Diverse, educational videos on bee behavior and beehive management are presented on this channel. Monthly videos that support articles in Bee Culture magazine are also included.
That army major is a famous Austrian who was stationed in Venice that time still part off Austrian imperial crown and a big promoter off the Italian honey bee.
Ive got some ideas...they might be conducting heat away from the board...or they might be hydrating the front to evaporate the heat or they might be polishing it to increase its reflectivity...i think its a high temperature phenomena most likely...cheers :)
Most feral bees in Southern California are Africanized Honey Bees. I'm not a beekeeper, but bees recently invaded my off-grid trailer. They are extremely aggressive. I can't see where they are going in and out because every time I stand out there, they come after me, even from 30 ft. away. How can I get rid of them? I have no problem euthanizing.
The demonstration does not make sense to me as everyone gets a mean hive at times.. You can set-up a dummy hive in place of the mean hive and relocate the brood nest, this helps to re-queen because the angry bees stay at the old location.. I get an angry hive every year and after queen is replaced the bees calm down within a month.. Sometimes I split the hive into NUC boxes and introduce queen cells, the old bees die off before the NUC matures.. Working with a strong hive that has an attitude is very unpleasant.
Greetings and salutations. I shall command a thousand angels to sound their horns in your honor. Great jubilance shall rise within your breast and you will beat a kettle drum. It is good that the bees are dead, he delights in their death and he shsll command the living ones to sting the faces if your enemies. He shall bend your ear and whisper into it the words of the devil. REJOICE!! REJOICE!!
Thank you for this. It started pouring right after I got home from picking my packages up and this technique really was quite effective for keeping them together and reduced loss.
Marvelous … thanks! Can you add a swarm and dump all the bees into an empty box (empty of frames) above the weak colony? Wouldn’t the swarm strengthen the weak colony?
Thanks James, absolutely fascinating. Did beekeepers used to strap the collateral hives together? Seems to me that collateral hives do not have the advantage of gravity to keep the boxes in a consolidated format. I am enjoying hearing about your transition from big colonies to smaller more manageable ones, not least due to your declining capacity to lift heavy boxes in your senior years. Adaptation is everything! Long may you continue to enjoy beekeeping, researching and educating. All the best, From Melbourne Australia
Sorry all of your splits didn’t pan out, but it’s good to see you. I found you from the three podcasts and recently enjoyed last year’s combined Holiday Special. 💛🎄🌟🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Merry Christmas to you, Jim. Have a good Winter.
I like packages. I've done both nucs and packages. But I like that the packages are often from companies that have more refined genetics, and more chosen genetics also. This is part of why I like them. The more recent packages I had seemed to do as well as the nucs and had better temperament. The pakcage companies have had more time to work on getting the bees they want also. Both are good. Its just really fun to get bees even when you've been doing it a few years and how the joy of building something. I'm not as old as you but I also feel the sting of not as much energy as I used to have. With livestock one of the really interesting things about doing them, is you are harnessing the animals work energy to compensate for you not being able to do as much. This lets you overcome your own disadvantages in still producing something.
It would be interesting to compare overwintering survival rates with smaller improvised boxes where the bees choose the comb orientation with modern non-improvised commercial structured colonies and the differences between those rates of which live and which die.
I liked seeing the cover pic and other pics like it when you show pics of the colonies spread out in foresty tree areas. Hope to see more of it. It looks beautiful.
I wanted to ask... in this video you have 4 big boxes on each of those 2 colonies. Can you overwinter them this way with that many boxes and if they are full of honey? I've been wondering about this and ways to pull honey in spring instead of fall to see if overwintering success can go up. But it invites the added question of if extra space is going to harm that instead. And how many boxes is tested? Usually people pull as many boxes as possible. But when they talk about this, they cite economic reasons instead of survival reasons. So it doesn't really tell you if this would work or wouldn't. Thanks.
It's not the greatest way, but yes, bees can survive in 4 boxes. It would depend on your climate and where the honey stores are within the boxes. It would be better to winter in a traditional manner.
One of the most famous beekeeper in my country says his book that this phenomenon indicates a disease in the hive. He advise to treat the swarm as quickly as possible to check frame by frame. He suggests giving the colony honey with medicinal plants or honey with the extract of medicinal plants Chamomile tea. .
Daniel, what do you mean by pan below the boxes. I have a hive that in the past couple of days, I have had a few bees coming at me while im about 30 feet away.
Beekeeping near people has to be the most antisocial, selfish hobby imaginable. This beekeeper should get rid of his bees and respect his neighbour’s right to enjoy his property without being stung.
Very well put. There were times this summer I had to run inside because they were buzzing all around my head while I was trying to water my flowers. I was stung 3 times. I'm 69 yrs old.
You make a great point. And how about the precision of their temp control of both the colony in summer and the queen ball in winter? Or how they manage food reserves?Or how they manage staffing within the colony to address so many variables? It truly is mind boggling. Excellent video discussion; can’t wait to read the article.
So is what your saying is the neighbor just has to put up with all that. I have planted nectar plants for butterflies and have hummingbird feeders that my neighbor who just started, bees are swarming. So I should or maybe will have to stop because of his new toy, bees. Unfair!
I would completely agree. If you have hives that have survived the winter, they have probably some good genetics that you would like to continue. You also are becoming a self sufficient bee keeper
Adjustable hive stands, you have me thinking...I use cinder blocks now, adjustable but you have to remove the hive to add or subtract blocks. A pallet jack has what I need but an expensive way to raise or lower one hive, or even 4. I'll keep thinking, thanks for posting!
This is primarily the reason I have almost all long hives. Only thing I have to lift is the top and the frames. What’s more, is I’ve built them with legs about 3 ‘ long so the hives are at comfortable heights and I don’t have to bend. Makes the hobby much more enjoyable!
