I'd add another to the list. Remember that your apiary has it's own micro-climate. That's why if you ask 6 beekeepers the same question you'll get 20 different answers.
Excellent about 6 beekeepers Excellent about micro-climate. I live in cattle country and see a big difference with those who live near a city with plenty of flowers and the weather is different. My club is an hour away and we have significantly different factors. And people ask for "local" honey for allergies (science says yes & no). The point is where do the bees get their resources? As I said I live in cattle country and someone many miles away who lives in lake country want my local honey for their allergies, logic says two different sources thus (regardless of science) it aint going to work. I have 6-8 hives and don’t sell (restrictions to sell, tax, book keeping pain etc). I give away (great Christmas presents). So I advise the lady who has allergies in lake county and give her a qrt for the heck of it. She still has allergies.
Love your common sense approach. Right on the money I would say - I have kept bees for over 20 years. Bees know what there doing (they have been around for millions of more years than us) leave them alone other than health/room/swarm checks and go with them not against them. They still teach, and surprise, me on things though after all this time.
Wholeheartedly agree. I bought a hybrid national hive when I started, two years later, the company pulled out of the UK, so I couldn't get frames/boxes anymore. I started with plastic foundation, the bees drew it rapidly, the black making it extremely easy to see eggs. Initially, my mentor said that it was no good, the same day he couldn't believe how easy it was to see eggs! When I asked people in the bee club about it, I was barraged with it wouldn't work. When I showed them pictures with the eggs, they responded with, "well my mate says..."
I have kept bees for a long time and in recent years I have noticed that Beekeeping has become a fashion in some places which is worrying. All for new beekeepers but leaving them at the bottom of the garden untouched is not good news. I cant emphasise strongly enough how important it is to have an experienced beekeeper getting you started and going in the right direction. And yes I have also noticed how much better the bees do when your not interfering with them too much.
Out Association has a Beek in his 80's, started when he was 14 and was a National Inspector. He is a firm advocate of minimal intervention and treatment, with the attitude of: if they can't survive on their own, they don't deserve to survive'
I learned this my second year beekeeping (this spring is my 4th year) I luckily learned to stick to one type of hive & frame size from the beekeeping group I joined in my county. I'm glad you made this video to help others new to beekeeping not make the same mistakes ❤ I'm currently in the works of a skincare/makeup product that's not on the market. It's hopefully gonna be a game changer in the beauty world.
New beekeeper here doing online courses at the moment. It took me an age to find out that not all beehive sizes are the same then it gets more confusing as the frames do not say which hive they are for i know now i have chosen the Langstroth hive as it fits with my needs I am Glad i have found your channel as it is in the UK i think lol
I agree with all your points. I’d add, however much equipment you think you’ll need, chances are you’ll need double that. Also regarding an extractor, so many will only take shallow frames so whatever you buy, ensure it will take a deep frame of whatever size you use, whether it’s std National or 14 x 12. At some point you’ll want to extract from those frames.
Great video. You are so right about listen ing to the so called “experts”. One guy in my local area who everyone said is the go to guy, gave me 3 pieces of advice over a year and a half. All three things killed my hives. I’ve now learned that people speak from their experiences and maybe theirs isn’t applicable to me. Thanks for the videos. I love watching them and learning. I’m in the eastern United States by the way.
In a La Winter, like we are gonna have in Northern hemisphere, definitely prepare your hive to be able to quickly remove or add insulation, or you will lose bees. Temps will go from real warm to cold and bees are definitely caught off guard.
I love your 10 top comments, good to see you are changing to plastic pellets for your Bee hives, I'm from Cairns, Australia, we don't have any winters and no virro mites,
Just finished basic beekeeping, get first bees from borders beekeepers in spring so watching n reading everything I can, so newbie question if it’s really hot what can you do to protect hive from “new” summer temperatures and if matchsticks placed under crown board would bees fill gap with propelis, why is that bad idea to vent hive. Love your channel am learning a lot.
I hear what you are saying… my brother rents an allotment’ so next season I asked him if I could eventually place a couple of hives’ I decided to purchase several 14 by 12 hives in the end of season sale… I have national hives… the thought behind it was to make stronger colonies moving forward.. I can still place national frames into it and the bees will just draw the comb down to match the deep frames though…it was mainly because I saved around £100 on each hive compared to seasonal prices!
perfik, keep talking, keep challenging whats said. your absolutely right! unfortunately stupid information often given freely is often duff... thank you for brilliant hands on media.
Treating is definitely a contentious topic. And successfully becoming treatment free over a long time scale is certainly a commendable and arduous goal. With a small colony numbers going treatment free is certainly a high risk endeavour. And in larger operations they're inevitably commercial/semi-commercial and thus influenced by economics. Unfortunately the economics seem to say that it's most profitable to let someone else develop resistant stock and then buy some from them. Whichever camp people are in. If you want to produce the stock it's gonna take alot of time and pain (in one form or another) to get there. It will be interesting to see where things go in the future for this topic and I for one have popcorn ready.
Yep. Completely agree. I dont like it when people look down their noses at people who dont treat. I for one, have great admiration for their persistence and end goals. Takes real guts to say I am going to let a lot of bees die for the greater good of the species. I am seeing more and more people (well respected) moving towards this. I'm going to see if I can borrow some of their stock :D
@@BlackMountainHoney Consider installing capped swarm queen cells in a queenless nuc and move it close enough to someone who is successful at treatment free to use his Drone's genetics. Then after she starts laying bring that colony back home and build it up.
Great advice Lawrence, especially about having your hives in your garden luckily I have most of my hives at my scaffold yard surrounded by acres and acres of farmland where every other year the farmers plant rape seed oil lucky me but I do use my garden to either nurse or build up colonies or to take feral swarms I’ve captured. And I’m with you on picking a configuration of hive and sticking with it I’m all langstroth as I like the bigger size I’m also fazing out using shallow honey supers and going brood box on top of brood box I find once the hive has 2 brood boxes for the queen to lay into they very rarely go higher that’s why I’m not using queen excluders anymore. Varroa treatment all those years back when I first started this adventure I was all into treatment free but every spring time I would open my hives up and have dead outs or really small colonies of sickly looking bees, the first time I used apivar I couldn’t believe the amount of dead mites on the bottom floor, I find if you change your treatment to another product every couple of years you can’t go wrong.
@@BlackMountainHoney yep the mite drop was off the scale thousands of the dead buggers on every bottom boards plus I was sick of seeing lots of young bees with wing virus disease. I hope one day soon we can eradicate varroa mites from our colonies.
Tbf I’m not against varroa treatment but I do carefully keep an eye on varroa count. I’ve been doing beekeeping for almost a decade and where I am we are lucky enough to not really have too much of an issue. We have had one year where the varroa count was noticeable but it still wasn’t bad. I tend to use icing sugar to encourage cleaning and cuttings of lavender at the base of the hive.
@@BlackMountainHoney probably going to be needed as the rumours are that it’s going to be too expensive to import next year. I think we get ours from Germany.
How do you develop Varroa resistant bees if you’re treating your bees for varroa? I’ve been bee keeping since 2015 and I won’t say I’ve never seen them in my hive, because I have, but I mainly see them, 99%, on the drones. I use small cell and also allow them to draw their own comb and I’ve never had any issues with them and I’ve never treated. I do like you’re videos I hope you keep them up
Great video, thanks . Regarding treatment a beekeeper from a forum told me instead of treating with oxyicil acid (for varroa), rhubarb leaves work well as a natural source of this acid. Anyone else heard it done this before?
One of the great beekeeping myths I'm afraid Oxalic acid is present in Rhubarb leaves but its not refined and nowhere the the strength required to kill varroa.
In New Zealand we treat for the varroa destructor mite in the spring before honey supers are put on the beehive and after honey supers have been collected from the beehive, at the start of autumn. Treatments are cycled to reduce resistance.
Hi Lawrence, what's your view on the impact this warm November weather we have in the UK ? My bees are so active, but there is no local nectar for them. I was wondering if they are burning their stores and will lead to problems later into the winter, do you have a view are your bees the same ?
I'm actually looking into getting started in this. actually, for building an observation hive because why not? now I'm well aware already of the arguments for and against, but you bringing up the extractor comments I think justifies why allot have gone with a flow style hive. they are saying well Bugar that method , I'll just turn a key. however even right now with no experience, i can say " I want the wax!!" lol loved your video. thanks for all your great tips now I need to go and lay out what I want in bee keeping religion.
My family started with bees almost 1.5 years ago. And the rule i got when starting: "Get 2 hives minimum, even if it is your first time" And we have them in our garden. works great, and our neighbors like the bees, as they get better returns on everything they grow in THEIR gardens. =) One important thing, when having bees... they can explode... we went from 2 hives to 8 hives, in about 5 weeks... BE PREPARED, and plan ahead.
As usual with your videos I'm keen to adopt and try different 'stuff'. I hadn't even entertained adding a box of brood foundation on the bottom and then feeding on top. That's one to try for spring next year.I came out of last winter with double national broods on only two frames. My friend who insulated the external of the hive came out with ten frames of 'gurgling over' bees. Do bees expand more when there is less pressure to maintain temperature in the hive? All three of his hives were the same. This winter hive insulation is making me think......is the traditional cedar timber hive too damp/cold?! THANK YOU for another great, honest video. They're great to watch with lemon cider on a wet Scottish winter's night.
I live in East Texas. Too old to see mites :). I treat end of Oct early Nov for the winter bees and then again end of Feb to get ready for the spring. I vary the product year to year.
I had bees on an allotment for years with no major problems. Then one year the turned really aggressive and were stinging everybody and the council told me to get rid of them ASAP. If you don't have an out apiary have a "back up plan" incase the bees start to cause trouble.
Once every 7 days seems like gross over managment, I've been there and lost my 1st year of hives. As for the winter... set it and forget it. But I could be wrong. I just figure, they don't need our participation when they are in the wild.
I have a bit of land that runs behind my garage. Its technically in the garden but not where anyone would be spending time. Its about 20m from my back door and behind a garage. Would that be too risky or would i need to put some planting between the area and the house to obstruct flight path? My main garden and patio area is about 30m away
@@BlackMountainHoney don't have many neighbours and most are related but I wouldn't fancy that conversation. Will have to make some plans. Could maybe start them up at the Heather but there isn't much cover and it's only about 500m away
@@damianohare6060 My brother suggested that I could have a hive in his garden. Within a few days they swarmed and annoyed their neighbours, his wife told me to get rid of them! Have a back up plan incase you have to move them at short notice.
It took me 7 years to go treatment free. For the first 6 years I had 80% losses, now losses only about 5% a years. Agree with your advice for the newbie.
I think we've all slipped the odd week here or there with inspections but I have always lived to regret it. 7 days is the only way to get ahead of the curve with swarm control and potential starvation.
One thing I wish I had been told: Think 4-6 months in advance. In the Fall will I need boxes for spring? In Spring, will I need containers for honey? Nothing like trying to order at the last minute and your regular suppliers are sold out.
Three recommendations: 1. Every yard is a different ecosystem! Your yard behind your barn is different than the one you've got near the cornfield, etc. What works in one yard, may not work in another yard. 2. Say "This is what works for me...", and not "You have to do it this way." People will be more apt to consider (and even try) your way when you "offer" it as an example and not make it a requirement. 3. Be willing to consider (and even try) what someone else says. Even if you tried it once (especially you tried it ONLY once) and it didn't work out. As you gain experience, you will be better able to adapt suggestions to work in your particular yard. What didn't work last year might work this year. Remember... you tried keeping bees one year (the first year) and they all died. You tried it again... And voila! You arrived at where you are now.
I watched this video a bit too late cause i am guilty with all this 🤣😭. I started with 2 hives in june now they are 7 and im a bit concerned about the bee population is too little and the honey flow is approaching in February
I had a hive going for about 3 years and then last year about a month after my honey harvest, I checked my hive because I didn't see any activity at it. On my inspection I found it empty of bees and only about 10 dead bees. I pulled out all the full frames left for them and set them aside to get the honey. I didn't get to do it for a couple of days and I saw all kinds of bees on them getting the honey and flying off. I still think that they were my bees but I couldn't see where they were going to, so I could recapture them. Now I am without any bees and wonder what happened, but want to get back to keeping bees. Do you have any thoughts on what could have been going on?
one good book says that brood and half is about right for UK in general. which is about the same as a dadant brood comb size. yet this could be problematic. as if you put a dadant brood frame full of honey in an extractor, this size frame will not hold up spinning in an extractor. plus a brood size frame late in the season might not be capped in time. i wonder if a big size national brood size frame would hold up in an extractor? yet if you go for one size of frame for everything, is the big size brood frame the same as a dadant. maybe the long hive with brood size nationals is the answer. yet moving a long hive, wouldn't like to say...
The weird thing is . Buck fast abbey went through the question of space in the brood. They came to the conclusion that the national hive was too small, so they got thier hives made with an extra brood frame, but no one has seemingly picked up on this. Thrones said that there would not do it. As said the dadant is about the right size. Or secondly a long hive. Would an extractor break up a national brood frame? Due from a long hive being the same size frame. How about a long hive with flow frames.
