Welcome to Castle Hives, my name is Brian. Castle Hives started in April 2017 on Earth Day and it has been a journey. We have had Ups & Downs, but have learned so much about the wonderful Honey Bees.
I am just a back yard Beekeeping and share everything. You will see when I expand the Apiary and even when I lose a colony. Being a Backyard Beekeeper gives me time to really step back at times and share special moments with the Bees. I hope you enjoy following along as I share my Beekeeping experience.
In recent years, I have started working towards my Master Beekeeper through the University of Florida. Currently, I have passed the Advanced level and will start working towards my Master Beekeeper rank starting in April 2024.
#streamteam chat Weekly on Wednesday at 8pm EST.
Membership Levels: Worker Bee and Supporter of Castle Hives
P.S. Check out my Shopify store where I sell Castle Hives Products.
Brain what I didn’t in your hives was any honey stores for winter. I hope those bucket feeders are full. Do you get much of a fall flow in your area? Winter is just around the corner my friend.
@markbee5787 My supers I have on have some weight, and they will stay on. I'll leave them with 1 deep and 1 medium for the winter. The buckets have syrup. Our fall flow is very hit or miss, so we can't solely rely on that.
Hiya Brian, Fall is a knocking Winter is around the corner. I just did most all the same stuff.😁It's kind of surprising how similar the time of our seasons are, our weathers are a bit different but seasonal timings are real similar. Blessed Days buddy...
Wow Brian. Those bees are looking great. And the bee yard is beautiful the way you have it set up. I think you are setting yourself up good for the future!
Do you find the single brood chamber management keeps the hive more organized? My dbl ones seem to just put bee bread and pollen downstairs and lay in the 2nd box
Wow, decapitating the queen sucks. I just crushed one I paid $60 for... so yeah I feel it! Specifically I feel stupid... "hey hive I know you're queenless, here's a queen, oops she's dead, never mind..."
Thank you for being so transparent with mistakes. It helps me to know that others have issues. I tell my bees that they have a bad beekeeper and their ability to survive me shows how strong and resilient they truly are!!!😂
Love that little queen right dial, I'm going to invest in those, it's way easier than a notebook or leaving notes on the lid but Damnnnnnnnn🤦 I felt that pain when you pinched that queen, just when I was thinking " that's a cool little queen marking gadget" 😅 pinching a queen is horrible 😬 especially when it's a great colony, bummer.
I have that option if needed. I want to try and let them raise one since it is still early in August. Last inspection, they had cells capped over already.
Great video Brian! We started using the same one-handed catcher this year to mark our queens, and on our next-to last hive I did the same thing…pushed her right down into the comb. She started moving about, but next time we went back to look they had superseded her. Crap happens, good thing bees are good “erasers.”
Man I love the attitude of those bees Brian. I would work them with just a veil. So gentle. Hate that happened to the queen but sometimes things like that happen. Hopefully they will make a new one.
Brian, I am sure glad you edited out those choice words. LOL Stuff happens to the best of us. What I do when painting queens is I use one of those round popsicle ones. I take the plunger out, pickup the queen with my fingers and drop her inside, then insert the sponge plunger. I don't like those one handed queen catchers for obvious reasons. You should have a decent amount of drones around in three weeks so hopefully she returns.
I need to just start marking them by hand, much easier. And yeah, we still have a decent drone population, so I'm not worried. Actually found capped cells the other day, so they're on the way.
Brian, know you and your family are in our thoughts and prayers. It's nice to see you making up and taking a frame of honeybees in an observation hive to your local farmers market. People so enjoy seeing a frame of bees up close. It is a great way to educate the importance of them to our food supply and a product source of nature's sweet healthy honey to take home. I had a 4 frame observation hive that I built and kept in the upper half story hallway close to my kids bedrooms. Was great fun to keep bees inside your house and look at them daily from the spring into the fall. Placing them outside in a double 5 frame nuc prompted up on the roof of a carport. It butted up to our second story south gable end of the home with a big window to look out upon our garden and fruit orchard below down the hill. We all appreciate your videos and all the work you do showing and talking about your hives there in your state. Thanks 🐝
My highest mite wash, just like 2 weeks ago, was 2. So mites are under control. They are getting OAV though just to control numbers. In April, it was tough. We had twice the normal rainfall, so that created mating flight issues, which caused colonies to lag behind. All across Ohio it was the same, I know a guy with 30+ colonies and pulled no honey. It has been a horrible year in Ohio.
Looks like you have a great setup for them, I use to raise alot of show chickens for 4-h Kids and loved the process of hatching them out myself instead of buying chicks. I did learn depending on different incubators temp, would determine chicks hatching out early or late, usally a high temp was an early hatch and a low temp was a day late. Great video.
The incubators I have do fluctuate some, so that's most likely why they start a hair early. They're such a fast growing bird. Thanks for watching Brad.
Good video! In 2020. I bought two hives and a few quails and now I have only honeybees because I keep 200 miles away. This year was similar to yours. I’m smaller than you only 6-8 hives and I had only 40% 🍯 from what I was expecting.
