allow it to happen, I rather split them and sell if I don't want to expend, and at times I really don't want to expend as I do have a day job and still run about 100-150 hives, lol. Happy beekeeping. Dan
I was of the same thinking a few years back, my hive swarmed and I thought ok no problem, I looked into the hive and had multiple queen cells and left it to do it's thing, so it swarmed again and it swarmed again until what was left was not much of a colony, now after a swarm I look into the hive and take down all but 2 of the queen cells.
I name my queens purely as a tracking device. I literally have genealogy charts giving my lineage back to my first nucs. I still pinch them when needed.
I love watching what you are doing, Jim. You are such a good storyteller! I had a weird spring. We are one year into our "Covid bees." We made it through the winter with two strong colonies (West Coast Canada-Cowichan, the "Warmland"). We were worried one would swarm it was so full of bees. (And one did after we split.) One colony had about 2.5% varroa, so we split both hives with walk-aways. We treated with Apivar the next week. There was a strong maple nectar flow on and they were packing away resources like mad. Things started becoming weird then. All laying stopped in all four hives. The splits didn't make any queen cells. I took a frame with a queen cell out of one of the originals and put into a split. A couple of weeks went by and I was really worried. I bought three queens and installed them. Still no laying. Finally after 5 weeks, took out the Apivar, a queen cell in the colony I didn't put in a new queen emerged, but still no laying anywhere. So, now after 6 weeks, I put 1:1 sugar water on, and voila! 10 days later, we have new larvae and brood in all four. I have found the queens in two of them, too. So, after all the worry, we now have two very strong colonies, and two good, solid new colonies. In some ways, you keep me a bit centred. When I'm freaking out, I come watch you and you calm me down. Thanks.
go for a beehouse, trust me. This american system of keeping bees is flawed in many ways. go with 1400 year old tradition and build a beehouse and an až typ hives inside.
Beekeeping Innovation: Have you seen this guerrilla bee keeper, making scalable hives in the woods out of large sterile plastic bottles?! (Solves the mite & mold problem.) They can add more bottles on top to increase the supers, or add another bottle on the bottom so the queen can move down to make a fresh brooding comb in another level! Video: ua-cam.com/video/9ItlOFLTUAs/v-deo.html
In the end the queen is replaceable. All bees, queen, workers even drones, the goal is for the better of the hive. And if it is a strong hive, then it's expected they'll produce more hives through swarms and new queens.
You could either sell or share the extra queen cells you don't want with the local beekeepers group in your area, so Maple's genetics get moved around a little bit and can be rockstars somewhere else.. If I was local to you, I would't mind taking them. But Vegas is a long ways away.
Yeah, I'd never name a queen. The hive is the creature. Tried to explain it to someone....A bee hive is one mind with tens of thousands of extremities. Queen is kind of a misnomer, she has a job just like the rest. "Egg-layer," or, "Brood-mother," might be better names. Queen implies some sort of rulership, and she isn't that. The others will drop her like a rock if she doesn't lay right.
I had a right royal fiasco this year with queens (pun intended). In one hive they had put 3 Queen caps joined together, too close to cut out (yeah i could of slashed two, but i didnt know which one would hatch first). So i made the split with the 3 Q caps frame. What happened is, first queen hatched and chewed ino the other two to kill them and that was that, new queen in place. This happened in lots of nucs this spring. When we found queen caps which had been chewed down the side and opened up we knew we had a hatched virgin queen in there somewhere.
Felt sorry for the (rip)queen…I could have used her about a month ago 😉…. I have seen a hive swarm multiple times to the point that they swarmed to death…by the time it was noticed it was too late.
Totally get it as in my first few years I freaked when I didn't catch some of the bees that swarmed,,on!y issue I have is if the queen's get nobbled on their mating flights you are screwed if you don't have back up colonies..last year a few didn't make it back or didn't mate right and I was robing brood from my few strong colonies
Jim, I think everyone looses a swarm occasionally. Anyone who says they haven’t had a swarm hasn’t been keeping bees very long or they’re lying or they don’t know enough to realize their bees have swarmed. It’s Mother Nature’s way of making a split and reproducing to survive! I live in the south east and I believe the majority of the swarms here survive. They’re great at finding a new home. Thanks for the video, I’ve been subscribed and watching your videos for 4 or 5 years now. How’s the barn coming along?
Barn work has been on hiatus the last two months with the spring rush of outdoor responsibilities, but I’m about to jump back into getting the shop set up. When it’s 80s and hot outside, the barn stays at 65 inside with no AC or anything. It’s going to be a nice place to spend time this summer.
Your swarm may become another beekeeper's call to come carve a bee colony out of a summer house, anyway. There's enough beekeepers on UA-cam doing mostly videos of colony removals.
my experience is that they can destroy the newly added queen cells so i like to cage them for a day or two. Fingers crossed they will accept the queen cells.
Ive done this before with good intentions as you have. The bees tore down the given swarm cells and built emergency cells of their own genetics on the frames they had. I would be interested to see the results from this if your bees do the same.
Hi Jim, may I ask how you manage to handle your bees without any gloves or PPE on? If I was to do that on my hives, particularly if I was picking up the Queen, I would end up with a load of stings on my hands and a very swollen disabled hand for the next week! I go out of my way not to crush or kill any of the bees so they don't release distress pheromones too.
Some times of the year are worse than others. Some hives are more touchy than others. I use gloves about once a year if necessary, but I guess I just have bees that are more chill than yours. I used to jump whenever a bee landed on my hand in the beginning, but now I hardly feel stings. It’s usually my fault when I get a sting, though.
When you were deciding which frame to switch, For a split second I thought you were going to replace it with Folger's crystals. Just something in your voice...
I noticed when you were checking your hives in March, you had some strips, I think were your monitoring system that connects to the computer, what kind are they?
Hi Jim. The reason queen cells are not on thr bottom is the super long frames. I have this happen to me to. I use 2 medium boxes (stacked) and with 10 medium frames in the upper box. Bees add comb below the medium to create super long frames. I DEFINITELY recommend the XL option over deep size frames. I don't use foundation. When I want to create a starter frame, I simply scrape an "add on comb" from an existing frame fits a medium perfectly and rubber band to a new medium frame. I've noticed the bees leave a gap right above the wood frame bottom/mid area and I get queen cups hiding there. I live in an area where small hive beetles are bad. Open screen bottoms and double medium stacked brood box seems to have eliminated them. There's no place for them to hide. All my hives are in the shade too.
Honestly I was thinking about this today. a Swarm if you are not making money, not a honey farmer, then its good that you are making them so big adn strong coming out of winter with a large enough population that they can propagate instead of dying in the frost. You shouldn't worry about swarms, and you said you don't want 20 colonies again. Let them do what nature tells them to do. Good luck. Love your videos I share them with friends. - Also question, if you had not killed the birch queen and instead just put cells in, wouldn't they just have a royal rumble when they hatch? so you don't have that 5-10 days of a queenless hive? maybe 10 days doesn't matter I was just thinking it might be more efficient to keep her laying while you replaced her.
That’s the general wisdom, but to be more specific, I’d say that if you want the “largest” honey production, controlling swarms is a must. However, even with swarms, these hives are way, way ahead of anything I’ve ever seen in my 6 years of beekeeping. I just pulled off a capped super on June 6. I usually don’t even see capped FRAMES until July.
My Poly hive is the only one I'm watching now, it had emerged cells last check a few days ago. Good strong Queens are the best. Enjoyed the update Jim.
Jim, I'm looking for plans for the Bee Barn. Are you willing to share where you are with it now? I'm a new beek, and would love to see how it works in the Texas heat (vs. your NE Winters).
Was that a native milkweed plant behind you both sides during the first Birch discussion? Do you watch them for Monarch babies? Several folks do here in Portland Oregon. In fact, a woman just down my street is kind of the Portland resource for Monarchs.
I have been spreading and cultivating the milkweed for years. Tons of monarchs here and the honey from the flowers is awesome. The bees love the milkweed. There are thousands of plants all over our fields.
Awesome video as usual! I have done this before myself too and was successful! My question is, how do you decide which frame has the “best queen cells?”
Since the queen won't cross an expanse of X amount of nectar/honey, would using a shallow super of honey have the same effect as a queen excluder? And would that enable your bees to produce even more honey?
11:30 : "They are suddenly very interested in my hive tool for some reason..." yeah duhhh you just killed there current queen with it, her scent is all over it and they can smell she "needs some attention"....
Great stuff Jim! Had a chance to do exactly this in my own apiary maybe a month ago. I had an underperformed, and I had a hive going to swarm... Make lemonade!
Thanks. My farm ( a couple least hectares ) is in the Philippines. I plan to use trapped local feral bees. These are usually Apis Cerana, the Asian cousin and smaller. As my staff are half your stature and 1/5th mine, horizontal hives and stacked nucs is my plan. The resource hives will be five over five configuration. As you did by propagating the best hives, I’ll try to do the same. In the provinces, most comercial mite control is non existent or weeks away via FedEx etc. I’m thinking oxalic acid on pads or strips. Electronic power is also spotty, so vapor treatment is problematic. Thanks
The Asian Honey bee is very different than the Western Honey Bee. If you try to keep the Asian one as if it were a western, you'll encounter lots of problems. For example, I don't think ressouce hives are a good idea in your case because The Asian Bee doesn't accept outsiders of her hive as easily as the werstern. I actually heard they don't accept them at all under any circumstance. You also won't need to treat for Varroa. The Asian Honey bee lived with that little pest for centurys without beeing bothered by it. They are naturally resistant. Taking the Asian Honey Bee out of Asia to study them in Europe is what introduced Varroa to the Western Bee in the first place since they are different yet similar species. In short: it makes no sense to treat the Asian Bee as if it were a Western bee. Good luck anyway.
Behavior Serena is somewhat smaller apis Mellifera. I intend to keep them in stack, hives, or pile, hives, or something similar to the comfort hive. The gentrigonalis species, the two that I’m familiar with in the Philippines are a stingu fee, and there are completely different animal, completely different insects. Their have hives are whole lot different. The eighth is Serena is very hygienic against Berroa. They groom each other they kick disease hive meat out of the hive. They pull infected, bees out of the comb, kick them out of the hive.
Did you use your hive tool to deal the final blow to the old queen? Bet that's why the bees were really interested in it. Got her pheromones all over it.
Not a beekeeper currently but aspiring to be. But I’ve always thought in my reading and observations of beehives that swarming is a good natural thing for strong hives to do to expand the population. I’ve always thought it was odd that beekeepers went to such lengths to not let swarms happen. I understand that it affects bee honey productivity for up time, but kind of the way you view letting the colonies do what they will with queens is a good natural process for strong hives to be able to swarm and spread good strong genetics . Just a two cent thought but it’s awesome seeing your experiences and content! Keep up the good work!!
This is a good idea but in reality the majority of hives that do swarm to the wild die. The right thing to do for the beek and for the hive is to control the swarm and do an artificial swarm.
Olá! Tenho assistido a maioria de seus vídeos, acompanhei o repovoamento de seu apiário após as perdas no último inverno. Fiquei curioso em saber se existem colônias na natureza em sua região, e se elas sobrevivem bem aos invernos rigorosos. Abraços
I think the reason the Birch bees were so interested in your hive tool was probably because it smelled like their recently deceased queen (RIP). Definitely see your point about naming the colonies rather than the queens, but having a rather soft spot for the Balboa dynasty, I kind of secretly hope you're making an exception for them. :)
Ha ha… that was the joke. If you watch the moment after I dispatched the queen, there’s a literal wave of bees moving towards the hive tool. (And yes, Balboa is an exception and still going strong!)
I understand your point of naming the colony because we shouldn't get to attached to the queen. I like naming the queens because we can follow the genetics. From nostalgia point of view, can you make an exception for Balboa? Jim you have inspired 1000s of bee keepers. Balboa played a little part in it as well. Thanks for always sharing.
Balboa will always be the exception.
@@vinofarm Excellent! She's got a strong line!
I might just try to keep try for those reasons on my own- if possible 😊
Been a subscriber for a long time. Since being a kid. One day I will achieve the farm and beekeeping I want to do. Thank you always for the inspiration.
If your community has a beekeepers club or association, they're a great way to get into beekeeping IRL.
Leaning from commercial beekeepers is bit more useful.
Jimmy, Take out the queen... *Hive Tool Noise* For a WALK Jimmy! lol That was a great move, replacing a mediocre queen with better genetics, and no need to buy a new queen :)
I'm glad to see more people taking the queen off the pedestal. I name my hives like a sports team based off the color I picked for them, Regal Reds, Yellow Warriors and the like. Then if the queen lays badly or gets agressive it is just like replacing a QB.
...so when they are replaced, they are just sacked?
The peaceful music with the flower scene had my laughing at my desk at work. There were some strange looks. Thanks for that!
me too. 🙃
I'm glad you talked about having back-up queens incase your queens don't return. I've seen a lot of people on beginner bee groups destroy queen cells not realizing the original queen already swarmed and then have no back up. Love the bee barn idea!
As you were saying you usually found swarm cells on the bottoms f your frames, I was remembering a previous video of yours stating that the bees were making a full ring pattern with the frames now that they didn't o before so it is interesting to see that the swarm cell pattern has also changed along with- well everything else😁
Yeah, these big frames with no break between boxes have rewritten the old “rules” of where the bees put queen cells.
Something to consider, something my mentor taught me is that if you are going to purposely take the life of a bee, whether you consider the queen sacred or not, do it with your own hands/fingers, not a tool. Also, I suggest putting the dead queen at the hive entrance or drop her down to the bottom of the box. The colony has its own thing it wants to do with that body.
Also, big love man, been a fan since you were talking about the Flow Hive, but a slight criticism here regarding swarming... and only because you are influencing so many beekeepers. There's something to be said about swarming affecting other people in your vicinity, neighbourhood, city. They can make for a real mess if they move into someone's wall. They can also be the cause of spreading disease or mites if they survive and move forward untreated, so it also potentially affects other beekeepers. I'm with you in the fact that beekeepers shouldn't be *afraid* of swarming, but I can't see how it isn't in all of our best interest to focus on stopping it if we see signs and have the capacity to. I still respect what you did in your own yard and land, but there are so many folks that watch your videos who have much closer neighbours.
Two last little tips - give those queen cells you cut out to the front entrance of a hive that needs royal jelly to feed any eggs. It's good, expensive stuff!
And - Swarm cells can be anywhere in any type of hive (as you noted). It's just one of those pieces of old misinformation handed down that says they only appear on the bottom. They appear *most frequently* on the bottom of a Langstroth hive, but that's because of the gap design. That's the only reason. With your new design, you are providing evidence that that statement is, indeed, old misinformation handed down.
Peace. Good luck with the new queens!
I'm curious, it sounds like there's a particular reason behind using hands/fingers rather than a hive tool - did your mentor explain further?
@@Wosiewose Thinking back on that teaching moment, it was something that was said, but not discussed. It stuck with me for some reason. I think part of the wisdom that comes from lessons like that is how you take that piece of advice and apply your own understanding and philosophy to it.
For me, my mentor was illustrating the importance of taking a life. It takes away the disassociation of using a tool and forces you to really consider the decision, because you have to physically feel it, the visceral feeling of a creature wiggling to get away as you snap its neck.
I feel like it also has something to do with showing respect. I've heard beekeepers with a sort of saying as they pass judgement, a sort of "thank you for your service", a thing said in low whisper. Even in the video here, he has a tradition of showing a field of flowers and some soft music after killing a queen, so whether or not a queen is sacred, there still seems to be some sort of reverence or at least understanding of respect going on.
But perhaps I misinterpreted the lesson and it was strictly more practical and was just meant to keep bees from investigating your hive tool... What does the lesson mean to you?
Your question also made me think of noble Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, although he does use a sword/tool to pass judgement, I think that's mainly because removing a human's head is tougher with your hands. I would bet if Ned Stark was a beekeeper, he'd snap queens necks with his fingers, not a tool.
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
You make so much sense. As always. Congrats on the 100k subs!
Since you have temperature monitors in the hive, it would be very interesting to see how that varied before, during, and after the swarm when compared to the other hives. There could be a signature profile in the graph due to the changes in activity and general volume of bees. In theory, if there was a repeatable signature, someone with more programing skills than I could write software that would flag a hive potentially swarming. Just a thought!
I did look and did not notice a temp spike during the period when the swarm happened. The Broodminder does have a temp alert feature!
Thanks for the update! GO BALBOA!!!
Jim, nice touch with the sentimental music and the "pushing up daises" metaphor! Loved it. 😉
Totally agree with this. It seems really difficult to avoid swarms without making splits, and I don't want to manage more hives than I have. I'd rather just let them swarm. Also I'd think the brood pause while the new queen gets started would help cut down on varroa.
Felt sorry for the (rip)queen…I could have used her about a month ago 😉…. I have seen a hive swarm multiple times to the point that they swarmed to death…by the time it was noticed it was too late.
I assume you killed the queen with the hive tool? Would they have been responding to distress pheromones or chemical indicators of damage from the queen on the tool? Even as you held the tool in your right hand and said "OK, this hive is queenless" so many of them were already flowing toward your right hand.
That is exactly what happened. I was being sarcastic.
@@vinofarm Oh, haha!
Birch Colony got pre-owned queen cells brought to them by the Vino Farms Foundation.
So glad to hear someone else say that swarming isn't the end of the world that must be prevented at all cost. I don't even bring up at my local club that many times I allow swarms. It is nature giving me new queen and a brood break.
I'm a second year keeper and learned a lot of what I know from books and a few select UA-camrs. I'm glad I started out understanding the reflection of health in swarms and the benefits of brood breaks!
Swarm procedure is a sign of a healthy, thriving colony and I'm with you on "not the end of the world". I still like to save those healthy and highly productive queens anyway, just in case. You're correct, what's left behind should be a younger copy of the queen that left, IF she makes it back from her mating flights and/or if the colony doesn't cast multiple swarms and leave you with a minimal work force that can't police those giant frames from hive beetle damage. When I find colonies with multiple cells on frames it's a great opportunity to use my double nucs to set up small queen mating colonies and if those queens are successfully mated, then i use them to replace subpar queens, if not recombine the bees with a queen that did make it back.
I did the same this year - had my biggest hive swarm on me, and divided the swarm cells between the original hive and a small nuc, just as insurance in case one of the two eventual survivor queens didn't return from a mating flight. But I got lucky and now I have a booming hive that is queen right and also a new nuc that just started laying!
Kind of. Swarming hives is more often than not a sign of a crowded hive. The beekeeper not paying attention.
If you didn't want me to feel sorry for the queen then you shouldn't of made it so damn emotional e.e I get where you're coming from but geez man!
I only named one queen. She is the queen we started our whole apiary with. I have made reverse splits with her because I like her genetics and I want to make sure to keep her and her drones around inthe area. She's only a 2021 queen so some quality laying life left for sure.
For a long time I was not satisfied with being told that what happens in a Langstroth is what happens in the tree. They are totally different environments like night and day. The Langstroth has up to two entrances(one door in a castle is too many), ventilation, and no insulation, the tree hive has one easy to defend entrance and inches of wooden insulation. Not the same...
Ok, the music and flowers during the queen death scene was comedy gold. 🤣
I stopped naming queens after my second year. I think naming or numbering hives is a better system like you said. I put tags on my hives and number them. I track queens by hive number so that I can track genetics and traits.
The point is not the fact that you wasting a bunch of bees and their queen, but more the fact that you wasted 3weeks before the swarm and about 3weeks after the swarm of a full performance of that particular hive as, they will slim the queen ahead of the swarm and will take that much time for the new queen to catch up to the maximum potential of laying; unless you have the luxury of beekeeping in an extensive months of beekeeping season, having bees swarm on you is loss on the beekeeper's season, least that is how I look at things considering that I beekeep in a very short nectar flow season.
If it happens it happens but I try not to allow it to happen, I rather split them and sell if I don't want to expend, and at times I really don't want to expend as I do have a day job and still run about 100-150 hives, lol.
Happy beekeeping.
Dan
I was of the same thinking a few years back, my hive swarmed and I thought ok no problem, I looked into the hive and had multiple queen cells and left it to do it's thing, so it swarmed again and it swarmed again until what was left was not much of a colony, now after a swarm I look into the hive and take down all but 2 of the queen cells.
😄 love the flower scene at the queen's departure.
I name my queens purely as a tracking device. I literally have genealogy charts giving my lineage back to my first nucs. I still pinch them when needed.
I love watching what you are doing, Jim. You are such a good storyteller! I had a weird spring. We are one year into our "Covid bees." We made it through the winter with two strong colonies (West Coast Canada-Cowichan, the "Warmland"). We were worried one would swarm it was so full of bees. (And one did after we split.) One colony had about 2.5% varroa, so we split both hives with walk-aways. We treated with Apivar the next week. There was a strong maple nectar flow on and they were packing away resources like mad. Things started becoming weird then. All laying stopped in all four hives. The splits didn't make any queen cells. I took a frame with a queen cell out of one of the originals and put into a split. A couple of weeks went by and I was really worried. I bought three queens and installed them. Still no laying. Finally after 5 weeks, took out the Apivar, a queen cell in the colony I didn't put in a new queen emerged, but still no laying anywhere. So, now after 6 weeks, I put 1:1 sugar water on, and voila! 10 days later, we have new larvae and brood in all four. I have found the queens in two of them, too. So, after all the worry, we now have two very strong colonies, and two good, solid new colonies. In some ways, you keep me a bit centred. When I'm freaking out, I come watch you and you calm me down. Thanks.
Like what you’re doing! Keep it up!,
Balboa stories need a reality tv show.
Love the knowledge you are sharing Jim. Looking forward to building my own insulated hives this fall for next spring. Keep on keeping on brother!
go for a beehouse, trust me. This american system of keeping bees is flawed in many ways. go with 1400 year old tradition and build a beehouse and an až typ hives inside.
YES. I'm only a second year keeper and we are starting out not swarm-phobic. Thank goodness for that!
Beekeeping Innovation:
Have you seen this guerrilla bee keeper, making scalable hives in the woods out of large sterile plastic bottles?! (Solves the mite & mold problem.)
They can add more bottles on top to increase the supers, or add another bottle on the bottom so the queen can move down to make a fresh brooding comb in another level!
Video: ua-cam.com/video/9ItlOFLTUAs/v-deo.html
In the end the queen is replaceable. All bees, queen, workers even drones, the goal is for the better of the hive. And if it is a strong hive, then it's expected they'll produce more hives through swarms and new queens.
Jim. You have a flow going on right? If so don't worry about brushing the bees off the frames when you transfer. Everything will work out just fine.
You could either sell or share the extra queen cells you don't want with the local beekeepers group in your area, so Maple's genetics get moved around a little bit and can be rockstars somewhere else.. If I was local to you, I would't mind taking them. But Vegas is a long ways away.
Would building another hive make make a difference. Like hey here is a new house! So to speak.
Yeah, I'd never name a queen. The hive is the creature.
Tried to explain it to someone....A bee hive is one mind with tens of thousands of extremities. Queen is kind of a misnomer, she has a job just like the rest. "Egg-layer," or, "Brood-mother," might be better names. Queen implies some sort of rulership, and she isn't that. The others will drop her like a rock if she doesn't lay right.
Swarms and/or splits are one of the best "natural" mite treatment procedures going.
I had a right royal fiasco this year with queens (pun intended). In one hive they had put 3 Queen caps joined together, too close to cut out (yeah i could of slashed two, but i didnt know which one would hatch first). So i made the split with the 3 Q caps frame. What happened is, first queen hatched and chewed ino the other two to kill them and that was that, new queen in place. This happened in lots of nucs this spring. When we found queen caps which had been chewed down the side and opened up we knew we had a hatched virgin queen in there somewhere.
Waiting for the update. Starting now.
Felt sorry for the (rip)queen…I could have used her about a month ago 😉…. I have seen a hive swarm multiple times to the point that they swarmed to death…by the time it was noticed it was too late.
Can we give the queen of the Russian bee to the Italian bee? Will she accept and what will be the process of accepting? Give queen cell??
Totally get it as in my first few years I freaked when I didn't catch some of the bees that swarmed,,on!y issue I have is if the queen's get nobbled on their mating flights you are screwed if you don't have back up colonies..last year a few didn't make it back or didn't mate right and I was robing brood from my few strong colonies
Question regarding apiary...mgifen your bee barn design.... can you place the strip in the entrance tunnel?
I made this same dission this week, I couldn't figure out the humane way to kill my... still feel a little guilty about the shoe she dies under...
Swarm phobic lol please not another phobic, I can’t fallow it anymore. Lol I got a good laugh right away.
Jim should have been in Game of Thrones as the Queenslayer. Would have saved Jon Snow the trouble.
Jim, I think everyone looses a swarm occasionally. Anyone who says they haven’t had a swarm hasn’t been keeping bees very long or they’re lying or they don’t know enough to realize their bees have swarmed. It’s Mother Nature’s way of making a split and reproducing to survive! I live in the south east and I believe the majority of the swarms here survive. They’re great at finding a new home. Thanks for the video, I’ve been subscribed and watching your videos for 4 or 5 years now. How’s the barn coming along?
Barn work has been on hiatus the last two months with the spring rush of outdoor responsibilities, but I’m about to jump back into getting the shop set up. When it’s 80s and hot outside, the barn stays at 65 inside with no AC or anything. It’s going to be a nice place to spend time this summer.
Your swarm may become another beekeeper's call to come carve a bee colony out of a summer house, anyway. There's enough beekeepers on UA-cam doing mostly videos of colony removals.
Another benefit of a swarm is that it potentially adds to the wild honeybee population if the swarm survives
Three queen cells = two swarms incoming. Two queen cells = one swarm incoming.
Or? 🤔
my experience is that they can destroy the newly added queen cells so i like to cage them for a day or two. Fingers crossed they will accept the queen cells.
I'm not a Swarmphobic also. Hive tool, murder weapon. Nice video
If I rubbed / brushed my bees with a brush like that, they would have murdered me!
You've got such nice bees!
Please let me know if you have plans for your hives and frames to build. Thank you.
What's the name of your video where it shows the measurements of the frames for the b Barn I may building one or two and try it
Thank you so much for not showing the kill. I cried and it's not even my hives.
Adding to the drone population to increase your genetics local.Another great thought
Just curious on if you were able to find where the girls swarmed to location wide.
Nope. We had three days of rain and chilly days so I was surprised they left during that time. If I had seen them, I would have tried to catch them.
Hey you need to go back and check, a lot of times they will tear the cells down and use one of their own genetics.
Ive done this before with good intentions as you have. The bees tore down the given swarm cells and built emergency cells of their own genetics on the frames they had. I would be interested to see the results from this if your bees do the same.
You’ll get the full report!
"I see this"
... and totally whimsical invention.
Can't you put your weaker Queens out to "Pasture".
Pushing up daisies that was pretty cool
Hi Jim, may I ask how you manage to handle your bees without any gloves or PPE on? If I was to do that on my hives, particularly if I was picking up the Queen, I would end up with a load of stings on my hands and a very swollen disabled hand for the next week! I go out of my way not to crush or kill any of the bees so they don't release distress pheromones too.
Some times of the year are worse than others. Some hives are more touchy than others. I use gloves about once a year if necessary, but I guess I just have bees that are more chill than yours. I used to jump whenever a bee landed on my hand in the beginning, but now I hardly feel stings. It’s usually my fault when I get a sting, though.
When you were deciding which frame to switch, For a split second I thought you were going to replace it with Folger's crystals. Just something in your voice...
Ha ha.
I noticed when you were checking your hives in March, you had some strips, I think were your monitoring system that connects to the computer, what kind are they?
www.broodminder.com temperature and humidity sensors.
Thanks you video
Hey whatever happened to the Swarm trap things you put out ages ago?? I actually forgot all about those until just now
They have trapped mostly mice and rodents. Never bees.
Hi Jim. The reason queen cells are not on thr bottom is the super long frames. I have this happen to me to. I use 2 medium boxes (stacked) and with 10 medium frames in the upper box. Bees add comb below the medium to create super long frames. I DEFINITELY recommend the XL option over deep size frames. I don't use foundation. When I want to create a starter frame, I simply scrape an "add on comb" from an existing frame fits a medium perfectly and rubber band to a new medium frame. I've noticed the bees leave a gap right above the wood frame bottom/mid area and I get queen cups hiding there. I live in an area where small hive beetles are bad. Open screen bottoms and double medium stacked brood box seems to have eliminated them. There's no place for them to hide. All my hives are in the shade too.
Nature renews it self.
When will you be coming out with a video of making the bee barn frames?
ua-cam.com/video/hLobkkcKnr8/v-deo.html
r your bee barn plans anywhere?
Honestly I was thinking about this today. a Swarm if you are not making money, not a honey farmer, then its good that you are making them so big adn strong coming out of winter with a large enough population that they can propagate instead of dying in the frost. You shouldn't worry about swarms, and you said you don't want 20 colonies again. Let them do what nature tells them to do. Good luck. Love your videos I share them with friends. - Also question, if you had not killed the birch queen and instead just put cells in, wouldn't they just have a royal rumble when they hatch? so you don't have that 5-10 days of a queenless hive? maybe 10 days doesn't matter I was just thinking it might be more efficient to keep her laying while you replaced her.
If you are looking for a large honey production, controlling swarms is a must.
That’s the general wisdom, but to be more specific, I’d say that if you want the “largest” honey production, controlling swarms is a must. However, even with swarms, these hives are way, way ahead of anything I’ve ever seen in my 6 years of beekeeping. I just pulled off a capped super on June 6. I usually don’t even see capped FRAMES until July.
My Poly hive is the only one I'm watching now, it had emerged cells last check a few days ago. Good strong Queens are the best. Enjoyed the update Jim.
Jim, I'm looking for plans for the Bee Barn. Are you willing to share where you are with it now? I'm a new beek, and would love to see how it works in the Texas heat (vs. your NE Winters).
Was that a native milkweed plant behind you both sides during the first Birch discussion?
Do you watch them for Monarch babies? Several folks do here in Portland Oregon. In fact, a woman just down my street is kind of the Portland resource for Monarchs.
I have been spreading and cultivating the milkweed for years. Tons of monarchs here and the honey from the flowers is awesome. The bees love the milkweed. There are thousands of plants all over our fields.
@@vinofarm Doh! I’m a dummy. I remember now you making the comment of milkweed blooms in the past. Thank you!
🤣 so dramatic!
Very interesting!
Awesome video as usual! I have done this before myself too and was successful! My question is, how do you decide which frame has the “best queen cells?”
Queen city!
Awe so sad.
I am not sure that I would want a swam colony competing for resources/flowers. Hopefully, they flew far away.
Since the queen won't cross an expanse of X amount of nectar/honey, would using a shallow super of honey have the same effect as a queen excluder? And would that enable your bees to produce even more honey?
11:30 : "They are suddenly very interested in my hive tool for some reason..." yeah duhhh you just killed there current queen with it, her scent is all over it and they can smell she "needs some attention"....
You got the joke.
@@vinofarm Ahhh :) didn't catch the sarcasm in the video :)
Great stuff Jim! Had a chance to do exactly this in my own apiary maybe a month ago. I had an underperformed, and I had a hive going to swarm... Make lemonade!
I’ve had 6 swarms in the past week… all recovered and housed. I don’t try to control what they do, just goin with the “flow”
I would consider even leaving one or two. After swarming with virgins is very bad for colony health.
Thanks. My farm ( a couple least hectares ) is in the Philippines. I plan to use trapped local feral bees. These are usually Apis Cerana, the Asian cousin and smaller. As my staff are half your stature and 1/5th mine, horizontal hives and stacked nucs is my plan. The resource hives will be five over five configuration. As you did by propagating the best hives, I’ll try to do the same. In the provinces, most comercial mite control is non existent or weeks away via FedEx etc. I’m thinking oxalic acid on pads or strips. Electronic power is also spotty, so vapor treatment is problematic. Thanks
The Asian Honey bee is very different than the Western Honey Bee.
If you try to keep the Asian one as if it were a western, you'll encounter lots of problems.
For example, I don't think ressouce hives are a good idea in your case because The Asian Bee doesn't accept outsiders of her hive as easily as the werstern. I actually heard they don't accept them at all under any circumstance.
You also won't need to treat for Varroa. The Asian Honey bee lived with that little pest for centurys without beeing bothered by it. They are naturally resistant. Taking the Asian Honey Bee out of Asia to study them in Europe is what introduced Varroa to the Western Bee in the first place since they are different yet similar species.
In short: it makes no sense to treat the Asian Bee as if it were a Western bee.
Good luck anyway.
Behavior Serena is somewhat smaller apis Mellifera. I intend to keep them in stack, hives, or pile, hives, or something similar to the comfort hive.
The gentrigonalis species, the two that I’m familiar with in the Philippines are a stingu fee, and there are completely different animal, completely different insects. Their have hives are whole lot different.
The eighth is Serena is very hygienic against Berroa. They groom each other they kick disease hive meat out of the hive. They pull infected, bees out of the comb, kick them out of the hive.
Thanks for the input. I will need both types of bees to pollinate coconuts, avocados and versions other crops on the farm. It will be an adventure.
Situation well explained, choices understood and appear good (to me at least). So - good luck with all of it, especially the requeening!
Swarming is a natural action of bees when they decide to swarm we have to try to know why? Is there a problem in the queen or in the beehive...
Nice video Jim. Your beekeeping is really maturing now and your Bee Barns are doing just great! Keep it up.
Did you use your hive tool to deal the final blow to the old queen? Bet that's why the bees were really interested in it. Got her pheromones all over it.
Not a beekeeper currently but aspiring to be. But I’ve always thought in my reading and observations of beehives that swarming is a good natural thing for strong hives to do to expand the population. I’ve always thought it was odd that beekeepers went to such lengths to not let swarms happen. I understand that it affects bee honey productivity for up time, but kind of the way you view letting the colonies do what they will with queens is a good natural process for strong hives to be able to swarm and spread good strong genetics . Just a two cent thought but it’s awesome seeing your experiences and content! Keep up the good work!!
This is a good idea but in reality the majority of hives that do swarm to the wild die.
The right thing to do for the beek and for the hive is to control the swarm and do an artificial swarm.
😂 thanks for editing out that gruesome murder. Classic.
They may have smelled that queen on your hive tool after you….you know
Olá! Tenho assistido a maioria de seus vídeos, acompanhei o repovoamento de seu apiário após as perdas no último inverno. Fiquei curioso em saber se existem colônias na natureza em sua região, e se elas sobrevivem bem aos invernos rigorosos. Abraços
I am curious about the results of the queen cells (for both colonies).