I love your videos and always look forward to seeing them. Would love to see how you manage a 1, 10 frame deep instead of a 2 hive deep and using the honey supers. My question is when you decide to harvest the honey supers in order to do a Varroa (Apigard) treatment which will take about 30 days and they have uncapped cells, what do you do with the honey supers. Do you freeze them for the winter and then put them back on for the 2018 spring honey flow?
Hi David, Thanks for your comments. I don't think my bad back would appreciate all the heavy lifting! Those supers are so much easier to manage for me personally. Really good question about the varrroa treatment, and it's why I have switched to using Mite Away Quick Strips which is a formic acid treatment that doesn't taint the honey and is only on the hive for one week. That way I can allow the bees to carry on filling up with honey and take it all of at the end of the Summer flow. Stewart
If nectar shakes out of a partial capped frame. Would you keep shaking it out then extract. Wait it out longer. I'm using deeps and they are about half capped. I'm afraid if I don't extract soon I will loose it. They will take it down to brood box no? 2 broods 1 honey super. All deeps.
Hi Jay, I think you've found one of the potential stumbling blocks when using brood boxes for honey stores. If it were here in the UK I would give them an extra week or so and then check again, I had some high water content stores in a super, left it an extra week and it was fine. Alternatively, do as you suggest, shake it all down onto the top bars of the box below and then extract the capped stores. Once you've done that you can check the water content with your new honey refractometer :) Stewart
Hi private bubba, Thanks for commenting. Yes, normally the bees will cap the honey around that number but if it's getting late in the season and there is still uncapped honey in the frames the simple shake test can also confirm that generally the frame can be extracted. It's just a guide to see if it's worth extracting. I sometimes find colonies that have several frames full of honey that isn't capped but is ready to be extracted at the end of the season and this method helps make the decision as to whether I remove it or not. Stewart
Great channel, subbed bud. Im looking to pick bees up this year, April. Quick question, what causes the indentations in the last 2 frames? the large ones
Hi Mightypi, Thanks for commenting and subscribing, Good luck with getting your bees in April. Did you mean the gaps at the base of the frame? If so, it is usually caused by the bees chewing the wax, sometimes because they can't produce enough wax fast enough to use elsewhere in the colony. If you can pause the video and tell me what time you stopped at I will have another look. Stewart
I stopped the video at 12:24 and all looks perfectly fine so I'm struggling to see exactly what you mean, maybe it's just that because it's all ok I just can't see what you mean specifically. Stewart
I suspect your mike cover is black. Can you replace it with white cover? An article I read some years ago tested Africanized bees using a veil that was the standard black verses a veil that was white. The white veil had very few attacks as opposed to the standard black veil that was mobbed. Just a thought.
Hi Bill, Thanks for commenting. I had not thought about changing the mic cover to a white one, I'm going to see if they are available. I had thought it was the electronics in the camera that were causing the problem as they also dislike my mobile phone when I have used that close up to video. I'll keep you posted. Stewart
Hi Frances, No I have never had the need for a dehumidifier before extracting, I have used it after extraction just because it has been so hot and humid in the honey room but only for personal comfort not to remove water content from the honey. Stewart
In the first hive, is the stores in the brood box alone enough to carry them through the winter? Or do you leave them a couple more frames with capped honey in the super to winter on? Or do you feed them through the winter?
Hi Rabbit, Great question with a very unscientific response from me..... I feed the bees what I think they will need, plus a little bit more, let me explain. All of my colonies are different, various sizes, different strains, different traits. Some need lots of food to get them through the Winter and some hardly touch the stuff. I try to give approx. 18-20kg (40-50lbs ish) of food (Honey stored by the bees topped up with sugar syrup feeding in the Autumn for any colonies that have a brood nest that covers approx. 8 commercial brood frames or a full national hive. For colonies that fill the commercial brood box with brood I usually aim to provide another 3-5kg (total of 50-60lbs ish) of food stores. I also check up on the through the Winter and add sugar fondant to them where I feel the need. It's important not to let them starve!!! I'll put together a video to show what I do over then next couple of weeks. Stewart
+The Norfolk Honey Company (The Norfolk Honey Co) thank you mr Stewart. It's my first season with the bees. I'm trying to educate myself for winter preperation and I'm close to pulling my first ever honey frames. I want to leave enough stores for them. But don't mind feeding them either. I understand keeping them alive through winter is the difficult part. Not so much starving them but keeping them alive in lieu of Verroa load
Hi Rabbit, Fantastic that this is your first season of beekeeping, I'm sure you're having a lot of fun but also worrying about your bees too. Don't worry, as long as you follow some simple steps they will over Winter fine. I treat my bees during the depths of Winter with an Oxalic Acid treatment. I'll put together another video to show how this works. Stewart
I heard from a local beekeeper of my area that we should not open hive during honey season, he was saying two reason for that 1 bees start eating honey and other it disturbs them and they stop working is it correct?
I don't understand why you are using a dummy board in the hive of that size they would have filled another frame out in a couple days beautiful looking honey though picture perfect
Hi B.B., I use the dummy board just to make it easier to remove the first frame and not roll/kill bees. It was very well drawn and the honey was fab. Stewart
