I expierenced a robbing of my hives recently. After I did quick inspection and determined they had been queenless for over a week I closed up the hive robbers and all for 2 days and fed sugar water. Then moved them to the other side of my property 1/4 mile and gave them a new queen. They bounced back extremely well!
This has to be THE single best photographed channel on bee keeping on the entirety of youtube. Your camera work is great and I really appreciate the extra effort you put into composing your shots to be balanced, well exposed and crisply focused. What makes it even better is the use of macro lenses to really get to see the bees up close. Excellent stuff, m8.
I have zero interest in bee keeping and yet I cannot look away, this is incredibly interesting, informative and your voice arration is National Geographic worthy. Very cool....
If you're a fisherman, try wax worms for panfish. Sold where you often find ice fishing supplies packed in sawdust. Any beekeeper worth their salt keeps a few containers in their refrigerator in case they get a day off in January. Edit: A parasitic pest for some, 5 cents each for others. But beekeepers supply stores with bait guaranteed to be effective.
Good instruction. It is September 20th and I've been dealing with robbing for the last week, for 3 days, 1-2 days off and then more robbing. Wet towel, sprinkler and robbing board from Bee Smart. 2 hives, one exceptional. I've done what I-can they're in the Lords hands. Many bee keepers in this are of WNY. Just getting back into it after 15 yrs off.
As a "returning" bee keeper, I was a beekeeper late '70's to mid 90's in NJ then PA, I've had some catching up to do on newfangled equipment, new pests and techniques. I want to say THANKS! You are doing the hobby a great service in the highest degree (I don't even think that statement covers it). I find your video Q&A's extremely thorough and equally informative. With RUclips I can watch during breakfast, pause, lunch and finish when I have the time. I love the index so I can skip some basic knowledge I remember well. After the first Q&A I watched I went back to day 1 and scrolled to "yellow jacket raid" and began my catch up on beekeeping. I "lost" my apiary (small hobbyist 6 hives) to bears in '95 and never started another hive. I've carted 2 1/2 complete hives of now vintage wood with me for 20+ years. It was put some of this wood together or sell it. A swarm landed in the tree of my home in Buffalo NY (nearly downtown) a few years ago... in the city?? I was blown away and also mad that I had no equipment put together to give them a home. In the past few years I researched new bee lines, especially the Russian bees and then the Sazkatraz line was available. 5 days ago I installed my first Saskatraz bees. The Queen died in her cage before she was released, another is on her way. As you know it never gets boring keeping bees. Thanks again Chuck T Buffalo NY Should you read this could you produce a coffee mug with a standard langstroth hive? Or perhaps the artwork from your hive bodies.
Dear Frederick, Once again a most fascinating and absorbing episode of beekeeping. I would never have known there was such a phenomenon as robbing a colony. What was equally interesting was your analysis of the two colonies, how you combined them, and the addition of a new queen in a few days. I pray your reconstituted colony thrives and becomes a strong and productive colony. Sincerely, Larry, Canada.
Just did this same thing two weeks ago. I had ordered two mated Weaver queens, but UPS delivery was delayed. One queen was not marked and under-mated with dead bees in the cage. I tried to direct release, but she flew off never to return. Five days later I combined the queenless bees with my lowest in numbers hive. Happy now with two Carniolan-queened hives and one Weaver hive. This whole re-queening Africanized hives has been quite an experience. I'm glad you recommended the Weaver queens, but with the awful delivery between Houston area to South New Mexico, I will not try that again. The Carniolans came from Lappe's bees of Iowa.
DANG... seeing a Weaver Queen fly off on her own would be sooooooo coffee-cup-dropping terrible!!! (';')... had they been feeding her through the screen before you opened her up? so frustrating but I'm glad you've found a suitable queen for your bees. We currently have storms and rain, so my incoming queen should be nice and cool in transit. Hot weather can partially sterilize a new queen in transit and that's a huge downer.... BUT, you can requeen with the brood she does produce.
I have had to requeen a aggressive africanized hive before. It was my nightmare last year. They would chase me legit two miles from the hive down my driveway.
Amazing video, Fred has taught me more about beekeeping in the past few weeks than a decade of trial and error. Western New York can be tricky for a beekeeper.
I started off watching a raccoon eating and now I’ve ended up here. This is the beauty of youtube, a great suggestion! I’m fascinated by bees and admit that I didn’t know this even happened. So, I’m here to learn! Thank you for your great work!
Between your exceptional informative videos and a local friend who is giving me hands on experience I've decided to start beekeeping! Thanks for your hard work! If increasing interest in bee keeping is a focus point for your efforts I'd say you are succeeding remarkably.
Great video Fred showing a newspaper combine. I did one of those earlier this year because the hive was weak. So I took bees from a huge colony and gave them a boost. It works flawlessly to combine that way. I had no issues.
I enjoyed your video! It was very educational and informative. I love how you showed slow motion the robbing activity. You have a wonderful voice too!! Clear and concise, you don't talk too fast, you explain in plain english. Thanks!
I just want to say thank you so much for your videos. I'm not a beekeeper, but I have a horrible phobia of wasps specifically. I use your videos to help with my treatment and to show myself that not everything with wings and a stinger is bad, and often can be quite nice and lovely. I'm also interested in getting into this as a hobby once I progress a bit more!
Wasps stings are whimpey compared to honey bees . For me Yellow jackets barely hurt . White faced hornets hurt for about ten min Bees hurt a lot more for about 3 min . And being stung hundreds of times by honey increased my immunity from severe swelling to a slight itch .
Totally agree with Zerkbern, Fred your vids provide an amazing chronicle of your day to day observations of hive activity and bee behaviour as well as practical solutions. Yes, looter bees or pirate bees.
Great portrayal of landing board activity! I have a queenless hive that was full of drone brood and I chose not to fuse it with it with another hive so as not to load another hive full of drones useless, resource consuming drones. Eventually my other hives started a robbing frenzy like what is shown in this video. Given that the weak hive is now full of drones (about 50/50 population) I still don't want to dump them into another hive and am at a loss as how to deal with the situation.
They are not likely to feed all of those drones, and I think you'll see the drone numbers fall off quick. Drones are the great vagabonds of the honey bee world, they tend to go to any hive where they are cared for.
Honestly I feel like commercial bee keepers are a detriment to the bee population. Bee's are endangered. We need to be saving as many as we can. Commercial bee keepers are normally only in it for the money. Great video honey. Please keep up the amazing work
Ahhhh... gotta get some robbing screens! Yes - that awful sound of a hive being robbed... 'bee pandemonium'. A few years back I inadvertently and foolishly left my spun out frames too close to the original hive to get cleaned out. (Thinking like a human and that this would be a good thing for them to do... and also I thought that 100 feet or so would be far enough away....) Well, I invited a massive 'bee war' that followed the honey scent back to the hive (ok... anything and everything was flying around the whole area... wasps... bees... you name it...)... and not only did they rob the hive - I ended up with a heap of dead bees and no hive left. A very costly mistake.
@@KillerofGods - Great question. It is what I call honey frames full of honey that were spun 'out' in a honey extractor ... (uncapped and emptied out of the honey into waiting buckets ) ... but still had some bits of honey drippings left in the comb/ deep frames. This scent was the same scent from where the still full frames were in the nearby hives for winter food. Hope that explains things ~
Your videos are very helpful. We have a small local apiary and enjoy it but sometimes the problems can cross one’s eyes! We like to ultimately try to think like bees and let bees do what they would do but a step in the right direction always helps. Thanks!
Extremely helpful thank you so much. We've gone from 1 to 3 backyard hives in 10 days after swarming But I'm not so sure about the activity around the hives. This has been good to watch.
Glad it was helpful! The top box bees actually just pushed their way down into the bottom box without removing the paper... so far. It's interesting to say the least.
I really enjoy your narrated observation! thank you again for putting them out here! Your videos are amazing! So educational, so fascinating and I especially love the real time pace of it. ! I actually came to honey bees reading up on eusociality and then youtube suggested me your channel, but now I definately need to know everything about bees and beekeeping
I haven't had the displeasure of a robbing event yet but I appreciate the information of what to look for and how to remedy it. I'm going to go ahead and get a few Beesmart robbing screens just in case. Thanks and keep the videos coming!!!!!!
Yes, everyone eventually experiences robbing on some level. The key is to give them a defend-able entrance AND.... be aware when they go queenless... this could have been averted by a more keen beekeeper.... should have re-queened them weeks ago.
@@FrederickDunn It is all a never-ending learning experience and I think bees benefit from a hands off approach :) You can learn a lot like you say from just looking at the landing board and the behaviour there. Take care and have a great day.
I have no idea how I found this channel- but watching you with your bees has turned them from a "okay yeah they're important" into probably one of my favorite creatures. Bees are so interesting! If I ever get the chance to live in a rural area, I'm 100% getting an apiary of my own. I love to see your videos, and your narrations are both incredibly informative and soothing. Love love the observation hive! How did you first get into beekeeping?
Thanks Krysta, I got into bees when I first began photographing and videoing them when colony collapse dissorder was making headlines. I wanted to know more about my subject matter and started keeping my own bees and that's how it all started :)
Thank you, she's already on her way... gotta love the Weaver Family, they had mated queens ready to go! And this morning I already have a swarm to go collect, so the original spot will have a new colony right away.
Excellent video as usual. I have had problems with robbing in the past and appreciate very much your information. Will be prepared for the next time. God bless you.
Hi Fred! Try this for preventing the robbing: If you find out which hive is the robber hive scrape some capped honey in their chamber. They will start eating and fixing their comb and stop robbing behavior. This is what my grandpa was doing. To find out which hive is a robber hive you need to sprinkle wood ash on the robbing bees and chase them.
What I do to find the robbers if they are from my apiary is to dump powdered sugar on them at the robbing landing board and see what other colonies they show up at. Then, if they are mine, I spray the front of that hive with 1:1 sugar syrup and Honey-B-Healthy and they stop. This gives the defending colony an opportunity to fortify their defenses if it isn't too late. In this case, the robbed colony was already too weak.
Glad I've found this. I wasn't sure. Went out this a.m. About 9:15, approx. 52 degrees, at entrance saw mass of bees at entrance, never see bees this active, this early. At first, I thought orientation flight? Never this early before before sun has brightened up. Watched, waited, bees noisy, really fast entrance, fast exit, bees just hanging on hive, on legs, etc. trying the upper vent..... Covered with white sheet, now the bees are on outside of it. Inside feeder. Sept. 30th.
what is the optimum height to have a hive off the ground? I have disabilities and cannot be bent over for long periods. plus, I cannot lift heavy things too high. right shoulder and arm is less that awesome.
For you, I would highly recommend a horizontal hive configuration. You can have that at a comfortable height for pulling and inspecting frames. Layens, or Long Langstroth... entrance height would be out of skunk range at 17" from the ground.
Very helpful, how long do you leave the entrance closed before re-opening, is it minutes or longer. It appeared to only be minutes to release the robbers. I did notice robbing started and they did kill my queen as I have an emergency queen being built in the center of one of my frames. Just wondering, I do have another strong hive that I pulled nurses and cover brood frame from the stronger box.
Just a few minutes is all that's required. They can hold their own once the entrance is profoundly reduced. It has to be caught soon, or they can be beyond saving.
Great video and thank you for spending so much of your time on these educational video's. I'm new to beekeeping having started this spring after years of consideration. Your videos truly help me along and have great visualizations. I have the same problem that you described in the video with one of my colonies and thinking about re queening it. I do have a really hard time to find a place to order a new queen. There is a lot on the internet but its hard to tell which one would be reliable. Not sure if you can answer this question as you mentioned before you don't advertise, but it would be great if you could give me some direction. Many Thanks Andreas
@@julieenslow5915 there is no inference of race other than your own perceived conclusion, the term Black Friday was used to describe the chaos surrounding the hyped up selling events sending people into ridiculous behaviour to buy goods. Are you trying to virtue signal by turning this into a race debate ? My point was nothing of the sort and Black Friday sales have never been about race !
do you suspect robbers killed the queens, august 1st here, ive had some robbing, and weak hives,2 hives have no eggs,1 hive has a poor layer,may combine with better laying queens,...i like the top hive feeders does yours seem to have a entrance in the shimm?,thank you
quite an aggro angry sort of sound from the robber bees, and interesting that aspect of just charging in and out without any sort of entering and leaving ritual.
Will do! And the good news is that I just received a swarm collection call, so I will be putting the swarm in a new box where the other one was just removed. It's a charmed life :)
Thank you for another amazing video. This is a queen action packed at work . She is incredibly accurate with her pattern of laying filling almost every cell. So it will return and fill uncapped cells later? Please let us know.
Hi Fred, On the subject of trying not to use queen excluders on a flow hive. How much capped honey is enough in the "honey bridge" box to be confident enough not to use an excluder? How much brood should we tolerate? I have 2 hives of Saskatraz bees in 10 frame flow hives. At only 64 days in the hives they've filled 2 deeps wall to wall. I put the flow supers on just to give them room, but there's brood in the honey bridge deep 3/4 of the way up in a couple frames. Should I move those frames down? Thanks!
Ok, I'm going to share what I personally would do... you have two deeps on, with some brood creeping high (assuming in an arc) through the center of the upper box. I would go ahead and put that flow-super on without the queen excluder... remember this is a total risk... as they fill the flow-frames, I would carefully pull the center flow-frame while they are still filling it and observe for eggs/brood. If it's clear, you can also observer the two adjacent flow-frames facing the one you remove, if they are also clear.... I think you have smooth sailing :) if you find a single egg... then make sure the queen is down below and put that excluder on. 21 days later, you can rest assured that it's hatched and the frames are safe again to cycle for honey.
Yes it's in an arc but mostly toward the east side. I will keep an eye on them. One idea I had because she's mostly in the east half is to cut a queen excluder so it covers just the east 2/3 of the box so it would discourage the queen but the workers could go around... might try that on one. Thanks for your answer!
Hello Fred. I just had a BIG robbing frenzy in my bee yard the day after a really great inspection. It was pretty strange. Bees fighting on the landing board and in front of the hives....but foragers still bringing in pollen during the event. Is that normal? Also had one hive bearding during the robbing. Temp was in the high 70's. Was a pretty wacky event. I think I got it under control with robbing screens. My question is how long do you leave the screens on after the robbing stops? Thanks as always!!
Once that robbing event occurred, and you got it under control, you really need to continue to leave those screens ON. Yes, it's normal for the foragers with pollen and nectar to continue to enter the hive even though there may be active robbing. Once another colony has gained access and taken resources back, they will start every single day checking that same hive for the rest of their foraging lives. I am so glad you caught that activity in time.
Thanks for the video, I have a question. What are the little white entrance restrictors that you use, that I see on your hive that you combined with the one that got robbed. Thank you
That's a BeeSmart Design Ultimate Bottom board.. it has a screen and comes with mouse guards which can be flipped over and used as entrance reducers. It also has a screened bottom board.
Another fantastic video Fred, thank you. I hope the swarm you collectedin the rain settled in ok. I notice in your replies to comments below you mention you could have been better prepared for the scenario of lost queens & supporting a weaker hive by having 'nucs on standby with mated queens' or something to that effect. Kamon Reynolds does this. I've just finished building my first 5 frame nuc as a 'just in case' box using Kamon's nuc plan. If I set that up as a mini, could I then have a 2nd empty nuc on standby to put weaker nurse/brood frames into and then possibly combine with the reserve nuc using the news paper & slits method? Would it also work by combining the reserve (laying queen) nuc with the best frames from the weak hive into a single 8 frame deep box, but using a vertical frame of thin board and paper inserted say between frames 4 & 5? Will the bees chew the paper if it's placed in the vertical plane?
My problem with the queen and micro colony nucs is that they out grow their boxes too fast and I generally end up with too many colonies. Some keepers have success wintering them and that would be a nice bonus when spring die-offs are discovered. Kamon has lots of sound advice and as a commercial beekeepers he has a greater need for that kind of insurance. :)
Thanks for taking the time to reply. We started with wanting bees in our large backyard, so we bought a Flowhive 2. But all the advice says 2 colonies gives more flexibility, so were gearing up to take on a second hive, plus a spillover to manage swarming, or catch a swarm. Not sure yet what I'll use the nuc for in our but I think we'll stay as backyard hobbyists and def not go commercial! 🙂🌻🐝
Totally great watching your video..I'm in Astoria Ore and do all the technics..you just used..in fact I teach them..but I've been building my own robber screens. Not just for honey bee robbing but yellow jackets too..but introducing a queen directly into laying workers?? I've had laying workers reject queens..any thoughts?
Thanks for this wonderfully informative and produced video. I have a tiny 8 deep colony that has been drastically robbed but has a queen. 3 frames 1/4 populated. They won’t survive the winter. If I pinch the queen and combine with another small 10 deep, I’m afraid there will be too much space this late in the season for them to survive. Would you recommend pinching the queen and just moving the 3 frames from the tiny 8 deep hive to the other 10 deep hive? I’m not sure if they will be accepted.
I have a fix for you. I would do the normal doubling up of the hive bodies with the paper in-between. Leave them that way for a week, then open them again and condense the frames into the lower box. Then put a feeder shim on with a nice big sugar block for wintering. They will join forces and they will also select their favored queen if you can't find her.
Have a new hive, we haven't put a reducer, but have been keeping an eye on the hive. The hive gets direct sun all day so figured the larger entrance may help keep the hive cooler/maintainable. But how often should I be checking the hive to ensure they aren't getting robbed? Been going every 6 hours or so.
One was Saskatraz and the other was a Weaver... it's anyone's guess as to why the Queens left or became incapable of laying well. I should have noticed these problems weeks ago as they were always a little behind the other colonies in the apiary. Robbing was just one of the last coffin tacks... evidence of a colony in decline.
@@FrederickDunn The Saskatraz colonies I got this year. GANG Buster. The queens are large and lay wall to wall brood. The brood pattern is a gift from heaven. Super amazing. I am toying with making my entire apiary Saskatraz. But not sure yet because I like that mixed genetics in my yard.
Wow. The zoom level of how up close you are getting is amazing. That is one of the big perks of your videos. I hope you can keep doing these vids with watching the front entrances up close. Very fun! Is the number of guards in a small colony similar to a big colony's guard numbers? How does that work? Is it proportional, or typically at a certain number constantly, whether large or small?
The number of guards on the landing board seems to not be tied to the population of the hive, but could be partly genetics as well as the status of the queen and resources stored. A highly defensive line of bees would have more guards dedicated to that duty. Some of the more passive stock would have only a few.
Sure, post your question on any of the video comment sections or come and join the discussion on FB group The Way To Bee for the input from our community of beekeepers.
Look up attaching comb to frames with rubber bands! Put that right back in the frame by wrapping rubber bands around it to hold it against the top-bar.... I have a video about that, but didn't post it.
I am interested in the « why » they got to that point. Could you give us a few reasons...as to foresee something like that happening...a little prévention...sort of speak! Very interesting video. Thank you.
Great answer Sinister Hippo! Yes, I suspect that they built up, emitted a swarm and the replacement queen(s) failed and they went into a state of decline. Should have been caught weeks ago before their numbers got so low... this is rare in my apiary as I tend to catch it early through landing board observations. I was paying too much attention to the other colonies and these just got out of hand.
I too, have the plastic robbing screen on this video. If the copper mesh doesn't prevent the robbers from finding their way in, what about the robbing screen would be more successful than the copper mesh?
I've had good luck putting a laying queen under a queen cage near emerging brood on a frame introduced into the hive. Both brood and queen pheromone are then in play to suppress worker ovaries.
I am a new bee keeper. I watch all your videos, thank you for your time. I have a question. When the spring nectar flow ends and I have to pull off the supers for the summer dearth, what do you do with frames of uncapped honey. I would think it would be nice to put them back on for the fall flow to be finished up. Does the nectar go bad in a month or so. I started with 2 local nucs 4/27 and there will be some fully capped frames I can harvest but most are partially capped. Your thoughts would be well appreciated. Thanks
James, why remove the uncapped? If you leave it there the bees will use what they need for the dearth, keep the uncapped in good condition and top up cap the cells ready for capping.
James Townsend depends on many variables like colony size and strength with climate probably being the most impacting, if you’re only taking honey for yourself just take the capped (a 3/4 capped frame is considered capped ) if your willing to feed sugar to them you can take uncapped honeys from them and freeze it then return it to them later to keep honey and sugar separate, if you want to grow and split your colonies or draw comb slow feed them syrup and substitute pollen then put your honey frames back on for fall flows. I’m in Australia 🇦🇺 by the way 👋
I never remove spring honey stores and would personally not remove honey supers going into a dearth as they need those resources more than ever. I only remove surplus honey during the late summer nectar flow and then stop honey removal weeks before the nectar flow is over so they have time to finalize their winter resources.
I missed your comment about the mite-treatments.. for me here in PA, treatment is only spring- prior to the spring nectar flow, and fall, after the autumn nectar flow is finished and honey is removed. Not at all during the summer low periods.
I've concluded that if a hive gets robbed to death ... it probably deserved to die. Making more new bees is easy. The equipment is where all the value is.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
I expierenced a robbing of my hives recently. After I did quick inspection and determined they had been queenless for over a week I closed up the hive robbers and all for 2 days and fed sugar water. Then moved them to the other side of my property 1/4 mile and gave them a new queen. They bounced back extremely well!
You gave them a new queen that is why...usually quinless colonies are doomed.
I just covered mine with a white sheet, wondering how long to leave it.
Absolutely mind blown by the amount of resource and info you're putting out there for everyone Fred. You're amazing. Thank you so much!
Wow, thank you!
I agree! Thank you
lieboen @a
I don't know why this ended up in my recommendations but it's fascinating! I could listen to you talk all day long.
Thank you Donna!
This has to be THE single best photographed channel on bee keeping on the entirety of youtube. Your camera work is great and I really appreciate the extra effort you put into composing your shots to be balanced, well exposed and crisply focused. What makes it even better is the use of macro lenses to really get to see the bees up close. Excellent stuff, m8.
Wow, thanks!
big boss bob ross Can you tell us more about the issue with open larvae ?
I have zero interest in bee keeping and yet I cannot look away, this is incredibly interesting, informative and your voice
arration is National Geographic worthy. Very cool....
Wow, thank you :)
If you're a fisherman, try wax worms for panfish. Sold where you often find ice fishing supplies packed in sawdust.
Any beekeeper worth their salt keeps a few containers in their refrigerator in case they get a day off in January.
Edit: A parasitic pest for some, 5 cents each for others.
But beekeepers supply stores with bait guaranteed to be effective.
Good instruction. It is September 20th and I've been dealing with robbing for the last week, for 3 days, 1-2 days off and then more robbing. Wet towel, sprinkler and robbing board from Bee Smart. 2 hives, one exceptional. I've done what I-can they're in the Lords hands. Many bee keepers in this are of WNY. Just getting back into it after 15 yrs off.
As a "returning" bee keeper, I was a beekeeper late '70's to mid 90's in
NJ then PA, I've had some catching up to do on newfangled equipment,
new pests and techniques. I want to say THANKS! You are doing the
hobby a great service in the highest degree (I don't even think that
statement covers it). I find your video Q&A's extremely thorough and
equally informative. With RUclips I can watch during breakfast, pause,
lunch and finish when I have the time. I love the index so I can skip
some basic knowledge I remember well. After the first Q&A I watched
I went back to day 1 and scrolled to "yellow jacket raid" and began my
catch up on beekeeping. I "lost" my apiary (small hobbyist 6 hives) to
bears in '95 and never started another hive. I've carted 2 1/2 complete
hives of now vintage wood with me for 20+ years. It was put some of
this wood together or sell it. A swarm landed in the tree of my home in
Buffalo NY (nearly downtown) a few years ago... in the city?? I was
blown away and also mad that I had no equipment put together to give
them a home. In the past few years I researched new bee lines,
especially the Russian bees and then the Sazkatraz line was available. 5
days ago I installed my first Saskatraz bees. The Queen died in her
cage before she was released, another is on her way. As you know it
never gets boring keeping bees. Thanks again Chuck T Buffalo NY
Should you read this could you produce a coffee mug with a standard langstroth hive? Or perhaps the artwork from your hive bodies.
I'm glad you have come full circle and are back to keeping bees! Thank you for sharing your story!
You're helping the next generation of beekeepers! Thanks for such useful information!
Thank you so much!
Dear Frederick, Once again a most fascinating and absorbing episode of beekeeping. I would never have known there was such a phenomenon as robbing a colony. What was equally interesting was your analysis of the two colonies, how you combined them, and the addition of a new queen in a few days. I pray your reconstituted colony thrives and becomes a strong and productive colony. Sincerely, Larry, Canada.
Thank you Larry :) and today I was invited to collect a swarm, so the spot is now occupied again.
Just did this same thing two weeks ago. I had ordered two mated Weaver queens, but UPS delivery was delayed. One queen was not marked and under-mated with dead bees in the cage. I tried to direct release, but she flew off never to return. Five days later I combined the queenless bees with my lowest in numbers hive. Happy now with two Carniolan-queened hives and one Weaver hive. This whole re-queening Africanized hives has been quite an experience. I'm glad you recommended the Weaver queens, but with the awful delivery between Houston area to South New Mexico, I will not try that again. The Carniolans came from Lappe's bees of Iowa.
DANG... seeing a Weaver Queen fly off on her own would be sooooooo coffee-cup-dropping terrible!!! (';')... had they been feeding her through the screen before you opened her up? so frustrating but I'm glad you've found a suitable queen for your bees. We currently have storms and rain, so my incoming queen should be nice and cool in transit. Hot weather can partially sterilize a new queen in transit and that's a huge downer.... BUT, you can requeen with the brood she does produce.
I have had to requeen a aggressive africanized hive before. It was my nightmare last year. They would chase me legit two miles from the hive down my driveway.
Mr Dunn has the most pleasant speaking style and is the best at giving worthwhile information in a very interesting manner. thank you.
So nice of you
I'm sure you get this a lot, but you're like the Bob Ross of beekeeping. I just found you today, and I'm hooked!
Amazing video, Fred has taught me more about beekeeping in the past few weeks than a decade of trial and error. Western New York can be tricky for a beekeeper.
Wow, thank you :)
What part? I’m from Buffalo, living in MD rn
I am excited to see how they do with a mated queen! The video of the robbing was very interesting....especially when you slowed it down.
Thank you and I'll be sharing their progress and hope they come out like champs :)
@@FrederickDunn Yes, I am so disappointed when I don't see the ending. Even if you believe it is boring.
I started off watching a raccoon eating and now I’ve ended up here. This is the beauty of youtube, a great suggestion! I’m fascinated by bees and admit that I didn’t know this even happened. So, I’m here to learn! Thank you for your great work!
Awesome! Thank you!
Was it the raccoon with the cotton candy?
Between your exceptional informative videos and a local friend who is giving me hands on experience I've decided to start beekeeping! Thanks for your hard work! If increasing interest in bee keeping is a focus point for your efforts I'd say you are succeeding remarkably.
So nice of you
Great video Fred showing a newspaper combine. I did one of those earlier this year because the hive was weak. So I took bees from a huge colony and gave them a boost. It works flawlessly to combine that way. I had no issues.
Thanks Carlos... yep, extremely simple to do. Always great to see your comments!
Thank Fred for this really cool experience. Without this, i would not have noticed what robbing activity would look like.
Magnificent videos. I'm not a bee keeper, but I am fascinated by bees so I greatly appreciate the three videos of yours I have watched so far.
I enjoyed your video! It was very educational and informative. I love how you showed slow motion the robbing activity. You have a wonderful voice too!! Clear and concise, you don't talk too fast, you explain in plain english. Thanks!
I just want to say thank you so much for your videos. I'm not a beekeeper, but I have a horrible phobia of wasps specifically. I use your videos to help with my treatment and to show myself that not everything with wings and a stinger is bad, and often can be quite nice and lovely. I'm also interested in getting into this as a hobby once I progress a bit more!
Thank you, I'm so glad to know that I may be helping with your stress levels. Knowledge never hurts :)
Wasps stings are whimpey compared to honey bees .
For me
Yellow jackets barely hurt .
White faced hornets hurt for about ten min
Bees hurt a lot more for about 3 min .
And being stung hundreds of times by honey increased my immunity from severe swelling to a slight itch .
Perfect timing for me to watch this video . I will be doing this tomorrow and this gave me a little help on what to do .
Thanks for the video
Glad it helped!
I learned the hard way to always keep a couple nuc's ready to go. Great pictures and info
Great job. We need to Index all of these. You are such an invaluable resource. Thank you.
Thank you so much! :) and yes... I do need some sort of master list. It's a time management thing...
Totally agree with Zerkbern, Fred your vids provide an amazing chronicle of your day to day observations of hive activity and bee behaviour as well as practical solutions.
Yes, looter bees or pirate bees.
Wonderful Fred… a gr8 study, close up! Thanks for all your work. Another good use of equipment during a non commercial period.
Glad you enjoyed it, John!
Great portrayal of landing board activity! I have a queenless hive that was full of drone brood and I chose not to fuse it with it with another hive so as not to load another hive full of drones useless, resource consuming drones. Eventually my other hives started a robbing frenzy like what is shown in this video. Given that the weak hive is now full of drones (about 50/50 population) I still don't want to dump them into another hive and am at a loss as how to deal with the situation.
They are not likely to feed all of those drones, and I think you'll see the drone numbers fall off quick. Drones are the great vagabonds of the honey bee world, they tend to go to any hive where they are cared for.
Honestly I feel like commercial bee keepers are a detriment to the bee population. Bee's are endangered. We need to be saving as many as we can. Commercial bee keepers are normally only in it for the money. Great video honey. Please keep up the amazing work
Do you keep bees ?
This was the most helpful and educational beekeeping video I’ve ever seen! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks. Our flow just started Here in Minnesota
Still catching up on all your old videos. Need to do exactly what your video showed . Lost my queen . Combining my colonies .
Thanks you for the video
Ahhhh... gotta get some robbing screens! Yes - that awful sound of a hive being robbed... 'bee pandemonium'. A few years back I inadvertently and foolishly left my spun out frames too close to the original hive to get cleaned out. (Thinking like a human and that this would be a good thing for them to do... and also I thought that 100 feet or so would be far enough away....) Well, I invited a massive 'bee war' that followed the honey scent back to the hive (ok... anything and everything was flying around the whole area... wasps... bees... you name it...)... and not only did they rob the hive - I ended up with a heap of dead bees and no hive left. A very costly mistake.
Okay so as someone who isnt a beekeeper... What is a spun out frame
@@KillerofGods - Great question. It is what I call honey frames full of honey that were spun 'out' in a honey extractor ... (uncapped and emptied out of the honey into waiting buckets ) ... but still had some bits of honey drippings left in the comb/ deep frames. This scent was the same scent from where the still full frames were in the nearby hives for winter food. Hope that explains things ~
Wow, bees are so smart and hardworking.
Your videos are very helpful. We have a small local apiary and enjoy it but sometimes the problems can cross one’s eyes! We like to ultimately try to think like bees and let bees do what they would do but a step in the right direction always helps. Thanks!
So nice of you, thanks!
That was really cool Fred.
This video was very informative. Thank you.
Extremely helpful thank you so much. We've gone from 1 to 3 backyard hives in 10 days after swarming But I'm not so sure about the activity around the hives. This has been good to watch.
Glad it helped!
Interesting how you go about combining the colonies with the paper with slits. Thank you for the informative video.
Glad it was helpful! The top box bees actually just pushed their way down into the bottom box without removing the paper... so far. It's interesting to say the least.
I really enjoy your narrated observation! thank you again for putting them out here! Your videos are amazing! So educational, so fascinating and I especially love the real time pace of it. ! I actually came to honey bees reading up on eusociality and then youtube suggested me your channel, but now I definately need to know everything about bees and beekeeping
I haven't had the displeasure of a robbing event yet but I appreciate the information of what to look for and how to remedy it. I'm going to go ahead and get a few Beesmart robbing screens just in case. Thanks and keep the videos coming!!!!!!
Unfortunately it is just matter of time especially as you build up your apiary.
Yes, everyone eventually experiences robbing on some level. The key is to give them a defend-able entrance AND.... be aware when they go queenless... this could have been averted by a more keen beekeeper.... should have re-queened them weeks ago.
@@FrederickDunn It is all a never-ending learning experience and I think bees benefit from a hands off approach :) You can learn a lot like you say from just looking at the landing board and the behaviour there. Take care and have a great day.
Fred that was put together very nice thank you
This video was fascinating and very informative. The robbing sequences were so captivating. Thank you!
You're very welcome
Awesome shots ...I love it !
Thanks a lot!
I have no idea how I found this channel- but watching you with your bees has turned them from a "okay yeah they're important" into probably one of my favorite creatures. Bees are so interesting! If I ever get the chance to live in a rural area, I'm 100% getting an apiary of my own. I love to see your videos, and your narrations are both incredibly informative and soothing. Love love the observation hive!
How did you first get into beekeeping?
Thanks Krysta, I got into bees when I first began photographing and videoing them when colony collapse dissorder was making headlines. I wanted to know more about my subject matter and started keeping my own bees and that's how it all started :)
Great footage Fred, wishing you well with a new queen ahead!
Thank you, she's already on her way... gotta love the Weaver Family, they had mated queens ready to go! And this morning I already have a swarm to go collect, so the original spot will have a new colony right away.
@@FrederickDunn You got a swarm? Lucky. I only got 2 this year. But I got none last year so I will take it!
Excellent video as usual. I have had problems with robbing in the past and appreciate very much your information. Will be prepared for the next time. God bless you.
Glad it was helpful!
Hi Fred! Try this for preventing the robbing: If you find out which hive is the robber hive scrape some capped honey in their chamber. They will start eating and fixing their comb and stop robbing behavior. This is what my grandpa was doing. To find out which hive is a robber hive you need to sprinkle wood ash on the robbing bees and chase them.
What I do to find the robbers if they are from my apiary is to dump powdered sugar on them at the robbing landing board and see what other colonies they show up at. Then, if they are mine, I spray the front of that hive with 1:1 sugar syrup and Honey-B-Healthy and they stop. This gives the defending colony an opportunity to fortify their defenses if it isn't too late. In this case, the robbed colony was already too weak.
This is fascinating, thanks. I would like to find some land someday and do this.
Your channel, work and efforts are amazing!
Thank you very much!
Another awesome video! Thanks Fred!
My pleasure!
Thank you I Learnt something new about bees today.
Glad to hear it!
Glad I've found this. I wasn't sure. Went out this a.m. About 9:15, approx. 52 degrees, at entrance saw mass of bees at entrance, never see bees this active, this early. At first, I thought orientation flight? Never this early before before sun has brightened up. Watched, waited, bees noisy, really fast entrance, fast exit, bees just hanging on hive, on legs, etc. trying the upper vent..... Covered with white sheet, now the bees are on outside of it. Inside feeder. Sept. 30th.
Glad you are being vigilant. Things can happen very fast.
I wish I had the ability to get into this hobby. I like your videos to experience it anyway.
Felt like I was watching a professional movie. Excellent video and I learned a bunch. I don't have bee's but I'd like some I think
Excellent tutorial !!!!!!
Glad you liked it!
Just bought our Flow Hive 2+ and a couple regular langstroth! So excited to pick up the bees this week. We are all ready for splits when needed.
That is awesome! I hope you get them all together and glued up well in advance of the bees arriving :)
@@FrederickDunn it has arrived and we are oiling the hive asap, painted the roof yesterday!!
Thanks Fredrick this was great info . I have not had this to happen to me yet . Keep up the great work an the video’s.
Thanks for watching!
what is the optimum height to have a hive off the ground? I have disabilities and cannot be bent over for long periods. plus, I cannot lift heavy things too high. right shoulder and arm is less that awesome.
For you, I would highly recommend a horizontal hive configuration. You can have that at a comfortable height for pulling and inspecting frames. Layens, or Long Langstroth... entrance height would be out of skunk range at 17" from the ground.
I was robbed by bees once. They stung me $8.00 for a small jar of honey!
Well explained! Thanks for the video
Thanks for watching!
wow this is as perfect as a video can get thamk you mr dunn!!!!! i love your vids
Very helpful, how long do you leave the entrance closed before re-opening, is it minutes or longer. It appeared to only be minutes to release the robbers. I did notice robbing started and they did kill my queen as I have an emergency queen being built in the center of one of my frames. Just wondering, I do have another strong hive that I pulled nurses and cover brood frame from the stronger box.
Just a few minutes is all that's required. They can hold their own once the entrance is profoundly reduced. It has to be caught soon, or they can be beyond saving.
This was a great Video. It’s all about the Queen sometimes.
Thank you :)
Nice video, very instructive, thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Very informative. Thank you for making these videos. Your work is top-notch. 🍻
Glad you like them! Thanks Ryan!
I look forward to seeing how they go with a new queen and hopefully they accept her quickly.
fingers crossed... and the new queen is inbound! We just may salvage them :)
@@FrederickDunn A new queen will be accepted easily with a lower colony number.
Great video and thank you for spending so much of your time on these educational video's. I'm new to beekeeping having started this spring after years of consideration. Your videos truly help me along and have great visualizations. I have the same problem that you described in the video with one of my colonies and thinking about re queening it. I do have a really hard time to find a place to order a new queen. There is a lot on the internet but its hard to tell which one would be reliable. Not sure if you can answer this question as you mentioned before you don't advertise, but it would be great if you could give me some direction. Many Thanks Andreas
It’s a bit like the Black Friday sales at Walmart 😳
That's no lie!
Not just Friday when blacks are involved! Looks more like a store in Minnesota!
@@maskettaman1488 blm?? bees looting mad? :)
Folks, I know you are joking but Black Friday has nothing to do with race! Remember these posts will be here years from now.
@@julieenslow5915 there is no inference of race other than your own perceived conclusion, the term Black Friday was used to describe the chaos surrounding the hyped up selling events sending people into ridiculous behaviour to buy goods. Are you trying to virtue signal by turning this into a race debate ? My point was nothing of the sort and Black Friday sales have never been about race !
do you suspect robbers killed the queens, august 1st here, ive had some robbing, and weak hives,2 hives have no eggs,1 hive has a poor layer,may combine with better laying queens,...i like the top hive feeders does yours seem to have a entrance in the shimm?,thank you
It's more likely that they swarmed and replacement queens didn't take.
quite an aggro angry sort of sound from the robber bees, and interesting that aspect of just charging in and out without any sort of entering and leaving ritual.
Wish I'd watched this 2 days ago.. Thanks dude.
Great video, Fred! Please keep us updated! :)
Will do! And the good news is that I just received a swarm collection call, so I will be putting the swarm in a new box where the other one was just removed. It's a charmed life :)
Thank you for another amazing video. This is a queen action packed at work . She is incredibly accurate with her pattern of laying filling almost every cell. So it will return and fill uncapped cells later? Please let us know.
what a brilliant video,fred your video work and information is epic,from a fan in the u.k
Awesome! Thank you!
Hi Fred,
On the subject of trying not to use queen excluders on a flow hive. How much capped honey is enough in the "honey bridge" box to be confident enough not to use an excluder? How much brood should we tolerate?
I have 2 hives of Saskatraz bees in 10 frame flow hives. At only 64 days in the hives they've filled 2 deeps wall to wall. I put the flow supers on just to give them room, but there's brood in the honey bridge deep 3/4 of the way up in a couple frames. Should I move those frames down? Thanks!
Very good question Aberlend. I'm keen to hear Fred's reply.
Ok, I'm going to share what I personally would do... you have two deeps on, with some brood creeping high (assuming in an arc) through the center of the upper box. I would go ahead and put that flow-super on without the queen excluder... remember this is a total risk... as they fill the flow-frames, I would carefully pull the center flow-frame while they are still filling it and observe for eggs/brood. If it's clear, you can also observer the two adjacent flow-frames facing the one you remove, if they are also clear.... I think you have smooth sailing :) if you find a single egg... then make sure the queen is down below and put that excluder on. 21 days later, you can rest assured that it's hatched and the frames are safe again to cycle for honey.
Yes it's in an arc but mostly toward the east side. I will keep an eye on them. One idea I had because she's mostly in the east half is to cut a queen excluder so it covers just the east 2/3 of the box so it would discourage the queen but the workers could go around... might try that on one. Thanks for your answer!
Thanks, great video. Very informative.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hello Fred. I just had a BIG robbing frenzy in my bee yard the day after a really great inspection. It was pretty strange. Bees fighting on the landing board and in front of the hives....but foragers still bringing in pollen during the event. Is that normal? Also had one hive bearding during the robbing. Temp was in the high 70's. Was a pretty wacky event. I think I got it under control with robbing screens. My question is how long do you leave the screens on after the robbing stops?
Thanks as always!!
Once that robbing event occurred, and you got it under control, you really need to continue to leave those screens ON. Yes, it's normal for the foragers with pollen and nectar to continue to enter the hive even though there may be active robbing. Once another colony has gained access and taken resources back, they will start every single day checking that same hive for the rest of their foraging lives. I am so glad you caught that activity in time.
This is a timely issue, so I'll also talk about it on Friday :)
@@FrederickDunn Thanks Fred!!!!
Thanks for the video, I have a question. What are the little white entrance restrictors that you use, that I see on your hive that you combined with the one that got robbed. Thank you
That's a BeeSmart Design Ultimate Bottom board.. it has a screen and comes with mouse guards which can be flipped over and used as entrance reducers. It also has a screened bottom board.
Thank you. I had no idea how to detect robbing. Now I know.
Glad to help
hello Fred. thank you for all you do to help the new bee keepers.what ever happen to your hive that was poisoned?
They have fully recovered. Thanks for asking :)
Another fantastic video Fred, thank you. I hope the swarm you collectedin the rain settled in ok.
I notice in your replies to comments below you mention you could have been better prepared for the scenario of lost queens & supporting a weaker hive by having 'nucs on standby with mated queens' or something to that effect. Kamon Reynolds does this. I've just finished building my first 5 frame nuc as a 'just in case' box using Kamon's nuc plan. If I set that up as a mini, could I then have a 2nd empty nuc on standby to put weaker nurse/brood frames into and then possibly combine with the reserve nuc using the news paper & slits method?
Would it also work by combining the reserve (laying queen) nuc with the best frames from the weak hive into a single 8 frame deep box, but using a vertical frame of thin board and paper inserted say between frames 4 & 5? Will the bees chew the paper if it's placed in the vertical plane?
My problem with the queen and micro colony nucs is that they out grow their boxes too fast and I generally end up with too many colonies. Some keepers have success wintering them and that would be a nice bonus when spring die-offs are discovered. Kamon has lots of sound advice and as a commercial beekeepers he has a greater need for that kind of insurance. :)
Thanks for taking the time to reply. We started with wanting bees in our large backyard, so we bought a Flowhive 2. But all the advice says 2 colonies gives more flexibility, so were gearing up to take on a second hive, plus a spillover to manage swarming, or catch a swarm. Not sure yet what I'll use the nuc for in our but I think we'll stay as backyard hobbyists and def not go commercial! 🙂🌻🐝
Totally great watching your video..I'm in Astoria Ore and do all the technics..you just used..in fact I teach them..but I've been building my own robber screens. Not just for honey bee robbing but yellow jackets too..but introducing a queen directly into laying workers?? I've had laying workers reject queens..any thoughts?
Thanks for this wonderfully informative and produced video. I have a tiny 8 deep colony that has been drastically robbed but has a queen. 3 frames 1/4 populated. They won’t survive the winter. If I pinch the queen and combine with another small 10 deep, I’m afraid there will be too much space this late in the season for them to survive. Would you recommend pinching the queen and just moving the 3 frames from the tiny 8 deep hive to the other 10 deep hive? I’m not sure if they will be accepted.
I have a fix for you. I would do the normal doubling up of the hive bodies with the paper in-between. Leave them that way for a week, then open them again and condense the frames into the lower box. Then put a feeder shim on with a nice big sugar block for wintering. They will join forces and they will also select their favored queen if you can't find her.
Have a new hive, we haven't put a reducer, but have been keeping an eye on the hive. The hive gets direct sun all day so figured the larger entrance may help keep the hive cooler/maintainable. But how often should I be checking the hive to ensure they aren't getting robbed? Been going every 6 hours or so.
I would inspect every 2 to 3 weeks.
Any idea on what happened to the queens in those hives? Were those Sazkatraz?
One was Saskatraz and the other was a Weaver... it's anyone's guess as to why the Queens left or became incapable of laying well. I should have noticed these problems weeks ago as they were always a little behind the other colonies in the apiary. Robbing was just one of the last coffin tacks... evidence of a colony in decline.
@@FrederickDunn The Saskatraz colonies I got this year. GANG Buster. The queens are large and lay wall to wall brood. The brood pattern is a gift from heaven. Super amazing.
I am toying with making my entire apiary Saskatraz. But not sure yet because I like that mixed genetics in my yard.
Good reference video; thanks Fred.
Thanks and you're very welcome!
Very good.
Great video, thanks for sharing. It's good to know what signs I should be aware of when I finally get me some bees.
Thank you!
Wow. The zoom level of how up close you are getting is amazing. That is one of the big perks of your videos. I hope you can keep doing these vids with watching the front entrances up close. Very fun!
Is the number of guards in a small colony similar to a big colony's guard numbers? How does that work? Is it proportional, or typically at a certain number constantly, whether large or small?
The number of guards on the landing board seems to not be tied to the population of the hive, but could be partly genetics as well as the status of the queen and resources stored. A highly defensive line of bees would have more guards dedicated to that duty. Some of the more passive stock would have only a few.
Hello Fred, I have a random ( maybe crazy question about bee's). Is this the platform to ask, if not where is the correct one?
Sure, post your question on any of the video comment sections or come and join the discussion on FB group The Way To Bee for the input from our community of beekeepers.
I had a framless brood comb fall off the frame yesterday as of now its laying on tbe bottom of the hive, what can I do? New beekeeper. Thanks
Look up attaching comb to frames with rubber bands! Put that right back in the frame by wrapping rubber bands around it to hold it against the top-bar.... I have a video about that, but didn't post it.
Highly educational.
Thank you so much :)
I am interested in the « why » they got to that point. Could you give us a few reasons...as to foresee something like that happening...a little prévention...sort of speak! Very interesting video. Thank you.
Great answer Sinister Hippo! Yes, I suspect that they built up, emitted a swarm and the replacement queen(s) failed and they went into a state of decline. Should have been caught weeks ago before their numbers got so low... this is rare in my apiary as I tend to catch it early through landing board observations. I was paying too much attention to the other colonies and these just got out of hand.
Fantastic Fred, as always... very interesting behavior.
Thank you John, always nice to see your comments!
So, I missed the explanation of why did this colony fail. Could you explain? Great video.
Queen loss.
Is there a horizontal hive, deeper European frame version of the flow hives?
nope
I too, have the plastic robbing screen on this video. If the copper mesh doesn't prevent the robbers from finding their way in, what about the robbing screen would be more successful than the copper mesh?
The robbing screen prevents direct entry which the robbing bees prefer.
I've had good luck putting a laying queen under a queen cage near emerging brood on a frame introduced into the hive. Both brood and queen pheromone are then in play to suppress worker ovaries.
I am a new bee keeper. I watch all your videos, thank you for your time. I have a question. When the spring nectar flow ends and I have to pull off the supers for the summer dearth, what do you do with frames of uncapped honey. I would think it would be nice to put them back on for the fall flow to be finished up. Does the nectar go bad in a month or so. I started with 2 local nucs 4/27 and there will be some fully capped frames I can harvest but most are partially capped. Your thoughts would be well appreciated. Thanks
James, why remove the uncapped? If you leave it there the bees will use what they need for the dearth, keep the uncapped in good condition and top up cap the cells ready for capping.
That makes sense Ian. I thought excess honey or nectar needed to be removed to help prevent robbing and to treat for mites during the dearth.
James Townsend depends on many variables like colony size and strength with climate probably being the most impacting, if you’re only taking honey for yourself just take the capped (a 3/4 capped frame is considered capped ) if your willing to feed sugar to them you can take uncapped honeys from them and freeze it then return it to them later to keep honey and sugar separate, if you want to grow and split your colonies or draw comb slow feed them syrup and substitute pollen then put your honey frames back on for fall flows.
I’m in Australia 🇦🇺 by the way 👋
I never remove spring honey stores and would personally not remove honey supers going into a dearth as they need those resources more than ever. I only remove surplus honey during the late summer nectar flow and then stop honey removal weeks before the nectar flow is over so they have time to finalize their winter resources.
I missed your comment about the mite-treatments.. for me here in PA, treatment is only spring- prior to the spring nectar flow, and fall, after the autumn nectar flow is finished and honey is removed. Not at all during the summer low periods.
Where did you get the frame hangers?
Little Mule Bee Supply... they are now carried by BetterBee
I noticed robbing 1 week ago so i put the entrance reducer on the hives which stopped that cold my 2 cents cheers
Stopping the robbing is one part, knowing they were queenless before that is the real key. Queenless colonies seem to invite invasion.
I've concluded that if a hive gets robbed to death ... it probably deserved to die. Making more new bees is easy. The equipment is where all the value is.