I’m most videos I see those frames against the outer wall. I see in this one it’s moved over. I’m assuming you move them closer to the nest to get them drawn out?
We do that at times but in this shot the colony had been recently split and we didn't want to separate the drone frame full of larvae from the other brood in the center of the nest. It will definitely be moved to the wall when the colony is a bit larger.
In Germany its in spot 2 and moved to the outside once winter approaches or completely exchanged with workerfoundation. (can´t extract honey from them very well). Chickens love dronelarvas.
@@debbierodda2203 we do foundationless to cut out the varroa, no wires to hold them together very well. I assume its better with plasticfoundation but that delivers resistance to the knife. Plasticfoundation isn´t popular here, mostly wax-foundation so i always keep forgetting that those handle differently.
Thank you for another informative video. We started using the drone comb trying to manipulate as much as possible the genetics of the yards; we are trying to part as much from the Italians breed as their robbing tendencies are very annoying and counterproductive, so we are trying to facilitate new genetics by using drone comb; removing the drones from Italian hives and introducing drone frames of Carniolans and Russians with less propensity to robbing and Caucasians as they are very gentle, this way we're trying to develop our own mutt this way. Interesting coincidence is that during a recent interview to Daniel Weaver, he mention that that is the way they developed their Beeweaver breed which is very popular for their Varroa hygenic behavior.
I wanted to say thank you for your videos and the service you provide to new and established bee keepers. You are succinct, well researched, share your experience over the million or so hives you managed over your lifetime, and are open to learn new things (that is pretty rare). If I only have time for one bee keeping video before I do splits or something else that could be tricky, your videos get first billing!
Hi Bob, you always seem to bring out what might be a simple idea or solution that hasn’t been presented in the way you do it. This issue has been a problem for me with messy combs, burr comb in between frames. I also do queen rearing so I want the drones also. I almost thought of cutting an inch off the bottoms the plastic foundations in a colony this year to let them draw drones cells there instead of in between the frames. I am glad I did not do that way because how you do it is way better and makes a lot more sense. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Bob, I like the idea of having frames raised with worker cells. I put the empty wooden frame at the edge of the colony and the bees build it from scratch with drone cells.
Hey Bob! Enjoyed your thoughts on drone frames. Dedicated drone frames sure has cleaned up the wonky drone cells and has helped tremendously with much better drone saturation. Thanks for sharing!
Really enjoyed this video I just removed a frame that had 80% drones and didn’t understand why they had patches of drones until I examined the old comb that I had.
Completely agreed re the need for drones. I give them foundationless frames, which achieves something similar. One nice side effect, as you say, is that I don't get any burr comb jammed between boxes, or above frames.
I bought some of these when I visited your shop last August. Drones just emerging enmasse over the last 2 weeks. I generally prefer to move nurses or change positions to equalize or boost, rather than moving brood. But I'm using different hives to "finish" the drones to get the genes we need, and spread the burden of raising free-loaders among different colonies. -- Thanks for your continued posts. I know this eats a lot of time. :D
Love the drone frames. When we set out the Girls from the shed we dropped the drone frames in. The Queens have used it like it is ment to be. Rain this week up here and that sucks because we had planned to set up cell builders and start grafting
Hi Bob, Thank you for your videos and beekeeping experience. The typed info slides are a great idea too. You have a strong following over here I think. I have a small retail beekeeping supplies shop here down under in OZ and also run the local Bee Club. Just wondering.... as I work mainly with Backyard Hobby beekeepers would you recommend using one of these frames in hobby hives for the reasons you stated other than the mite reason as we so far do not have them in this country (thankfully). Cheers Deb
Hi Debbie. I would recommend it even if only to keep the frames with worker comb in the middle of the nest relatively free of drone cells. Another reason for this, that I should have mentioned, is that when selling nucs we are able to provide nice frames with little drone comb to our customers.
Greetings from Manitoba, Canada! Thanking you immensely Bob, for your gracious and humble style of teaching... especially like your readable information ‘slides’ inserted into your lectures... nothing more enjoyable than the Grace you show by deferring to others! At 17 to 30% drone comb in Feral colonies... it would suggest to me that your 10 frame brood chambers should have at least 2 Drone comb frames per chamber (20%)??? Your thoughts???
I really need to incorporate this next spring. I keep double deeps and they always build drones in between so when you go in you destroy the drones and the hive gets very testy. Also I agree on not liking the alteration to drawn worker comb.
Everything you said makes sense based on my anecdotal experience. I got almost all of my bees from cut outs. Now that im making splits and all the frames have plastic foundation inside of their natural comb, I’ve noticed that that will build drone cells at the bottom of the plastic foundation. Typically on the 2nd frame from the outside. And they do have about 20% drone comb in the wild. I think 10% is fine in a managed environment but I’m not making that claim with any expertise behind it. Bees are more spread out in the wild. A yard with a frame of drone in each should be able to mate a lot of queens.
Hi Bob, Thank you for contribution to provide the youtube videos. I have certainly picked up ideas from your beekeeping especially the split boards. I have a question on what do you do with the plastic brood frames, how do you recycle them e.g. clean them up for re-use, Would love to learn what you do as I am very conscious on environment and would like find best way to re-use the frames.
Hi Paras. We rarely do anything to recycle plastic frames because we sell so many nucs and colonies we are always cycling them out. There have been times in the past when we would scrap them then hit them with a pressure washer before re-coating them with wax. I know of others that simply scrape and brush them off good and then re-coat with wax but I have not tried that. It could work good enough.
I've been considering adding one of those to a colony. Ti increase the odds of getting queens mated. Llost a few colonies to starvation and need to build back up.
An idea I got from another beek is to cut a plastic frame of foundation in half and let the bees draw out the outer sides with drone comb and worker in the middle half. This frame I mark and put in position 3 or 7 in the box. If the hive is going to swarm that 1/2 frame of Fdn is where they will put at least one or two swarm cells so if I'm checking for swarm cells that's the frame I check first. And like you said they tend to not mess up the other frames with drone brood and less burr comb between boxes. And I save money on fdn.
Thank you very much for these informations. In this video you mention that you want 200 drone breeding colonies within a 2 mile perimeter around the production site. My question is, what is your drone colony ratio versus the number of mating nucs ?
I honestly don't have an exact number. I just want to see a lot of colonies (not just a dozen or two) within reach of our queen mating yards which can have up to 400 queen mating nucs.
LOL I've seen beekeepers cars/trucks... they are working machines not showroom or car show models! Once swarm season hits the back of my car contains the complete capture workshop on wheels ready to respond to any swarm call that comes in at a moments notice.
@@nancynolton6079 i have been a beekeeper for many years.... Some folks are just lazier than others. I dont run a show room but im not a slob either.....cheers! :)
Hi Bob, thanks for sharing your vids, always very informative...quick question...if capped brood emerges and there are no eggs, would this accelerate/fast track them to foraging duties? thanks
Great informative content, thank you. I have a question/request please, I’m getting my colonies frequently “pollen bound” and it takes too much effort to get over this problem, can you please give us an idea if there is any way to avoid this early on, and if you can make a video about that. Thank you 🙏🏻
Hi Marwan. It can be a problem but in our area I've learned not to get too upset about it because it can be a lot of work to clear it out and eventually the bees burn through it.
Ha Bob I got my timing box today it is real nice, it has already been painted is it good to go or am I expose to paint it again and is it oil base paint Thanks and have a blessed week
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks so much I do not know if u made it or someone else but it is beautiful I have 6 more days and going to try to graft queens my cell builder is built did that this past weekend again thanks for everything and have a blessed week
thank you so much for the great info (as always). Thoughts on how you would manage a single deep with a green frame. I'm guessing put green comb in during the early spring...let bees do what they do best...switch it out when it gets a good amount of drone cells or on a schedule (hopefully will take some of those darn mites with) and put in drawn comb towards the fall so they can back store for the winter. Any chances you've done something like this?
The. bees will routinely treat the drone frame as a honey frame once they're done rearing drones for the season so we just leave them in, always against the wall for the winter.
Great video as always Bob. It sure would help the Queens not have to fly as far if they have what they need closer by, and improve mating success. I have some drone comb, but need to get more. Edit: Do you find that these colonies with drone frames need a lot more mite treatment compared to those that don't get them or are they still about the same?
I'm sure it makes a difference but I've never tried to keep data on it. My guess is that the biggest difference would occur if somehow all of the drone comb was taken away because most colonies find a way to slip it in somewhere.
I think that many keepers over look their drones, I believe they are important indicators of healthy strong colonies. If a queen doesn't mate well she isn't going to lead a strong family. With-out strong well mated queens doesn't genetic lines diminish? Everyone talks about queen stock and genetics but how much of the colonies diversity actually comes from the drones? Was thinking of actually running a medium frame in my deep to simulate a smaller version of a drone comb frame. Let them make drone comb on the bottom 1/2, that way I could cut it out as an IPM or let it hatch for good drone coverage. Was thinking that if used for IPM they only take 1/2 the hit in resources if I choose to cut them out? Can you mash/cut the drone patched down and get them to make worker comb in its place? Ty Bod for sharing your time, Blessed Days...
Sorry I am late to the party. Fighting weather again. Stupid doom and gloom is endless and I fell a sleep when I sat down yesterday to watch this... but not from your content. I am just bushed. My question is how do you get your bees to accept and draw those green frames? I have tried several and my bees just ignore it. Tried more wax and shifting the position here and there. They ignore it, work around it and even sometimes treat it like a barrier.
Thank you for sharing Bob 😊 Would you mind if I leverage your hypothesis on drone comb in the center of the nest during early spring build up as a student internship experiment? It seems it would be easy to set up and collect some data with the few colonies I have.
I've often wonder if guys who are truly trying to get certain genetics out with drone colony's if they are experiencing a higher mite problem than other ways of queen rearing. Thanks Bob good information 👍 God bless
Hi Bob, thanks for the videos! Have a question, I think it was you (but I might be wrong) that said if you want to fix a laying worker, place some emerging brood in the hive and it will balance the hive. If that is correct, then when a laying worker starts laying eggs (drones) wouldn't that also fix the problem when they start emerging? If it wasn't you, what are your thoughts on this? thanks Bob and I really enjoy your videos!
Hi Mark. I don't think I mentioned anything like that in a video. It's tricky fixing laying workers with techniques like that. We usually just disassemble them and slip a new nuc or colony in their spot. If you're determined to fix the existing colony I would suggest adding several frames of open brood, because a lack of brood pheromone is one of the contributing factors that triggers laying workers, and introduce a queen with a push in cage and leave her in there until she's well established. I explain how we use a push in cage towards the end of our video "Queen Acceptance and Queen Supersedure" ruclips.net/video/xI_FL3xwXNM/видео.html
In the beginning of the video you mentioned putting it in the freezer for mite control. Are you scraping the frame then putting it in the colony or leaving it to the bees to uncap and remove the corpses? Thanks!
My understanding is the drone's ideal rearing temperature is slightly lower than worker brood, hence why they do best on the perimeter of the brood once drawn. A drone frame in the centre can split/constrain the brood if the conditions aren't ideal. I'm quite shocked at the average hive loss rate in the US, even compared to other countries with mites. I'm interested to know what your own average hive losses are each season Bob?
@@bobbinnie9872 Yeah I thought you may say something along those lines. Your practices look to be quite good, so well done and that's proof that they're worthwhile
I started a colony from a split last year and I checkerboarded cell rite foundation frames and frames with about a 1/2 inch starter strip of wax. They drew out the cell rite in worker comb but drew out every starter strip frame into solid drone brood. The colony literally has as many drones as workers. It is lagging way behind my other colonies. Why do you think they did this? Out of all of my colonies this is the only one that did this.
Bob, instead of buy drone foundations I just put one or two medium frames in the brood box and they draw out drone comb attached to the bottom of the medium frames.
Bob, I am just revisiting this video. Do you keep the Drone frame in all year? Would it make sense to remove the Drone frame by mid -summer before the Queen switches to winter bees in late August.
Hello Bob. I do drone trapping. As IPM in the spring. I am pulling some today It's very labor intensive. Do you put an extra coat of wax on the green drone frames when they are new?
Hi Mark. We don't add any wax to our drone frames. It seems that in spring the bees are so anxious to build drone comb that they will draw it out without any wax at all. Later in the year it may help.
We generally keep ours against the wall and the bees use it freely during the drone rearing season. After that it becomes a honey frame. Some put it in the second frame position but I'm not sure it matters. Our colonies are currently using them against the wall in the second story deep without hesitation.
Hey Bob I notice that you run migratory lids with no other entrance other than the main one at the base and you also only use solid bottom boards. You guys have pretty warm summers where you're at and can still have some good freezes like we do here in central AR. I also notice that you never wrap your hives and never seem to reduce entrances except for the double screened divider boards that you use. I would love to see a video where you talk about entrances, ventilation, and condensation. I'm starting to think that many of us are doing a lot more than we really need to and spending money on a lot of gadgets that we really don't need; which is my reason for this comment. Also, I never see you doing anything for SHB's yet I know you have them there and I've watched all of your videos and can't ever recall ever seeing a single beetle. Would I be correct in thinking that your overall care/management of your colonies is really what allows you to do what you do...meaning really staying on top of mites, proper feeding/nutrition, frequently rotating comb, and finally re-queening every year. I think all of these things I just mentioned if done properly simply means that you will have strong healthy bees that can sustain. Finally am I correct in thinking that re-queening is really a big part of all of this? Thank you for all of the videos they are hands down the best content out there IMO.
So if bees do put drone comb at the outside edges naturally... and the drone cells and caps are popped out further... seems that would kind of make an outer edge envelope that might allow for more heat retention in the center of the brood nest?!
I only put one Frame in each hives and after is cupped I removed this frame cut out and give to chicken I call this frame working frame. I know drone's important but if you get done this 3 time in years you remove varroa Mites from the hives 🐝🐝👍😉
I’m most videos I see those frames against the outer wall. I see in this one it’s moved over. I’m assuming you move them closer to the nest to get them drawn out?
We do that at times but in this shot the colony had been recently split and we didn't want to separate the drone frame full of larvae from the other brood in the center of the nest. It will definitely be moved to the wall when the colony is a bit larger.
In Germany its in spot 2 and moved to the outside once winter approaches or completely exchanged with workerfoundation. (can´t extract honey from them very well).
Chickens love dronelarvas.
@@lachdananx7686 why do you say you cant extract honey from them very well??
@@debbierodda2203 we do foundationless to cut out the varroa, no wires to hold them together very well. I assume its better with plasticfoundation but that delivers resistance to the knife.
Plasticfoundation isn´t popular here, mostly wax-foundation so i always keep forgetting that those handle differently.
Man I’ve got questions but this explains a lot. Great video.
Thank you for another informative video. We started using the drone comb trying to manipulate as much as possible the genetics of the yards; we are trying to part as much from the Italians breed as their robbing tendencies are very annoying and counterproductive, so we are trying to facilitate new genetics by using drone comb; removing the drones from Italian hives and introducing drone frames of Carniolans and Russians with less propensity to robbing and Caucasians as they are very gentle, this way we're trying to develop our own mutt this way. Interesting coincidence is that during a recent interview to Daniel Weaver, he mention that that is the way they developed their Beeweaver breed which is very popular for their Varroa hygenic behavior.
I wanted to say thank you for your videos and the service you provide to new and established bee keepers. You are succinct, well researched, share your experience over the million or so hives you managed over your lifetime, and are open to learn new things (that is pretty rare). If I only have time for one bee keeping video before I do splits or something else that could be tricky, your videos get first billing!
Great insights Bob. Thanks always!
Hi Bob, you always seem to bring out what might be a simple idea or solution that hasn’t been presented in the way you do it. This issue has been a problem for me with messy combs, burr comb in between frames. I also do queen rearing so I want the drones also. I almost thought of cutting an inch off the bottoms the plastic foundations in a colony this year to let them draw drones cells there instead of in between the frames. I am glad I did not do that way because how you do it is way better and makes a lot more sense. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Bob, I like the idea of having frames raised with worker cells. I put the empty wooden frame at the edge of the colony and the bees build it from scratch with drone cells.
All good info Bob I will take you theories any time. I have seen your operation thrive not fail so you know a thing or two about a thing of two!
Hey Bob! Enjoyed your thoughts on drone frames. Dedicated drone frames sure has cleaned up the wonky drone cells and has helped tremendously with much better drone saturation. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Greg.
Thanks again for sharing your beekeeping knowledge Bob.
Really enjoyed this video I just removed a frame that had 80% drones and didn’t understand why they had patches of drones until I examined the old comb that I had.
Completely agreed re the need for drones. I give them foundationless frames, which achieves something similar. One nice side effect, as you say, is that I don't get any burr comb jammed between boxes, or above frames.
As always thank you for the informative videos.
I bought some of these when I visited your shop last August. Drones just emerging enmasse over the last 2 weeks. I generally prefer to move nurses or change positions to equalize or boost, rather than moving brood. But I'm using different hives to "finish" the drones to get the genes we need, and spread the burden of raising free-loaders among different colonies. -- Thanks for your continued posts. I know this eats a lot of time. :D
Love the drone frames. When we set out the Girls from the shed we dropped the drone frames in. The Queens have used it like it is ment to be. Rain this week up here and that sucks because we had planned to set up cell builders and start grafting
Great video Bob.
Thx for sharing interesting content Bob 🐝👍
👍
Hi Bob, Thank you for your videos and beekeeping experience. The typed info slides are a great idea too. You have a strong following over here I think. I have a small retail beekeeping supplies shop here down under in OZ and also run the local Bee Club. Just wondering.... as I work mainly with Backyard Hobby beekeepers would you recommend using one of these frames in hobby hives for the reasons you stated other than the mite reason as we so far do not have them in this country (thankfully). Cheers Deb
Hi Debbie. I would recommend it even if only to keep the frames with worker comb in the middle of the nest relatively free of drone cells. Another reason for this, that I should have mentioned, is that when selling nucs we are able to provide nice frames with little drone comb to our customers.
Greetings from Manitoba, Canada!
Thanking you immensely Bob, for your gracious and humble style of teaching... especially like your readable information ‘slides’ inserted into your lectures... nothing more enjoyable than the Grace you show by deferring to others!
At 17 to 30% drone comb in Feral colonies... it would suggest to me that your 10 frame brood chambers should have at least 2 Drone comb frames per chamber (20%)???
Your thoughts???
If you're trying to emulate nature it would make sense to put one on each side of the box.
I have to jump in here and agree with the slides, and particularly leaving them up long enough to read them, ... really nice.
I really need to incorporate this next spring. I keep double deeps and they always build drones in between so when you go in you destroy the drones and the hive gets very testy. Also I agree on not liking the alteration to drawn worker comb.
Everything you said makes sense based on my anecdotal experience. I got almost all of my bees from cut outs. Now that im making splits and all the frames have plastic foundation inside of their natural comb, I’ve noticed that that will build drone cells at the bottom of the plastic foundation. Typically on the 2nd frame from the outside. And they do have about 20% drone comb in the wild. I think 10% is fine in a managed environment but I’m not making that claim with any expertise behind it. Bees are more spread out in the wild. A yard with a frame of drone in each should be able to mate a lot of queens.
I'll be getting some drone comb frames soon and hope they draw them out for use next year
Its great when the family gets together for xmaz
Merry christmas
I kind of laughed about this one Because I was one that ask you about it but I ask why you use plastic. Thank you I always laun a lot from you.
Hi Bob, Thank you for contribution to provide the youtube videos. I have certainly picked up ideas from your beekeeping especially the split boards. I have a question on what do you do with the plastic brood frames, how do you recycle them e.g. clean them up for re-use, Would love to learn what you do as I am very conscious on environment and would like find best way to re-use the frames.
Hi Paras. We rarely do anything to recycle plastic frames because we sell so many nucs and colonies we are always cycling them out. There have been times in the past when we would scrap them then hit them with a pressure washer before re-coating them with wax. I know of others that simply scrape and brush them off good and then re-coat with wax but I have not tried that. It could work good enough.
Thank you, will experiment and see what works best.
I've been considering adding one of those to a colony. Ti increase the odds of getting queens mated. Llost a few colonies to starvation and need to build back up.
An idea I got from another beek is to cut a plastic frame of foundation in half and let the bees draw out the outer sides with drone comb and worker in the middle half. This frame I mark and put in position 3 or 7 in the box. If the hive is going to swarm that 1/2 frame of Fdn is where they will put at least one or two swarm cells so if I'm checking for swarm cells that's the frame I check first. And like you said they tend to not mess up the other frames with drone brood and less burr comb between boxes. And I save money on fdn.
That's very interesting! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you very much for these informations. In this video you mention that you want 200 drone breeding colonies within a 2 mile perimeter around the production site. My question is, what is your drone colony ratio versus the number of mating nucs ?
I honestly don't have an exact number. I just want to see a lot of colonies (not just a dozen or two) within reach of our queen mating yards which can have up to 400 queen mating nucs.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you very much !
you can always tell the life of a man by how organized his tools are in his garage and what the inside of his car looks like .....great video Bob!!!
LOL I've seen beekeepers cars/trucks... they are working machines not showroom or car show models! Once swarm season hits the back of my car contains the complete capture workshop on wheels ready to respond to any swarm call that comes in at a moments notice.
@@nancynolton6079 i have been a beekeeper for many years.... Some folks are just lazier than others. I dont run a show room but im not a slob either.....cheers! :)
Hi Bob, thanks for sharing your vids, always very informative...quick question...if capped brood emerges and there are no eggs, would this accelerate/fast track them to foraging duties? thanks
It would naturally seem so but I really don't know for sure.
nice info .
Great informative content, thank you.
I have a question/request please, I’m getting my colonies frequently “pollen bound” and it takes too much effort to get over this problem, can you please give us an idea if there is any way to avoid this early on, and if you can make a video about that.
Thank you 🙏🏻
Hi Marwan. It can be a problem but in our area I've learned not to get too upset about it because it can be a lot of work to clear it out and eventually the bees burn through it.
I have used these for mite control in the past, and it worked well. Don’t you worry about mite bombs when they hatch?
Having these dedicated frames doesn't seem to raise the mite levels more than a normal colony that would simply put their own drone comb around.
Ha Bob I got my timing box today it is real nice, it has already been painted is it good to go or am I expose to paint it again and is it oil base paint Thanks and have a blessed week
It's ready to use. The top coat is acrylic enamel but no need to paint any more.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks so much I do not know if u made it or someone else but it is beautiful I have 6 more days and going to try to graft queens my cell builder is built did that this past weekend again thanks for everything and have a blessed week
Hey Bob.
I have ask this question about drone rearing and queen mating with no answers. Thankyou
thank you so much for the great info (as always). Thoughts on how you would manage a single deep with a green frame. I'm guessing put green comb in during the early spring...let bees do what they do best...switch it out when it gets a good amount of drone cells or on a schedule (hopefully will take some of those darn mites with) and put in drawn comb towards the fall so they can back store for the winter. Any chances you've done something like this?
The. bees will routinely treat the drone frame as a honey frame once they're done rearing drones for the season so we just leave them in, always against the wall for the winter.
Great video as always Bob. It sure would help the Queens not have to fly as far if they have what they need closer by, and improve mating success. I have some drone comb, but need to get more.
Edit: Do you find that these colonies with drone frames need a lot more mite treatment compared to those that don't get them or are they still about the same?
I'm sure it makes a difference but I've never tried to keep data on it. My guess is that the biggest difference would occur if somehow all of the drone comb was taken away because most colonies find a way to slip it in somewhere.
@@bobbinnie9872 That's a good point. They're still making it in other colonies, just maybe not to the same extent. Thank you!
I think that many keepers over look their drones, I believe they are important indicators of healthy strong colonies. If a queen doesn't mate well she isn't going to lead a strong family. With-out strong well mated queens doesn't genetic lines diminish? Everyone talks about queen stock and genetics but how much of the colonies diversity actually comes from the drones?
Was thinking of actually running a medium frame in my deep to simulate a smaller version of a drone comb frame. Let them make drone comb on the bottom 1/2, that way I could cut it out as an IPM or let it hatch for good drone coverage. Was thinking that if used for IPM they only take 1/2 the hit in resources if I choose to cut them out?
Can you mash/cut the drone patched down and get them to make worker comb in its place? Ty Bod for sharing your time, Blessed Days...
What you're suggesting about 1/2 frame is often done. I don't know about the mashed comb. It might work.
Thanks Mr. Binnie!! If you say it, to me me its the gospel. Hahaha God bless you.
Sorry I am late to the party. Fighting weather again. Stupid doom and gloom is endless and I fell a sleep when I sat down yesterday to watch this... but not from your content. I am just bushed. My question is how do you get your bees to accept and draw those green frames? I have tried several and my bees just ignore it. Tried more wax and shifting the position here and there. They ignore it, work around it and even sometimes treat it like a barrier.
We get most of our drawing done in the spring when they really want to rear drones.
@@bobbinnie9872 Ahhh spring. I remember those seasons. Seems they just don't wanta occur here anymore.
Thank you for sharing Bob 😊 Would you mind if I leverage your hypothesis on drone comb in the center of the nest during early spring build up as a student internship experiment? It seems it would be easy to set up and collect some data with the few colonies I have.
Perfect. One thing that would have to be taken into consideration is your very mild winter climate. Good luck!.
I've often wonder if guys who are truly trying to get certain genetics out with drone colony's if they are experiencing a higher mite problem than other ways of queen rearing. Thanks Bob good information 👍 God bless
I have no doubt that providing ample drone comb as opposed to taking it all away adds to the mite numbers.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you Bob. Good health and God bless 👍
Hi Bob, thanks for the videos! Have a question, I think it was you (but I might be wrong) that said if you want to fix a laying worker, place some emerging brood in the hive and it will balance the hive. If that is correct, then when a laying worker starts laying eggs (drones) wouldn't that also fix the problem when they start emerging? If it wasn't you, what are your thoughts on this? thanks Bob and I really enjoy your videos!
Hi Mark. I don't think I mentioned anything like that in a video. It's tricky fixing laying workers with techniques like that. We usually just disassemble them and slip a new nuc or colony in their spot. If you're determined to fix the existing colony I would suggest adding several frames of open brood, because a lack of brood pheromone is one of the contributing factors that triggers laying workers, and introduce a queen with a push in cage and leave her in there until she's well established. I explain how we use a push in cage towards the end of our video "Queen Acceptance and Queen Supersedure" ruclips.net/video/xI_FL3xwXNM/видео.html
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks Bob!
In the beginning of the video you mentioned putting it in the freezer for mite control. Are you scraping the frame then putting it in the colony or leaving it to the bees to uncap and remove the corpses? Thanks!
Most let the bees clean the frame up after freezing.
My understanding is the drone's ideal rearing temperature is slightly lower than worker brood, hence why they do best on the perimeter of the brood once drawn. A drone frame in the centre can split/constrain the brood if the conditions aren't ideal.
I'm quite shocked at the average hive loss rate in the US, even compared to other countries with mites. I'm interested to know what your own average hive losses are each season Bob?
10% unless there are unusual circumstances like me doing something stupid.
@@bobbinnie9872 Yeah I thought you may say something along those lines. Your practices look to be quite good, so well done and that's proof that they're worthwhile
I started a colony from a split last year and I checkerboarded cell rite foundation frames and frames with about a 1/2 inch starter strip of wax. They drew out the cell rite in worker comb but drew out every starter strip frame into solid drone brood. The colony literally has as many drones as workers. It is lagging way behind my other colonies. Why do you think they did this? Out of all of my colonies this is the only one that did this.
I believe that, like any other trait, genetics plays a big role.
@@bobbinnie9872 thanks
Bob, instead of buy drone foundations I just put one or two medium frames in the brood box and they draw out drone comb attached to the bottom of the medium frames.
Hi Don. I know many do that. I think that is a good technique.
Bob, I am just revisiting this video. Do you keep the Drone frame in all year? Would it make sense to remove the Drone frame by mid -summer before the Queen switches to winter bees in late August.
We leave it in all year but keep it against the wall where the bees will use it for storing honey .
Hello Bob. I do drone trapping. As IPM in the spring. I am pulling some today It's very labor intensive. Do you put an extra coat of wax on the green drone frames when they are new?
Hi Mark. We don't add any wax to our drone frames. It seems that in spring the bees are so anxious to build drone comb that they will draw it out without any wax at all. Later in the year it may help.
In a typical double deep, what is the ideal position for the drone comb be placed? I want to raise more drones, my use is not mite trapping.
We generally keep ours against the wall and the bees use it freely during the drone rearing season. After that it becomes a honey frame. Some put it in the second frame position but I'm not sure it matters. Our colonies are currently using them against the wall in the second story deep without hesitation.
greetings. yo.you ddi pro recording. my dear- 😯
Can you put all drone comb will they use that for workers also???
I really don't know but I wouldn't think so.
Hey Bob I notice that you run migratory lids with no other entrance other than the main one at the base and you also only use solid bottom boards. You guys have pretty warm summers where you're at and can still have some good freezes like we do here in central AR. I also notice that you never wrap your hives and never seem to reduce entrances except for the double screened divider boards that you use. I would love to see a video where you talk about entrances, ventilation, and condensation. I'm starting to think that many of us are doing a lot more than we really need to and spending money on a lot of gadgets that we really don't need; which is my reason for this comment. Also, I never see you doing anything for SHB's yet I know you have them there and I've watched all of your videos and can't ever recall ever seeing a single beetle. Would I be correct in thinking that your overall care/management of your colonies is really what allows you to do what you do...meaning really staying on top of mites, proper feeding/nutrition, frequently rotating comb, and finally re-queening every year. I think all of these things I just mentioned if done properly simply means that you will have strong healthy bees that can sustain. Finally am I correct in thinking that re-queening is really a big part of all of this? Thank you for all of the videos they are hands down the best content out there IMO.
Does laying worker brood drones have use in the mating of queens?
Although those drones are viable, and can work, they have greatly reduced sperm counts.
So if bees do put drone comb at the outside edges naturally... and the drone cells and caps are popped out further... seems that would kind of make an outer edge envelope that might allow for more heat retention in the center of the brood nest?!
Possibly so, I don't know.
I only put one Frame in each hives and after is cupped I removed this frame cut out and give to chicken
I call this frame working frame.
I know drone's important but if you get done this 3 time in years you remove varroa Mites from the hives 🐝🐝👍😉
I do this and it works for me to kill mites.
hi, are you put wax on the plastic drone foundation surface?
Only if it needs it. It usually comes from the factory with wax on it.
@@bobbinnie9872 and fully prevent build up drone comb on other workers comb?
@@zcsaba77 It doesn't stop all of it but it helps a lot.
@@bobbinnie9872 are you use these foundation for drone hatching or mites preventing or both?
@@zcsaba77 We use it mainly to insure drone production and to keep our worker come from having excessive drone cells.
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All good info Bob I will take you theories any time. I have seen your operation thrive not fail so you know a thing or two about a thing of two!