Palmers system works fantastically, it's what I have used for the past few years. Here's some very important info however to consider. 1. I don't think he uses the split resource hives to do walkaway splits. He uses queen mating nucs and mating nuc yards. Here's the issue. The split colonies are tricky to manage when they do not have laying queens inserted directly. Queens that go out and mate can too easily get the wrong side and if she goes into the wrong side with a mated queen she's dead. If she goes into the wrong side with an unhatched queen, she kills that queen and you have a messed up split colony. Simply color coding the nucs may not be enough to solve the issues and it's important enough of an issue to not take a chance on. They work fine with each side having a mated and laying queen at the same time. There's another channel that talks about these as well. UoG Honey Bee Research. I'd encourage you to make sure that you have your info correct on how he uses these resource hives. (I could be mistaken). 2. This is kind of obvious but worth stressing anyway. The 4 frame split nuc colonies are even more desperate for enough resources to over winter. They WILL NOT make it on only four frames and eight frames probably won't be enough for you either in your climate. They will make it to about March and starve. You'll have to pay special attention to stores which means managing heavy numbers of workers and extra effort to supply feed and forage. This involves closer monitoring and advanced planning, more so than standard tens. It's a good system and it's fairly simple once the gears all mesh but as with everything in bee keeping, a small wrong move can have long lasting and fatal impacts and recovery times to fix. I'd suggest checking out the advice I gave completely and if you find it correct, adopting mating or single nucs for your queen rearing and use the resource hives with mated queens only.
Thanks for the advice. I watched a protégé of Michael Palmer do an hour long talk about these hives and he seemed to believe that walk away splits were fine. He is in Upstate NY, same basic climate as me. I understand that adding mated queens would be safer, but I guess this video made me think self-made queens would work too. ruclips.net/video/VW7CPXLClmY/видео.html Also, if you say that these hives need feeding over winter, does Michael Palmer go out and feed all his hives? I got the impression that these hives were more self-sustaining because they were smaller and 8 frames of honey would be plenty. I'm sure every situation is different and of course, I know there will be a learning curve. Nothing is simple.
I'll watch the linked vid, thanks. I've not watched that one. Walk away splits are okay on a honey flow in singles....it's the split resource hives I have my doubts with. It may work fine, it may not, it may work a portion of the time and not the rest. The thing is queens are a pretty valuable resource for a colony to try to make only to have them ruined upon return of the mating flight. In that case the colony has lost up to a full month and it's the time lost that's the more valuable resource between the queen and time lost. Especially so in a short season region. Palmer specifically weighs all of his hives in the late summer/fall and any that are too light, he feeds accordingly. He has a specific formula worked out of how much syrup to feed per weight shortage, I don't recall it off hand. If you feed them early enough they will store it away as capped feed and no feeding is needed over winter. The issue I've experienced with the four frames and food storage is that it depends on the strength of the colony cluster. The one's I've had with 8 frames mostly make it (my climate is warmer than yours). My four frame nucs usually did not make it without being supplemented in March. I assume yours may need more stores than mine considering the climate. Palmer feeds every single hive that is not heavy enough to make it through according to his experience for his area. He specifically says in several videos how much feed he goes through in a year. Obviously that's going to differ according to specific forages available in any given area, weather, strength and work habits of specific colonies, etc... Sure there's a learning curve, only reason I share my thoughts is to try to shorten your learning curve. Take it for what it's worth.
I over winter in double nucs and found my hives actually winter better than ten frame double hives. I do walk a way spits with nucs like this all the time and don't have problems with the queens. My only problem is getting starting transferring queen cells to early, when I use queen cells, and getting an overly cold night which kills the queen cell.
You do walk away splits in double nuc colonies? Like the resource hives he's showing here in this vid? Or are you saying you do walk away splits in single nucs all the time? There's potentially a big differnce. I do walk away splits in single nucs, 8 frames and ten frames and they work fine as long as there's a nectar flow or I can simulate one with feed and pollen.
Brent, your advice is always appreciated! There is also something to consider: a colder winter means the bees actually consume LESS food. That's what happened this year. They used up leftover resources in March/April, but they got through the coldest period OK. I do remember hearing Palmer talking about fall feeding. I forgot about that. The goal is to propagate my survivor hives. I'm going to rethink my plan now. Ugh. You're right that it would suck for those nucs to spend all that time making a queen only to have her not return. However, I'd still have the bees, the frames, the drawn comb, etc... They could be combined back into the mother hive. I guess it's worth a shot. The other thought would be to move the MOTHER QUEEN into the resource hive as a holding pen and let the mother HIVE work on making a new queen. The new self made queen would have the resources of a whole hive and a bigger target to return to. The resource nuc and original queen could then be transfered to a second new hive. What about that concept?
In the last few days I've made up 12 new colonies in queen castles. Today...this morning I was working on one when another swarmed right in front of me. Landed in the lowest branch of an enormous oak tree. Easy peasy. Went into the hive that'd swarmed and harvested a few cells. Even gave a frame with a couple capped cells to my helper. He got the bee swarm too. Share the wealth.
Michael Palmer is amazing, also teaches how dangerous it is for You or FAMILY not to get stung regularly to avoid 1 in 10 chance of getting deadly allergic reaction
This is going to work. I use the same setup here in Norway (same climate as your place), except I keep the setup throughout summer. Putting on supers when the bees need it. You will get a ton of honey this way. There is one problem with your plan and that is when you want to split the nucs. You will need a second bee yard. If not the bees will fly to the old place and find nothing. When I split a hive like this I lift 4 frames of brood from each nuc box up to a new 8 frame box above the queen excluder. 2 new frames are put into the nucs together with 2 honey frames. I leave this setup until all the brood above the queen excluder is capped, then I move the nucs to a new place in the bee yard, put a new bottom board on the old spot, place the box with the capped brood on the bottom board and then the supers. If you have a queen cell you can put it together with the brood cells, or you can take a frame of eggs from the queen you want to create a new queen from and put it in the top super box (easier to check the progress of creating the queen). If you want many queens you can put in a list of queen cups with larva instead. This is a very easy way of creating a lot of queens. The forage bees from the nucs will fly back to the old place (new hive) so this hive will have plenty of bees to raise new queens. The nucs will only have brood, newborn and worker bees left and need the frames with honey until they have foraging bees again.
I'm glad you are expanding...love your vids! I went from three hives this spring to twelve in less than three weeks with 18 swarm traps placed around the neighborhood. One swarm so large I had to use two 10 frame Lang boxes. Put out some traps,,,,,,,,,,,FREE bees with survivor genes from the wild.
Am very very glad to see that you've discovered duplex colonies. Now the queen castle is next. Let me take the time to share my story. I found the Michael Palmer series of bee videos. The first nuc I bought, an 8-frame, came out of a duplex hive exactly like yours only white. I decided to try the same thing myself. You have to be patient and wait for the swarm cells. Once you find you have 5 or 6 frames with cells on them you'll want the queen castle. It's fun and easy to make splits with queen cells on them. They don't always mate but most of the time they do. Call these "next years bees" because that is exactly what they are. Running them as resource colonies doesn't always work the way you planned. Keep flexible and you will thrive. I have 6 duplex hives and 6 queen castles along with various size nuc boxes. Even have little nuc-size supers for when they need space for honey. It gets really fun and I am so glad you chose to follow Michael's path. He really knows his bees. You're going to end up with a large pile of equipment. That's just part of the game. Good luck.
I can see that it will not be long and you'll be making a "my queen hatched" video where you're so excited about the first one. It's a big deal and you will be sooo proud of yourself. Then the "my queen mated" one. Next "I marked my first queen". Enjoy the ride. It's a blast.
In two years you'll be making a video called "we had to buy the 20-frame extractor". Yep. Mine is on it's way from New York. Have around ten or fifteen full supers to work on from last year. We had so much honey that I left a lot on hives as insurance. Ended up with huge well-fed colonies that looked like June but it was early April. Last year was a good one.
Good Luck! Looks like everything is going great for your bees! I really enjoy watching your videos. Thanks for sharing your learning and knowledge with us.
Vino Farms, Great Idea, yes it works if done without over stretching your resources. I wish you the best with this project, but please be careful not to weaken your donor hives. Five strong hives always trump 10 weak ones. Good luck and I wish you great success, looking forward to seeing the outcome. Remember the bee's know best, you can make suggestions but in the long run they will do what they need.
Hey Don, I feel Jim has taken time to learn quite a bit about beekeeping in the past few years. He seems to care about the outcome of his endeavors and seems genuinely upset when things don't work out, or just as enthused when they do. I try to comment on the issues I have had with my hives over the years to try and save him the grief and wasted time of trials gone wrong. right now he doesn't have enough resources to make 4 splits without weakening his other 3 hives. Just by manipulating the Balboa hive and trying to transition them into deeps from medium's is a light stressor, and may upset the balance. Even though that is a proven strong survivor, a light stressor and a mild might load could prove disastrous. I would wait until mid June when the hives are peeking then only take from my strongest hives. Rule of thumb is to never split first year hives. I do know people that have had limited success trying it, but only with the most prolific queens running the show. Also a queen castle would be a good place to start or single walk away splits unless he knows someone with queens to spare. Again, I wish him the best of luck and enjoy his videos, I just don't want to see him spread the creamed honey to thin.Jim if you read this, I'm rooting for ya!!!
Jim, I'd seen your recent ( spring 2021) bee loss video. This winter took me out as well. I've used these in the past on a limited basis. This year, as I rebuild, I'm shooting to have one double 4/4 resource hive on each hive stand with the other "three" standard hive setups. "In a perfect world", that will give me 40% to use to "boost" the other three hives on that same stand. For overwinter, I'm contemplating a modified Binnie style double screen bottom board, and relocating the resource hives atop a strong, well resourced, hive that's right there.
Hi, got to love Your passion about beekeeping. Nucs are the key to sustainability for sure. My strategy is to use as less types of equipment as possible to be more efficient. I've got 8 nucs and 4 hohey hives. The nucs provide me with extra brood to boost honey hives before the flow, extra queens whenever I need them, etc. I pull them all in a row in autumn to share heat, so I don't even have to make double nuc hives (there's no such thing to buy In Latvia), nucs are easier to make anyways.
Glad to see you doing this Jim! I have really enjoyed having nucs in my apiary to steal resources from when needed. I am using stand-alone nucs, but as you know, my climate down here is a bit different. That being said, I overwintered 5, single-story nucs successfully this past winter. This season my resource nucs have proved invaluable as I have needed to replace queens a few times because of a few missed swarms. Great video!
Excited to see how this works! Splits are one of the most interesting things to me, and I'm really interested to see this method in action. Love what you do sir! Would love to swing by and check it out sometime.
I have a couple hives that have been medication free and low maintenance for a good 14 or 15 years! Graft, graft, graft. My uncle and I are talking about running 1000 of my queens' grafted queens in to his operation in the next month where he's running 10k+ colonies.
But, I don't want more than 15-20 hives. I have no interest in getting into hundreds of hives. Grafting just seems like a huge hassle for only a few hives.
I would look into it more. I'm doing the same as you. I play with 2-15 hives because 11 years of commercial beekeeping affected my level of excitement and interest with my own personal hives. It will give you much more control over your expansion hives and give you a new understanding of the biology of your bees. Your winters are much more harsh than mine in Central PA and uncompareable to what my uncle experiences in the winter in Central FLA. Another aspect that may be of interest in your scenario is replacing a "bad to ok/good" queen in the late summer allowing you to have the most possible vigorous build up come spring since the queen has been acclimated to her hive for 5 months and much less strain from low brood production during the cold. I did a side by side comparison with the same genetics mentioned, one in a triple deep and one in a 5 frame Nuc-styro. The triple deep was pushing 13-14 frames of bees and young brood in mid Feb '18. The 5 framer was producing her first noticeable brood in early April. (No meds, no feeding supplement until Jan for both of them)
Neat! Remember that bees also orient by pattern recognition, so to complement the colors you can paint rhomboids, hexagons etc on the hives. Seen it done in a few places, mainly where you have hive sheds or hive trailers, lots of hives stacked close in several levels, each entrance is marked with different patterns in different colors.
Agree. Completely. I've seen on-line, some pretty heated debates on this topic. That they are color blind or they do not recognize patterns. In my opinion, they are not color blind and yes, they do recognize patterns. I have large numbers stenciled in bright colors. Even on my swarm hive just in case I ever have to use it. Thanks.
I've seen an experiment they recorded which was quite hillarious, they had some patio furniture set out in a pattern a few meters in front of a hive, and they switched these around ;moving the group sideways, changing the numbers and formation of chairs, removing the table, and finally they swapped the chairs out for garden flamingos. all the while keeping track on how confused the bees that arrived were. End result of that experiment was that they didnt care if the chairs got switched with flamingos, but they got confused when the group moved a few metres or the pattern changed. They got even more confused when the entire group was missing..
As someone who works with Mike Palmer I can tell you he doesn't do walk away splits when he makes up these nucs. He grafts queens cells and puts them into mating nucs. 16 days later he catches the newly mated queen and puts them into queenless nucs made up the day before with frames of brood and honey.
I am aware that Mike Palmer does not do walk away splits, but I have seen other videos of people using this type of hive for that purpose. I realize the video was not clear on that point. Michael Palmer was the inspiration to learn more about these hives, and the "resource hive" concept, but I figured a walk away split would be OK to get them started. Is there anything (other than the time expenditure) that you would see as a problem with that plan? I'd appreciate your opinion. Thanks!
With a walk away grab 2 frames of brood, plus a honey frame and pollen. 1 capped brood and the other with just laid eggs and young emerging larva (see royal jelly in bottom of cells). It will take them basically 10 days to cap a couple of emergency cells from the eggs frame and 16 days for the virgin to emerge and mate. So leave them alone once you've created the walk away for 30 days. Your problem is time. If you did this now you basically have to wait until mid June before checking. Afterwards if you have a mated queen you'll have to let them build up for winter with luck. 8 frames is your target with good flow and good laying queen. If the survive winter they'll be a resource next spring to help your other hives or to make more nucs.
That was basically my plan. I'm not in a hurry. Once a mated queen started laying, we'd be in our July nectar lull and I'd be feeding anyway. August and September are always really good for build up with a very strong flow. So maybe I wouldn't get TWO rounds of new hives, but a really solid one ready for winter seems doable. I'm not in this for honey production or any sort of business. I'm just trying to learn and build strong colonies that will overwinter. Thanks for your advice.
Vino Farm I'd say that's a good plan. I live in northern Vermont so I know the limits to building nucs in New England. Good job with your videos. I learned a lot from Palmer over the years. He's a very good teacher. I'm on Facebook as Northern Border Apiaries if you have any questions or PM me directly.
Interesting approach. i will stay tuned for the results. I am hoping to get bees when we finally move. I am in southern NH so our climates are the same and I like seeing what works for you.
I really enjoy your videos. So much that I am going to give beekeeping a go next year. Already have most of the required equipment because my grandfather was a hobby beekeeper. I have pictures of me (when I was a young boy) and him getting swarms from trees in the mid 80's. It will be nice to carry that on. Thanks
I concur about the videos by Paul Kelly at the Honeybee Research Centre at U of Guelph. The method you are describing he says makes "emergency queens". His system gets them to build queen as if there wasn't a rush which means they are bigger, better fed queens. Now that we have snow in the forecast (we are just outside Toronto) it's a nice time to dream about next year's goals!!
Catherine Young Spoiler Alert: I made 5 queens in 5 attempts with these nucs. Three built up to full size brood boxes and two grew to double deeps by the end of summer. It was painless. Every queen made this way was successfully mated and normal sized. I think there are several ways to do walk away splits and everyone will have different results. These worked as intended for me. Thanks for watching. (PS. I love the Guelph videos!)
Great idea! I've been watching Michael Palmer for some time now and I'm also fascinated by his double nuc system. BTW: i remember from M.Palmer's videos that he specifcally mentions using wrap ups (of dark paper) ONLY for solar gains and NOT for insulation. If i might: i think last winter it didn't do good to your bees that you wrapped them so thick with full insulation. That may seem like a paradox but it's better for bees not to have too warm during winter. Otherwise queens keep laying longer than they should = bees use resources and energy during late fall / winter for raising brood. That brood has no chance for proper clensing flight during winter and it's counterproducitve. That might have been the cause for fewer bees in spring or worn down bees. I keep my fingers crossed for your new doble nucs! Great job! :) Greetings from sunny Poland :)
I've been watching from the start as a new beekeeper myself. I wanted to say you should still try your Flow Hive system, at least one frame. Last year (year 2) I had a bummer harvest from the Flow Hive. You have some good hives this year, I think they'll take to it.
The other way is OTS - where you take frames AND the queen and leave the first hive alone to create their new queen. Less stress for both first and second colonies - because first hive keeps the original box, and new box - gets their queen. If you move a queenless colony to a new hive - its double the stress. OTS - give that a try in one of your hives. OTS=On The Spot Queen Rearing
Jim, i bought 2 last year myself! :) seems like a great system, but i never got around to using it yet. everyone's context is differnt. i keep bees in residential backyards all around new orleans and it is easier for me to move the separate double nucs to new locations as needed. but my intent was to run the double nucs as a resource hive as you described. it would allow me to keep 4 queens in my own backyard in the space of just two hive boxes which is the "accepted norm" here for hives in a residential lot... i'm excited to see your progress! thanks for sharing!
Congrats! I am glad you were able to get through Palmer's videos. They are great stuff. I am in my first year and following pretty much his methodology. One BIG thing I caught in your description though, do NOT waste your space in a resource hive storing honey! Get it out of those hives, the space is too precious. You can always jar it, and feed it back to them later! Then let the bees clean the comb and it becomes a nice new egg condo. Nucs/resource hives are all about making more bees, they need that space for brood. Give em the honey in a feeder. (I think this also applies to your other hives that were "loaded" with honey, get as much out as possible, and reduce their heating space, then get that comb back in action if the cells aren't too stretched out) I think your solar wall was a good step in the right direction, but, after hearing all the wind from day 1 in your adventure, I think its primary thermal benefit to the bees was as a wind break. Every gust probably sucks the heat right out of those hives, like an old leaky house - just the pressure difference caused by gusts feels like it blows right through ya Since you took it down, please consider a more complete wind break solution (A straw wall is the cheapest, most modifiable solid break, can be planted into, and removed or modified easily) If you are planning on making queens, I would Highly suggest looking up Barnyard Bees Mini Mating Nucs. You'll have to spend some time on a table saw making them though, as nobody sells them that I am aware of. They are 2 frame nucs used strictly to get virgin queens mated with the minimum frames of bees at risk. So instead of risking 4 frames of bees on a queen that may end up on a windshield, you risk only 1. (BTW, Barnyard Bees does all nucs, but his focus is bee production, not honey. You can also find his mentor Fat Bee Man here on youtube, he offers tons of information, but is more difficult to extract via searches.) Of course, as stated up top.. imma first year ... just watched many, many hours of vids to pick this stuff up =) Take it as you will, its NOT my wisdom, just passing it through.
One of the first real challenges a new beekeeper faces is "what do I do with all these queen cells?" and "how do I keep them from swarming?". Gather up all the equipment before you need it because one day you'll be asking the same two questions. Those duplex hives and queen castles suddenly become money makers right at the moment that you decide that "instead of smashing these queen cells how about putting a frame with cells into a duplex or a queen castle? It's that easy IF YOU ALREADY HAVE THE EQUIPMENT.
Mike Ries Yup! Being ready and knowing what is coming will be key. I am about 4 days away from having my first cells emerging. I'll be cutting and placing those cells into 2 frame mating nucs in the next day or 2 and praying there are enough drones around from my hives and any other locals. once I build a bottom board, the duplex will be ready for them to graduate to, as the mini's open up for the next round.
Have done 12 (splits) so far. Using queen castles. (QC's) The empty frames are coming from last year's deadouts. I stick the drawn combs back into the host colony. I'll pull two brood frames with queen cells for each slot in a QC and stick in one with honey/pollen. I kill most of the cells saving the ripe ones. Practice this stuff and you'll never buy bees again ever. I haven't bought bees in years. Having too many is not such a bad thing.
Once mated the 3 frames get moved to a duplex and then a second deep nuc set on top for an 8-frame. If it gets full of bees put a mini-excluder on and start making honey. They build up very fast in the 4 over 4 frame config.
My first thought was "which direction do you face the entrance". I was taught to face your hives to the south so they get the most sun possible. In that lesson they said not to have your entrance facing north... so do you have them facing east/west or north/south. I do kinda like the idea of the research hive for making splits but i think i would eventually move them into a 10 frame instead of putting 4 frame boxes on top. Just my thoughts, written down
I have used the M. Palmer system for several years now on some 40 +hives an it provides an excellent method for production of cell raising colonies to produce high quality queens by having lots of right aged bees and copious resources.You are rather missing this point by producing queens from small splits with limited resources and emergency cells rather than 3 day larvae from your best queens. Even if you do not want to go in to large scale queen rearing building large 'cell raisers' can be very productive as large colonies produce more honey than the same number of bees in smaller colonies. The 'bee bomb' of sealed brood addition does however add mites that need clearing.Ten days after the sealed brood is added the whole colony can be made into a massive queenright shook swarm on sufficient broodless drawn combs and store combs with thin foundation over the top queen excluder (I use a floor excluder to prevent absconding). The shook swarm on the original site receives all returning foragers. The brood frames are distributed back to the support colonies in the apiary. The broodless swarm gives a 3 day window to remove the mites using fumigation with formic or oxalic acid.(you may want to keep the queen in a cage while you actually fumigate to remove all the foretic mites). The huge queenright colony has masses of house bees and is ideally placed to get lots of comb drawn on fed syrup for the 3 weeks until they are old enough to forage. The colony still needs checking weekly for queen cells and to swap out newly drawn comb before it is filled with syrup. Once your comb is drawn the whole hive could then be moved to a rich nectar source to fill all the lovely drawn comb.A second brood removal at this time also removes all the consumers to maximise crop like a cut down split. This system does not loose brood and some 'cell raisers' can provide selected queens for replacement or M. palmer type nucs.
You can't tilt the hive forward slightly. If one side is tipped then the other is tipped back. Bees might have a hard time removing dead bees, moisture, debris, etc if they are the side tipped back, right? Brushy Mt. Bee's just did a webinar and mentioned how important this is.
I just saw quad version of that kind box with same side entrance not backwards and 4 queen for both raising new queens and making them go berserk when they receive hormones and pheromones another young queen nearby so they are just go mad and lay so many eggs to prove themselves as being useful, dominant one. Not saw on the work just received as info on a video but worth a try I guess. Keep up the good work Jim, like your approach and your videos :)
I too have a support hive/resource hive, my fear, is if using a SINGLE queen excluder, you have to be careful that the queen doesn't get on the excluder, and when removed, gets dropped into the other hive, so I plan on cutting a plastic excluder in half to prevent this from being able to happen Dadant makes a support hive that the center board is removable
Thanks for this video, great share. Just starting this yr so this video gives me a lot to think about. Will keep an eye out for your updates in your progress.
I use them, but run triples thru winter, (Northern Michigan 45th parallel) have had doubles make it too. The only problem I have with them is I run 10 frame boxes and the bees will build fat frames on the outside and if you try to move them to a 10 frame box it's a tight fit. I have added 1/2 plywood to the inside on one side to correct beespace and just always put it to the outside for more R-value. Insulate the hell out of them. As far as Queens... no different than using two boxes side by side facing different ways. When you master Queen rearing the equipment becomes personal choice.
A bit unrelated, but if you have time would you consider doing a review video of your impression of the vivaldi boards, now that you've used them a couple of winters? I've been thinking of using them for my hives, but would like to hear your opinions on them.
I have nothing bad to say about Vivaldi boards. They have worked as advertised for me (in my climate.) I never like recommending things without the disclaimer that "my climate is different than yours" and your mileage may vary... but for me, on my hives in my winters... I will keep using them without hesitation.
I have 4 of them 🙂 one currently in use with a newly hatched queen laying machine. About to make some bees 🤓 also put together 2 queen castles, 1 in use. I'm up to 12 hives from the 2 I started last year 🤠
Hi! First, let me say love your informational RUclipss! After watching this, I purchased a resource hive. I was lucky and a swarm moved in and is doing AWESOME! About 12 days ago , installed a nuc with VHS queen. Then went on vacation. Checked hive today and nothing.. no eggs, larvae or brood. Just bees and honey. Any idea? I have a queen excluder on with 10 frame super. Then feeder of 1:1 syrup. Today, I put a couple frames of brood and young eggs in hopes of creating queen cup. What do you think happened to my queen? You think the pheromones from other side will inhibit a queen cell to develop? Should I be looking to buy a queen and introduce? Thanks!
Sounds great , great , great BUT not sure how the honey boxes will work with mixing the Bee’s 🤷♂️🤷♂️. Have not tried it like that BUT it just may work 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️. Keep the updates coming. Thanks for the ideas. If they work for you . Lol
You have pretty much got wintering your bees down to a science and I wouldn't want to risk or experiment with anything if I were you. But if you are looking to try a little something different.... I think professional grade heating tape, very cheap, and a thermostat would be an incredible test. You could set the tape to whatever temp you want, and if the temp falls below whatever temp you choose it can kick on. You could also monitor the internal temp, which you could do with a cheap thermometer which would be good for the channel cuz you can walk out and see if they are at temp or not without ever questioning, and you can also set temp alarms to notify you if the temp gets to low and you can do something before its to late. You have to watch moistures but as long as its more of an emergency back up or a very low level heat it could be awesome.
Hey Jim. I've been reading through the comments and just wanted to encourage you to do it your way, and the way you feel comfortable with. You could put 10 bks in a room.. ask the same question.. and get 12 different answers. With all the help and research we do, it's still a live and learn experience for us. What might work for you in New England, might not work in say Michigan, or Dakota, or Idaho (growing zones 5). I would ask 2 questions: 1- if you over wintered 2 nucs in the resource hive, would it take one hive longer to develope in the spring because it's facing north and not getting as much sunlight to get the colony working? 2- I understand wanting to keep the genetics of your Queens from a good hive, but if your italian queen breeds with a Russian drone, or a carni drone, do you have a cross? What if she's mated by both OR all 3? My blonde Italian queen (and bees) from last year ended the year very dark like carnolians and very grouchy. I think you'll do great Jim and look forward to watching your success. Cheers my friend.
I know the new queen would mate with a random drone. That's a chance I can take. Half of those good genes would be passed on. Bringing in a new mated queen is a gamble. I like the idea of the bees doing it themselves. I'm not in a hurry. I have patience. As far as comment section advice... I read it all, do my own research, sometimes cross reference with my mentor and then make my decisions. When I just ask the mentor, I get ONE opinion. It make be a suitable opinion, but I'm always open to a potentially BETTER opinion from my commenters. I have come to trust several regulars over the years. As for your question about overwintering, I would face the hives N/S so each hive would get even sun. I'd wrap them the same way as my other hives so the south sides get full sun on black tar paper. Regardless of the way the entrance faced, both hives would still feel the same sun warmth. Just that the left hive would have heat at the "back" and the right hive would have heat at the "front." Same amount of heat overall.
Cool. I just finished building next year's equipment. I wish I had watched this beforehand. (I'm in the South, so maybe it's not such a big deal for me to do the double nuc.)
Nice, although I can't do this in my current lot, I will keep watching so I know what I can do in the future, when I get that big lot. 👍 keep the videos coming. This will be great.
I have this dual nuc with 2 queen 5 over 5 at Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard - it works really well - you can also put a top feeder with queen excluders, too, but the feeder must have lateral gap in the center. - I tried this last year but split too early, and it didn't work. Make sure you wait until you have more than 6 frames of brood before you split. (20/20 hindsight - learn from my mistakes).
I did not read all the comments so this might have been addressed. 28 to 35 days to get laying queen if she makes it back. About 85% chance. Another 21 days to get first emerged bees. Just under 2 months to get new bees. Meanwhile you are loosing 1% a day to old age and other losses. Maybe more. For this to work you need enough resources to add a frame of brood every 10 to 14 days until hive gets up to speed. No problem if you have enough brood. Also there will be several queen cells. Harvest a few and give to new split saving them 2 weeks. Any way you can speed this process up helps.
Hi! Thanks for sharing your beekeeping knowledge and experience! I've got 2 hives in my 3rd year and just split into a resource hive...8 frames full with two new queens. I have a question. As they're pretty full, want to add supers to get comb creation and maybe honey! Love in zone 7 (North Carolina) and wondered if you remove queen excluder or keto on and just put notch down on supers facing same side as entrances to make easier for foragers and hand off when they return. And, I'm guessing I use these queens to replace in original hives and let these keep trying to rear replacements? Honestly, I don't want to expand apiary so might have to start selling nucs to avoid swarms! :) Thanks in advance. And if you'd rather address on you tube, feel free. Just let me know. Thanks!
Hey Jim, this will be my first year going into winter with one of these double nuc set ups. How did yours do thru the winter? I am going to treat the top like a Vivaldi board with separate fondant and burlap. I am concerned about the solid bottom board and air flow. Thoughts and advice?
This will be my first winter with them, too. I did not have bees in them at the end of last season. I'll figure something out similar to what I did with the other hives. I seal off my bottom boards on the other hives over winter. The coroplast inspection boards are right up against the bottom.
You've definitely got infected with Bee Math. I got a horrid case of Chicken Math (there are just so many breeds I have to have...), but thankfully, I can only fit so many hives on my property. In other words, I have no other choice than to curb the desire to get hundreds of hives.
What are you using for a top cover? Another well thought out video full of energy and explanations. You do a great job with all the editing. Love the passion
It's a styrofoam cover I inherited from my neighbor. Surprisingly sturdy and it's probably 10 years old. I just got a new one from Betterbee for my other resource hive. They're called "BeeMax" covers. BeeMax makes full styrofoam hives, but also lids that fit on standard wooden hives. I actually really like it.
I'm getting two Nucs tomorrow. And I have no idea how to start. So excited. My first experience with bees :D I hope you will catch one. Swarms will boom this and next month.
Good to see an individual person have an interest in hive increases and not just keeping bees for fun. Honeybees are a resource that produce the single greatest food source on the planet. People treating bees as curiosities instead of actual resource is for dimwitted knuckleheads. One word.Clematis. Grow it, they love it. Easy to do and makes bees happy as a kid in a candy store with a no-limit credit card. Letting the bees choose the larvae for queen is almost a 100 percent chance of acceptance. They chose her after all.
Ok so when u do ur inspection, how do you keep them from robbing each other? If both hives are open and next to each other, do you have a separate nuc cover or what?
Michael T Doing an inspection on these hives would be fairly quick. Not long enough to instigate a serious robbing. Also the point of these hives is for them to be small but mighty. Packed with brood and food. They should be pretty content and not out starving for another hives's honey. When managing a resource hive like this, I think the goal is to try to build them up pretty evenly. So if one was slow and the other was strong, you could balance the honey/brood frames as you go.
Awesome, yards looking good. This is my first year and I live in Michigan so we have somewhat similar weather. I have two packages and a NUC, not sure if I could try this type of box this year or just let them build a couple deeps and try and get through the white stuff. Did you make those or buy a kit, any help, insight or tips are greatly appreciated! Good luck this year!
Phillip LaMaire I got a package in April and I've already split it twice. It depends on your bees, but taking a split from a package is possible in the first year. Don't push it if you're not sure though. I bought these from BetterBee in NY.
Vino Farm my packages came from Georgia and with all the cold snaps they will be in and laying for four weeks tomorrow and are covering about 6 frames in a 10 frame deep. Thank you for the quick response, I plan on using the Vivaldi boards on all three and your outer insulation method also.
A asked if anyone was doing this here in CO or wanting to learn together. I think I will have one ready and see if it works out by July. June was the suggestion in the Denver area. I look forward to your follow ups.
I have no own experience whatsoever but immensely enjoy the videos! I have a rather fundamental question: What are the advantages of small nuc boxes during the summer when temperature is not an issue? Could you do the same things in 10 frame boxes and put in a lot of empty frames? Do the bees get 'distracted' by empty frames and less productive? The thing is, I'm a biomedical researcher and I do research on mammalian cells that I culture myself. Those cells originally belonged to a multicellular organism, kind of like individual bees belong to their hive. I have the impression that a lot of the same principles apply to growing cells in a lab and growing bees in a hive, which is really interesting. That's why I'm curious :)
Bad things happen when the bees have too much empty space. If they have a lot of empty frames, there are not enough bees to defend the space and pests take up residence in the extra. Wax moths and hive beetles can quickly overcome a hive of these characteristics and prompt the bees to abscond or leave. The bees do not get distracted but they can become overwhelmed and discouraged so to speak.
good luck! i just have a question.. wont the other hives make queen cells? and cant you take that frame and put it in the research hive? or is it just too much waiting and leaving it for a chance?
I don't know a lot about the OTS system, but I believe it has more to do with timing. Don't they also kill the queen to make the hive queenless? I thought that system was more about disrupting the brood cycle and forcing the hive to make a new queen every year.
Is this bottom board design also what Palmer does or is putting opposing entrances a design you decided to do? I understand the concept and makes a lot of sense. Just wondering if he does it also.
Dan Veneski I'm not entirely sure of the box design he uses. It may be a variety of designs because he has hundreds of them. I do know that he does not do walk away splits though. He will introduce laying queens so the front/back design on these hives is kind of moot. If you're doing walk away splits like I did, it makes more sense to have opposing entrances.
Keep in mind that you have only a few hives. You are better off getting a little more diversity in your yard versus narrowing it down to just a few lines of bees. You would be better off at this point in purchasing quality local queens versus walk away splits. You will have better results in the long run.
Great! I have been looking at those for a while now. Dadant has a pretty good price on them. The concept is so simple. And Michael Palmer is really someone special isn't he? Profound. Probably one of the top beekeepers in the world. I might give this a try next year. You are moving forward with all of this at a pretty good pace. I am certain you will do well with these new Resource Hives. No doubt about it Senor Vino! Are you going to produce Italians and Russians? How do you like them so far? Btw, I named my queen also. Queen DeMedici. May you produce an abundace of bees with your new nucs. Best Regards.
Right! And not just at the national level here in the U.S. The National Honey Show in London is the Nes Plus Ultra. And he is very generous in sharing his knowledge with people. They come from all parts of the world to learn from him. I have learned much from listening to his lectures. We are blessed to have him here at this moment in time. Thanks Mike.
Had bees in the 70's, got married, quit them, then re-started. It was way too easy and really I was a "bee haver" the first go. My bees died in 1988 or 89. Both hives lol. Now it's different. Retired and having a blast with bees. Have made 12 splits up the past week and a half. 3-framers in queen castles. Have 27 full-size ones making full boxes of honey already. I don't buy bees thanks to Michael Palmer. I have not been treating nucs until the second season when I put them in full size equipment and they tend to survive better than the full-size ones. I go on but the point is to anyone who reads this thread...watch the Michael Palmer series and take notes if you're serious about wanting to make honey. The honey just comes once you master making more bees more bees more bees. :)
Ask this question to Michael Palmer who doesn't even put insulation on his hives! He just wraps with tar paper and nothing else. I'd have 2" shells around the boxes. Apparently, bees farther north than me survive this system with less insulation.
And Bees up in Canada survive 20 below zero for weeks at a time. I think it should be chalked up to the resiliency of the Bees, not that they're passing heat through 2 inches of wood.
357lockdown The heat will pass through the 1.5" of wood. If you have ever seen a picture of a beehive in winter taken with a thermal imaging camera, you would know this to be true.
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Palmers system works fantastically, it's what I have used for the past few years. Here's some very important info however to consider.
1. I don't think he uses the split resource hives to do walkaway splits. He uses queen mating nucs and mating nuc yards. Here's the issue. The split colonies are tricky to manage when they do not have laying queens inserted directly. Queens that go out and mate can too easily get the wrong side and if she goes into the wrong side with a mated queen she's dead. If she goes into the wrong side with an unhatched queen, she kills that queen and you have a messed up split colony. Simply color coding the nucs may not be enough to solve the issues and it's important enough of an issue to not take a chance on. They work fine with each side having a mated and laying queen at the same time. There's another channel that talks about these as well. UoG Honey Bee Research.
I'd encourage you to make sure that you have your info correct on how he uses these resource hives. (I could be mistaken).
2. This is kind of obvious but worth stressing anyway. The 4 frame split nuc colonies are even more desperate for enough resources to over winter. They WILL NOT make it on only four frames and eight frames probably won't be enough for you either in your climate. They will make it to about March and starve. You'll have to pay special attention to stores which means managing heavy numbers of workers and extra effort to supply feed and forage. This involves closer monitoring and advanced planning, more so than standard tens.
It's a good system and it's fairly simple once the gears all mesh but as with everything in bee keeping, a small wrong move can have long lasting and fatal impacts and recovery times to fix. I'd suggest checking out the advice I gave completely and if you find it correct, adopting mating or single nucs for your queen rearing and use the resource hives with mated queens only.
Thanks for the advice. I watched a protégé of Michael Palmer do an hour long talk about these hives and he seemed to believe that walk away splits were fine. He is in Upstate NY, same basic climate as me. I understand that adding mated queens would be safer, but I guess this video made me think self-made queens would work too. ruclips.net/video/VW7CPXLClmY/видео.html
Also, if you say that these hives need feeding over winter, does Michael Palmer go out and feed all his hives? I got the impression that these hives were more self-sustaining because they were smaller and 8 frames of honey would be plenty. I'm sure every situation is different and of course, I know there will be a learning curve.
Nothing is simple.
I'll watch the linked vid, thanks. I've not watched that one.
Walk away splits are okay on a honey flow in singles....it's the split resource hives I have my doubts with. It may work fine, it may not, it may work a portion of the time and not the rest. The thing is queens are a pretty valuable resource for a colony to try to make only to have them ruined upon return of the mating flight. In that case the colony has lost up to a full month and it's the time lost that's the more valuable resource between the queen and time lost. Especially so in a short season region.
Palmer specifically weighs all of his hives in the late summer/fall and any that are too light, he feeds accordingly. He has a specific formula worked out of how much syrup to feed per weight shortage, I don't recall it off hand. If you feed them early enough they will store it away as capped feed and no feeding is needed over winter. The issue I've experienced with the four frames and food storage is that it depends on the strength of the colony cluster. The one's I've had with 8 frames mostly make it (my climate is warmer than yours). My four frame nucs usually did not make it without being supplemented in March. I assume yours may need more stores than mine considering the climate.
Palmer feeds every single hive that is not heavy enough to make it through according to his experience for his area. He specifically says in several videos how much feed he goes through in a year. Obviously that's going to differ according to specific forages available in any given area, weather, strength and work habits of specific colonies, etc...
Sure there's a learning curve, only reason I share my thoughts is to try to shorten your learning curve. Take it for what it's worth.
I over winter in double nucs and found my hives actually winter better than ten frame double hives. I do walk a way spits with nucs like this all the time and don't have problems with the queens. My only problem is getting starting transferring queen cells to early, when I use queen cells, and getting an overly cold night which kills the queen cell.
You do walk away splits in double nuc colonies? Like the resource hives he's showing here in this vid? Or are you saying you do walk away splits in single nucs all the time? There's potentially a big differnce.
I do walk away splits in single nucs, 8 frames and ten frames and they work fine as long as there's a nectar flow or I can simulate one with feed and pollen.
Brent, your advice is always appreciated! There is also something to consider: a colder winter means the bees actually consume LESS food. That's what happened this year. They used up leftover resources in March/April, but they got through the coldest period OK. I do remember hearing Palmer talking about fall feeding. I forgot about that.
The goal is to propagate my survivor hives. I'm going to rethink my plan now. Ugh. You're right that it would suck for those nucs to spend all that time making a queen only to have her not return. However, I'd still have the bees, the frames, the drawn comb, etc... They could be combined back into the mother hive. I guess it's worth a shot.
The other thought would be to move the MOTHER QUEEN into the resource hive as a holding pen and let the mother HIVE work on making a new queen. The new self made queen would have the resources of a whole hive and a bigger target to return to. The resource nuc and original queen could then be transfered to a second new hive. What about that concept?
In the last few days I've made up 12 new colonies in queen castles. Today...this morning I was working on one when another swarmed right in front of me. Landed in the lowest branch of an enormous oak tree. Easy peasy. Went into the hive that'd swarmed and harvested a few cells. Even gave a frame with a couple capped cells to my helper. He got the bee swarm too.
Share the wealth.
Michael Palmer is amazing, also teaches how dangerous it is for You or FAMILY not to get stung regularly to avoid 1 in 10 chance of getting deadly allergic reaction
This is going to work. I use the same setup here in Norway (same climate as your place), except I keep the setup throughout summer. Putting on supers when the bees need it. You will get a ton of honey this way. There is one problem with your plan and that is when you want to split the nucs. You will need a second bee yard. If not the bees will fly to the old place and find nothing. When I split a hive like this I lift 4 frames of brood from each nuc box up to a new 8 frame box above the queen excluder. 2 new frames are put into the nucs together with 2 honey frames. I leave this setup until all the brood above the queen excluder is capped, then I move the nucs to a new place in the bee yard, put a new bottom board on the old spot, place the box with the capped brood on the bottom board and then the supers. If you have a queen cell you can put it together with the brood cells, or you can take a frame of eggs from the queen you want to create a new queen from and put it in the top super box (easier to check the progress of creating the queen). If you want many queens you can put in a list of queen cups with larva instead. This is a very easy way of creating a lot of queens. The forage bees from the nucs will fly back to the old place (new hive) so this hive will have plenty of bees to raise new queens. The nucs will only have brood, newborn and worker bees left and need the frames with honey until they have foraging bees again.
Oh no, I am confused. I need a diagram!
I'm glad you are expanding...love your vids! I went from three hives this spring to twelve in less than three weeks with 18 swarm traps placed around the neighborhood. One swarm so large I had to use two 10 frame Lang boxes. Put out some traps,,,,,,,,,,,FREE bees with survivor genes from the wild.
Where do you live?
Am very very glad to see that you've discovered duplex colonies. Now the queen castle is next. Let me take the time to share my story. I found the Michael Palmer series of bee videos. The first nuc I bought, an 8-frame, came out of a duplex hive exactly like yours only white. I decided to try the same thing myself. You have to be patient and wait for the swarm cells. Once you find you have 5 or 6 frames with cells on them you'll want the queen castle. It's fun and easy to make splits with queen cells on them. They don't always mate but most of the time they do. Call these "next years bees" because that is exactly what they are. Running them as resource colonies doesn't always work the way you planned. Keep flexible and you will thrive. I have 6 duplex hives and 6 queen castles along with various size nuc boxes.
Even have little nuc-size supers for when they need space for honey. It gets really fun and I am so glad you chose to follow Michael's path. He really knows his bees. You're going to end up with a large pile of equipment. That's just part of the game. Good luck.
I can see that it will not be long and you'll be making a "my queen hatched" video where you're so excited about the first one. It's a big deal and you will be sooo proud of yourself. Then the "my queen mated" one. Next "I marked my first queen". Enjoy the ride. It's a blast.
In two years you'll be making a video called "we had to buy the 20-frame extractor". Yep.
Mine is on it's way from New York. Have around ten or fifteen full supers to work on from last year. We had so much honey that I left a lot on hives as insurance. Ended up with huge well-fed colonies that looked like June but it was early April. Last year was a good one.
Good Luck! Looks like everything is going great for your bees! I really enjoy watching your videos. Thanks for sharing your learning and knowledge with us.
Vino Farms, Great Idea, yes it works if done without over stretching your resources. I wish you the best with this project, but please be careful not to weaken your donor hives. Five strong hives always trump 10 weak ones. Good luck and I wish you great success, looking forward to seeing the outcome. Remember the bee's know best, you can make suggestions but in the long run they will do what they need.
Hey Don, I feel Jim has taken time to learn quite a bit about beekeeping in the past few years. He seems to care about the outcome of his endeavors and seems genuinely upset when things don't work out, or just as enthused when they do. I try to comment on the issues I have had with my hives over the years to try and save him the grief and wasted time of trials gone wrong. right now he doesn't have enough resources to make 4 splits without weakening his other 3 hives. Just by manipulating the Balboa hive and trying to transition them into deeps from medium's is a light stressor, and may upset the balance. Even though that is a proven strong survivor, a light stressor and a mild might load could prove disastrous. I would wait until mid June when the hives are peeking then only take from my strongest hives. Rule of thumb is to never split first year hives. I do know people that have had limited success trying it, but only with the most prolific queens running the show. Also a queen castle would be a good place to start or single walk away splits unless he knows someone with queens to spare. Again, I wish him the best of luck and enjoy his videos, I just don't want to see him spread the creamed honey to thin.Jim if you read this, I'm rooting for ya!!!
Jim, I'd seen your recent ( spring 2021) bee loss video.
This winter took me out as well.
I've used these in the past on a limited basis. This year, as I rebuild, I'm shooting to have one double 4/4 resource hive on each hive stand with the other "three" standard hive setups.
"In a perfect world", that will give me 40% to use to "boost" the other three hives on that same stand.
For overwinter, I'm contemplating a modified Binnie style double screen bottom board, and relocating the resource hives atop a strong, well resourced, hive that's right there.
Thanks for making your videos. You give an introduction, objectives, how to achieve them etc. You make good videos
Happy splitting. I was able to raise a couple of queens via splits so I get it. Haven't needed to buy bees this year and that was my goal.
Congratulations on the expansion! I hope everything goes well!
Hi, got to love Your passion about beekeeping.
Nucs are the key to sustainability for sure.
My strategy is to use as less types of equipment as possible to be more efficient. I've got 8 nucs and 4 hohey hives. The nucs provide me with extra brood to boost honey hives before the flow, extra queens whenever I need them, etc. I pull them all in a row in autumn to share heat, so I don't even have to make double nuc hives (there's no such thing to buy In Latvia), nucs are easier to make anyways.
Excited for the summer to see how this goes for you. I wish you well. If things go well for me next summer I may be a new beekeeper myself
Glad to see you doing this Jim!
I have really enjoyed having nucs in my apiary to steal resources from when needed. I am using stand-alone nucs, but as you know, my climate down here is a bit different. That being said, I overwintered 5, single-story nucs successfully this past winter. This season my resource nucs have proved invaluable as I have needed to replace queens a few times because of a few missed swarms.
Great video!
Thanks, Bobby. I still have a lot to learn and yes, this climate is a gigantic obstacle. It's so good to see your bees thriving!
betterbee! grew up around where they are, and i think we bought our bees and stuff from them when i was younger and did some beekeeping with my dad.
Excited to see how this works! Splits are one of the most interesting things to me, and I'm really interested to see this method in action.
Love what you do sir! Would love to swing by and check it out sometime.
I have a couple hives that have been medication free and low maintenance for a good 14 or 15 years! Graft, graft, graft. My uncle and I are talking about running 1000 of my queens' grafted queens in to his operation in the next month where he's running 10k+ colonies.
They were my great-grandfathers hives from before his passing.
But, I don't want more than 15-20 hives. I have no interest in getting into hundreds of hives. Grafting just seems like a huge hassle for only a few hives.
I would look into it more. I'm doing the same as you. I play with 2-15 hives because 11 years of commercial beekeeping affected my level of excitement and interest with my own personal hives. It will give you much more control over your expansion hives and give you a new understanding of the biology of your bees. Your winters are much more harsh than mine in Central PA and uncompareable to what my uncle experiences in the winter in Central FLA. Another aspect that may be of interest in your scenario is replacing a "bad to ok/good" queen in the late summer allowing you to have the most possible vigorous build up come spring since the queen has been acclimated to her hive for 5 months and much less strain from low brood production during the cold. I did a side by side comparison with the same genetics mentioned, one in a triple deep and one in a 5 frame Nuc-styro. The triple deep was pushing 13-14 frames of bees and young brood in mid Feb '18. The 5 framer was producing her first noticeable brood in early April. (No meds, no feeding supplement until Jan for both of them)
Neat! Remember that bees also orient by pattern recognition, so to complement the colors you can paint rhomboids, hexagons etc on the hives. Seen it done in a few places, mainly where you have hive sheds or hive trailers, lots of hives stacked close in several levels, each entrance is marked with different patterns in different colors.
Agree. Completely. I've seen on-line, some pretty heated debates on this topic. That they are color blind or they do not recognize patterns. In my opinion, they are not color blind and yes, they do recognize patterns. I have large numbers stenciled in bright colors. Even on my swarm hive just in case I ever have to use it. Thanks.
I've seen an experiment they recorded which was quite hillarious, they had some patio furniture set out in a pattern a few meters in front of a hive, and they switched these around ;moving the group sideways, changing the numbers and formation of chairs, removing the table, and finally they swapped the chairs out for garden flamingos. all the while keeping track on how confused the bees that arrived were.
End result of that experiment was that they didnt care if the chairs got switched with flamingos, but they got confused when the group moved a few metres or the pattern changed. They got even more confused when the entire group was missing..
How very interesting. I am glad that I placed my hive in a spot where it will not be moved. Thanks for sharing that.
As someone who works with Mike Palmer I can tell you he doesn't do walk away splits when he makes up these nucs. He grafts queens cells and puts them into mating nucs. 16 days later he catches the newly mated queen and puts them into queenless nucs made up the day before with frames of brood and honey.
I am aware that Mike Palmer does not do walk away splits, but I have seen other videos of people using this type of hive for that purpose. I realize the video was not clear on that point. Michael Palmer was the inspiration to learn more about these hives, and the "resource hive" concept, but I figured a walk away split would be OK to get them started. Is there anything (other than the time expenditure) that you would see as a problem with that plan? I'd appreciate your opinion. Thanks!
With a walk away grab 2 frames of brood, plus a honey frame and pollen. 1 capped brood and the other with just laid eggs and young emerging larva (see royal jelly in bottom of cells). It will take them basically 10 days to cap a couple of emergency cells from the eggs frame and 16 days for the virgin to emerge and mate. So leave them alone once you've created the walk away for 30 days.
Your problem is time. If you did this now you basically have to wait until mid June before checking.
Afterwards if you have a mated queen you'll have to let them build up for winter with luck. 8 frames is your target with good flow and good laying queen.
If the survive winter they'll be a resource next spring to help your other hives or to make more nucs.
That was basically my plan. I'm not in a hurry. Once a mated queen started laying, we'd be in our July nectar lull and I'd be feeding anyway. August and September are always really good for build up with a very strong flow. So maybe I wouldn't get TWO rounds of new hives, but a really solid one ready for winter seems doable. I'm not in this for honey production or any sort of business. I'm just trying to learn and build strong colonies that will overwinter. Thanks for your advice.
Vino Farm I'd say that's a good plan. I live in northern Vermont so I know the limits to building nucs in New England.
Good job with your videos.
I learned a lot from Palmer over the years. He's a very good teacher.
I'm on Facebook as Northern Border Apiaries if you have any questions or PM me directly.
Interesting approach. i will stay tuned for the results. I am hoping to get bees when we finally move. I am in southern NH so our climates are the same and I like seeing what works for you.
I really enjoy your videos. So much that I am going to give beekeeping a go next year. Already have most of the required equipment because my grandfather was a hobby beekeeper. I have pictures of me (when I was a young boy) and him getting swarms from trees in the mid 80's. It will be nice to carry that on. Thanks
Thanks! Best of luck on your beekeeping adventure.
I concur about the videos by Paul Kelly at the Honeybee Research Centre at U of Guelph. The method you are describing he says makes "emergency queens". His system gets them to build queen as if there wasn't a rush which means they are bigger, better fed queens. Now that we have snow in the forecast (we are just outside Toronto) it's a nice time to dream about next year's goals!!
Catherine Young Spoiler Alert: I made 5 queens in 5 attempts with these nucs. Three built up to full size brood boxes and two grew to double deeps by the end of summer. It was painless. Every queen made this way was successfully mated and normal sized. I think there are several ways to do walk away splits and everyone will have different results. These worked as intended for me. Thanks for watching. (PS. I love the Guelph videos!)
I really think that I like this! Sounds good and logical, and I look forward to your results. I have a feeling you have a booming year coming.
Great idea! I've been watching Michael Palmer for some time now and I'm also fascinated by his double nuc system.
BTW: i remember from M.Palmer's videos that he specifcally mentions using wrap ups (of dark paper) ONLY for solar gains and NOT for insulation. If i might: i think last winter it didn't do good to your bees that you wrapped them so thick with full insulation. That may seem like a paradox but it's better for bees not to have too warm during winter. Otherwise queens keep laying longer than they should = bees use resources and energy during late fall / winter for raising brood. That brood has no chance for proper clensing flight during winter and it's counterproducitve. That might have been the cause for fewer bees in spring or worn down bees.
I keep my fingers crossed for your new doble nucs! Great job! :)
Greetings from sunny Poland :)
I actually clapped when you showed the new part of the bee yard. Best of luck!
I wish you all the luck! I hope you have a good bee season this year.
I've been watching from the start as a new beekeeper myself. I wanted to say you should still try your Flow Hive system, at least one frame. Last year (year 2) I had a bummer harvest from the Flow Hive. You have some good hives this year, I think they'll take to it.
The other way is OTS - where you take frames AND the queen and leave the first hive alone to create their new queen. Less stress for both first and second colonies - because first hive keeps the original box, and new box - gets their queen. If you move a queenless colony to a new hive - its double the stress. OTS - give that a try in one of your hives. OTS=On The Spot Queen Rearing
Jim, i bought 2 last year myself! :) seems like a great system, but i never got around to using it yet. everyone's context is differnt. i keep bees in residential backyards all around new orleans and it is easier for me to move the separate double nucs to new locations as needed. but my intent was to run the double nucs as a resource hive as you described. it would allow me to keep 4 queens in my own backyard in the space of just two hive boxes which is the "accepted norm" here for hives in a residential lot... i'm excited to see your progress! thanks for sharing!
Great work Jim please keep us posted
Congrats! I am glad you were able to get through Palmer's videos. They are great stuff. I am in my first year and following pretty much his methodology.
One BIG thing I caught in your description though, do NOT waste your space in a resource hive storing honey! Get it out of those hives, the space is too precious. You can always jar it, and feed it back to them later! Then let the bees clean the comb and it becomes a nice new egg condo. Nucs/resource hives are all about making more bees, they need that space for brood. Give em the honey in a feeder. (I think this also applies to your other hives that were "loaded" with honey, get as much out as possible, and reduce their heating space, then get that comb back in action if the cells aren't too stretched out)
I think your solar wall was a good step in the right direction, but, after hearing all the wind from day 1 in your adventure, I think its primary thermal benefit to the bees was as a wind break. Every gust probably sucks the heat right out of those hives, like an old leaky house - just the pressure difference caused by gusts feels like it blows right through ya Since you took it down, please consider a more complete wind break solution (A straw wall is the cheapest, most modifiable solid break, can be planted into, and removed or modified easily)
If you are planning on making queens, I would Highly suggest looking up Barnyard Bees Mini Mating Nucs. You'll have to spend some time on a table saw making them though, as nobody sells them that I am aware of. They are 2 frame nucs used strictly to get virgin queens mated with the minimum frames of bees at risk. So instead of risking 4 frames of bees on a queen that may end up on a windshield, you risk only 1. (BTW, Barnyard Bees does all nucs, but his focus is bee production, not honey. You can also find his mentor Fat Bee Man here on youtube, he offers tons of information, but is more difficult to extract via searches.)
Of course, as stated up top.. imma first year ... just watched many, many hours of vids to pick this stuff up =) Take it as you will, its NOT my wisdom, just passing it through.
One of the first real challenges a new beekeeper faces is "what do I do with all these queen cells?" and "how do I keep them from swarming?". Gather up all the equipment before you need it because one day you'll be asking the same two questions. Those duplex hives and queen castles suddenly become money makers right at the moment that you decide that "instead of smashing these queen cells how about putting a frame with cells into a duplex or a queen castle? It's that easy IF YOU ALREADY HAVE THE EQUIPMENT.
Mike Ries
Yup! Being ready and knowing what is coming will be key. I am about 4 days away from having my first cells emerging. I'll be cutting and placing those cells into 2 frame mating nucs in the next day or 2 and praying there are enough drones around from my hives and any other locals. once I build a bottom board, the duplex will be ready for them to graduate to, as the mini's open up for the next round.
Have done 12 (splits) so far. Using queen castles. (QC's) The empty frames are coming from last year's deadouts. I stick the drawn combs back into the host colony. I'll pull two brood frames with queen cells for each slot in a QC and stick in one with honey/pollen. I kill most of the cells saving the ripe ones. Practice this stuff and you'll never buy bees again ever. I haven't bought bees in years. Having too many is not such a bad thing.
Once mated the 3 frames get moved to a duplex and then a second deep nuc set on top for an 8-frame. If it gets full of bees put a mini-excluder on and start making honey. They build up very fast in the 4 over 4 frame config.
My first thought was "which direction do you face the entrance". I was taught to face your hives to the south so they get the most sun possible. In that lesson they said not to have your entrance facing north... so do you have them facing east/west or north/south. I do kinda like the idea of the research hive for making splits but i think i would eventually move them into a 10 frame instead of putting 4 frame boxes on top. Just my thoughts, written down
Very nice. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Looks very interesting. I'm interested to see how it works for you. I am hoping for your success!
I have used the M. Palmer system for several years now on some 40 +hives an it provides an excellent method for production of cell raising colonies to produce high quality queens by having lots of right aged bees and copious resources.You are rather missing this point by producing queens from small splits with limited resources and emergency cells rather than 3 day larvae from your best queens.
Even if you do not want to go in to large scale queen rearing building large 'cell raisers' can be very productive as large colonies produce more honey than the same number of bees in smaller colonies.
The 'bee bomb' of sealed brood addition does however add mites that need clearing.Ten days after the sealed brood is added the whole colony can be made into a massive queenright shook swarm on sufficient broodless drawn combs and store combs with thin foundation over the top queen excluder (I use a floor excluder to prevent absconding).
The shook swarm on the original site receives all returning foragers.
The brood frames are distributed back to the support colonies in the apiary.
The broodless swarm gives a 3 day window to remove the mites using fumigation with formic or oxalic acid.(you may want to keep the queen in a cage while you actually fumigate to remove all the foretic mites).
The huge queenright colony has masses of house bees and is ideally placed to get lots of comb drawn on fed syrup for the 3 weeks until they are old enough to forage.
The colony still needs checking weekly for queen cells and to swap out newly drawn comb before it is filled with syrup.
Once your comb is drawn the whole hive could then be moved to a rich nectar source to fill all the lovely drawn comb.A second brood removal at this time also removes all the consumers to maximise crop like a cut down split.
This system does not loose brood and some 'cell raisers' can provide selected queens for replacement or M. palmer type nucs.
Now I'm anxious to see the splits!
You can't tilt the hive forward slightly. If one side is tipped then the other is tipped back. Bees might have a hard time removing dead bees, moisture, debris, etc if they are the side tipped back, right? Brushy Mt. Bee's just did a webinar and mentioned how important this is.
Great comment...I am thinking of putting a screen hole on one side, so I can tip the resource hive.
I just saw quad version of that kind box with same side entrance not backwards and 4 queen for both raising new queens and making them go berserk when they receive hormones and pheromones another young queen nearby so they are just go mad and lay so many eggs to prove themselves as being useful, dominant one. Not saw on the work just received as info on a video but worth a try I guess. Keep up the good work Jim, like your approach and your videos :)
I too have a support hive/resource hive, my fear, is if using a SINGLE queen excluder, you have to be careful that the queen doesn't get on the excluder, and when removed, gets dropped into the other hive, so I plan on cutting a plastic excluder in half to prevent this from being able to happen
Dadant makes a support hive that the center board is removable
10. New. Hives. !!!
Dan Vitale YOU’RE GETTING A NEW HIVE AND YOU’RE GETTING A NEW HIVE AND YOU’RE GETTING A NEW HIVE!!!!
Thanks for this video, great share. Just starting this yr so this video gives me a lot to think about. Will keep an eye out for your updates in your progress.
I use them, but run triples thru winter, (Northern Michigan 45th parallel) have had doubles make it too. The only problem I have with them is I run 10 frame boxes and the bees will build fat frames on the outside and if you try to move them to a 10 frame box it's a tight fit. I have added 1/2 plywood to the inside on one side to correct beespace and just always put it to the outside for more R-value. Insulate the hell out of them. As far as Queens... no different than using two boxes side by side facing different ways. When you master Queen rearing the equipment becomes personal choice.
Good luck!!! It's gonna be an interesting summer!! :)
Okay Mr. Vino if you get enough of a harvest to start selling I better get a shot at buying some!
André Boilard
How do you ‘tilt’ to allow for moisture drainage or do you have to rely on moisture boards as the entrances are on opposite sides?
Yeah Michael Palmer! Awesome! Love his videos.
A bit unrelated, but if you have time would you consider doing a review video of your impression of the vivaldi boards, now that you've used them a couple of winters? I've been thinking of using them for my hives, but would like to hear your opinions on them.
I have nothing bad to say about Vivaldi boards. They have worked as advertised for me (in my climate.) I never like recommending things without the disclaimer that "my climate is different than yours" and your mileage may vary... but for me, on my hives in my winters... I will keep using them without hesitation.
Thanks - my climate is quite similar to yours, so I think that they should work similarly well here.
I have 4 of them 🙂 one currently in use with a newly hatched queen laying machine. About to make some bees 🤓 also put together 2 queen castles, 1 in use. I'm up to 12 hives from the 2 I started last year 🤠
Hi! First, let me say love your informational RUclipss! After watching this, I purchased a resource hive. I was lucky and a swarm moved in and is doing AWESOME! About 12 days ago , installed a nuc with VHS queen. Then went on vacation. Checked hive today and nothing.. no eggs, larvae or brood. Just bees and honey. Any idea? I have a queen excluder on with 10 frame super. Then feeder of 1:1 syrup. Today, I put a couple frames of brood and young eggs in hopes of creating queen cup. What do you think happened to my queen? You think the pheromones from other side will inhibit a queen cell to develop? Should I be looking to buy a queen and introduce?
Thanks!
I am so genuinely interested in your journey with these bees! I love it!
Can we name the new hives when you create them ?
Good luck on it. It sounds like a useful system. :)
We’re did you purchase your resource hive since the company I got mine from is no longer in buisness
Sounds great , great , great BUT not sure how the honey boxes will work with mixing the Bee’s 🤷♂️🤷♂️. Have not tried it like that BUT it just may work 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️. Keep the updates coming. Thanks for the ideas. If they work for you . Lol
You have pretty much got wintering your bees down to a science and I wouldn't want to risk or experiment with anything if I were you. But if you are looking to try a little something different.... I think professional grade heating tape, very cheap, and a thermostat would be an incredible test. You could set the tape to whatever temp you want, and if the temp falls below whatever temp you choose it can kick on. You could also monitor the internal temp, which you could do with a cheap thermometer which would be good for the channel cuz you can walk out and see if they are at temp or not without ever questioning, and you can also set temp alarms to notify you if the temp gets to low and you can do something before its to late. You have to watch moistures but as long as its more of an emergency back up or a very low level heat it could be awesome.
Hey Jim. I've been reading through the comments and just wanted to encourage you to do it your way, and the way you feel comfortable with. You could put 10 bks in a room.. ask the same question.. and get 12 different answers. With all the help and research we do, it's still a live and learn experience for us. What might work for you in New England, might not work in say Michigan, or Dakota, or Idaho (growing zones 5). I would ask 2 questions: 1- if you over wintered 2 nucs in the resource hive, would it take one hive longer to develope in the spring because it's facing north and not getting as much sunlight to get the colony working? 2- I understand wanting to keep the genetics of your Queens from a good hive, but if your italian queen breeds with a Russian drone, or a carni drone, do you have a cross? What if she's mated by both OR all 3? My blonde Italian queen (and bees) from last year ended the year very dark like carnolians and very grouchy. I think you'll do great Jim and look forward to watching your success. Cheers my friend.
I know the new queen would mate with a random drone. That's a chance I can take. Half of those good genes would be passed on. Bringing in a new mated queen is a gamble. I like the idea of the bees doing it themselves. I'm not in a hurry. I have patience. As far as comment section advice... I read it all, do my own research, sometimes cross reference with my mentor and then make my decisions. When I just ask the mentor, I get ONE opinion. It make be a suitable opinion, but I'm always open to a potentially BETTER opinion from my commenters. I have come to trust several regulars over the years.
As for your question about overwintering, I would face the hives N/S so each hive would get even sun. I'd wrap them the same way as my other hives so the south sides get full sun on black tar paper. Regardless of the way the entrance faced, both hives would still feel the same sun warmth. Just that the left hive would have heat at the "back" and the right hive would have heat at the "front." Same amount of heat overall.
Very excited to see this come about 👍🏽
Now I must look this hive up...
That's cool. Good luck with them. 😊
Cool. I just finished building next year's equipment. I wish I had watched this beforehand. (I'm in the South, so maybe it's not such a big deal for me to do the double nuc.)
Nice, although I can't do this in my current lot, I will keep watching so I know what I can do in the future, when I get that big lot. 👍 keep the videos coming. This will be great.
I have this dual nuc with 2 queen 5 over 5 at Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard - it works really well - you can also put a top feeder with queen excluders, too, but the feeder must have lateral gap in the center. - I tried this last year but split too early, and it didn't work. Make sure you wait until you have more than 6 frames of brood before you split. (20/20 hindsight - learn from my mistakes).
I did not read all the comments so this might have been addressed. 28 to 35 days to get laying queen if she makes it back. About 85% chance. Another 21 days to get first emerged bees. Just under 2 months to get new bees. Meanwhile you are loosing 1% a day to old age and other losses. Maybe more. For this to work you need enough resources to add a frame of brood every 10 to 14 days until hive gets up to speed. No problem if you have enough brood. Also there will be several queen cells. Harvest a few and give to new split saving them 2 weeks. Any way you can speed this process up helps.
Still looking forward to you getting your flow hive up and running on Balboa Daughter hive.
I'm doing some beeboxes curious what the measurements on the resource beehive
Hi! Thanks for sharing your beekeeping knowledge and experience! I've got 2 hives in my 3rd year and just split into a resource hive...8 frames full with two new queens. I have a question. As they're pretty full, want to add supers to get comb creation and maybe honey! Love in zone 7 (North Carolina) and wondered if you remove queen excluder or keto on and just put notch down on supers facing same side as entrances to make easier for foragers and hand off when they return. And, I'm guessing I use these queens to replace in original hives and let these keep trying to rear replacements? Honestly, I don't want to expand apiary so might have to start selling nucs to avoid swarms! :)
Thanks in advance. And if you'd rather address on you tube, feel free. Just let me know.
Thanks!
Yah! New hives equals more awesome videos
Hey Jim, this will be my first year going into winter with one of these double nuc set ups. How did yours do thru the winter? I am going to treat the top like a Vivaldi board with separate fondant and burlap. I am concerned about the solid bottom board and air flow. Thoughts and advice?
This will be my first winter with them, too. I did not have bees in them at the end of last season. I'll figure something out similar to what I did with the other hives. I seal off my bottom boards on the other hives over winter. The coroplast inspection boards are right up against the bottom.
good luck hope it all works out for you
You've definitely got infected with Bee Math. I got a horrid case of Chicken Math (there are just so many breeds I have to have...), but thankfully, I can only fit so many hives on my property. In other words, I have no other choice than to curb the desire to get hundreds of hives.
What are you using for a top cover? Another well thought out video full of energy and explanations. You do a great job with all the editing. Love the passion
It's a styrofoam cover I inherited from my neighbor. Surprisingly sturdy and it's probably 10 years old. I just got a new one from Betterbee for my other resource hive. They're called "BeeMax" covers. BeeMax makes full styrofoam hives, but also lids that fit on standard wooden hives. I actually really like it.
I just purchased a support hive and I am wondering if a cover for ten frame hive works? What type of hive top are you using? Thx!
Standard 10 frame lid fits. I bought the Beemax foam lids from betterbee.
Hi Vino,
Did you can catch a swarm with that Swarm trap you set on that cut tree?
Not yet.
I'm getting two Nucs tomorrow. And I have no idea how to start. So excited. My first experience with bees :D
I hope you will catch one. Swarms will boom this and next month.
More hives means competition for pollen / nectar in that 3 mile radius, less yield for each hive something for concideration
Good to see an individual person have an interest in hive increases and not just keeping bees for fun. Honeybees are a resource that produce the single greatest food source on the planet. People treating bees as curiosities instead of actual resource is for dimwitted knuckleheads. One word.Clematis. Grow it, they love it. Easy to do and makes bees happy as a kid in a candy store with a no-limit credit card. Letting the bees choose the larvae for queen is almost a 100 percent chance of acceptance. They chose her after all.
Ok so when u do ur inspection, how do you keep them from robbing each other? If both hives are open and next to each other, do you have a separate nuc cover or what?
Michael T Doing an inspection on these hives would be fairly quick. Not long enough to instigate a serious robbing. Also the point of these hives is for them to be small but mighty. Packed with brood and food. They should be pretty content and not out starving for another hives's honey. When managing a resource hive like this, I think the goal is to try to build them up pretty evenly. So if one was slow and the other was strong, you could balance the honey/brood frames as you go.
Awesome, yards looking good. This is my first year and I live in Michigan so we have somewhat similar weather. I have two packages and a NUC, not sure if I could try this type of box this year or just let them build a couple deeps and try and get through the white stuff. Did you make those or buy a kit, any help, insight or tips are greatly appreciated! Good luck this year!
Phillip LaMaire I got a package in April and I've already split it twice. It depends on your bees, but taking a split from a package is possible in the first year. Don't push it if you're not sure though.
I bought these from BetterBee in NY.
Vino Farm my packages came from Georgia and with all the cold snaps they will be in and laying for four weeks tomorrow and are covering about 6 frames in a 10 frame deep. Thank you for the quick response, I plan on using the Vivaldi boards on all three and your outer insulation method also.
Vino Farm also a subscriber now, keep the fun coming!
Are you building your 4 frame nucs or were are you getting them? Sounds like a way to go. I like 8 frame boxes.
Betterbee has them.
Vino Farm... I am so on the same page! When to you plan to do the divide?
Waiting for my hives to build up a bit. They're still a little behind.
A asked if anyone was doing this here in CO or wanting to learn together. I think I will have one ready and see if it works out by July. June was the suggestion in the Denver area. I look forward to your follow ups.
Can you make a video on house to maintain the apiarie. Maintaining no grass/low grass gravel and your fence.
Good Luck and wishing you the best all the way from Philippines 🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭
Arrens Manalansan Same! Rooting from Japan 🇯🇵
Arrens Manalansan 🇵🇭 this is the filipino flag
Artsynight Thanks for the correction. 😂
Nice development! :D
I have no own experience whatsoever but immensely enjoy the videos! I have a rather fundamental question: What are the advantages of small nuc boxes during the summer when temperature is not an issue? Could you do the same things in 10 frame boxes and put in a lot of empty frames? Do the bees get 'distracted' by empty frames and less productive?
The thing is, I'm a biomedical researcher and I do research on mammalian cells that I culture myself. Those cells originally belonged to a multicellular organism, kind of like individual bees belong to their hive. I have the impression that a lot of the same principles apply to growing cells in a lab and growing bees in a hive, which is really interesting. That's why I'm curious :)
Bad things happen when the bees have too much empty space. If they have a lot of empty frames, there are not enough bees to defend the space and pests take up residence in the extra. Wax moths and hive beetles can quickly overcome a hive of these characteristics and prompt the bees to abscond or leave. The bees do not get distracted but they can become overwhelmed and discouraged so to speak.
Thanks for the explanation!
What kind of paint do you use? Always looks so vibrant (yes I know they new).
Hardware store sample paint!
@@vinofarm that easy haha.. love the bright colours. Thanks
YES! This is gonna bee EPIC! (I usually hate using words like epic, so this is a big deal for me!! 😂)
good luck!
i just have a question.. wont the other hives make queen cells? and cant you take that frame and put it in the research hive? or is it just too much waiting and leaving it for a chance?
Sure. That would be the best option. Just drop a frame in there with queen cells already on it.
Great job!!
What's the difference between this and the OTS. System?
I don't know a lot about the OTS system, but I believe it has more to do with timing. Don't they also kill the queen to make the hive queenless? I thought that system was more about disrupting the brood cycle and forcing the hive to make a new queen every year.
you attached something at the entrance, too. Can you share the measurement of it?
It's just a piece of scrap wood glued on to act as a landing board. No specific measurement.
Go big or go home! Yeww! Good Luck!
It is better to draw some geometrical patterns (circle, triangle, stripes,...) since bees do not use color vision when they return to the hive.
Is this bottom board design also what Palmer does or is putting opposing entrances a design you decided to do? I understand the concept and makes a lot of sense. Just wondering if he does it also.
Dan Veneski I'm not entirely sure of the box design he uses. It may be a variety of designs because he has hundreds of them. I do know that he does not do walk away splits though. He will introduce laying queens so the front/back design on these hives is kind of moot. If you're doing walk away splits like I did, it makes more sense to have opposing entrances.
Agreed. I dont treat, so I like getting the brood break by letting the bees raise a new queen. Thanks again for the video.
Who sells those bottom boards for a 2 way nuc?
Jim Allen The whole package minus the frames and lid are at Betterbee.
Keep in mind that you have only a few hives. You are better off getting a little more diversity in your yard versus narrowing it down to just a few lines of bees. You would be better off at this point in purchasing quality local queens versus walk away splits. You will have better results in the long run.
This thought has been crossing my mind lately.
Great! I have been looking at those for a while now. Dadant has a pretty good price on them. The concept is so simple. And Michael Palmer is really someone special isn't he? Profound. Probably one of the top beekeepers in the world. I might give this a try next year. You are moving forward with all of this at a pretty good pace. I am certain you will do well with these new Resource Hives. No doubt about it Senor Vino! Are you going to produce Italians and Russians? How do you like them so far? Btw, I named my queen also. Queen DeMedici. May you produce an abundace of bees with your new nucs. Best Regards.
When you're being asked to give honeybee presentations at the national level you're something special. Palmer is that.
Right! And not just at the national level here in the U.S. The National Honey Show in London is the Nes Plus Ultra. And he is very generous in sharing his knowledge with people. They come from all parts of the world to learn from him. I have learned much from listening to his lectures. We are blessed to have him here at this moment in time. Thanks Mike.
Had bees in the 70's, got married, quit them, then re-started. It was way too easy and really I was a "bee haver" the first go. My bees died in 1988 or 89. Both hives lol. Now it's different. Retired and having a blast with bees. Have made 12 splits up the past week and a half. 3-framers in queen castles. Have 27 full-size ones making full boxes of honey already. I don't buy bees thanks to Michael Palmer. I have not been treating nucs until the second season when I put them in full size equipment and they tend to survive better than the full-size ones. I go on but the point is to anyone who reads this thread...watch the Michael Palmer series and take notes if you're serious about wanting to make honey. The honey just comes once you master making more bees more bees more bees. :)
where do you get the resource hives?
Betterbee - Double Nuc hive.
Do you really think the 2 clusters can warm each other through 2 wooden walls, about an inch thick with cold air between them?
Ask this question to Michael Palmer who doesn't even put insulation on his hives! He just wraps with tar paper and nothing else. I'd have 2" shells around the boxes. Apparently, bees farther north than me survive this system with less insulation.
And Bees up in Canada survive 20 below zero for weeks at a time. I think it should be chalked up to the resiliency of the Bees, not that they're passing heat through 2 inches of wood.
357lockdown
The heat will pass through the 1.5" of wood. If you have ever seen a picture of a beehive in winter taken with a thermal imaging camera, you would know this to be true.
Tq for sharing! Love ur vid!
This is the way I do it.
better to use a new queen - we have a short season - too short to breed (unless you do OTS - Im thinking) - go for it.!