A Year In The Bee Yard 

I hope to talk more about queens this fall. Thanks.

Just remember, all other opinions on a subject other than your own, are wrong! It simplifies life SO much... Lol Or you can be like me and wade through the other opinions and consider the context, and learn from all of them, but that's so much more complicated... On the subject of queen replacement, what I have gathered is it depends on how you are going to work with your hives. For instance, Ian Steppler does frequent colony assessment as part of his yearly template, and so he can see multiple times throughout the year if a queen is not Brilliant, at which point he replaces the queen or shakes the hive out, so a colony might go years without a queen replacement if the supercedure queens are excellent queens, and he's actually likely to use those superceded queens for breeding purposes because they have shown good genes. On the other hand, if you don't want to, or don't have a crew that can do assessments, or if you don't raise your own queens, replacing them all periodically may make sense, simply because you have no other way of knowing when a queen needs replacement, or it's hard to get more queens mid season. I think that doing it only when a queen starts having problems is the most efficient way, simply because if you buy or produce a new queen, and the existing one could have continued performing just as well for years more, it's a waste of time and money replacing a good queen. It's kind of like replacing all your boxes every 5 years, no matter the condition. Yes, some may get damaged in 5 years, but some can last 20 years, so it's better to assess each box individually and only replace what actually needs it. But again, if you can only get queens part of the season, or are not able to assess their performance and replace as needed, there are business cases for global queen replacement.

We rarely feed patties which probably needs a longer explanation that I can give here. Our first queen cell grafts are in the last week of March and our last graft was yesterday (July 18).

@@bobbinnie9872 would be precious to know why Bob. Thanks for all the knowledge you gave us.

Your plan sounds a lot like mine. Thanks.

@@bobbinnie9872 Off topic, I've been looking for caucasians and can't find any breeders. It seems as though they don't exist. I'd like to raise a few queen from a caucasian mother. Suggestions where to purchase one of two in the spring? Any suggestion is appreciated.

@@beebob1279 Try Shibu Raj at shibu.raj@gmail.com

Although you need to keep on top of mite numbers. Constantly. As neighboring bees collapse around you they drift into healthy ones. Potentially yours. Neighboring bees are often not your friends. Not even close. Especially ones that are not under diligent mite control.

The reasons I think that range is good is because it's cool enough for almost all the bees to not be flying and warm enough so they're not clustering too tight for the vapors to penetrate the cluster. Warmer will work, just not as completely. A bit warmer or cooler works, just not as completely.

Chattanooga is probably a bit earlier than us. Perhaps the first or second week in April. The first major surplus nectar flows could come from things like crimson clover and black locust trees.

I don't know the status of africanized bees near Dallas but I would certainly be careful. Catching swarms is a legitimate way to start new colonies. Sugar and water weigh nearly the same so volume or weight works. Good luck on your new adventure!!

Agreed, was looking forward to the Q&A as well.

Q & A coming soon.

@@bobbinnie9872 thank you sir, appreciate it. Love listening to your insight on the Q&A. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It has been helpful to me and many others.

Oddly enough, it doesn't matter. A quart of granulated cane sugar weighs close to same as a quart of water. So mixing by weight or by volume gives you very close to the same results.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you Bob

One and the same..

Five gallon pails may work fine in your cooler weather, I've not tried them. In our area, if the feed isn't finished in a timely manner it may ferment. Let me know how it works for you. I know a few people that use three gallon with decent results.

@@bobbinnie9872 Oh I see, I didn't think of that! So far so good to be honest, I've looked at the syrup in the pails last week and it was all good, no fermentation. SO FAR, I've had great results with my 5 gallons, I like it a lot since I can fill it up quite heavy and leave it for a while. I'm not sure for smaller pails, but I do have to leave the pail upside down a good 20 seconds before it stop dripping. The gap to fill with the void is bigger so I think that's a disadvantage over smaller pails! Again, thanks for your generous help my friend you rock.

I wouldn't bet against you.

I have not heard of that. What country?

@@bobbinnie9872 Yemen, Hadhramaut valleys

As long as the mite counts don't get too high you can wait.

@@bobbinnie9872 thank you wery much! Im still processing the informations in your videos....i admire your work and i hope i will learn some of your great methods... wery pleased to gain your knoledge ...simply dont know anyone who would share the informations like that....all the best to you from Europe

I'm afraid I wouldn't know much about that or your region. You are very different than our area.

@@bobbinnie9872 thanks for reply. I’ll try and collect data and make out how our beekeeping calendar look like in the region i practice beekeeping in Kenya.

I am not a scientist but my guess is the answer will come in the form of genetics. I've had mixed success with a couple of yards that I ran with no treatment for seven years. The problems I had came from surrounding beeyards belonging to others.

Thank you. I'm looking forward to Hive Life.

That's a very interesting comparison. Sounds about right.

We use the thinner syrup all year unless it is late in the season and we have to gain weight quickly.

This the clubs email, maybe they sell them. beekeepersofmadisoncounty@gmail.com

Hey Bradley!!!

Gidday Rodney, hope you and your family are well👍

@@downunderfulla6001 We are doing well. It's spring there by now?

1st of September is our first day of spring. Not long now👍

Thank you.

Thanks. Yes, we do feed and treat at the same time.

Sorry to hear it. Better luck next year.

Hi Frances. Question segment will come soon. Thanks.

"Honey, The Gourmet Medicine" by Joe Traynor. page 10.

It depends on the total bee numbers. If you have two boxes with bees I would recommend a full dose. Apivar is not a strong dosage treatment and it's easy to underdose which leads to resistance in my view.

@@bobbinnie9872 gotcha...thanks Bob

Where do you live?

@@bobbinnie9872 I live in central Illinois, sort of west central. The closest town of any size to me is Peoria to the east or Galesburg to the north or Macomb straight west. I'm out inthe country between Lewistown and Cuba.

Oxalic acid vaporization.

Thanks for the reply. I’m in my second year will bee keeping and only have 3 hives. OA seems out of reach at this time.

Feeding is not needed if there is a good fall pollen and nectar flow. The golden rod in our area gives us pollen but not much nectar. You're lucky to have that.

@@bobbinnie9872 im not certain it’s golden rod or aster. Whatever it is, it smells like a wet dog. Lol.

If a colony requeens itself by swarming or supersedure we consider that a new queen and leave it unless there is a problem. We prefer overwintering in double deeps but singles work very well as long as they have plenty of food. Although we feed very heavily, probably more than most, we are careful not to plug colonies out 100%. We don't have a dedicated video about overwintering but I'll be talking about some of the things we do in upcoming videos.

@@bobbinnie9872 You know I think u are wonderful and thank you for answering all my questions

I've usually had good enough results with three in a row, five to seven days apart, but of course we'll do mite checks to make sure.

@@bobbinnie9872 thanks Bob! All the information is great

Just a spokesman, Thanks.

I'm a new bee keeper here in texas and wish there was someone here willing to teach, guide and share the way you do. I study your every word and try my best to do exactly what you advise because of your wisdom. You are the artist of bee keeping. The neat time I go to NC I'm coming by your store and hopefully I'm lucky enough to catch you there. Thanks again!!

If you stop feeding sugar syrup a week before putting honey supers on you shouldn't have any trouble with sugar in your honey. I often use feeding as a tool to get desired results and it is not something that absolutely has to be done if the colony has plenty of stores. I would advise against splitting this time of year until you have a little more experience. We stopped splitting a few weeks ago. Better to get your good colony through the winter with all of its assets and split in the spring when it will help keep the colony from swarming. Good luck.

Thank you so much. Greatly appreciated, and when you say keep all your assets does that mean let them stay in the double deep. Also, I’ve watched a lot of your videos and they’ve really helped answer all of the questions I’ve had that other bee RU-vidrs hadn’t answered or talked about really appreciate it.

@@freekinfishin4323 Thanks. Yes, I like to leave them in a double deep as long as there is a good population. That's just my preference. Singles work too and many people prefer that.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to help, I could ask you a million questions but the answers would probably be in the few videos of yours I haven’t watched. You have a great channel and I wish you the best. It was also super cool coming back and seeing you had replied so thank you for that as well.

We use "Ultra Bee" from Mann Lake. I've also heard that AP23 from Dadant is good but I've never used it.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you!

That could be a problem to extract. I once had that problem and I put the supers in the extracting room and sprayed them down with a misty stream from the water hose a few times over a couple of days until I was satisfied it was good. In my experience, and with our equipment, anything below 14 can be to tough to extract properly. Good luck.

So, does that make me really old or you really young?

@@bobbinnie9872 good quality vine getting getting the best with time 👍👍

@@bobbinnie9872 You started the same time as me and I don't feel old.