Thank you for an other great informative video this time of the year. I think the same way about managing the hives like this and I also tape my pants like this but with duct tape 😀. Thank you again.
Hi from New York! I have been watching your videos for a while and really like your 6s. Been floating the idea for a while now of building a common box with 2 dividers , accomplishing the same thing as your seperate 6s but allowing for more shared warmth between the colonies. There would be some management issues, such as having to move a colony frame by frame rather than just swapping out boxes to replace die offs or weak colonies but I'm am hoping that the benefits outway the negatives. Figure it's worth a try to build a couple and see how it works. Would love to see if it would give me the bee density nessesary to fill out comb honey for some of our early flows like black locust and basswood. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos, your efforts are very appreciated and it has inspired me to try a few new things.
Remember Ian beeing shy talking in front of audiance and camera? Me neither! :) Those gloves could use some tape. :D Appreciate the videos. I have adjusted my bee work quite a bit after learning from You, especially the nutrition timing.
Quite a contrast to last year, this time. No pollen and queens had already shut down. No stores in my brood boxes either but we have more time before winter shut down and so I mentioned, we have a second deep starting to fill with natural food.
It’s my first year, going well. In part thanks to you! Open feeders here on Vancouver Island would be infested with yellow jackets. Not an issue with you?
I believe you did good not using smoke. Smoking a colony puts them off foraging for hours, something you don't want to do to a colony that's running on fumes.
In Australia watching heaps of these vids yours and others. First time ive heard the word cannabalise gonna look that up Thanks. I have a question hope you get a chance to answer i know your getting heaps of them. How long before you put these bees undercover/store for winter. I see these boxes are loaded with too many bees to be accommodated in the box and would expect most of your boxes are in the same state.From your other vids they seem to be overwintered in 1 brood box. What happens with the extra bees? there wouldn't be stores for them all . Do you just take the box and have to abandon the excess bees or is there some other way to manage it.
Very informative. I have a question. Referring only to nukes like the one you showed which are full of bees, if we ignore the economic value of the honey on the top boxes, will it be a good idea at this point to actually put another nuke on top of such a strong nuke below and leave little honey and no queen excluder, with the idea that come next spring you already have a second nuke ready to be separated. Will this work and will the queen at this stage move up and lay some eggs? Thanks
Great videos Can't you just put them in to normal 10 frame brood boxes and add either empty frames or a few full ones from the top. They seem to be too crowded anyway. Just a thought.
You talk about syrup vs nectar, can you explain what they look like in the hive. I'm guessing that you know it's syrup because that's what you're feeding them now but I just do not understand the difference on the frame. If someone could explain that would be great.
Looks like you have some room on the underside of those bee escapes. Why not put a baggie feeder or high sugar content patty there? Leave some room for the bees though :-)
What's the limiting factor keeping you from moving them into full sized boxes? Crew time, the availability of bases, and winter storage space would be my first three guesses.
rochrich And, these are newly developed queens, I don’t want them to lay too much into the fall, saving them for the next 2 years. Next year they explode out of the small nests
Seems like I am tracking with rochrich, with all the brood hatching soon, it would seem they would fit in fulls and the good amount you feed into fall. Is the die off going to keep the numbers in check?
Out of curiosity, if you have supers that are 1/2 - 3/4 full why do you opt to take that resource away rather then leaving for them? Ie added labour, sugar being cheaper then honey ect?
@@izinyosib821 that's fair, I'm in Australia, our season is just about to start. Not certain about how much of his season he has left. We also have no need to winter our bees indoors.
Canadian bee man; the way I see it you had 5 deeps on top of your 3 six frames nucs and now you squeezed all of the bees down in the 3 six frames nucs; it is like if you had a gallon of water and you wanted to put it all in an 8 oz glass. Anyone can see that it is not going to fit. What is your game plan going forward ? I am just curious, thks.
I have very limited knowledge.....can the box with the least honey... be placed on top of the brood box and the escape board be placed between the full box and the box with the least. That way they have feed....what's a little honey compared to next yr stock.
. I know my july mates queens have the best honey production.. their just mated better. I remember when I use to buy queens id have colonys half the size making twice the honey . Just simple fact some were mated better than others. Genetic diversity is everything in honey production.. now that I can half way understand all this great reaserch out there I know exactly why . Wasn't the strain or the queen it was their breeding . Great vid
Robbie. Understand they are telling you they would never make it with so little honey. Check them and feed if necessary. Many bee colonies die from to few stores in the winter and spring.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Thank! In Ukraine, we have not even heard such breeds of bees ... We have the main breed Carpathian and Ukrainian breed. Also imported from Germany Buckfast, Karnika, Italian bee. Is Buckfast in Canada? If so, it’s interesting to know your opinion about what you think about this breed ...
When you bring all your bees inside, that’s when you should sleep?? Although.....You are going to worry about the CO2 levels in your storage house, which will again keep you up at night!! 🤷♂️🤦♂️
Hi Ian , you discussed the pros and cons of running single and double brood chambers in these nucs but I have to disagree on one important point...it is true..but yet false...and that is that running single brood chambers you get all the honey...and that is true...you do get all the honey, but yet false in that, that limited unit cannot produce as much honey as a double brood chamber nuc...therefore you "do not get all the honey" that, that honey production unit could potentially produce..it is simple math....the fact is that those 6 frame single story nucs do not have enough room for a young prolific queen to brood up to her "full nuc potential" and therefore cannot produce bees or honey to their full potential...that means that those colonies are not able to bring in as much honey because of their brood box limitations of space for bees, brood and resource storage which is an unatural and unbalanced situation ...therefore they are not producing to their full potential so in fact you are "losing honey production" have less brood, less bees, and have the stress of losing them to starvation or brood cannibalization at the end of the honey flow(I don't like losing sleep worrying about starving bees...lord knows I need my beauty rest lol)...I put on a second brood chamber in the fourth week of july usually on the second honey pull...the result is many more frames of brood, more bees, and much more honey, room for pollen storage...and on the last pull there will usually be at least one frame of honey on each side of the top brood chamber...and room for a whole more super of bees, those two frames of honey left behind mean nothing compared to the greater amount of honey a two story nuc can produce...and... you don't have to put out open feeders and incite a robbing scenario... there is a whole different sound to a bee yard on a honey flow compared to a yard of robbing, fighting bees...robbing bees become old, lose the hair on their bodies, become dark and worn looking very fast and die prematurely and that is not what we want at any time...I avoid bee robbing scenarios like the plague..it's hard on the bees and can spread disease and mites and invites neighbouring beekeepers bees and indigenous bees to your yard which is not something you want for a multitude of reasons...jmho from my experience with 6 frame two queen honey production units. I hope your bees are wintering well Ian...time is flying by and before we know it the 2021 beekeeping season will be upon us! All the best in 2021!
Haha, I see "exactly" what you are doing Ian and a single will never equal a double deep no matter what you do or how you think you can operate it like a double...you either have adequate space in the brood chamber or you don't..in a single 5 or 6 frame nuc "you simply don't" illustrated by why you made this video...there is a staggering difference between the #s 1 and 2 which no other numbers compare... the difference being that "2" is 100 percent more than "1" and that is huge when it comes to brood chambers and management of bees.. bees hanging on the front, no honey, no pollen in the brood chamber not to mention brood chamber congestion...just one of those issues would be a deal breaker for me let alone all of them...you can't work against a colonies natural needs and tendencies and come out on the long end of the stick no matter what you think or do..you don't experience those problems to as great an extent with double deeps(they aren't perfect either)...it is undeniable simple math...you have chosen to run singles in your operation and that is ok and your management style...we may always disagree on that point and I realize doubles take twice the equipment and twice the wintering space so that can be a limitation ...I ran up to 1100 plus doubles and a few singles for 30 years so I am well aquainted with both systems and they both have their place in 10 frame honey production units for various reasons but any singles run for honey production will be undersupered before the end of the honey flow but in the case of singles and wintering-singles were always a disappointment in so many ways in April compared to doubles.... but in the case of 6 frame-two or three queen systems the limitations and problems created with only one brood chamber are exactly what you indicated when you discussed the differences later on in the video...less space for brood, bees, no honey and no pollen reserves in the brood chamber and the need for open feeding. One friend and two relatives--- one runs double deep 5 framers and double deep size colonies plus a few singles because of wintering space limitations, one runs 5 frame double deep nucs(approx. 1200) and double deep full size colonies, and the other runs 6 frame double deep nucs( approx. 1500) along with their respective full size double deep colonies ...this latter beekeeper I sold my beekeeping operation too.. I was running 6 frame double deep nucs in that operation and he saw the advantages and expanded on it and runs them as double deeps as I did and as two queen honey production units. All these guys produce huge crops of honey averaging well over 300 lbs avg over the past many years...usually about 30 to 40 percent more than the Saskatchewan provincial average...this year was a tough year for honey producers in Saskatchewan( one I know hit 172 lbs. and others much less and in crop failure territory poundage wise) but these guys still all hit their production targets. I know others in this area have tried to run singles and failed miserably and are now gone and the one producer that I know of running singles has been struggling for years and had a disastrous honey crop this year. You usually have your finger on the pulse of what is going on with your hives but many other people that think they can run the singles game are doomed to fail..I know of at least four beekeeping operations that have come and gone through the years and they all failed because they tried to run singles. Don't get me wrong singles are great for certain situations like package bees or weak colonies in honey production but they will always go into winter as a double unless they are weak and in that case they get folded with a medium colony and are gone. Nuff said. Keep on keepin on Ian...all the best!!
Again, my single is managed as a double during growth and production, in a single, It might not work with your area and requirements, but it is what it is. The great equalizer is swarming. They swarm in doubles the same as singles. The trick is to achieve that population intact
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog yes Ian, I fully understand your beekeeping management practices and employ many of them as well and have watched all your videos with interest...thanks for putting the time in to share your beekeeping views and practices...have a great Sunday!
😂my observation axactly! Why? In South Africa we have only 1 rule: smoke first! If you don't listen, you feel, belief me. How cool it must bee to have such calm ladies
