Reflectix with feeder hole, then feeder shim, sugar on top of reflectix, then lid, works like a charm, the moisture goes up in the sugar from 2 inch feed hole, creating a soft sugar factory up stairs that the bees feed on when not clustered. Plus no moisture drops on the bees and the reflectix sticks great on the box. Rock on top to hold it all together . North Central Arkansas for reference.
I'm going into my second year now. I started out the winter with 10 hives, and I lost 2. One that made it was a very small fall swarm that overwintered in a shallow super. 1 hive i lost was one of my strongest
I feel like 👍 you’re so great facilitator educational person that it’s comes naturally out of you… hope your success will help us too.. It’s a great video plus you’re not hiding your failures, to prevent others from it.. that is one of the most conflicted problems of bee keepers. Most of apiarist only last few decades, then all the knowledge is lost or forgotten. So technically we all starting again all overs & over. Keep the good work
I am glad you have decided to treat some of your bees. Hard to become treatment free and grow at the same time using the survival of the fittest method. Works better when you test and treat when needed and re-queen for better mite resistance instead of just let a colony with mites fail. Part of managing bees (livestock) making sure they have feed is a given. Feed when needed. Good lessons lessons learned.
Good to hear you're going back to basics. Treatment free with commercial almond stocks were a losing prospect from the outset. We learn the most from our failure - but we can learn more from the failure and successes of others. Lean not on your own understanding - get with the ones who are doing what you want to do and doing it well. Hope to see the reset go well this year.
Hard to start a business off of treatment free to begin with, it can be done it just has many more changes to it. Build you business as the primary goal and the treatment free side as a secondary goal untell you get your business stabilized and you have your foundation built. Step by Step Emily it takes time to build a business with a solid foundation so that it can weather unforeseen circumstances. Blessed Days...
Your videos have been really intriguing to me because I’m trying to get my bee business off the ground too. I actually started about the same time as you. Learning from mistakes as well. Working a full time job and doing this is NOT for the weak of heart. We actually finally got everything done as a legitimate business this past week. Much smaller than you started. I have around 50 hives. I had a really high survival rate and my hives were in high gear by the end of February. I pulled nucs out of my strongest hives and have sold them all. Three weeks later they were broodless and I was able to use OAV. This past week I’m starting to get mated queens back! Those that don’t I can just plug a nuc back into and they’re off and running again. I rarely have an issue doing this. Maybe 1 out of 10 I might have an issue and they’ll kill that queen, but then use her eggs to make another queen. 🤷🏻♂️. So far fingers crossed I’ll get most of my queens back. Last year I extracted 80 gallons of honey. Hoping for 120 this year so come on weather cooperate! Maybe you could do a video on how you formed your business? Insurance? Streams of income?
Our experience is to not hold too much expectation on the Golden Rod flow. It is unreliable from one year to the next plus it is notorious for crystalizing. Our 27 years of experience has let us to remove honey supers on Labour Day weekend and start feeding. Yes feeding is costly but losing hives is much more. We admire your enthusiasm and energy. You're on the right track. Keep it going...good luck!🐝🐝
Dam you are so much like I am 🫣I just want to be able to understand everything about bees but I’m making to many mistakes and keep losing my ladies in the winter 17 out a of 18 this winter
I lost over fifty percent of my hives this year with treatments so you did`nt do so bad.I read an interesting article that said changing climate may be causing some of our losses.Im sure you will figure it out.
Hello Emily I'm Lonus and I live in VA. I'm interested in talking to you about buying nucs off you, I know you have already sold out this yr.. good job. I would like to buy a nuc from all three your breeding, pollination and honey producing colony's. I live on my 40 acre farm and have other ground as well and curious as to how many I can have out in one area? It's farm country and hills in my area and isn't crowded with ppl at all and I want to expand what I can this yr and next and in so asking you about your nucs. I've heard growing thyme around the base of your hive's will help keep beetles away, I haven't done it myself so Idk how well or if it works. I've leaned a lot from your videos and hope to get the opportunity to ask you a few questions and maybe do some business with you and Casey
I think people overestimate the role that “bee genetics” play in varroa resistance. What about the role of epigenetics? Bees are constantly encountering anthropogenic toxins in the environment and probably not the quality of nectar and pollen (nutrition) that they evolved with before widespread human development. If the bees are not getting optimal nutrition and have a toxin burden they are not going to have optimal genetic expression. (Poor epigenetics) The same is true of people! You may have bees with great genetics but because they are not getting optimal nutrition and have a toxin load they are not able to achieve their true genetic potential. A 50% annual kill rate is an excessive level of selection pressure I think. These organisms are already stressed. Maybe just treating one cycle per year would give a higher survival but still help achieve the breading goals over time. We can’t blame poor genetics when we have no way of testing for such a thing and while we simultaneously destroy the environment bees depend on. Just a thought! You are doing great work and thank you for your videos!
Glad I didn't raise my nuc prices like everyone else I ended up selling out of the 5 frame deep still have 30 mediums and 31 4 frame deeps. I think sales over all for most are way down. Been helping my buddy move his packages .
Thanks awesome! Yes my thoughts are to keep the prices reasonable so that we are at least profitable enough to keep do it but don’t make it so expensive that no one can start beekeeping. That’s the problem right now, beekeeping is so expensive so of course people will quit or not be able to pick up beekeeping. Beekeeping needs a soul make over, leave the greediness behind.
@@beefitbeekeeping I ended find scrap sugar for 300.00 a ton so cost have went down for me... I'll have free VSH cells once I get my breeders from vp queens
it takes longer then 1 yr to be treatment free. You can't just take treated bees and not treat them and expect a good survival rate. Also I wouldn't tell people how to be treatment free if your not treatment free. alot of us are very successful even with honey production colonies, its all about the bees. but just please don't tell people how to do something especially if you don't have alot of experience in TF.I don't want to come off as an A hole here just don't want you to drive people away without them knowing the correct way to even try it. thank you good luck
Treatment free is most definitely possible. Kasey has been treatment free for the last 5 years he has been beekeeping. He has never touched any sort of mite treatment ever in his beekeeping career. But to maintain treatment free management at the rate we are growing, from a business point of view, having many hives in one yard, and moving hives around in a migratory style operation makes building a good foundation extremely difficult. Especially at the scale we are growing to. For the back yard beekeeper keeping under 20 hives in the same location always, treatment free can still be attained with the management tips I have put up on this channel. If there is anything that I have talked about that you believe to be false or incorrect I would love to chat about those things so I can continue to be the forever learner that I am. I appreciate your honesty! I’m just learning more now about the beekeeping landscape as a whole so am making that decision based off of my circumstances and goals with the business. And besides, I’m not giving up treatment free. I am simply just keeping the breeding yard under a treatment free management program. All honey and pollination hives will be go into a mite treatment regimen vs the all or nothing approach I was taking before.
Learning isn't a mistake. it's a process. I love your videos! Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Reflectix with feeder hole, then feeder shim, sugar on top of reflectix, then lid, works like a charm, the moisture goes up in the sugar from 2 inch feed hole, creating a soft sugar factory up stairs that the bees feed on when not clustered. Plus no moisture drops on the bees and the reflectix sticks great on the box. Rock on top to hold it all together . North Central Arkansas for reference.
I'm going into my second year now. I started out the winter with 10 hives, and I lost 2. One that made it was a very small fall swarm that overwintered in a shallow super. 1 hive i lost was one of my strongest
I feel like 👍 you’re so great facilitator educational person that it’s comes naturally out of you… hope your success will help us too.. It’s a great video plus you’re not hiding your failures, to prevent others from it.. that is one of the most conflicted problems of bee keepers. Most of apiarist only last few decades, then all the knowledge is lost or forgotten. So technically we all starting again all overs & over. Keep the good work
If your colony is strong, mice are not a problem, but a mouse guard of some kind would help no matter the strength of the colony
Nice job on selling those Nucs!!!
I am glad you have decided to treat some of your bees. Hard to become treatment free and grow at the same time using the survival of the fittest method. Works better when you test and treat when needed and re-queen for better mite resistance instead of just let a colony with mites fail. Part of managing bees (livestock) making sure they have feed is a given. Feed when needed. Good lessons lessons learned.
Good to see you are going to treat 4 mite. I'm looking forward to seeing you grow good luck 👍Great plan 😊
Good to hear you're going back to basics. Treatment free with commercial almond stocks were a losing prospect from the outset. We learn the most from our failure - but we can learn more from the failure and successes of others. Lean not on your own understanding - get with the ones who are doing what you want to do and doing it well.
Hope to see the reset go well this year.
Hard to start a business off of treatment free to begin with, it can be done it just has many more changes to it.
Build you business as the primary goal and the treatment free side as a secondary goal untell you get your business stabilized and you have your foundation built. Step by Step Emily it takes time to build a business with a solid foundation so that it can weather unforeseen circumstances. Blessed Days...
Your videos have been really intriguing to me because I’m trying to get my bee business off the ground too. I actually started about the same time as you. Learning from mistakes as well. Working a full time job and doing this is NOT for the weak of heart. We actually finally got everything done as a legitimate business this past week. Much smaller than you started. I have around 50 hives. I had a really high survival rate and my hives were in high gear by the end of February. I pulled nucs out of my strongest hives and have sold them all. Three weeks later they were broodless and I was able to use OAV. This past week I’m starting to get mated queens back! Those that don’t I can just plug a nuc back into and they’re off and running again. I rarely have an issue doing this. Maybe 1 out of 10 I might have an issue and they’ll kill that queen, but then use her eggs to make another queen. 🤷🏻♂️. So far fingers crossed I’ll get most of my queens back. Last year I extracted 80 gallons of honey. Hoping for 120 this year so come on weather cooperate! Maybe you could do a video on how you formed your business? Insurance? Streams of income?
Our experience is to not hold too much expectation on the Golden Rod flow. It is unreliable from one year to the next plus it is notorious for crystalizing. Our 27 years of experience has let us to remove honey supers on Labour Day weekend and start feeding. Yes feeding is costly but losing hives is much more. We admire your enthusiasm and energy. You're on the right track. Keep it going...good luck!🐝🐝
Do you guys use apple cider vinegar and Spirulina in your pollen patties?
Dam you are so much like I am 🫣I just want to be able to understand everything about bees but I’m making to many mistakes and keep losing my ladies in the winter 17 out a of 18 this winter
I lost over fifty percent of my hives this year with treatments so you did`nt do so bad.I read an interesting article that said changing climate may be causing some of our losses.Im sure you will figure it out.
Hello Emily I'm Lonus and I live in VA. I'm interested in talking to you about buying nucs off you, I know you have already sold out this yr.. good job. I would like to buy a nuc from all three your breeding, pollination and honey producing colony's. I live on my 40 acre farm and have other ground as well and curious as to how many I can have out in one area? It's farm country and hills in my area and isn't crowded with ppl at all and I want to expand what I can this yr and next and in so asking you about your nucs. I've heard growing thyme around the base of your hive's will help keep beetles away, I haven't done it myself so Idk how well or if it works. I've leaned a lot from your videos and hope to get the opportunity to ask you a few questions and maybe do some business with you and Casey
I think people overestimate the role that “bee genetics” play in varroa resistance. What about the role of epigenetics? Bees are constantly encountering anthropogenic toxins in the environment and probably not the quality of nectar and pollen (nutrition) that they evolved with before widespread human development. If the bees are not getting optimal nutrition and have a toxin burden they are not going to have optimal genetic expression. (Poor epigenetics) The same is true of people! You may have bees with great genetics but because they are not getting optimal nutrition and have a toxin load they are not able to achieve their true genetic potential. A 50% annual kill rate is an excessive level of selection pressure I think. These organisms are already stressed. Maybe just treating one cycle per year would give a higher survival but still help achieve the breading goals over time. We can’t blame poor genetics when we have no way of testing for such a thing and while we simultaneously destroy the environment bees depend on. Just a thought! You are doing great work and thank you for your videos!
Have you tried beweaver queens from Texas? They have been treatment free since the early 2000 .
Sugar syrup: how much will each hive need a week in the Spring? Having trouble finding that info- thx
Depending on how big the hive is I’d say 1-1.5 gallons per week. 1.5 gallons being for a hive that really booming
Thank you- I couldn’t find that info anywhere!
Glad I didn't raise my nuc prices like everyone else I ended up selling out of the 5 frame deep still have 30 mediums and 31 4 frame deeps. I think sales over all for most are way down. Been helping my buddy move his packages .
Thanks awesome! Yes my thoughts are to keep the prices reasonable so that we are at least profitable enough to keep do it but don’t make it so expensive that no one can start beekeeping. That’s the problem right now, beekeeping is so expensive so of course people will quit or not be able to pick up beekeeping. Beekeeping needs a soul make over, leave the greediness behind.
@@beefitbeekeeping I ended find scrap sugar for 300.00 a ton so cost have went down for me... I'll have free VSH cells once I get my breeders from vp queens
it takes longer then 1 yr to be treatment free. You can't just take treated bees and not treat them and expect a good survival rate. Also I wouldn't tell people how to be treatment free if your not treatment free. alot of us are very successful even with honey production colonies, its all about the bees. but just please don't tell people how to do something especially if you don't have alot of experience in TF.I don't want to come off as an A hole here just don't want you to drive people away without them knowing the correct way to even try it. thank you good luck
Treatment free is most definitely possible. Kasey has been treatment free for the last 5 years he has been beekeeping. He has never touched any sort of mite treatment ever in his beekeeping career. But to maintain treatment free management at the rate we are growing, from a business point of view, having many hives in one yard, and moving hives around in a migratory style operation makes building a good foundation extremely difficult. Especially at the scale we are growing to. For the back yard beekeeper keeping under 20 hives in the same location always, treatment free can still be attained with the management tips I have put up on this channel. If there is anything that I have talked about that you believe to be false or incorrect I would love to chat about those things so I can continue to be the forever learner that I am. I appreciate your honesty! I’m just learning more now about the beekeeping landscape as a whole so am making that decision based off of my circumstances and goals with the business. And besides, I’m not giving up treatment free. I am simply just keeping the breeding yard under a treatment free management program. All honey and pollination hives will be go into a mite treatment regimen vs the all or nothing approach I was taking before.
@@beefitbeekeepingwhat is the first word in the title of this video?
Where can i find info on that cloth?
Joan fabric!!!
Part #9442971
What's your country name?
Im joshim uddin from Bangladesh. I'm a beekeeper