My daughter-in-law, Hannah's hive has grown nicely this Spring from a single deep to a double deep and is now poised to start accumulating their first honey.
14:11 I found that if you cut out wonky combs like that, if you flip the frame around so the cut side is next to normal comb, they draw it better than if it's facing the same side.
NO! Most beginners have their first swarm by placing a queen excluder on before they have any drawn comb in the honey super. Hannah was doing exactly the correct thing. Wait till they start to draw the comb then make sure the queen is in the lower chambers by shaking off the bees. THEN adding the excluder and replacing the honey super. For some reason many hives (not all) just wont pass up through the excluder when there is only foundation above it, then become crouded and swarm despite all the room above.
I also, had a mishap with a brand new queen. I was moving the frame with her on it about 10ft away to the nuc box. Before placing the frame into the box, I always want to eye ball the queen as it's going into the box. This time, however, I couldn't find her again. So i looked and looked, nothing!! I looked on the ground to my right, nothing. Left, nothing!!! Moved my left foot back and pow!!! Bright green marked queen under my shoe!!!!! Dead!!! I was heart broken!!! Lesson learned, bring the box to the queen!!!!
Great to see your family keeping bees as well! Similarly, my brood chambers are being back filled with nectar, and are becoming nectar/honey bound. After watching your videos about the Demaree earlier this spring, I added a deep and 2 medium supers to my strong colonies (~mid May). Last night I extracted a full medium super from each colony, and put it back on this morning in the bottom super position in hopes that the bees will move some of the nectar from the brood boxes up to the supers (they are at various stages of being filled/capped). Any other advice? I added a few new frames of foundation, but the nectar is coming in quicker than the foundation can be drawn out. The queen only has a couple frames with open cells and I am afraid they are going to swarm (no queen cups/cells of yet). Thank you for any advice, I very much enjoy your videos (and also took one of your online workshops)!
Ha Peter just seen your and amy interview with raindeers youtube page it was great. If you do not mind I like to ask you a question. I would like to treat for mites with oav I have heard treat every 5 days for 7 treatments works have you tryed this thanks
Yes in the early days of OAV treatment it was thought to be effective... this has since been shown to be less effective than hoped (better than not treating) If relying on this choose more treatments more frequently for 24 days or so.
Ha Peter real nice it is strange our flow is over and your is just beginning. That hive is doing good. It is nice to see you doing videos again Have a blessed week
