Bob Binnie presentation to Alaska's Midnight Sun Bee Club 4/10/23 

We loved talking with him.

Thanks Bobby.

Thanks - we're also big Bob fans, and we're so glad he took the time to meet with our club.

Thanks for watching.

Bob doesn't monitor this channel, but I can tell you that is extremely unlikely to happen. Drones follow queens, not vice versa. Newly mated queens sometimes return the wrong hive, but I've only heard of that happening when they return to the correct yard, but not the correct hive.

Beekeeping often involves finding additional uses for gear that wasn't specifically designed for the task at hand. Well done.

@@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping I’ve done many things in bee keeping where my trades have helped me tremendously since 1971 😀

@@DavidWilliams-wr4wb Who knew we were preparing for beekeeping when we were doing all those other jobs?

Ian is great. I've overwintered nucs successfully in insulated boxes outside (Ian winters inside, so it's a bit different). I got both through last winter; 1 six frame medium, and 1 twelve frame medium. Next year I'll be making a lot more.

12 of 14 overwintered last winter, 29 of 35 over last 3 years. I don't think it's more work here, but the methods are different. All 4 seasons are colder, so I think about heat efficiency at every step. I now think that, with healthy bees and cold weather methods, overwintering success is comparable to most other places.

I've used them that way, too.

!

just another sugar if cane sugar is not around not sure how hard it is to extract sugar from beets but it is the same if it grows up there from beet sugar beets

I don't have any experience with beet sugar, but I know others that have said it's fine. Bottom line for winter feed: the purer the sugar, the better the overwintering success. If beet sugar is as pure as cane sugar, I'd expect the results to be similar.

@@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping their both 99.95 percent glucose sugar thats about it. Beet sugar is from different areas compared to cane sugar depending on what is flown in. Might be able to grow sugar beets in alaska. It is complicated do not bother making sugar my bad. need to filter, add additives, heat to a liquior then seed it with sugar and have it centerfudiged dry to get the pure sugar just like making cane sugar except it does grow in colder climates i just got sick thinking about trying it lol

Hey Rick - thanks for watching. Bob lived in Alaska for 6 years. He worked as a taxi driver and a welder (among other things), but never kept bees here. However, it's where he first became interested in beekeeping. If you can show me any part of the video where we state or imply that he kept bees here, I'll edit i to make that clear.