Answers from David Wainwright…. Thankyou everyone who has commentated on our video, thanks for all the encouragement and appreciation! I hope that I have covered most of the points raised in all the questions in these notes below. If there are any further questions please let me know. Thanks, David Winter Prep Winter prep starts when we take the summer crop off the hives in August. We give them a feed of 7 litres syrup and apivar strips. Then in September we give another 1 or 2 feeds as needed in order to have the hive weighing around 45kg going into winter. Anything unusual is checked for signs of queen lessness: drone layers. Then entrance block fitted and a brick on the roof to keep them safe from winter gales. Varroa Treatment We use apivar and an oxalic dribble in January. The bees in Wales get only oxalic and do fine for about 10 years when we have to give them another dose of apivar. Nuc Making Nuc making follows a tried and tested procedure, with everyone in the team having a different role in the production line. The nuc boxes are 6 frame Quarti polystyrene, painted various colours, with 4 litre top feeders filled with wood wool for the bees to climb on. Each box has 3 drawn combs and 3 foundation. The combs are sterilised with gamma irradiation (don’t try this at home). We have made incubator boxes for queen cells which we get from Border Honey. The cells will hatch in 2 or 3 days. We use Buckfast cells in England and our own Welsh lines in Wales. We go to a site with a team of 4 aiming to make about 40 nucs in 2 hours. First find the queen of the hive and put her aside on a frame of brood in a secure catcher box. Nucs are made with 1 frame of bees and sealed brood plus a queen cell. Most hives give 2 nucs. In the evening, about 7.30, we put all the nucs out in the nursery site, open them up and give them a feed. Then leave alone for a month. In July check for mating, usually about 75%, frames from duds are put in 6 frame boxes and given to strong hives as a second story for brood. About half are transferred into hives in the first summer, the rest in the next spring. The top boxes are very useful in the spring, these nucs go off like rockets, brood rearing increasing at an unbelievable rate. The Life Cycle of our ‘Bee Herd’ We start the spring with 1,800 honey producers, hopefully. We then make 1,000 nucs giving us 750 viable young stocks with good laying queens. We lose about 275 (15%) of the honey producers over the season from swarming, various balls ups etc. Another 275 poor colonies are removed from the herd by uniting in retirement sites. Any queenless or failing hives are shaken out when we find them throughout the season, we don’t waste time trying to patch them up, this usually fails. In the late autumn, hives are shuffled about. The aim is to empty enough sites to accommodate all the nucs in groups of 24. Surplus hives are crowded into retirement sites and united to bring the number to 2,000 going into winter. Winter losses are about 10% bringing the number back to 1,800. Retirement Sites These are larger than normal sites with plenty of stands. The number of hives in an apiary steadily dwindles year by year. These smaller groups are shuffled into bigger groups to create space for the youngsters. When there are too many they are united to reduce the total number. The retirement groups often do well and produce a good crop on average. Hive Components We use MD hives, some are old ones from Manley made in the 1930s from very good cedar. We have 9 frames plus a 7 litre frame feeder in the brood box. This is a similar brood area to a box and a half National. Then a queen excluder and about 5 supers, topped with a correx or cellotex insulation board and a roof. Hive stands are sturdy made from sawn down railway sleepers in a square arrangement with each hive facing a different direction. Inspections Each hive gets visited about 6 times in the season. 1- early April check for laying queen, super up, feed if necessary. 2- early May start nuc making 3- late May spring crop 4- June summer super up 5- August summer crop, feed, strips 6- September winter prep, check queen, 2nd feed, entrance block, brick on roof. Honey Harvests Most hives are cropped spring and summer. Some produce a bit of ivy honey and some go up to the heather. Average Production Average production is about 50kg per hive. The summer crop is usually a bit better than the spring crop. This year the average will be around 55kg. As each apiary has a group of hives in a similar point in their life cycle, we weigh the honey from each apiary and get an average for that group. I can learn a lot from these numbers. The best group this year was in West Wales averaging 115kg. The best group ever was also from West Wales at 180kg. I measure the crop per hive by dividing the total crop by the spring number of hives. This means that high summer losses will drag down this number rather than increase it. Old Combs There is a lot of turnover of combs as about 40% of colonies are new nucs. The old combs from duds etc are graded. The best are sent for gamma irradiation. Others are melted down and refitted with foundation. Building a Healthy Bee Population I am trying to model my bee herd on a natural bee population as would be found in an undisturbed forest, e.g. Arnot Forest USA or around Kabompo, Zambia or Pettigrew’s skeps. Natural bee populations have a similar mortality and life expectancy to my stock. There is a lot of swarming and lots of empty hives getting occupied each year. Bees are not stressed by regular human interference. I find that the strength of my stock is slowly increasing each year which I put down to bringing in 40% young healthy, non-stressed stock every season. I have noticed that colonies which suffer stress and trauma, e.g mishandling, poor ventilation, starvation etc, will have increased mortality, increased swarming and lower productivity in the years to come. On the other hand nucs which are given everything they need from an early age will have long life expectancy and high productivity year after year.
What a legend replying to all the comments! Loved this video! Making an Ebook or full tutorial video of him showing everything would be awesome! Loads of knowledge in this video though! Good job (y)
That’s the BEST video I’ve ever seen online. What a top man, David is so humble, he really is a Master beekeeper and an inspiration. Thanks for making this video Gruff 👏👏👏 and huge thanks to David for sharing so much of his knowledge and experience. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ that’s Five Stars from me. PJ Morgan.
Very inspiring, I always thought I was not looking after my bees because I didn’t inspect them every week !!!! I now feel a lot better. And have realised I’ve not had as much swarming . I especially liked many supers being put on in the beginning of spring . I am certainly going do a new programme for my 2025 season even though I only have 8 hives. Thank you for bringing some great videos.x
50 years! The value of his wisdom is priceless. I have two beekeepers near me in Nova Scotia with 4000 hives and 80 years combined knowledge between them. I have copied their practices exactly spot on, which has made beekeeping a lot easier for me. This video and his wisdom are gold for people in your area.
@petermurless6891 George was married to Trina, and her mother passed away this spring. Trina still keeps the bees, she sold the farm to George's sons. I bought cider from George one fall, he ran his leg over with the tractor that day I bought 800lbs of Apples and 30 gallons of cider for $100. The only time I ever met George.
Very interesting, I remember farmers talking about DDT destroyed birds as well as pollinators. And people think pesticides are bad now , David’s right farmers on the whole are very careful re: spraying. Look forward to honey processing presentation. 😊
Thanks, great vid, really good watch. It’s always interesting to see other peoples approaches and David comes across as very chilled with a wealth of knowledge.
Fantastic video, I grew up in powys (Llanfechain) and hearing you say full to the brim except these two frames is about as welsh as you can get. I absolutely love your enthusiasm and passion all the best 👍
Today I put four wet supers back on my friend's hives - he gives me the honey (apart from a few jars) from his bees. He has three hives. They rarely get inspected (perhaps by the bee inspector) they never get treated. Out of the three one didn't make it through this last winter. I do a little clean up of any empty hives in the spring and set them up as a bait hive. He was delighted to witness a swarm moving into his empty box this year. I took five supers crammed full of honey off last week and left two supers on each hive with honey in. One hive this year swarmed - not so many bees in that hive now. I did inspect that hive today and it does have a laying queen. The bees were busy and taking in bright yellow ivy pollen . Two hives now have four supers on (two with honey two empty) and they will stay on now through the winter. If the bees make ivy honey they will keep that for themselves. I will visit one more time this year and fit mouse guards to the three boxes. Then I won't visit again until the spring - so fingers crossed!
That's probably one of the best RUclips videos I've seen true nuts and bolts bee keeping.. I do the same start my nucs one brood no need to feed . Only cost is the frames. I normally sell my nucs thou come spring.. sounds like I should look at changing that part. I'm in Michigan record rain fall past two seasons.. May and September was dry great flows when it's dry . Told my son we just need to keep big units year around so when we finally dry out we are ready. Brilliant video . I treat mine with apivar as well my nucs never pick up a mite load . Once they are bigger I use drone brood removal mostly.. really good tips brilliant video mate
Awesome video. So much to learn from in there. Now the season is finishing I'm going to seriously think about using that technique at one apairy and comparing to standard beekeeping practices. I move mine to different crops. It'll be interesting trying to work that into the system. Cracking video and so much knowledge passed on there. Thank you!
There's some great ideas and methods. With the amount of hives he's dealing with, that's what works for him. Keeping Costs down and production at an optimum. Being in his location will help with an early crop
What an inspiration, my goal is to make a bee business as large as this man's operation. If he does no swarm control, that "2020" queen has probably swarmed, no?
I like this hands off approach, as a first year beekeeper I go into the hive only when I really need to, partly as I’m still a little nervous and still learning. I don’t like interfering too much with them unless I think there is a problem. 👍
@@tonyfeasby1437 my Langstroth hives with five or six supers on never swarm only go in them to take the honey off I think the bees think after putting all that honey in there we’re not gonna leave and leave all that food and hard work behind. but wouldn’t work with Carnellian bees they were just filled two supers and go Only work with Buckfast, bees
Thanks for this fascinating video! Just wondering - 1 brood box, 6 supers - how do you deal with all the bees / where do they go when the supers are cleared?..
The Dadant brood box is big. And they crop the honey this month. Every week there is less bees in the hives now. Different story if the honey was removed a week ago
Superb information here, it goes to show there are many different ways to manage our bees. My Mrs always moans that I inspect through spring/summer every 7-10 days. Maybe I should increase to 14 days in the future. I need some tips on wasps at the minute, they’re doing my 🐝 🐝 heads in. Top top video G man 🐝
It is single brood mangerment. brood box queen excluder and then just load on the boxes does he inspect his bees at all after he pulls for his nucs Thanks
What a cracking video! so the opposite to what I've been told when it comes to adding supers. Be interesting to try that method of just putting a load on, and it would reduce the stress of thinking they've got to go on straight away! The kingspan on the crown boards - does he keep that on year round? Is that something you do as well?
Really enjoyed that video. His method of letting the bees be is fascinating. I was always told the bees do better with less intervention. I know he only uses one frame when making up the nucs, but do you know how many frames he takes from each of the full size colonies?
@gwenyngruffydd such a good method of making increase from a small number of hives. I plan to expand my colonies next year from 2 hives so am intrigued to find out. Thanks
At a Guess it would be x1 as it Says on the Tin ! And take x1 Frame, multiple times, from each Colony, to make up the Number of said x Nucs he needed. And I guess replenish all the 'older' Frames taken, one by one, and add in New ones, on mass, to each Brood Box. And of course : add plenty of Supers, also in a x one visit ! Think the added Queen Cells to each x1 Frame, will not be the 'same Queen' that emerged from said original QC, but that the Colony through years of being 'Healthy' has the Space and the Bee Democracy, to know when : they think "they" should Replace her ! Probably through Supercedure, over that of Swarming. Just my thoughts. (Unless G, or D.W answers otherwise !) 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2024 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 I have had a Horizontal Hive using Jumbo Deep Langstroth Frames, that's been going for x6 Years now, with minimal need to open up, say to 'View' Bee Activity, Strength. To do Checker Boarding in 'New Brood Frames' and take out the Older Frames. Crush & Mash them out. And either use these in Bait Hives, it partially empty Comb !.(Double Deep Nucs with Jumbo Frames in 'Top Box only.) Or Clean the Old Wax out, add New Strung Cross Wires. Add own Wax Starter Strip, and let the Bees decide what Cell Sizes they need, want ! Most Foundation inhibits Drone creation ! Colonies need a healthy number of Drones by default. (Different from a Drone Laying Colony ! Knock those Bees out and add Fresh Brood in BIAS ! (Bees In all Stages. 😉) This Colony has had a Fab Queen (Collected Swarm from elsewhere !) lasted a good x4 Years ! And it 'Re-Queened itself in approx x16 months ago (June' 23) Still going Strong. And each x1 Brood Frame (Standard Langstroth) I Checker Board in, become my New Nucs* ! Also have Cut Out Brood Comb* / Rubber Banded into National* & Warre* Frames. To have Nucs on these Formats too*. Working well so far. Finally, I don't Take lots of Honey & Feed back Sugar to my Bees, eg Warre : take the 'Honey made the this Season, next Spring ! I'm not a Honey Farmer like D.W but think Bee Colony Health & Strength comes from NOT taking every Drop of Honey off them. Am in Wet, Cold, long Winter here in Scotland 🏴 I've only lost x1 Nuc this Year. Started with x5 Over Wintered, above x1 Failed (Split : Wet May : didn't Mate !) Have currently x14 Hives. All bringing in loads of late Flowering Ivy. Making Bees of Winter Physiology. All ready to Survive these Shorter Dark days. . .👍
Hello from Japan, my name is Visal. Could you ask Mr. David to explain about his varroa mites management techniques or his varroa mites treatment schedule in his bee farm? Thank you.
Great video. Two quick questions a) don't the bees in the retirement home try to succeed their old queens and if so does he unretire the colony? B) overwinter feeding does he use fondant block or leave super or feed syrup or is there enough stores in the advent boxes?
The retirement hives do as they please. There is a strong possibility they would have re queened themselves by that point. They will still be very productive but the natural losses are higher there compared to a fresh batch of hives. They feed with invert syrup if the bees need it. There are frame feeders in the brood box.
I think the weirdest thing about all that is the retirement site like to know more about that and what point do the hives get emptied of bees and cleaned and go back the bee yards
The retirement sites get a lot more losses. Colonies swarm or die out leaving an empty box behind. At that point the box is taken back in for cleaning and maintenance with new frames added.
So how many times does each apiary get visited? 3 times? Spring supers on, spring supers off + summer supers on, summer supers off + treatment and feed maybe. Any inspection of the brood nest during the year? Local hobbyists must pick up some swarms with good genetics.
@@gwenyngruffydd So minimizing labour and diesel. No disease checks. No swarm control apart from taking out nuc frames. Must admit mine do better since I've been more hands off but I have to avoid swarming because of neighbours.
Great video. Looking forward to the follow up. One question strikes me though. What does he do with all the bees that he retires? Changes queens? Just waits for them to die?
@@gwenyngruffydd realy? Seems like the complete opposite of the rest of their operation, where they have hives made on the same date, with bees from the same apiaries, with sister queens all made the same year. To have colonies with a whole range of queens, of different ages, some old and some that have requeened themselves. I think I'd be wanting to get them on new wax at the very least after 4 or 5 years of doing their own thing. Are you planning on have the same approach eventually?
Those retired hives won’t live that long. We do a similar method but ours is different because we sell nucs and use the honey hives for brood. I also backfill instead of starting fresh
Inspirational. Many many nuggets in there on many different subjects. Thank you. Particularly Interesting on the minimal intervention and minimal input on the initial start up/nuc production. Suprised in the 25% loss but I love the reality and figures this video shows. Nuts and bolts of a different type of beekeeping. Mr Wainwright I hope will be writing a detailed book! Datants are great if you have huge yields. How old do those queens live??? I am seriously thinking I am doing a lot wrong!! Sponging up this video! 🙌🎯😎✅🤓🐝🧑🌾
Visiting David’s bees over the years has changed my view on beekeeping. You learn a lot after 50 years of doing something…. We are always changing and adapting our methods. That’s how we improve.
Very interesting video, and so much honey in a difficult year. Does David control the drone populations around the nuc yards? We have very few drones that early in the season.
@@gwenyngruffydd so the only nectar available is from wild flowers? In my area (south west Scotland and north Cumbria) I get a good honest crop from the centyof Carlisle (inner city) but very little from out in the countryside.
Excellent video, David is an inspiration and it’s good to see an alternative method of keeping bees. Do you know how he prepares for winter after he’s taken off the supers ie treatment for varroa and then if he feeds or have the bees got enough stores in the brood box to survive the winter. Thanks
I was wondering if David ever treats his bees against Varroa? Here in Holland there are more and more people that don't, but we are mostly hobyists and don't depend on harvest for income. How is that for David?
The do frame rotation by making up nucs in early spring. But yes some of the frames will be hitting that age yes. But once the colony has died the whole box is melted down.
@@gwenyngruffydd okay. Wpuld be great if u made a run down video explaining it all in better detail what the year looks like and what the steps are. Dont darw to jump into it with so many un knowns 😅😬 but love the system idea. And wpyld make for me to have more hives.
Im so Mich going to change my style to this one but would just keep them only 2 years before weeding the weak out and getting new queens in. Make my own so simple to replace. But i onæy have 20 hives but going to get 100 more it seems 😂😂 what about treatment will u ho more into a full management plan David ?
Fantastic video, very interesting…. David talks about giving the bees space but I assume he still runs single brood boxes with QE? And once honey off running single brood or brood and half through winter?
I don't quite understand how they cope with swarming. They just put suppers in and the brood nest is in one Dadan box? There will be a high percentage of swarming in my opinion.
Than you for your comment. Am I right that they hold a new queen for 5 years and don't change her untill she gets in retirement apiary? So every year swarming is increses.
There are so many things that are hard to understand based on "classic" beekeeping. But I hope someone can point me in the right direction. If David said the queen will emerge on the 3rd day, does that mean they were picked up on the 5th day after the cells were capped? Doesn't that risk damaging the queen's wings before they are fully formed? My second issue is about placing a cell directly into a frame. He mentioned the frame should have capped brood, but if there are any young open cells, won't the bees discard the cell and raise their own?
The cells are reaching hatching point by the time David picks them up. The frame he uses will have brood in all stages. Bees will rarely destroy a queen cell if their queen less.
Since I don’t inspect my bees they have gone bonkers and produced loads of honey this year. This is what they do in India and Greece. They couldn’t possibly look at their bees with that number.
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Answers from David Wainwright….
Thankyou everyone who has commentated on our video, thanks for all the encouragement and appreciation! I hope that I have covered most of the points raised in all the questions in these notes below. If there are any further questions please let me know.
Thanks, David
Winter Prep
Winter prep starts when we take the summer crop off the hives in August. We give them a feed of 7 litres syrup and apivar strips. Then in September we give another 1 or 2 feeds as needed in order to have the hive weighing around 45kg going into winter. Anything unusual is checked for signs of queen lessness: drone layers. Then entrance block fitted and a brick on the roof to keep them safe from winter gales.
Varroa Treatment
We use apivar and an oxalic dribble in January. The bees in Wales get only oxalic and do fine for about 10 years when we have to give them another dose of apivar.
Nuc Making
Nuc making follows a tried and tested procedure, with everyone in the team having a different role in the production line.
The nuc boxes are 6 frame Quarti polystyrene, painted various colours, with 4 litre top feeders filled with wood wool for the bees to climb on. Each box has 3 drawn combs and 3 foundation. The combs are sterilised with gamma irradiation (don’t try this at home).
We have made incubator boxes for queen cells which we get from Border Honey. The cells will hatch in 2 or 3 days. We use Buckfast cells in England and our own Welsh lines in Wales.
We go to a site with a team of 4 aiming to make about 40 nucs in 2 hours.
First find the queen of the hive and put her aside on a frame of brood in a secure catcher box.
Nucs are made with 1 frame of bees and sealed brood plus a queen cell. Most hives give 2 nucs.
In the evening, about 7.30, we put all the nucs out in the nursery site, open them up and give them a feed. Then leave alone for a month.
In July check for mating, usually about 75%, frames from duds are put in 6 frame boxes and given to strong hives as a second story for brood.
About half are transferred into hives in the first summer, the rest in the next spring.
The top boxes are very useful in the spring, these nucs go off like rockets, brood rearing increasing at an unbelievable rate.
The Life Cycle of our ‘Bee Herd’
We start the spring with 1,800 honey producers, hopefully.
We then make 1,000 nucs giving us 750 viable young stocks with good laying queens.
We lose about 275 (15%) of the honey producers over the season from swarming, various balls ups etc.
Another 275 poor colonies are removed from the herd by uniting in retirement sites.
Any queenless or failing hives are shaken out when we find them throughout the season, we don’t waste time trying to patch them up, this usually fails.
In the late autumn, hives are shuffled about. The aim is to empty enough sites to accommodate all the nucs in groups of 24. Surplus hives are crowded into retirement sites and united to bring the number to 2,000 going into winter.
Winter losses are about 10% bringing the number back to 1,800.
Retirement Sites
These are larger than normal sites with plenty of stands. The number of hives in an apiary steadily dwindles year by year. These smaller groups are shuffled into bigger groups to create space for the youngsters. When there are too many they are united to reduce the total number. The retirement groups often do well and produce a good crop on average.
Hive Components
We use MD hives, some are old ones from Manley made in the 1930s from very good cedar.
We have 9 frames plus a 7 litre frame feeder in the brood box. This is a similar brood area to a box and a half National. Then a queen excluder and about 5 supers, topped with a correx or cellotex insulation board and a roof. Hive stands are sturdy made from sawn down railway sleepers in a square arrangement with each hive facing a different direction.
Inspections
Each hive gets visited about 6 times in the season.
1- early April check for laying queen, super up, feed if necessary.
2- early May start nuc making
3- late May spring crop
4- June summer super up
5- August summer crop, feed, strips
6- September winter prep, check queen, 2nd feed, entrance block, brick on roof.
Honey Harvests
Most hives are cropped spring and summer.
Some produce a bit of ivy honey and some go up to the heather.
Average Production
Average production is about 50kg per hive. The summer crop is usually a bit better than the spring crop. This year the average will be around 55kg.
As each apiary has a group of hives in a similar point in their life cycle, we weigh the honey from each apiary and get an average for that group. I can learn a lot from these numbers. The best group this year was in West Wales averaging 115kg. The best group ever was also from West Wales at 180kg.
I measure the crop per hive by dividing the total crop by the spring number of hives. This means that high summer losses will drag down this number rather than increase it.
Old Combs
There is a lot of turnover of combs as about 40% of colonies are new nucs. The old combs from duds etc are graded. The best are sent for gamma irradiation. Others are melted down and refitted with foundation.
Building a Healthy Bee Population
I am trying to model my bee herd on a natural bee population as would be found in an undisturbed forest, e.g. Arnot Forest USA or around Kabompo, Zambia or Pettigrew’s skeps. Natural bee populations have a similar mortality and life expectancy to my stock. There is a lot of swarming and lots of empty hives getting occupied each year. Bees are not stressed by regular human interference.
I find that the strength of my stock is slowly increasing each year which I put down to bringing in 40% young healthy, non-stressed stock every season.
I have noticed that colonies which suffer stress and trauma, e.g mishandling, poor ventilation, starvation etc, will have increased mortality, increased swarming and lower productivity in the years to come.
On the other hand nucs which are given everything they need from an early age will have long life expectancy and high productivity year after year.
❤❤❤❤
What a legend replying to all the comments! Loved this video! Making an Ebook or full tutorial video of him showing everything would be awesome!
Loads of knowledge in this video though! Good job (y)
Always amazing to listen to the vets! His approach makes sense if you think abt bees in nature, they fill whatever cavity they occupy, naturally.
That’s the BEST video I’ve ever seen online. What a top man, David is so humble, he really is a Master beekeeper and an inspiration. Thanks for making this video Gruff 👏👏👏 and huge thanks to David for sharing so much of his knowledge and experience. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ that’s Five Stars from me. PJ Morgan.
Thank you ☺️
@ Diolch yn fawr, to you for making these videos. Keep up the good work.
Very inspiring, I always thought I was not looking after my bees because I didn’t inspect them every week !!!! I now feel a lot better. And have realised I’ve not had as much swarming . I especially liked many supers being put on in the beginning of spring . I am certainly going do a new programme for my 2025 season even though I only have 8 hives.
Thank you for bringing some great videos.x
50 years! The value of his wisdom is priceless. I have two beekeepers near me in Nova Scotia with 4000 hives and 80 years combined knowledge between them. I have copied their practices exactly spot on, which has made beekeeping a lot easier for me. This video and his wisdom are gold for people in your area.
100%
I worked for a beekeeper in the Bay of Fundy in 1977. George Foote was the beekeeper.
@petermurless6891 George was married to Trina, and her mother passed away this spring. Trina still keeps the bees, she sold the farm to George's sons. I bought cider from George one fall, he ran his leg over with the tractor that day I bought 800lbs of Apples and 30 gallons of cider for $100. The only time I ever met George.
Great video, will watch it again. Wealth information. Q Question queen excludes used?
David uses plastic ones.
Fascinating video and big thank you to David for showing us his set up. Lots to think about and will be putting extra boxes on next year for sure!
EPIC! Thanks so much to David and Gruff for sharing this.
Glad you approve Steve 😊👍🏻
To see someone who knows what they’re doing makes a fantastic video.
Thank you ☺️
Thank you. An inspiring video and worth trying it out!
Fantastic video, your interview technique is brilliant and you raise many important questions and get the very best out of folk, thank you
Thank you ☺️
Very educational video, lovely to see such calm and productive beez
Very interesting, I remember farmers talking about DDT destroyed birds as well as pollinators. And people think pesticides are bad now , David’s right farmers on the whole are very careful re: spraying. Look forward to honey processing presentation. 😊
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Fan blooming tastic, best inspirational video yet.
Thank you 😊
Some very interesting concepts to try, and incorporate into my small operation. Great video.
Glad you enjoyed it
Best video. Thank you for sharing this. Fantastic.
Great to welcome Wainwright Honey to this year's Conwy Honey Fair for the first time. Lovely to meet you.
Very interesting. I learned something new again.
Glad to hear it 😊
Weekly inspections are such a ball ache I’m going to try half my stock on this method. Thanks for sharing such great knowledge.
Very interesting. It would be interesting to more of his operation
Thanks, great vid, really good watch. It’s always interesting to see other peoples approaches and David comes across as very chilled with a wealth of knowledge.
Thank you ☺️
Fantastic video,
I grew up in powys (Llanfechain) and hearing you say full to the brim except these two frames is about as welsh as you can get.
I absolutely love your enthusiasm and passion all the best 👍
😄👍🏻
Really interesting. Thank you for sharing this. Xx
Fantastic video very interesting best wishes to you both.
Thank you
Today I put four wet supers back on my friend's hives - he gives me the honey (apart from a few jars) from his bees.
He has three hives. They rarely get inspected (perhaps by the bee inspector) they never get treated.
Out of the three one didn't make it through this last winter. I do a little clean up of any empty hives in the spring and set them up as a bait hive. He was delighted to witness a swarm moving into his empty box this year.
I took five supers crammed full of honey off last week and left two supers on each hive with honey in.
One hive this year swarmed - not so many bees in that hive now. I did inspect that hive today and it does have a laying queen. The bees were busy and taking in bright yellow ivy pollen .
Two hives now have four supers on (two with honey two empty) and they will stay on now through the winter. If the bees make ivy honey they will keep that for themselves.
I will visit one more time this year and fit mouse guards to the three boxes. Then I won't visit again until the spring - so fingers crossed!
Inspiring stuff! Thanks both for putting this together.. gruff i need some md boxes!
😆
Very interesting and inspiring.
Great video, well done and thanks. Lots to think about over the winter.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
Very, very interesting. I will give it a try next year as we have 40 Nucs going into winter. Thanks a great video.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
That's probably one of the best RUclips videos I've seen true nuts and bolts bee keeping.. I do the same start my nucs one brood no need to feed . Only cost is the frames. I normally sell my nucs thou come spring.. sounds like I should look at changing that part. I'm in Michigan record rain fall past two seasons.. May and September was dry great flows when it's dry . Told my son we just need to keep big units year around so when we finally dry out we are ready. Brilliant video . I treat mine with apivar as well my nucs never pick up a mite load . Once they are bigger I use drone brood removal mostly.. really good tips brilliant video mate
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the video 😊👍🏻
This video was awesome! Really made me think about my own operarion. Cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Very interesting video. Thanks!
Awesome video. So much to learn from in there. Now the season is finishing I'm going to seriously think about using that technique at one apairy and comparing to standard beekeeping practices. I move mine to different crops. It'll be interesting trying to work that into the system. Cracking video and so much knowledge passed on there. Thank you!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.
Fantastic , presume some of these older hives must have swarmed at some point without him knowing Griff . But hands off approach really interesting
Yes of course, the older the hive the much more likely swarming will happen. By the end a lot of them would have re queened themselves
There's some great ideas and methods. With the amount of hives he's dealing with, that's what works for him.
Keeping Costs down and production at an optimum. Being in his location will help with an early crop
What an inspiration, my goal is to make a bee business as large as this man's operation. If he does no swarm control, that "2020" queen has probably swarmed, no?
Yes there is an element of swarming
That was superb, what a great system and so much to learn from👍
Glad you enjoyed it
I like this hands off approach, as a first year beekeeper I go into the hive only when I really need to, partly as I’m still a little nervous and still learning. I don’t like interfering too much with them unless I think there is a problem. 👍
😊👍🏻
Im so jealous
Great video gruff
Very informative, and you did well on the questions and explanations..
Thank you, really appreciated 😊
Awesome vid. Was looking for that. Was looking for the ultimate swarming solution.
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
@@tonyfeasby1437 my Langstroth hives with five or six supers on never swarm only go in them to take the honey off I think the bees think after putting all that honey in there we’re not gonna leave and leave all that food and hard work behind. but wouldn’t work with Carnellian bees they were just filled two supers and go
Only work with Buckfast, bees
Fantastic video 🎉
Thank you
I got up at 3:00 this morning to find your video took awhile
That’s hardcore!! Hope you enjoyed it 😊
Great video I have learn a lot from it Thank you
😊 glad you enjoyed it
Great video. Thank you.
Thank you ☺️
Very interesting interview. Do they do any disease inspections or mite control treatments?
Yes, they do that in spring and the bee inspectors come round to inspect too.
Yes they currently use Apivar for varroa
I got some of the Welsh Heather so good from Wainwrights Bee Farm.👍🏽❤️❤️❤️🍯🍯🍯🍯
A great video as always. Have you produced any videos showing/describing your version of his methods? Thanks
Not yet
Thanks for this fascinating video! Just wondering - 1 brood box, 6 supers - how do you deal with all the bees / where do they go when the supers are cleared?..
The Dadant brood box is big. And they crop the honey this month. Every week there is less bees in the hives now.
Different story if the honey was removed a week ago
i want o try this next year
Well done 👍🏽❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Superb information here, it goes to show there are many different ways to manage our bees.
My Mrs always moans that I inspect through spring/summer every 7-10 days. Maybe I should increase to 14 days in the future.
I need some tips on wasps at the minute, they’re doing my 🐝 🐝 heads in.
Top top video G man 🐝
Thank you ☺️
I did this video a while ago about wasps
ruclips.net/video/Cq803uG7Phw/видео.htmlsi=K8c_3LDQSkGeoGNi
Thank you G 👍🏻
@@gwenyngruffydd a random question please. I am top feeding sugar water atm. How long should I continue with this? Ty
Until they’re heavy and hard to lift! 💪🏻
Top man G,
Loving the videos and information. I’ll be ordering more bee feed and my calendar again for next year.
Keep up the sterling work 👍🏻
If you want to adapt this NUC method for the southeast US, start earlier (first of April) and feed a second time in our summer dearth.
I think hes just on the swarm register and hopes we all do this so he gets alot of call outs😂😂
I hang on every word he says, what a legacy
😊👍🏻
It is single brood mangerment. brood box queen excluder and then just load on the boxes does he inspect his bees at all after he pulls for his nucs Thanks
Yes that’s correct. They may give them another inspection when they treat them for varroa.
An inspirational man.
Hi how often does he do hive inspection and what does he do when he finds a hive that swarmed thank
Few times a year, but always to do a task. Never inspects for the sake of inspecting.
He leaves the colonies to requeen themselves in that case.
What a cracking video! so the opposite to what I've been told when it comes to adding supers. Be interesting to try that method of just putting a load on, and it would reduce the stress of thinking they've got to go on straight away! The kingspan on the crown boards - does he keep that on year round? Is that something you do as well?
Yes that’s their crown board all year round.
I personally use a mix of normal crownboards. But some with insulation some without
@@gwenyngruffydd do you notice much difference between them?
No, my favourite is the traditional timber crown board. Easy to feed the bees with them
Much appreciated. However I would love to know what his winter setup is like. Does he leave any supers? Does he feed, if so how? etc, etc.
He takes all the supers. And feeds invert syrup. In a frame feeder I think.
What a cracking video. His knowledge must be absolutely unbelievable.. I see they are all on single brood too Griff?
Thanks 😊 Yes everything is on single brood, but the Dadant boxes are huge
I have the same approach to beekeeping.
Without routine health inspections what happens if the hive develops EFB or AFB?
The ministry inspects his bees in high risk areas
Really enjoyed that video. His method of letting the bees be is fascinating. I was always told the bees do better with less intervention. I know he only uses one frame when making up the nucs, but do you know how many frames he takes from each of the full size colonies?
Il check for you
@gwenyngruffydd such a good method of making increase from a small number of hives. I plan to expand my colonies next year from 2 hives so am intrigued to find out. Thanks
At a Guess it would be x1 as it Says on the Tin !
And take x1 Frame, multiple times, from each Colony, to make up the Number of said x Nucs he needed.
And I guess replenish all the 'older' Frames taken, one by one, and add in New ones, on mass, to each Brood Box. And of course : add plenty of Supers, also in a x one visit !
Think the added Queen Cells to each x1 Frame, will not be the 'same Queen' that emerged from said original QC, but that the Colony through years of being 'Healthy' has the Space and the Bee Democracy, to know when : they think "they" should Replace her !
Probably through Supercedure, over that of Swarming. Just my thoughts. (Unless G, or D.W answers otherwise !) 😎
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Happy Beekeeping 2024
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
I have had a Horizontal Hive using Jumbo Deep Langstroth Frames, that's been going for x6 Years now, with minimal need to open up, say to 'View' Bee Activity, Strength. To do Checker Boarding in 'New Brood Frames' and take out the Older Frames. Crush & Mash them out. And either use these in Bait Hives, it partially empty Comb !.(Double Deep Nucs with Jumbo Frames in 'Top Box only.) Or Clean the Old Wax out, add New Strung Cross Wires. Add own Wax Starter Strip, and let the Bees decide what Cell Sizes they need, want ! Most Foundation inhibits Drone creation ! Colonies need a healthy number of Drones by default. (Different from a Drone Laying Colony ! Knock those Bees out and add Fresh Brood in BIAS !
(Bees In all Stages. 😉)
This Colony has had a Fab Queen (Collected Swarm from elsewhere !) lasted a good x4 Years ! And it 'Re-Queened itself in approx x16 months ago (June' 23) Still going Strong. And each x1 Brood Frame (Standard Langstroth)
I Checker Board in, become my New Nucs* ! Also have Cut Out Brood Comb* / Rubber Banded into National* & Warre* Frames. To have Nucs on these Formats too*. Working well so far. Finally, I don't Take lots of Honey & Feed back Sugar to my Bees, eg Warre : take the 'Honey made the this Season, next Spring ! I'm not a Honey Farmer like D.W but think Bee Colony Health & Strength comes from NOT taking every Drop of Honey off them. Am in Wet, Cold, long Winter here in Scotland 🏴 I've only lost x1 Nuc this Year. Started with x5 Over Wintered, above x1 Failed (Split : Wet May : didn't Mate !) Have currently x14 Hives. All bringing in loads of late Flowering Ivy. Making Bees of Winter Physiology. All ready to Survive these Shorter Dark days. . .👍
Hello from Japan, my name is Visal. Could you ask Mr. David to explain about his varroa mites management techniques or his varroa mites treatment schedule in his bee farm? Thank you.
Hi,
He uses Apivar. 👍🏻
@@gwenyngruffydd Thank you. i hope you could ask him to explain more specific. Thank you🙏
Looks like he uses queen excludes over brood and before honey supers. Is that correct? Also when is he applying apivar?😅
Yes queen excluder above brood box. Also apivar goes in once the honey is removed
How does he prep the hives for winter?
Apivar and invert syrup
Great video. Two quick questions a) don't the bees in the retirement home try to succeed their old queens and if so does he unretire the colony? B) overwinter feeding does he use fondant block or leave super or feed syrup or is there enough stores in the advent boxes?
The retirement hives do as they please. There is a strong possibility they would have re queened themselves by that point. They will still be very productive but the natural losses are higher there compared to a fresh batch of hives.
They feed with invert syrup if the bees need it. There are frame feeders in the brood box.
David, after what duration do you harvest these stack of supers?
They extract pretty quickly after pulling
I think the weirdest thing about all that is the retirement site like to know more about that and what point do the hives get emptied of bees and cleaned and go back the bee yards
The retirement sites get a lot more losses. Colonies swarm or die out leaving an empty box behind.
At that point the box is taken back in for cleaning and maintenance with new frames added.
How do does David and his team remove the supers ?
With clearer boards
Does Dvid use a queen excluder at all?
Yes
£1 million shareholders funds, very nice.
So how many times does each apiary get visited? 3 times? Spring supers on, spring supers off + summer supers on, summer supers off + treatment and feed maybe. Any inspection of the brood nest during the year? Local hobbyists must pick up some swarms with good genetics.
Not entirely sure but that’s about right. 3 times comes to mind.
@@gwenyngruffydd So minimizing labour and diesel. No disease checks. No swarm control apart from taking out nuc frames. Must admit mine do better since I've been more hands off but I have to avoid swarming because of neighbours.
They check colony health when they do the nuc.
What an interesting video, full of information. Love the fact he has retirement sites. How come there are no straps or bricks ?
They use a lot of metal lids. But when it’s windy it does cause challenges.
No queen excluder and then abit of brood in second box or how do u do it ?
That’s a nuc. 6 frame on 6 frame. The full size hives get a queen excluder above the brood.
I'm new to bee keeping. How does he stop all his swarms from swarming. Mine would swarm every year no matter how much space they have.
He reduces the chance of swarming by using bees with low swarming tendencies, as well as young queens.
@@gwenyngruffydd thank you
Great video. Looking forward to the follow up. One question strikes me though. What does he do with all the bees that he retires? Changes queens? Just waits for them to die?
They live out their days producing honey. Or get united with another retiring colony to keep numbers down.
@@gwenyngruffydd realy? Seems like the complete opposite of the rest of their operation, where they have hives made on the same date, with bees from the same apiaries, with sister queens all made the same year. To have colonies with a whole range of queens, of different ages, some old and some that have requeened themselves. I think I'd be wanting to get them on new wax at the very least after 4 or 5 years of doing their own thing. Are you planning on have the same approach eventually?
Those retired hives won’t live that long.
We do a similar method but ours is different because we sell nucs and use the honey hives for brood.
I also backfill instead of starting fresh
Inspirational. Many many nuggets in there on many different subjects. Thank you.
Particularly Interesting on the minimal intervention and minimal input on the initial start up/nuc production. Suprised in the 25% loss but I love the reality and figures this video shows.
Nuts and bolts of a different type of beekeeping. Mr Wainwright I hope will be writing a detailed book!
Datants are great if you have huge yields.
How old do those queens live??? I am seriously thinking I am doing a lot wrong!!
Sponging up this video! 🙌🎯😎✅🤓🐝🧑🌾
Visiting David’s bees over the years has changed my view on beekeeping.
You learn a lot after 50 years of doing something…. We are always changing and adapting our methods. That’s how we improve.
Very interesting video, and so much honey in a difficult year.
Does David control the drone populations around the nuc yards? We have very few drones that early in the season.
Do you think one of those old colonies kept tight on a box of drone foundation would improve the mating success?
No i don’t think so. He uses the local natural population.
It could do. Or would definitely help if you wanted to narrow down the gene pool
Very interesting. It would be nice to know what flowers he's relying on for the honey. I'm guessing oil seed rape?
The plains are surrounded by wildflowers
@@gwenyngruffydd so the only nectar available is from wild flowers? In my area (south west Scotland and north Cumbria) I get a good honest crop from the centyof Carlisle (inner city) but very little from out in the countryside.
@Brennan22able there are arable crops yes. But not on the plain itself because it’s an army training ground.
Excellent video, David is an inspiration and it’s good to see an alternative method of keeping bees. Do you know how he prepares for winter after he’s taken off the supers ie treatment for varroa and then if he feeds or have the bees got enough stores in the brood box to survive the winter. Thanks
He uses apivar and feeds the bees if they need it
I was wondering if David ever treats his bees against Varroa? Here in Holland there are more and more people that don't, but we are mostly hobyists and don't depend on harvest for income. How is that for David?
David currently uses apivar
Da iawn wedi joio hwna!! 👌👏
Diolch 😊👍🏻👍🏻
Does the brood box stay on same frame until the end 4-5 years same frames ? Or ?
The do frame rotation by making up nucs in early spring.
But yes some of the frames will be hitting that age yes. But once the colony has died the whole box is melted down.
@@gwenyngruffydd okay. Wpuld be great if u made a run down video explaining it all in better detail what the year looks like and what the steps are. Dont darw to jump into it with so many un knowns 😅😬 but love the system idea. And wpyld make for me to have more hives.
@@gwenyngruffydd thabks for taking time to answer 🙏🤗
Im so Mich going to change my style to this one but would just keep them only 2 years before weeding the weak out and getting new queens in. Make my own so simple to replace. But i onæy have 20 hives but going to get 100 more it seems 😂😂 what about treatment will u ho more into a full management plan David ?
David currently uses apivar
Could u dive further in feeding treatment so on so if u want to copy this method there would be less variables ❤ thanks for this insight 💪💪
David feeds invert syrup once the honey is removed
Would love to know more about his IPM. I see the Apivar Treatment, but if no weekly inspections (supertime excluded)......
Yes, I noticed that. He must have shares in Apivar!
Apivar is their current treatment method
Does he take the time to rotate the empty frames into the middle to try and get them filled?
No I don’t think so
Fantastic video, very interesting…. David talks about giving the bees space but I assume he still runs single brood boxes with QE? And once honey off running single brood or brood and half through winter?
That’s correct QE on everything, single broods all the way through I think.
Does David use queen excluders or just let the bees use the boxes as they want?
Queen excluders on everything
What do you do to stop the hives being stolen?? I am guessing these plots are rented?
You just need to put them in safe places
When he harvests the honey does he feed or with such huge crops leave them a super?
He feeds invert if the bees need it. They take all the supers.
There is plenty of storage in the brood box for the winter feed. 😊
Does he use queen excluders?
Yes on everything
Is a single national brood box big enough do this
I think so….but a bigger box would be better
I don't quite understand how they cope with swarming. They just put suppers in and the brood nest is in one Dadan box? There will be a high percentage of swarming in my opinion.
They relay on good young queens with low swarming instincts. That’s why they make up so many nucs.
Than you for your comment. Am I right that they hold a new queen for 5 years and don't change her untill she gets in retirement apiary? So every year swarming is increses.
On the older hives yes, natural mortality also increases with time. But is drastically reduced on the sites with new hives.
It's clear! Thak you!
There are so many things that are hard to understand based on "classic" beekeeping. But I hope someone can point me in the right direction. If David said the queen will emerge on the 3rd day, does that mean they were picked up on the 5th day after the cells were capped? Doesn't that risk damaging the queen's wings before they are fully formed?
My second issue is about placing a cell directly into a frame. He mentioned the frame should have capped brood, but if there are any young open cells, won't the bees discard the cell and raise their own?
The cells are reaching hatching point by the time David picks them up.
The frame he uses will have brood in all stages. Bees will rarely destroy a queen cell if their queen less.
Queen excluders remain on or off?
Off once the honey is taken
Since I don’t inspect my bees they have gone bonkers and produced loads of honey this year. This is what they do in India and Greece. They couldn’t possibly look at their bees with that number.
Glad you’ve had a great year!
Be hard to stack that tall in East Texas with small hive beetles
Luckily we haven’t got small hive beetles
Wonderful to see less input is working fine.
Bigger is better 😂😂😂
Go big or go home, I’m still home I guess