Starting with packages is tough. The bees don't know their queen and it's all chaos getting them started. Natural swarms are much more reliable but probably harder to come by in your neck of the woods. Where I am, swarms are everywhere this time of year so nobody sweats an occasional loss. I'd be much more worried about my bees if I had to pay for them. When was this footage taken? Clay had mentioned (through comments on his channel) that beekeeping didn't work out for you all but I thought that was a few years ago.
One problem I see is what you where sold I would not consider a nuc a nuc is a small established hive which has all stages of larvae and established queen
@@lizhayes7474 it just looked to me that they just took five frames from an established hive and put a queen in and sold them to me a nuc has a laying queen with fresh eggs and all stages of larvae I wish I lived closer so I could look at it I’m not an expert by any means but I was keeping 50 hives in Wisconsin and worked with a state bee inspector helping with his 100 hives maybe next year I’ll be closer as I’m moving to my property at St Marie’s Idaho
I'm surprised that you could have the boxes so close together. Seems like they're normally a couple of feet apart or so. Sorry to see it didn't go well.
There really is no reason to have them that close together. Limited yard space might be one reason, but that is hardly the case here. Some separation gives you more work space around the hives. It might slightly reduce drifting of bees from one hive to another as well.
I asked about it and they said it was fine to keep them side by side. Next time I will be doing it differently . I’m taking all the info everyone gives me and writing it down so I can use it for the next time. We have plenty of space for multiple hives.
@@lizhayes7474 Two additional points I pondered about making. Given the distances bees travel to find nectar, there really isn't a need to have the hives within your garden. They don't have to be that close to the garden. Which brings up the question of what is the best location for the hives. Where you had them located was in the open and in direct sunlight. A comment made by 628 DirtRooster, a knowledgeable bee keeper, in one of his recent videos mentions that he never places his hives in direct sunlight. Think about feral hives. They tend to be in hollow trees where the trees' canopies of leaves shade the colonies. Some sort of independent cover over hives would provide the shade. Bees can handle/deal with cool temperatures far easier than excessive heat. Metal covered covers may take care of rain, but are heat generators when there is direct sunlight. Three channels dealing with bees that I would consider as reliable sources of information are 628 DirtRooster, Frederick Dunn and Kamon Reynolds. Frederick Dunn's channel is specifically geared for the backyard beekeeper. Watching your video was a kind of painful experience. Alarms bells were going off in my head as I watched it, but I swore not to make any comments as I'm hardly an experienced bee keeper. Reading a few of the comments has prompted me to change that view and to also respond. Best and I really hope that things will work out for you in the future.
Thanks for the information. The sunlight was a question I asked when I took the class and they assured me that bees could keep it cool and it wouldn’t be a problem. Next time I will probably put them in our little orchard where there is some shade. And thanks for the tips on the channels. I will have to go and check them out .
I’m so sorry. In your last video I thought it would be a cool project yet I see the hard work and heart break of bee keeping. I hate your Queens died off. Next year you will be a pro at it. You were so informative and did your research it’s just trial and error I’m sure. Nothing you did wrong. I love your tenacity. ❤
Hi Liz, you have gained a lot of experience in your first season. I’m sorry that it didn’t go well. I’ve been beekeeping for about 8 years and lost 5 hives before I ever got one through their first winter. It can be very hard and frustrating. However, I think you had 2 major struggles before you got started. In your video it looks like you had a capped queen cell on one of the frames when you were taking them out of the NUC. That tells me that the NUC wasn’t inspected before it was handed to you. The queen in the cage was not from that NUC. She looked small and may not have been mated. The second thing is if you are in a very rural area with no other bees than there aren’t enough drones for virgin queens to mate with. You may need to start with more hives to make sure you will have enough genetic variety and drones for mating in case of swarming or supercedure. I would suggest that you only buy NUCs with laying queens going forward. This will greatly increase your success.
I noted that queen cell as well and wondered why a nuc vendor would include a frame with one on it. Another question I came up with was regards to why the queen cages have not been corked. The queen cage is so the queen has time to be acquainted with the bees safely. The channel to release the queen has fondant in it for the bees to remove once the nuc has been hived, not before. The cork stops them from doing this while still in the nuc. The cork is removed by the bee keeper at the time of hiving the nuc. I would definitely stay away from that nuc provider in the future. Find another source of nucs next time.
Thanks for the info . We did have a capped cell when we opened the box and also a loose queen in there. We thought it was odd but with this being our first experience we didn’t really know what to do. And we had no one to ask about what to do with them.
The best of luck on your new adventure. Please keep us informed on how it goes.🐝🐝
Thank you! Will do!
Sorry it didn’t work out for you, looked like a lot of fun to start. Interesting, thanks for sharing
Starting with packages is tough. The bees don't know their queen and it's all chaos getting them started. Natural swarms are much more reliable but probably harder to come by in your neck of the woods. Where I am, swarms are everywhere this time of year so nobody sweats an occasional loss. I'd be much more worried about my bees if I had to pay for them. When was this footage taken? Clay had mentioned (through comments on his channel) that beekeeping didn't work out for you all but I thought that was a few years ago.
This was taken last year.
I’m no bee expert but hopefully someone will see this video and hopefully will travel out there too help you 👍✌🏻🇺🇸
I thought the same thing. Or at least the ppl she bought the hives from could have come out and helped her in the beginning.
One problem I see is what you where sold I would not consider a nuc a nuc is a small established hive which has all stages of larvae and established queen
That’s what I thought I was supposed to be getting.
@@lizhayes7474 it just looked to me that they just took five frames from an established hive and put a queen in and sold them to me a nuc has a laying queen with fresh eggs and all stages of larvae I wish I lived closer so I could look at it I’m not an expert by any means but I was keeping 50 hives in Wisconsin and worked with a state bee inspector helping with his 100 hives maybe next year I’ll be closer as I’m moving to my property at St Marie’s Idaho
I'm surprised that you could have the boxes so close together. Seems like they're normally a couple of feet apart or so. Sorry to see it didn't go well.
There really is no reason to have them that close together. Limited yard space might be one reason, but that is hardly the case here. Some separation gives you more work space around the hives. It might slightly reduce drifting of bees from one hive to another as well.
I asked about it and they said it was fine to keep them side by side. Next time I will be doing it differently . I’m taking all the info everyone gives me and writing it down so I can use it for the next time. We have plenty of space for multiple hives.
Thanks for the info. It was a question I asked but was apparently given the wrong answers.
@@lizhayes7474 Two additional points I pondered about making. Given the distances bees travel to find nectar, there really isn't a need to have the hives within your garden. They don't have to be that close to the garden. Which brings up the question of what is the best location for the hives. Where you had them located was in the open and in direct sunlight. A comment made by 628 DirtRooster, a knowledgeable bee keeper, in one of his recent videos mentions that he never places his hives in direct sunlight. Think about feral hives. They tend to be in hollow trees where the trees' canopies of leaves shade the colonies. Some sort of independent cover over hives would provide the shade. Bees can handle/deal with cool temperatures far easier than excessive heat. Metal covered covers may take care of rain, but are heat generators when there is direct sunlight.
Three channels dealing with bees that I would consider as reliable sources of information are 628 DirtRooster, Frederick Dunn and Kamon Reynolds. Frederick Dunn's channel is specifically geared for the backyard beekeeper.
Watching your video was a kind of painful experience. Alarms bells were going off in my head as I watched it, but I swore not to make any comments as I'm hardly an experienced bee keeper. Reading a few of the comments has prompted me to change that view and to also respond.
Best and I really hope that things will work out for you in the future.
Thanks for the information. The sunlight was a question I asked when I took the class and they assured me that bees could keep it cool and it wouldn’t be a problem. Next time I will probably put them in our little orchard where there is some shade. And thanks for the tips on the channels. I will have to go and check them out .
I’m so sorry. In your last video I thought it would be a cool project yet I see the hard work and heart break of bee keeping. I hate your Queens died off. Next year you will be a pro at it. You were so informative and did your research it’s just trial and error I’m sure. Nothing you did wrong. I love your tenacity. ❤
Hi Liz, you have gained a lot of experience in your first season. I’m sorry that it didn’t go well. I’ve been beekeeping for about 8 years and lost 5 hives before I ever got one through their first winter. It can be very hard and frustrating. However, I think you had 2 major struggles before you got started. In your video it looks like you had a capped queen cell on one of the frames when you were taking them out of the NUC. That tells me that the NUC wasn’t inspected before it was handed to you. The queen in the cage was not from that NUC. She looked small and may not have been mated. The second thing is if you are in a very rural area with no other bees than there aren’t enough drones for virgin queens to mate with. You may need to start with more hives to make sure you will have enough genetic variety and drones for mating in case of swarming or supercedure. I would suggest that you only buy NUCs with laying queens going forward. This will greatly increase your success.
I noted that queen cell as well and wondered why a nuc vendor would include a frame with one on it.
Another question I came up with was regards to why the queen cages have not been corked. The queen cage is so the queen has time to be acquainted with the bees safely. The channel to release the queen has fondant in it for the bees to remove once the nuc has been hived, not before. The cork stops them from doing this while still in the nuc. The cork is removed by the bee keeper at the time of hiving the nuc.
I would definitely stay away from that nuc provider in the future. Find another source of nucs next time.
Thanks for the info . We did have a capped cell when we opened the box and also a loose queen in there. We thought it was odd but with this being our first experience we didn’t really know what to do. And we had no one to ask about what to do with them.