Hello from Oklahoma USA this is my 3rd summer keeping bees, have grown fro 3 to 13 colonies. I've followed Roger and BIBBA and learned so much, enough to know I'll always be learning from the bee's and common sense Bee Keepers. Thank You 🐝😊
Good, as long as it's not just me, I was beggingn to doubt myself. I have had 4 mated marked laying queens just disapear into thin air, left a handfull off bees behind. All in the same yard as well.
Nice video🙌 Btw I'm not really sure if it is the best time to ask but, I noticed a few opportunities to improve the video, I've prepared a short video outlining some tips. Mind if I sent it over?
My personal theory is that bees will change their minds at the start of a strong honey flow and an oncoming spell of good weather especially if the weather has been cold and wet beforehand. I have seen abandoned and torn down supercedure queen cells as a result. Disappearing bees - yes odd one that. I'm seeing more in recent years. More than I ever did years ago.
How long have those nucs been queenless? did they have any eggs or larvae in there to make their own queen and kill the virgin. Or where they hopelessly queenless?
Thanks for the blend of humour and education Karl. I'll have to watch again and take notes to implement the parts useful to my beekeeping on a budget. In the the nicest possible taste, there's a Benny Hill resemblance!! 😄
Concerns about all the tools needed (bee vac, hoover, buckets, cutting discs) and all from a ladder. We never use ladders but only scaffold or cherry pickers.
So enjoyed it when you came to sit and have lunch with my wife and me at 2023’s Carmarthen BIBBA conference, Jo. Was great chatting with you about your experiences and thank you for taking an interest in ours. For us to talk quietly one on one was one of the best moments of such a good conference. To anyone reading I’d say it’s well worth joining BIBBA if you live in the area it covers and the black bee has proved a delight to us after ditching the Buckfast derivatives that always seemed to degenerate into highly aggressive ‘followers’ and which we’d really found impossible to meaningfully improve since 1983! We’ve now developed a very good strain of our own Welsh black bees and if you’re wondering the BIBBA conferences are WELL worth attending as well as getting Jo’s book on bee improvement. I’ve heard, online, a couple of beekeepers complain it didn’t contain enough scientific data but I think that’s exactly what made it so useful to me, it’s a delightful and easy to understand field guide, a way to work it through as beekeepers, not a laboratory study. One of my most read bee-books. Richard and Pat Bullen-Whatling, just outside Llandrindod Wells, mid-Wales.
Robert1664. . .Some time later. Answer to your Head Scratching . . . Errr? 🙄 Basically Rogers Maths give or take +/- is as Follows. (+ /- to time : I think of as when did a 'Day' actually start in any 'laying of 'an Egg' Midnight, 10am, Midday 4pm etc. . . in x24hrs !? [Acutually occur !] Hence 8th or 9th re 'Sealed' Or 15th possibly 16th. to 'When it Emerges'. . . Get the idea. 👀 So basic Biology: Re Eggs, Larva in Queens being 'Reared' by Bees / or the Beek ! Timescale: as follows. . . Eggs Laid = Day 0 Eggs Hatch (Larva) = Day 3 Queen Cell 'Sealed' = Day 9 V. Queen Emerges = Day 16 Above uses Rogers explanation that Books always 'State the 9th and 16th'. But Nature could do so easily in, the latter part of the 8th, or 15th ! Re *Timing to when 'it' happened ! 🤭 Oddball Maths + or - 'applies' ! 3+(3+3) = 9 (Laid Egg+ Hatch+Sealed= "9th Day") 9+6 'Devloping Pupae '+/-) = '15th' is the 'Day' (earliest Egg in 24hrs*) Later in that 24hrs* = '16th' Day (to get a Virgin Queen) Emerging ! 👍 So doing the 'Maths' is more than a Numbers game. It's when Bees did 'what' and 'when' the Clock started to Tick re 'Countdown'. . . Does that make sense. 🤔 It's understanding : Queen Laying when, Egg development. Feeding Started ? Pupae Sealed re local conditions re Weather Patterns. All this is a Numbers 'Calculation'. Basically a 'Hunch to When' !?! . . . Seen through Looking, Awareness, and Experience, Reasoning to eg Bee type eg a Black Bee (hard as Nails) say over a Warmer Climate 'Italian' needing a few more minutes of 'warming' to get that 'egg to hatch' later that 'Day'. All this 'throws' the "Day Due" out of the equation. However once a 'Virgin Queen' hatches : she's on a mission to. . . To Swarm or KILL any other later emerging QC's So Beeks : be 'aware' of what's occuring "Within Your Box" and act promptly! Unless you have X-Ray vision, you did used a Snelgrove Board, or thought. . . I will move that Queen 'today' ! (even if its '12th Day") : as tomorrow its going to Rain, or I'm busy doing : Golf. 😁 Good luck working Nature out. I know I am the overseer of my Bees, add boxes, feed. Split etc, rather than their 'Keeper'. They are more likely keep me "On my Toes" in anticipation of 'Swarming' or not !? One of my best Hives is a 'Collected' rehomed Swarm ! Who I will use again to Queen Rear from, for another Year. If you do have a great Colony use it's qualities. Re-Queen regularly and utilise those genetics. I like to keep "Local' Bees ! 👍 Hope this helps .😎 Before the Swarm Season starts up once more. If anything : DO something ! 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2024 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Feel free to Comment, if I have missed something out. . . 🙃
Another reason to winter 8 pushed together as a 2 groups of 4 2 east 2 west in each group.. FED And insulated you will always have extra . Makes keeping 4 for honey production easy .
Randy Is now buying none VSH bees from other beekeepers so he can continue doing treatment research because his selective mating has been so successful. Flooding the area with mite resistance bee will eventually self select as long as the resistance is in the population.
First time on your channel. Very easy to follow. I love your approach. Why put the second brood box on top first? Why not start with a new floor. Find the queen and move her on her frame with some bees and stores. Sorry if this is a silly question. Great stuff 👍
Excellent point about Q cells. Only a colony with quite good underlying health can/will make them. I hope that your talk at the NHS 2023 is on the Honey Show channel, unfortunately missed it as I was busy stewarding, but I sent you some customers.
Sorry, My NHS talk was in the Beginners Programme, that isn't recorded for financial reasons. I had one person listen to me who has kept bees for 57 years! He said it should have been in the main programme because it's relevant to all. I will try to do it as a webinar. Roger
Yes i was concerned about ants being dumped in the hive as well then you it again a little bit in the second hive and i started thinking maybe you're using ants as veoa mite control. Idk. I have bees that live in an exterior wall of house so I'm thinking about caching them and starting a hive. I blocked their entrance with a deep box and ten foundation frames. It's been like that for two months and bee's are not cooperative they haven't dron any comb they just go through and into their hive. I'm probably going to have to cut them out of the wall. O'well. The comments suggest that the ants aren't good veroa mite security O'well there as well. Why haven't any of these researchers supported creating a weaker veroa mite to breed dying or crippled veroa mites.
