1) How long do you give a queen before you judge her laying? 2:35 2) Most people need to dry their honey, but how can one increase the moisture content of honey? 7:52 3) What is the latest time of year you would recommend a split? 17:55 4) Are Saskatraz bees known to bite the feet of varroa destructor mites? 26:14 5) I found that my bees had been exposed to poisoning of some sort. I also found my queen died. Could a queen get poisoned? 30:18 6) I have a hot hive, ordered in a queen. 16 days later hardly any brood. Only 2 mites after wash. Any idea on what this could be, or how to fix it? 36:00 7) The thought of collecting bees for a sugar shake or alcohol wash is daunting. Any tips on how I can mitigate the risk of killing the queen? 41:04 8) Can you use a "green" drone frame above the queen excluder? Will the bees fill it with honey? 45:08 9) What honey refractometer would you recommend? 46:58 10) I collected a swarm, I put them into a box with drawn comb. A couple of days later I check it out and they are gone. What did I do wrong? 50:08
Hey Randy!! The same to you and your awesome family :) Annette is in the pond cutting out invasive weeds.... um, I have editing to do (';'), or I'd be right out there with her...
🛫📖🛬 Mr. Dunn, Your opening photography is so beautiful. My recent 10 frame brood box acquisition is so full of bees and new bees that I had to quickly add another 10 frame apartment upstairs for the girls. They are bringing in so much pollen that it astounds me. They work all the way up until dark. Btw: I am still working and trying to feed them sugar water but have eased up on it significantly because of the influx of resource. You will never know how valuable your knowledge has been to me. I am now at day #45 of being a beekeeper and these lovely ladies have yet to try and sample my DNA 🙈. I really enjoyed the video of you working with your grandson and teaching him define art of beekeeping. You are such a gifted teacher. We are being blessed here on the North Carolina Virginia border with daily rain and temperatures from the high 80s down to the mid-70s. I also might mention that when I added the 2nd 10 frame brood box all of the bearding stopped within 15 minutes. they were so cramped that I could not imagine they could get one more bee inside and they had become quite "hot." I'm in the zone 7A. what would be the latest you would recommend that I do a split?? Thanks for everything Mr. Dunn 🙏 Cordially/Best Wishes 📖🛐🐆
Sounds like things are really going your way, I'm happy to have been a good resource for you. Just remember that if you split your colony and all goes as planned, you'll not be seeing new workers for around 30 days. So I use the final nectar flow in my area as my guide on that decision. They need time to build population and resources for wintering. You're in a much miler climate, so you can probably get away with more than I can :)
I’m so glad I found your pages , your content is the most abundant, most educational, the most resourceful, most entertaining, other than kamon and the weaver family there is no need to look anywhere else on the web! And I come from a family of veterans so that makes it even better ! Thank you for your service! My grandfather and great grandfather were navy also but here we are army and Air Force! Go 178th ! And 331 trs Wolfpack!! Woot woot! I’m your new biggest fan and when my wife lightens up my load with all of these horse stall and chicken and quail chores I can focus on rekindling my love for bees 🐝 so much has changed since I have worked bees with my uncle , varroa mites we’re fairly new when I was a young whipbee snapper , the bees we had were very strong and great producers , reiterating that so much has changed I’m practically starting over but I’m so excited about it , the 12 year old david wants to run right out and round up some bees in July , but the 55 year old david knows that preparing well for spring of 2023 is the better option ! I think I’m going to start out with 3 nucs of weavers and I’m going to trap a swarm to see how the locals survive and produce. None the less I have to prepare and make sure the bees are happy and healthy and I stay safe and healthy with this allergy, I will definitely miss the summer days of tending bees with just a vail , now I will be suited and wrapped with duct tape 😋 I’m watching your content while I’m building horse stalls 😛
Thanks David! Sounds like you have a great legacy of service in your family. My sons all joined, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. I think I set a tough example for them, but truth is that I just landed in the right place at the right time when I was in the Navy. The underwater programs I was involved in no longer exist, all contracted out these days. The world of service and beekeeping have both changed :)
@@FrederickDunn yes they have changed, I used to have a shore home at solomons island so I did my share of cold beers with the navy fellas stationed right there by St. Mary’s bridge in Calvert county 😛 I met lots of good men and women stationed there and even used to take them out in my boat when they were on R&R . Now my legacy is to keep my Uncle Parks’ dream of bees alive and get my daughter interested! If I didn’t have so many other things going on at the farm I’m sure I could have successfully started a couple colony’s this year but I have to make sure my barn is finished and 6 stalls done for the horses and my greenhouse built . Then it’s pouring stamped concrete walkways and making wildflower landscape and planting bee friendly structure for the bees and a bee shed to safely store all of my bee supplies, I want to start with 3 - 7 frame flo hives and 3 10 deep Hoover hives , and now that there is a mite issue in bee keeping which was non existent in the 80’s when i stopped helping with the bees and started having beer with the navy and marine buddies lol , but now I have to prepare for things that weren’t a threat , I really like your stories of success with the weaver bees so I’m going to try the weaver line , and I will experiment with the swarms and try the old school method that we used to do and and see how I can work a local endogenous swarm of trapped bees . I really like the concept of the flohives so we will see what happens when I do 50/50 in hive types/styles . It’s important that I try to be proactive in the bees care, and genetics are important and good health genetics because we are basically organic here and use no chemicals , I’ve successfully managed to run off and kill tons of fleas, chiggers , termites and beetles with essential oils like thyme and cedar oils and other irritating oils to the bugs , but I know I will have to use more caution when the bees are here and get my program of pest control in sync with my new little friends:) start with good bees and take it from there !
I hope I am asking a question in the right place! (And I appreciate you and all you do so much! I especially enjoy your camera work and all as a retired commercial photographer - you do good work!) Background: 3 colonies, 2 in horizontal hives all on leftover metal from a pole barn build for ground cover. I keep this ground cover pretty clean to help monitor what is going on. The two in the horizontals both have new queens this year. One was as a split with a purchased queen, one was a swarm. I will not be harvesting anything from these two colonies this year. Also, the dearth has started and we are 30 days or more without rain. I AM feeding with in hive feeders and they have a several watering holes near by that have water. 2 natural ponds and one bowl I keep full nearer the garden. My question is concerning the colony with the purchased queen. Its the smallest colony, only about 12 frames of brood/resource/empty frames. As of my last inspection, (July 9) they looked good. Nothing unusual, no emergency cells, Swarm cells or anything. On the morning of the 11th or 12th, there were a lot of bees doing what looked like an orientation flight. Cool. Last night as I walked through my apiary, I noticed a lot of dead and dying bees on the metal ground covering. I gathered some up in a baggy to view them more closely and did not see any tongues sticking out, or deformed wings or anything. Some of the bees were still fuzzy. So, I opened the hive up this morning, and all looked as it did on the 9th. Calm, and really not defensive at all. I barely had to smoke them! As I went through frame by frame, I heard a bee screaming. You know the sound. I found a small ball of bees balling a queen! I put my feather (instead of a bee brush) and she climbed on it - with those attacking bees going with her. I moved the ball to the top of the inner cover so I could get a better look. 3 workers were balling a small queen. I caught them in a clip but in trying to separate them and only get the queen, she ran back under the cover. I panicked, and thought 'great! I need a new queen.' But then I continued the inspection. The queen I saw WAS NOT the queen installed in April. I found HER, walking around on the next frame, minding her own business with her attendants and laying eggs. No balling. No angry bees. I felt better about it all, but I cannot for the life of me figure how another queen got into the hive, and does that have anything to do with all the dead bees underneath? My question is, basically, WTF?? Help!
It actually could have something to do with the dead bees as they may have attempted to protect that virgin queen. You found exactly what normally occurrs when they are attempting to "cook" a virgin queen, that they have another preference within the hive. I think you solved your own mystery, and what you observed may happen more often than many will ever know. You were just in the right place at the right time. Thanks for sharing that story.
OMG DROIGIANGBE on RUclips gave me some herbal to be taking and I told him no I’ll not, because I hated taking herbal medicine when I won’t not see cure for the purpose. After I got home I started getting worried searching for strong advice and I found valid natural treatment online lot people says they got herpes cure from droigiangbe 💯
OMG DROIGIANGBE on RUclips gave me some herbal to be taking and I told him no I’ll not, because I hated taking herbal medicine when I won’t not see cure for the purpose. After I got home I started getting worried searching for strong advice and I found valid natural treatment online lot people says they got herpes cure from droigiangbe 💯
Hello Mr. Dunn my father and I picked up our first Nucleus of Russian Bees from Meyer Bees in Minooka Illinois on Saturday July 2nd. We were a little nervous since we our first time beekeepers, but all went well we didn't get stung and located the queen pretty quickly the yellow dot helped us locate her. I was surprised when I picked up the box of bees and frames from Meyers they were a lot heavier than I thought they would be. My father and I watch every video you do, thank you for all the knowledge you have shared and keep up the great work. P.S if our Bees end up dying we will just blame you. J/K
Fred, I was wondering if the studies on mites versus those that are doing well against mites, track such figures on if the colonies have year round pollen patties or not? Part of why I ask this is that I'm in an area that often has dips in the flow and parts of the year with resource scarcity. So I'd been wondering how much of the problems on mites could be malnutrition creating the opening for mites. Thank you very much for your channel. Very interesting to listen to.
Bees that are strongly nourished certainly have more energy and vitality when facing any challenges, disease or mite related. Year round pollen patties doesn't sound very sustainable, but I have zero experience with that method of boosting bee nutrition. I have a case of Hive Alive Pollen Patties and haven't used any of them. This is a great question for Randy Oliver :)
My first season I wasn't expecting much honey with all my colonies being new. Turns out living across from an organic farmer makes for a good sustained food source for my bees. I know bummer problem to have, not sure what I'm gona do with a couple hundred pounds of honey. Ty for the great Q & A Fred, have a wonderful Lords Day.
There are definitely times/years when brand new swarms even produce a huge surplus of honey. Like real estate, location location location... I'm glad things are going so well for you :)
All of my hives are in sun. Particularly valuable when it comes to a good southern exposure in winter. Landing boards facing south by southeast are performing better through winter.
Thanks for answering my question. The queen getting too hot in transit is what I was thinking too. I am going to do what you said and take a queen from a resource hive I have and install her.
Fab episode , loving those pics and videos at the start as well , uk 🇬🇧 is going into a heatwave this week and very dry everywhere , have a great weekend Fred 👍🏻
Fred I planted 5 lbs of cosmos seed this spring after hearing you talk about them. Well looks like all the seeds grew they are almost in full bloom If the bees don’t like them it’s ok because my wife loves the way they look . Will they reseed themselves very well ? Or should I just plant again? There are honey bees on the sulfur cosmos early morning. The butterfly’s love them too. Thanks for the recommendation
I think you have to replant them each year. I replanted this year and left some of last year's cosmos plots untouched and only a few returned. Annuals, but as you say, great for everyone including the bees.
Fred you mentioned using hive alive fondant and I think you said you would attach a link. I didn’t see the link and went to the site but confused by the various products. Would you please list which product you used? I love you videos, they are so informative and accurate.
The honey I took off this spring measured at 13% on the nose. We have traceable QA test equipment at work so was able to challenge my tester against it. I was surprised how close it was since it was a really cheap model. Was the honey ever slow but what a lovely floral flavor. My first honey harvest and I was shocked how much better it was than store bought.
Mug up, or tumbler up At the Dunn's. Refractometers perfect timing. I was looking in my bottom tray and saw quite a few fast, very small insects running around. They are much smaller than Varroa. What might they be and are they bad? The number of colonies I can have in my backyard without negatively effecting native pollinators is a concern, how do I know? Thanks Fred
There are often lots of little scavengers in bottom trays of hives. They don't access the main hive interior so I consider them a non-problem. BUT, they are very interesting to observe and figure out.
GREAT INFO AS USUAL,,,,your coffee cup made a great top for my Hoover hive,,i used gutter silicone to secure it to the top and made a sealed top cover so wintertime freeze wont crack it,,,,,LOOKS NICE ,,,,,i will be buyin more for my coffee an 3 other hives🐝
Hi Fred. David here from Brisbane Australia. The mites are in NSW south of Brisbane. I have everything crossed that they will not come to Brisbane. My question is, here in Brisbane we don’t have very cold winters so the bees fly all year round. What would be the best time to treat for mites. Winter when the brood is slowing or summer when the mites would be at their higher numbers? Very worried about how the mites can be keeper under control. David.
HI David, the goal would be to prevent the mites from reaching higher numbers. Zones that don't really have a cold winter do tend to have periods of the year when resources are slim and brood is at its lowest. You can take advantage of low brood periods to treat with (something your Gov't approves of) something like Oxalic Acid Vaporization. Keeping the mite numbers down is key as the bees will then also have low virus loads from those mites. It will be interesting to see what treatment protocols are going to be approved there. Lots to watch for.
At Gary? in Sacramento CA, question #7. Hey Gary, I hope that was the name. I am also in Sacramento and am interested in talking to other beekeepers in the area without having to join The Sacramento BeeKeeper Association. I am in South Sac. and thought we could compare honey flows or just experiences.
Per your brood break dateline, could those dates be used for a early fall month? Our flow super is on, so we don’t want to do a brood break and oxalic acid treatment yet. We did 3 treatments 7 days apart before putting our super on.
Hi Fred, would you be correcting wonky honeycomb between two foundationless end frames at this point in the year? Can I wait to flatten that or add a foundation frame in Spring? I think my bees only have about 2 more weeks of good foraging here in Quebec City. I'm in zone 4 too.
I would leave it, it's wonky to us, but the bees have them arranged for efficiency in the hive. Unless they are prohibiting some function that you need to do I'd let it be for winter.
Here where I live, it's not too late, we have plenty of continuing forage. This also depends upon hive strength, but if you did it this week I think you're ok for them recovering by fall and having enough honey for wintering. If BeeScape.org shows that you have a good late season nectar flow, then sure.
@Frederick Dunn I have a question. I know what to do when a hive is honey bound. What do you do when you have a hive that is pollen bound? I have a hive that has second brood box almost filled with honey. It also has a medium honey super that is not full. I took out three deep frames and they were 50% capped and spun them out (18%). Put the frame back in the hive for queen to lay in. Bottom brood box has six frames packed with bee bread. How can I fix it?
I think that's a good problem to have in some cases. Six frames of pollen! Wow. I think I would provision another hive with one of those frames and do a swap with one that doesn't have so much pollen. If none of them need that, then I'd pull what appear to be the oldest and scrape them out. You can also put a pollen trap on the front of that hive and reduce the incoming pollen so they begin to use up what they have. Just tossing ideas out there ruclips.net/video/UJcBS-zgWBk/видео.html
Fred I always love your channel, though I’ve got a dilemma, I live on a small island with a hundred precent apis melifera iberencis apiculture, and noticed that my new carni queens population go from grey go darker every year. Is that because the local drones has a influence after the nuptial flights and how do I manage this?
I suspect that is in fact the reason for the dilution of your stock. The best you can do is retain strong colonies and allow them to produce a healthy drone population. This way your genetics are getting out there and mixing with other colonies in the region (island). The long game is that the strongest genetics will eventually become more prevalent.
Hi Fred, great Q&A. I was wondering if you could compare and contrast double deep brood vs single deep brood boxes. I'm curious in your opinion. I am in SE PA in Bucks County. Thanks, Emil
I use Single Deeps with a Medium on that, on some occassions I have had them brood up into the medium and I'll have to add a second medium to establish the honey-bridge that keeps the queen from laying above that. So for me, single deep brood works fine.
While using paramoth for storing honey supers and drawn comb, is it safe to store inside? I plan to store them in my basement in a large trash bag. Thanks
When the queen momentarily goes out of brood production. Normally that occurs at the end of November here, and she resumes egg production soon after that for the spring build up and continuing with new brood on a smaller scale. We can inspire a brood break so that the colony becomes void of new open brood for a period to hold back capped brood long enough to reduce the population in the hive and provide opportunity to reduce mites.
Sorry a typo or auto correction. I attended a zoom meeting with the presidents of the beekeeping clubs in NY. Scott McArt from the Dyce Lab attended. He told us that they were testing for pesticides and beekeepers could send bee samples. The fees were low. Perhaps $90. You did your master beekeeping course at Cornell. I suspect you know of him. By the way if you haven’t heard Emma Walters as moved to Nebraska.
I mentioned that it's 82 f here and that it's 28 celsius... more specifically 27.77 celsius. Was that incorrect? I'm happy to learn more if there is something incorrect there.
Well Fred I stated watching that shout out video and I discovered a problem and it has to do with evolution and natural selection. If evolution is true everything is the results of evolution and natural selection and we can’t fault anyone or anything because we evolved to the point where we naturally cause some species to thrive and others to become extinct. If evolution is true it doesn’t care about anyone or anything. It’s just a push towards survival of the fittest. If something is lost you evolve to cope with the changes. I have no faith in evolution but, you are free to believe anything you want. I’ll continue watching your suggestion but, it will be a hard sale to get me to believe in evolution. We don’t know what we don’t know. How can we effectively guess millions of years when there are literally millions of variables to count for. It takes a lot of faith to believe that. When you follow evaluation you have to have faith in the possibilities no matter how much time will transpire, faithful evolution will make a way. Science or just another fairy tale?
Hi Timothy, I have no idea what you're referring to regarding my position regarding Evolution? My Shout-Out in this video was far from an endorsement of the content of the video. To the contrary, I found the presentation to be in striking opposition to the channel that hosts it. The purpose of the shout-out in this case was to ask what others thought. I don't beleive that I mention anywhere that I agree with the presenter. But thank you for the statement you make "you are fre to believe anything you want". Thank you for that.
@@FrederickDunn no Fred , not you. I was talking about the German speaker of that event. And no doubt he got in because of his bee knowledge and his past studies. It was interesting telling everyone that he did not want to offend anyone by being offensive towards everyone that or who would even think about keeping bees. He was truly one sided in dishonest in his approach. I guess one would have to treat like a fish dinner and just pick out the bones. I like what he said about tree cavities and skeps but, can’t believe that skeps and tree hollows are near equal. Skeps are used as production colonies for increased expansions. There are always wolves in sheep’s clothing that want to change established groups. They don’t start their own . They tare down others “ I don’t want to offend anyone “! Sorry to rant Fred. I enjoyed your recent observation hives video and am excited about your new Layens additions.
@@timothymitchell8310 Ohhhhh I thought you were up in my grill about my recommending the video and thought I endorsed his position. Thanks Timothy! :) I appreciate that you cleared that up :)
Regarding the guy that published the study on commercial beekeeping being harmful... that's one of those guys thats swimming upstream. There's certain types of people that don't want to help society and just destroy people and take away their industry. People who are contrary, or when they see someone doing something good their motivation is to oppose it. Opposers. Sometimes people will oppose something good for no reason. Why would someone decide they want to oppose someone being self sufficient and trying to support themselves? Agriculture by nature is beneficial more than harmful. Starvation is harmful. People need to do something with their lives. There's nothing good about such behavior on being an opposer. People who act with enmity towards others. Enmity is bad, it means no positive feeling towards someone, like you'd want to see them starve or die for no reason. Therefore his study is a bunch of nonsense. Also socialists use such people to come in and subvert and conquer. Then they rebuild after old regimes are taken out, economically first. Then they sieze fallen industry after a government is troubled enough. Don't believe nonsense. And the fact that they let such a harmful person try to indoctrinate people to stop beekeeping and to oppose their industry, means you have selfish people who are jealous and envious of others participating in their own industry and want to get rid of rivals. They should never have let someone like that into the national honey show. And believe it or not there are people who can't handle other people working in beekeeping with them. I've run into this a number of times and it baffles me how people can treat their fellow man stupidly. There's people who want to stop all farming and instead raise people of lab grown meat, for example. They don't have good intentions, but actually want to subvert industries and then take away self sufficiency with people being dependent on products that they are unable to make themselves. Monopoly. ... On a side note, I'm seeing native pollinators go up not down in my area by having honey bees/ apis mellifera around. I hadn't seen bumble bees in years in my area. Then after having honey bees around they came back.
1) How long do you give a queen before you judge her laying? 2:35
2) Most people need to dry their honey, but how can one increase the moisture content of honey? 7:52
3) What is the latest time of year you would recommend a split? 17:55
4) Are Saskatraz bees known to bite the feet of varroa destructor mites? 26:14
5) I found that my bees had been exposed to poisoning of some sort. I also found my queen died. Could a queen get poisoned? 30:18
6) I have a hot hive, ordered in a queen. 16 days later hardly any brood. Only 2 mites after wash. Any idea on what this could be, or how to fix it? 36:00
7) The thought of collecting bees for a sugar shake or alcohol wash is daunting. Any tips on how I can mitigate the risk of killing the queen? 41:04
8) Can you use a "green" drone frame above the queen excluder? Will the bees fill it with honey? 45:08
9) What honey refractometer would you recommend? 46:58
10) I collected a swarm, I put them into a box with drawn comb. A couple of days later I check it out and they are gone. What did I do wrong? 50:08
Happy Friday Fred. Enjoy that dearth. 🤒
Hey Randy!! The same to you and your awesome family :) Annette is in the pond cutting out invasive weeds.... um, I have editing to do (';'), or I'd be right out there with her...
🛫📖🛬
Mr. Dunn,
Your opening photography is so beautiful.
My recent 10 frame brood box acquisition is so full of bees and new bees that I had to quickly add another 10 frame apartment upstairs for the girls.
They are bringing in so much pollen that it astounds me.
They work all the way up until dark.
Btw: I am still working and trying to feed them sugar water but have eased up on it significantly because of the influx of resource.
You will never know how valuable your knowledge has been to me.
I am now at day #45 of being a beekeeper and these lovely ladies have yet to try and sample my DNA 🙈.
I really enjoyed the video of you working with your grandson and teaching him define art of beekeeping.
You are such a gifted teacher.
We are being blessed here on the North Carolina Virginia border with daily rain and temperatures from the high 80s down to the mid-70s.
I also might mention that when I added the 2nd 10 frame brood box all of the bearding stopped within 15 minutes.
they were so cramped that I could not imagine they could get one more bee inside and they had become quite "hot."
I'm in the zone 7A.
what would be the latest you would recommend that I do a split??
Thanks for everything Mr. Dunn 🙏
Cordially/Best Wishes
📖🛐🐆
Sounds like things are really going your way, I'm happy to have been a good resource for you. Just remember that if you split your colony and all goes as planned, you'll not be seeing new workers for around 30 days. So I use the final nectar flow in my area as my guide on that decision. They need time to build population and resources for wintering. You're in a much miler climate, so you can probably get away with more than I can :)
I’m so glad I found your pages , your content is the most abundant, most educational, the most resourceful, most entertaining, other than kamon and the weaver family there is no need to look anywhere else on the web! And I come from a family of veterans so that makes it even better ! Thank you for your service! My grandfather and great grandfather were navy also but here we are army and Air Force! Go 178th ! And 331 trs Wolfpack!! Woot woot! I’m your new biggest fan and when my wife lightens up my load with all of these horse stall and chicken and quail chores I can focus on rekindling my love for bees 🐝 so much has changed since I have worked bees with my uncle , varroa mites we’re fairly new when I was a young whipbee snapper , the bees we had were very strong and great producers , reiterating that so much has changed I’m practically starting over but I’m so excited about it , the 12 year old david wants to run right out and round up some bees in July , but the 55 year old david knows that preparing well for spring of 2023 is the better option ! I think I’m going to start out with 3 nucs of weavers and I’m going to trap a swarm to see how the locals survive and produce. None the less I have to prepare and make sure the bees are happy and healthy and I stay safe and healthy with this allergy, I will definitely miss the summer days of tending bees with just a vail , now I will be suited and wrapped with duct tape 😋 I’m watching your content while I’m building horse stalls 😛
Thanks David! Sounds like you have a great legacy of service in your family. My sons all joined, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. I think I set a tough example for them, but truth is that I just landed in the right place at the right time when I was in the Navy. The underwater programs I was involved in no longer exist, all contracted out these days. The world of service and beekeeping have both changed :)
@@FrederickDunn yes they have changed, I used to have a shore home at solomons island so I did my share of cold beers with the navy fellas stationed right there by St. Mary’s bridge in Calvert county 😛 I met lots of good men and women stationed there and even used to take them out in my boat when they were on R&R . Now my legacy is to keep my Uncle Parks’ dream of bees alive and get my daughter interested! If I didn’t have so many other things going on at the farm I’m sure I could have successfully started a couple colony’s this year but I have to make sure my barn is finished and 6 stalls done for the horses and my greenhouse built . Then it’s pouring stamped concrete walkways and making wildflower landscape and planting bee friendly structure for the bees and a bee shed to safely store all of my bee supplies, I want to start with 3 - 7 frame flo hives and 3 10 deep Hoover hives , and now that there is a mite issue in bee keeping which was non existent in the 80’s when i stopped helping with the bees and started having beer with the navy and marine buddies lol , but now I have to prepare for things that weren’t a threat , I really like your stories of success with the weaver bees so I’m going to try the weaver line , and I will experiment with the swarms and try the old school method that we used to do and and see how I can work a local endogenous swarm of trapped bees . I really like the concept of the flohives so we will see what happens when I do 50/50 in hive types/styles . It’s important that I try to be proactive in the bees care, and genetics are important and good health genetics because we are basically organic here and use no chemicals , I’ve successfully managed to run off and kill tons of fleas, chiggers , termites and beetles with essential oils like thyme and cedar oils and other irritating oils to the bugs , but I know I will have to use more caution when the bees are here and get my program of pest control in sync with my new little friends:) start with good bees and take it from there !
I hope I am asking a question in the right place! (And I appreciate you and all you do so much! I especially enjoy your camera work and all as a retired commercial photographer - you do good work!)
Background: 3 colonies, 2 in horizontal hives all on leftover metal from a pole barn build for ground cover. I keep this ground cover pretty clean to help monitor what is going on. The two in the horizontals both have new queens this year. One was as a split with a purchased queen, one was a swarm. I will not be harvesting anything from these two colonies this year. Also, the dearth has started and we are 30 days or more without rain. I AM feeding with in hive feeders and they have a several watering holes near by that have water. 2 natural ponds and one bowl I keep full nearer the garden.
My question is concerning the colony with the purchased queen. Its the smallest colony, only about 12 frames of brood/resource/empty frames. As of my last inspection, (July 9) they looked good. Nothing unusual, no emergency cells, Swarm cells or anything. On the morning of the 11th or 12th, there were a lot of bees doing what looked like an orientation flight. Cool.
Last night as I walked through my apiary, I noticed a lot of dead and dying bees on the metal ground covering. I gathered some up in a baggy to view them more closely and did not see any tongues sticking out, or deformed wings or anything. Some of the bees were still fuzzy.
So, I opened the hive up this morning, and all looked as it did on the 9th. Calm, and really not defensive at all. I barely had to smoke them!
As I went through frame by frame, I heard a bee screaming. You know the sound. I found a small ball of bees balling a queen! I put my feather (instead of a bee brush) and she climbed on it - with those attacking bees going with her. I moved the ball to the top of the inner cover so I could get a better look. 3 workers were balling a small queen. I caught them in a clip but in trying to separate them and only get the queen, she ran back under the cover. I panicked, and thought 'great! I need a new queen.' But then I continued the inspection. The queen I saw WAS NOT the queen installed in April. I found HER, walking around on the next frame, minding her own business with her attendants and laying eggs. No balling. No angry bees. I felt better about it all, but I cannot for the life of me figure how another queen got into the hive, and does that have anything to do with all the dead bees underneath?
My question is, basically, WTF?? Help!
It actually could have something to do with the dead bees as they may have attempted to protect that virgin queen. You found exactly what normally occurrs when they are attempting to "cook" a virgin queen, that they have another preference within the hive. I think you solved your own mystery, and what you observed may happen more often than many will ever know. You were just in the right place at the right time. Thanks for sharing that story.
OMG DROIGIANGBE on RUclips gave me some herbal to be taking and I told him no I’ll not, because I hated taking herbal medicine when I won’t not see cure for the purpose. After I got home I started getting worried searching for strong advice and I found valid natural treatment online lot people says they got herpes cure from droigiangbe
💯
OMG DROIGIANGBE on RUclips gave me some herbal to be taking and I told him no I’ll not, because I hated taking herbal medicine when I won’t not see cure for the purpose. After I got home I started getting worried searching for strong advice and I found valid natural treatment online lot people says they got herpes cure from droigiangbe
💯
166 a hit as usual, thank you again Mr Dunn for putting all that together.
Thanks for listening :)
Hello Mr. Dunn my father and I picked up our first Nucleus of Russian Bees from Meyer Bees in Minooka Illinois on Saturday July 2nd. We were a little nervous since we our first time beekeepers, but all went well we didn't get stung and located the queen pretty quickly the yellow dot helped us locate her. I was surprised when I picked up the box of bees and frames from Meyers they were a lot heavier than I thought they would be. My father and I watch every video you do, thank you for all the knowledge you have shared and keep up the great work. P.S if our Bees end up dying we will just blame you. J/K
Thanks Greg! I'm so glad to know that things went well for you guys! You are more than free to blame me if things go badly :)
Hello Frederick 🤩
Fred, I was wondering if the studies on mites versus those that are doing well against mites, track such figures on if the colonies have year round pollen patties or not? Part of why I ask this is that I'm in an area that often has dips in the flow and parts of the year with resource scarcity. So I'd been wondering how much of the problems on mites could be malnutrition creating the opening for mites.
Thank you very much for your channel. Very interesting to listen to.
Bees that are strongly nourished certainly have more energy and vitality when facing any challenges, disease or mite related. Year round pollen patties doesn't sound very sustainable, but I have zero experience with that method of boosting bee nutrition. I have a case of Hive Alive Pollen Patties and haven't used any of them. This is a great question for Randy Oliver :)
My first season I wasn't expecting much honey with all my colonies being new. Turns out living across from an organic farmer makes for a good sustained food source for my bees. I know bummer problem to have, not sure what I'm gona do with a couple hundred pounds of honey. Ty for the great Q & A Fred, have a wonderful Lords Day.
There are definitely times/years when brand new swarms even produce a huge surplus of honey. Like real estate, location location location... I'm glad things are going so well for you :)
Thank You Dr Fred
Should I place the hive in the shadow of the tree or expose it to full sun in summer and reverse it in winter ?
Best Tad
All of my hives are in sun. Particularly valuable when it comes to a good southern exposure in winter. Landing boards facing south by southeast are performing better through winter.
Thanks for answering my question. The queen getting too hot in transit is what I was thinking too. I am going to do what you said and take a queen from a resource hive I have and install her.
Sounds great!
only 20 secs in, but the intro footage and music is perfect.
Thank you!
Fab episode , loving those pics and videos at the start as well , uk 🇬🇧 is going into a heatwave this week and very dry everywhere , have a great weekend Fred 👍🏻
Thank you Fred, have a great weekend!
Thanks, you too!
Happy Friday from the great state of Wisconsin 👍
Same to you!
Fred I planted 5 lbs of cosmos seed this spring after hearing you talk about them. Well looks like all the seeds grew they are almost in full bloom
If the bees don’t like them it’s ok because my wife loves the way they look . Will they reseed themselves very well ? Or should I just plant again?
There are honey bees on the sulfur cosmos early morning. The butterfly’s love them too. Thanks for the recommendation
I think you have to replant them each year. I replanted this year and left some of last year's cosmos plots untouched and only a few returned. Annuals, but as you say, great for everyone including the bees.
I might try to harvest the seed if at all possible otherwise I’ll buy them again thanks again
Fred you mentioned using hive alive fondant and I think you said you would attach a link. I didn’t see the link and went to the site but confused by the various products. Would you please list which product you used? I love you videos, they are so informative and accurate.
Oops.. thanks Jen, I'll get that link in asap. I have a page about HA on my website: www.fredsfinefowl.com/hivealiveworks.html
Excellent Fred love it
Nice Shirt Frederick, something of Life?
Good stuff! #You'reTheBest
Thanks Brad!
Love the fluff section
The honey I took off this spring measured at 13% on the nose. We have traceable QA test equipment at work so was able to challenge my tester against it. I was surprised how close it was since it was a really cheap model. Was the honey ever slow but what a lovely floral flavor. My first honey harvest and I was shocked how much better it was than store bought.
Thank you for sharing! I agree, standard store offerings are far and away from the honey coming from your own apiary.
Mug up, or tumbler up At the Dunn's. Refractometers perfect timing. I was looking in my bottom tray and saw quite a few fast, very small insects running around. They are much smaller than Varroa. What might they be and are they bad? The number of colonies I can have in my backyard without negatively effecting native pollinators is a concern, how do I know? Thanks Fred
There are often lots of little scavengers in bottom trays of hives. They don't access the main hive interior so I consider them a non-problem. BUT, they are very interesting to observe and figure out.
@@FrederickDunn Thanks Fred, have a great weekend supering!
GREAT INFO AS USUAL,,,,your coffee cup made a great top for my Hoover hive,,i used gutter silicone to secure it to the top and made a sealed top cover so wintertime freeze wont crack it,,,,,LOOKS NICE ,,,,,i will be buyin more for my coffee an 3 other hives🐝
Wait... you attached a coffee cup to your Hoover Hive with silicone? What are you using that for? Interesssstinnng! :)
@@FrederickDunn LOL ,,cups are for a talk piece an give the apiary a different look with the Bee Crossing signs,,im gonna make a vid soon
Hi Fred. David here from Brisbane Australia.
The mites are in NSW south of Brisbane. I have everything crossed that they will not come to Brisbane.
My question is, here in Brisbane we don’t have very cold winters so the bees fly all year round. What would be the best time to treat for mites. Winter when the brood is slowing or summer when the mites would be at their higher numbers?
Very worried about how the mites can be keeper under control.
David.
HI David, the goal would be to prevent the mites from reaching higher numbers. Zones that don't really have a cold winter do tend to have periods of the year when resources are slim and brood is at its lowest. You can take advantage of low brood periods to treat with (something your Gov't approves of) something like Oxalic Acid Vaporization. Keeping the mite numbers down is key as the bees will then also have low virus loads from those mites. It will be interesting to see what treatment protocols are going to be approved there. Lots to watch for.
Thanks for the video...great info as usual
Thanks for watching!
At Gary? in Sacramento CA, question #7. Hey Gary, I hope that was the name. I am also in Sacramento and am interested in talking to other beekeepers in the area without having to join The Sacramento BeeKeeper Association. I am in South Sac. and thought we could compare honey flows or just experiences.
Per your brood break dateline, could those dates be used for a early fall month? Our flow super is on, so we don’t want to do a brood break and oxalic acid treatment yet. We did 3 treatments 7 days apart before putting our super on.
The key is that they will need time to recover their numbers. I would be based on the number of good forage days you have left.
@@FrederickDunn I planned to wait until we take the honey super off, then do three treatments 7 days apart?
Hi Fred, would you be correcting wonky honeycomb between two foundationless end frames at this point in the year? Can I wait to flatten that or add a foundation frame in Spring? I think my bees only have about 2 more weeks of good foraging here in Quebec City. I'm in zone 4 too.
I would leave it, it's wonky to us, but the bees have them arranged for efficiency in the hive. Unless they are prohibiting some function that you need to do I'd let it be for winter.
@@FrederickDunn ❤️ thank you
Is it to late to do a walkway split in July , I live in New York Long Island
Here where I live, it's not too late, we have plenty of continuing forage. This also depends upon hive strength, but if you did it this week I think you're ok for them recovering by fall and having enough honey for wintering. If BeeScape.org shows that you have a good late season nectar flow, then sure.
@Frederick Dunn I have a question. I know what to do when a hive is honey bound. What do you do when you have a hive that is pollen bound? I have a hive that has second brood box almost filled with honey. It also has a medium honey super that is not full. I took out three deep frames and they were 50% capped and spun them out (18%). Put the frame back in the hive for queen to lay in. Bottom brood box has six frames packed with bee bread. How can I fix it?
I think that's a good problem to have in some cases. Six frames of pollen! Wow. I think I would provision another hive with one of those frames and do a swap with one that doesn't have so much pollen. If none of them need that, then I'd pull what appear to be the oldest and scrape them out. You can also put a pollen trap on the front of that hive and reduce the incoming pollen so they begin to use up what they have. Just tossing ideas out there ruclips.net/video/UJcBS-zgWBk/видео.html
Fred I always love your channel, though I’ve got a dilemma, I live on a small island with a hundred precent apis melifera iberencis apiculture, and noticed that my new carni queens population go from grey go darker every year. Is that because the local drones has a influence after the nuptial flights and how do I manage this?
I suspect that is in fact the reason for the dilution of your stock. The best you can do is retain strong colonies and allow them to produce a healthy drone population. This way your genetics are getting out there and mixing with other colonies in the region (island). The long game is that the strongest genetics will eventually become more prevalent.
Hi Fred, great Q&A. I was wondering if you could compare and contrast double deep brood vs single deep brood boxes. I'm curious in your opinion. I am in SE PA in Bucks County. Thanks,
Emil
I use Single Deeps with a Medium on that, on some occassions I have had them brood up into the medium and I'll have to add a second medium to establish the honey-bridge that keeps the queen from laying above that. So for me, single deep brood works fine.
@@FrederickDunn thanks. I have 3 hives. My 1st two have double deeps. With My 3rd hive I decided to try a single deep.
well hello,this is the way to bee😊
Hey Mark!
While using paramoth for storing honey supers and drawn comb, is it safe to store inside? I plan to store them in my basement in a large trash bag. Thanks
paramoth? not familiar with that at all.
@@FrederickDunn how do you store drawn comb and supers? And keep the wax moths at bay?
my refractometer was 20 bucks ,just a generic type you look thru
Yes, they work, just find someone to calibrate it to. Generally not off by more than a percentabe point.
Will you raise good bees, w= white 1/6 etc
Yes, and this year is yellow :)
Sorry but what is a "brood break"?
When the queen momentarily goes out of brood production. Normally that occurs at the end of November here, and she resumes egg production soon after that for the spring build up and continuing with new brood on a smaller scale. We can inspire a brood break so that the colony becomes void of new open brood for a period to hold back capped brood long enough to reduce the population in the hive and provide opportunity to reduce mites.
Duce lab will test for pesticides for a fee.
What's the Duce Lab? Please provide more information so we can share it. Thanks :)
Sorry a typo or auto correction. I attended a zoom meeting with the presidents of the beekeeping clubs in NY. Scott McArt from the Dyce Lab attended. He told us that they were testing for pesticides and beekeepers could send bee samples. The fees were low. Perhaps $90. You did your master beekeeping course at Cornell. I suspect you know of him. By the way if you haven’t heard Emma Walters as moved to Nebraska.
You should review your knowledge about Fahrenheit and Celsius conversion!
I mentioned that it's 82 f here and that it's 28 celsius... more specifically 27.77 celsius. Was that incorrect? I'm happy to learn more if there is something incorrect there.
Well Fred I stated watching that shout out video and I discovered a problem and it has to do with evolution and natural selection. If evolution is true everything is the results of evolution and natural selection and we can’t fault anyone or anything because we evolved to the point where we naturally cause some species to thrive and others to become extinct. If evolution is true it doesn’t care about anyone or anything. It’s just a push towards survival of the fittest. If something is lost you evolve to cope with the changes. I have no faith in evolution but, you are free to believe anything you want. I’ll continue watching your suggestion but, it will be a hard sale to get me to believe in evolution. We don’t know what we don’t know. How can we effectively guess millions of years when there are literally millions of variables to count for. It takes a lot of faith to believe that. When you follow evaluation you have to have faith in the possibilities no matter how much time will transpire, faithful evolution will make a way. Science or just another fairy tale?
Hi Timothy, I have no idea what you're referring to regarding my position regarding Evolution? My Shout-Out in this video was far from an endorsement of the content of the video. To the contrary, I found the presentation to be in striking opposition to the channel that hosts it. The purpose of the shout-out in this case was to ask what others thought. I don't beleive that I mention anywhere that I agree with the presenter. But thank you for the statement you make "you are fre to believe anything you want". Thank you for that.
@@FrederickDunn no Fred , not you. I was talking about the German speaker of that event. And no doubt he got in because of his bee knowledge and his past studies. It was interesting telling everyone that he did not want to offend anyone by being offensive towards everyone that or who would even think about keeping bees. He was truly one sided in dishonest in his approach. I guess one would have to treat like a fish dinner and just pick out the bones. I like what he said about tree cavities and skeps but, can’t believe that skeps and tree hollows are near equal. Skeps are used as production colonies for increased expansions. There are always wolves in sheep’s clothing that want to change established groups. They don’t start their own . They tare down others “ I don’t want to offend anyone “! Sorry to rant Fred. I enjoyed your recent observation hives video and am excited about your new Layens additions.
@@timothymitchell8310 Ohhhhh I thought you were up in my grill about my recommending the video and thought I endorsed his position. Thanks Timothy! :) I appreciate that you cleared that up :)
@@FrederickDunn grills, the only grill I want to be in is bbq. I love to bbq and would love to cook for ya
Regarding the guy that published the study on commercial beekeeping being harmful... that's one of those guys thats swimming upstream. There's certain types of people that don't want to help society and just destroy people and take away their industry. People who are contrary, or when they see someone doing something good their motivation is to oppose it. Opposers. Sometimes people will oppose something good for no reason.
Why would someone decide they want to oppose someone being self sufficient and trying to support themselves? Agriculture by nature is beneficial more than harmful. Starvation is harmful. People need to do something with their lives. There's nothing good about such behavior on being an opposer. People who act with enmity towards others. Enmity is bad, it means no positive feeling towards someone, like you'd want to see them starve or die for no reason. Therefore his study is a bunch of nonsense.
Also socialists use such people to come in and subvert and conquer. Then they rebuild after old regimes are taken out, economically first. Then they sieze fallen industry after a government is troubled enough.
Don't believe nonsense.
And the fact that they let such a harmful person try to indoctrinate people to stop beekeeping and to oppose their industry, means you have selfish people who are jealous and envious of others participating in their own industry and want to get rid of rivals. They should never have let someone like that into the national honey show. And believe it or not there are people who can't handle other people working in beekeeping with them. I've run into this a number of times and it baffles me how people can treat their fellow man stupidly.
There's people who want to stop all farming and instead raise people of lab grown meat, for example. They don't have good intentions, but actually want to subvert industries and then take away self sufficiency with people being dependent on products that they are unable to make themselves. Monopoly.
...
On a side note, I'm seeing native pollinators go up not down in my area by having honey bees/ apis mellifera around. I hadn't seen bumble bees in years in my area. Then after having honey bees around they came back.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that presentation. Certainly a lot going on there.