I think the reason the Birch bees were so interested in your hive tool was probably because it smelled like their recently deceased queen (RIP). Definitely see your point about naming the colonies rather than the queens, but having a rather soft spot for the Balboa dynasty, I kind of secretly hope you're making an exception for them. :)
Ha ha… that was the joke. If you watch the moment after I dispatched the queen, there’s a literal wave of bees moving towards the hive tool. (And yes, Balboa is an exception and still going strong!)
I understand your point of naming the colony because we shouldn't get to attached to the queen. I like naming the queens because we can follow the genetics. From nostalgia point of view, can you make an exception for Balboa? Jim you have inspired 1000s of bee keepers. Balboa played a little part in it as well. Thanks for always sharing.
I'm glad to see more people taking the queen off the pedestal. I name my hives like a sports team based off the color I picked for them, Regal Reds, Yellow Warriors and the like. Then if the queen lays badly or gets agressive it is just like replacing a QB.
I'm glad you talked about having back-up queens incase your queens don't return. I've seen a lot of people on beginner bee groups destroy queen cells not realizing the original queen already swarmed and then have no back up. Love the bee barn idea!
Been a subscriber for a long time. Since being a kid. One day I will achieve the farm and beekeeping I want to do. Thank you always for the inspiration.
So glad to hear someone else say that swarming isn't the end of the world that must be prevented at all cost. I don't even bring up at my local club that many times I allow swarms. It is nature giving me new queen and a brood break.
I'm a second year keeper and learned a lot of what I know from books and a few select RU-vidrs. I'm glad I started out understanding the reflection of health in swarms and the benefits of brood breaks!
Totally agree with this. It seems really difficult to avoid swarms without making splits, and I don't want to manage more hives than I have. I'd rather just let them swarm. Also I'd think the brood pause while the new queen gets started would help cut down on varroa.
I love watching what you are doing, Jim. You are such a good storyteller! I had a weird spring. We are one year into our "Covid bees." We made it through the winter with two strong colonies (West Coast Canada-Cowichan, the "Warmland"). We were worried one would swarm it was so full of bees. (And one did after we split.) One colony had about 2.5% varroa, so we split both hives with walk-aways. We treated with Apivar the next week. There was a strong maple nectar flow on and they were packing away resources like mad. Things started becoming weird then. All laying stopped in all four hives. The splits didn't make any queen cells. I took a frame with a queen cell out of one of the originals and put into a split. A couple of weeks went by and I was really worried. I bought three queens and installed them. Still no laying. Finally after 5 weeks, took out the Apivar, a queen cell in the colony I didn't put in a new queen emerged, but still no laying anywhere. So, now after 6 weeks, I put 1:1 sugar water on, and voila! 10 days later, we have new larvae and brood in all four. I have found the queens in two of them, too. So, after all the worry, we now have two very strong colonies, and two good, solid new colonies. In some ways, you keep me a bit centred. When I'm freaking out, I come watch you and you calm me down. Thanks.
Something to consider, something my mentor taught me is that if you are going to purposely take the life of a bee, whether you consider the queen sacred or not, do it with your own hands/fingers, not a tool. Also, I suggest putting the dead queen at the hive entrance or drop her down to the bottom of the box. The colony has its own thing it wants to do with that body. Also, big love man, been a fan since you were talking about the Flow Hive, but a slight criticism here regarding swarming... and only because you are influencing so many beekeepers. There's something to be said about swarming affecting other people in your vicinity, neighbourhood, city. They can make for a real mess if they move into someone's wall. They can also be the cause of spreading disease or mites if they survive and move forward untreated, so it also potentially affects other beekeepers. I'm with you in the fact that beekeepers shouldn't be *afraid* of swarming, but I can't see how it isn't in all of our best interest to focus on stopping it if we see signs and have the capacity to. I still respect what you did in your own yard and land, but there are so many folks that watch your videos who have much closer neighbours. Two last little tips - give those queen cells you cut out to the front entrance of a hive that needs royal jelly to feed any eggs. It's good, expensive stuff! And - Swarm cells can be anywhere in any type of hive (as you noted). It's just one of those pieces of old misinformation handed down that says they only appear on the bottom. They appear *most frequently* on the bottom of a Langstroth hive, but that's because of the gap design. That's the only reason. With your new design, you are providing evidence that that statement is, indeed, old misinformation handed down. Peace. Good luck with the new queens!
@@Wosiewose Thinking back on that teaching moment, it was something that was said, but not discussed. It stuck with me for some reason. I think part of the wisdom that comes from lessons like that is how you take that piece of advice and apply your own understanding and philosophy to it. For me, my mentor was illustrating the importance of taking a life. It takes away the disassociation of using a tool and forces you to really consider the decision, because you have to physically feel it, the visceral feeling of a creature wiggling to get away as you snap its neck. I feel like it also has something to do with showing respect. I've heard beekeepers with a sort of saying as they pass judgement, a sort of "thank you for your service", a thing said in low whisper. Even in the video here, he has a tradition of showing a field of flowers and some soft music after killing a queen, so whether or not a queen is sacred, there still seems to be some sort of reverence or at least understanding of respect going on. But perhaps I misinterpreted the lesson and it was strictly more practical and was just meant to keep bees from investigating your hive tool... What does the lesson mean to you? Your question also made me think of noble Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, although he does use a sword/tool to pass judgement, I think that's mainly because removing a human's head is tougher with your hands. I would bet if Ned Stark was a beekeeper, he'd snap queens necks with his fingers, not a tool. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Jimmy, Take out the queen... *Hive Tool Noise* For a WALK Jimmy! lol That was a great move, replacing a mediocre queen with better genetics, and no need to buy a new queen :)
As you were saying you usually found swarm cells on the bottoms f your frames, I was remembering a previous video of yours stating that the bees were making a full ring pattern with the frames now that they didn't o before so it is interesting to see that the swarm cell pattern has also changed along with- well everything else😁
Swarm procedure is a sign of a healthy, thriving colony and I'm with you on "not the end of the world". I still like to save those healthy and highly productive queens anyway, just in case. You're correct, what's left behind should be a younger copy of the queen that left, IF she makes it back from her mating flights and/or if the colony doesn't cast multiple swarms and leave you with a minimal work force that can't police those giant frames from hive beetle damage. When I find colonies with multiple cells on frames it's a great opportunity to use my double nucs to set up small queen mating colonies and if those queens are successfully mated, then i use them to replace subpar queens, if not recombine the bees with a queen that did make it back.
I did the same this year - had my biggest hive swarm on me, and divided the swarm cells between the original hive and a small nuc, just as insurance in case one of the two eventual survivor queens didn't return from a mating flight. But I got lucky and now I have a booming hive that is queen right and also a new nuc that just started laying!
go for a beehouse, trust me. This american system of keeping bees is flawed in many ways. go with 1400 year old tradition and build a beehouse and an až typ hives inside.
Since you have temperature monitors in the hive, it would be very interesting to see how that varied before, during, and after the swarm when compared to the other hives. There could be a signature profile in the graph due to the changes in activity and general volume of bees. In theory, if there was a repeatable signature, someone with more programing skills than I could write software that would flag a hive potentially swarming. Just a thought!
I was of the same thinking a few years back, my hive swarmed and I thought ok no problem, I looked into the hive and had multiple queen cells and left it to do it's thing, so it swarmed again and it swarmed again until what was left was not much of a colony, now after a swarm I look into the hive and take down all but 2 of the queen cells.
For a long time I was not satisfied with being told that what happens in a Langstroth is what happens in the tree. They are totally different environments like night and day. The Langstroth has up to two entrances(one door in a castle is too many), ventilation, and no insulation, the tree hive has one easy to defend entrance and inches of wooden insulation. Not the same...
Felt sorry for the (rip)queen…I could have used her about a month ago 😉…. I have seen a hive swarm multiple times to the point that they swarmed to death…by the time it was noticed it was too late.
I only named one queen. She is the queen we started our whole apiary with. I have made reverse splits with her because I like her genetics and I want to make sure to keep her and her drones around inthe area. She's only a 2021 queen so some quality laying life left for sure.
I stopped naming queens after my second year. I think naming or numbering hives is a better system like you said. I put tags on my hives and number them. I track queens by hive number so that I can track genetics and traits.
I name my queens purely as a tracking device. I literally have genealogy charts giving my lineage back to my first nucs. I still pinch them when needed.
I assume you killed the queen with the hive tool? Would they have been responding to distress pheromones or chemical indicators of damage from the queen on the tool? Even as you held the tool in your right hand and said "OK, this hive is queenless" so many of them were already flowing toward your right hand.
Totally get it as in my first few years I freaked when I didn't catch some of the bees that swarmed,,on!y issue I have is if the queen's get nobbled on their mating flights you are screwed if you don't have back up colonies..last year a few didn't make it back or didn't mate right and I was robing brood from my few strong colonies
That’s the general wisdom, but to be more specific, I’d say that if you want the “largest” honey production, controlling swarms is a must. However, even with swarms, these hives are way, way ahead of anything I’ve ever seen in my 6 years of beekeeping. I just pulled off a capped super on June 6. I usually don’t even see capped FRAMES until July.
Hi Jim. The reason queen cells are not on thr bottom is the super long frames. I have this happen to me to. I use 2 medium boxes (stacked) and with 10 medium frames in the upper box. Bees add comb below the medium to create super long frames. I DEFINITELY recommend the XL option over deep size frames. I don't use foundation. When I want to create a starter frame, I simply scrape an "add on comb" from an existing frame fits a medium perfectly and rubber band to a new medium frame. I've noticed the bees leave a gap right above the wood frame bottom/mid area and I get queen cups hiding there. I live in an area where small hive beetles are bad. Open screen bottoms and double medium stacked brood box seems to have eliminated them. There's no place for them to hide. All my hives are in the shade too.
I had a right royal fiasco this year with queens (pun intended). In one hive they had put 3 Queen caps joined together, too close to cut out (yeah i could of slashed two, but i didnt know which one would hatch first). So i made the split with the 3 Q caps frame. What happened is, first queen hatched and chewed ino the other two to kill them and that was that, new queen in place. This happened in lots of nucs this spring. When we found queen caps which had been chewed down the side and opened up we knew we had a hatched virgin queen in there somewhere.
My Poly hive is the only one I'm watching now, it had emerged cells last check a few days ago. Good strong Queens are the best. Enjoyed the update Jim.
I’m going to build “Jim’s Bee Barn” myself. I’ll fix the weak links you’ve found and modify it to be perfect. I’m living in the northern part of Norway where the season is shorter than in Massachusetts. The dandelion just started blooming here. I think what you have found out with the bee barn is pretty astonishing and in a way revolutionizing in the beekeeping world. Its a great solution for beekeepers, at least small scale/backyard beekeepers in the north. Some people have probably thought of this, but to go forward and do it is amazing. The sensors is also a great tool for this “science” Thanks Jim!
I’m still in the process of designing version 2.0. I keep tweaking my ideas as this spring unfolds and I’m getting swarms. I think the brood box needs to be larger, but with the ability to reduce it for winter. Im thinking about 10 frame boxes with follow boards to reduce down to 7 frames for winter but with the ability to expand to 10 frames for spring swarm season. The main principles remain: 1. Extra deep uninterrupted comb 2. High insulation on all sides year round 3. No upper vents or entrances! 4. Vertical orientation Then I just need to make sure there are no thermal bridges in the inner cover area. I will have this down before winter!
In the end the queen is replaceable. All bees, queen, workers even drones, the goal is for the better of the hive. And if it is a strong hive, then it's expected they'll produce more hives through swarms and new queens.
my experience is that they can destroy the newly added queen cells so i like to cage them for a day or two. Fingers crossed they will accept the queen cells.
Not a beekeeper currently but aspiring to be. But I’ve always thought in my reading and observations of beehives that swarming is a good natural thing for strong hives to do to expand the population. I’ve always thought it was odd that beekeepers went to such lengths to not let swarms happen. I understand that it affects bee honey productivity for up time, but kind of the way you view letting the colonies do what they will with queens is a good natural process for strong hives to be able to swarm and spread good strong genetics . Just a two cent thought but it’s awesome seeing your experiences and content! Keep up the good work!!
This is a good idea but in reality the majority of hives that do swarm to the wild die. The right thing to do for the beek and for the hive is to control the swarm and do an artificial swarm.
Ive done this before with good intentions as you have. The bees tore down the given swarm cells and built emergency cells of their own genetics on the frames they had. I would be interested to see the results from this if your bees do the same.
Jim, I think everyone looses a swarm occasionally. Anyone who says they haven’t had a swarm hasn’t been keeping bees very long or they’re lying or they don’t know enough to realize their bees have swarmed. It’s Mother Nature’s way of making a split and reproducing to survive! I live in the south east and I believe the majority of the swarms here survive. They’re great at finding a new home. Thanks for the video, I’ve been subscribed and watching your videos for 4 or 5 years now. How’s the barn coming along?
Barn work has been on hiatus the last two months with the spring rush of outdoor responsibilities, but I’m about to jump back into getting the shop set up. When it’s 80s and hot outside, the barn stays at 65 inside with no AC or anything. It’s going to be a nice place to spend time this summer.
Your swarm may become another beekeeper's call to come carve a bee colony out of a summer house, anyway. There's enough beekeepers on RU-vid doing mostly videos of colony removals.
I noticed when you were checking your hives in March, you had some strips, I think were your monitoring system that connects to the computer, what kind are they?
Hi Jim, may I ask how you manage to handle your bees without any gloves or PPE on? If I was to do that on my hives, particularly if I was picking up the Queen, I would end up with a load of stings on my hands and a very swollen disabled hand for the next week! I go out of my way not to crush or kill any of the bees so they don't release distress pheromones too.
Some times of the year are worse than others. Some hives are more touchy than others. I use gloves about once a year if necessary, but I guess I just have bees that are more chill than yours. I used to jump whenever a bee landed on my hand in the beginning, but now I hardly feel stings. It’s usually my fault when I get a sting, though.
Thanks. My farm ( a couple least hectares ) is in the Philippines. I plan to use trapped local feral bees. These are usually Apis Cerana, the Asian cousin and smaller. As my staff are half your stature and 1/5th mine, horizontal hives and stacked nucs is my plan. The resource hives will be five over five configuration. As you did by propagating the best hives, I’ll try to do the same. In the provinces, most comercial mite control is non existent or weeks away via FedEx etc. I’m thinking oxalic acid on pads or strips. Electronic power is also spotty, so vapor treatment is problematic. Thanks
The Asian Honey bee is very different than the Western Honey Bee. If you try to keep the Asian one as if it were a western, you'll encounter lots of problems. For example, I don't think ressouce hives are a good idea in your case because The Asian Bee doesn't accept outsiders of her hive as easily as the werstern. I actually heard they don't accept them at all under any circumstance. You also won't need to treat for Varroa. The Asian Honey bee lived with that little pest for centurys without beeing bothered by it. They are naturally resistant. Taking the Asian Honey Bee out of Asia to study them in Europe is what introduced Varroa to the Western Bee in the first place since they are different yet similar species. In short: it makes no sense to treat the Asian Bee as if it were a Western bee. Good luck anyway.
Behavior Serena is somewhat smaller apis Mellifera. I intend to keep them in stack, hives, or pile, hives, or something similar to the comfort hive. The gentrigonalis species, the two that I’m familiar with in the Philippines are a stingu fee, and there are completely different animal, completely different insects. Their have hives are whole lot different. The eighth is Serena is very hygienic against Berroa. They groom each other they kick disease hive meat out of the hive. They pull infected, bees out of the comb, kick them out of the hive.
Yeah, I'd never name a queen. The hive is the creature. Tried to explain it to someone....A bee hive is one mind with tens of thousands of extremities. Queen is kind of a misnomer, she has a job just like the rest. "Egg-layer," or, "Brood-mother," might be better names. Queen implies some sort of rulership, and she isn't that. The others will drop her like a rock if she doesn't lay right.
You could either sell or share the extra queen cells you don't want with the local beekeepers group in your area, so Maple's genetics get moved around a little bit and can be rockstars somewhere else.. If I was local to you, I would't mind taking them. But Vegas is a long ways away.
Great stuff Jim! Had a chance to do exactly this in my own apiary maybe a month ago. I had an underperformed, and I had a hive going to swarm... Make lemonade!
The point is not the fact that you wasting a bunch of bees and their queen, but more the fact that you wasted 3weeks before the swarm and about 3weeks after the swarm of a full performance of that particular hive as, they will slim the queen ahead of the swarm and will take that much time for the new queen to catch up to the maximum potential of laying; unless you have the luxury of beekeeping in an extensive months of beekeeping season, having bees swarm on you is loss on the beekeeper's season, least that is how I look at things considering that I beekeep in a very short nectar flow season. If it happens it happens but I try not to allow it to happen, I rather split them and sell if I don't want to expend, and at times I really don't want to expend as I do have a day job and still run about 100-150 hives, lol. Happy beekeeping. Dan
Beekeeping Innovation: Have you seen this guerrilla bee keeper, making scalable hives in the woods out of large sterile plastic bottles?! (Solves the mite & mold problem.) They can add more bottles on top to increase the supers, or add another bottle on the bottom so the queen can move down to make a fresh brooding comb in another level! Video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9ItlOFLTUAs.html
Was that a native milkweed plant behind you both sides during the first Birch discussion? Do you watch them for Monarch babies? Several folks do here in Portland Oregon. In fact, a woman just down my street is kind of the Portland resource for Monarchs.
I have been spreading and cultivating the milkweed for years. Tons of monarchs here and the honey from the flowers is awesome. The bees love the milkweed. There are thousands of plants all over our fields.
Since the queen won't cross an expanse of X amount of nectar/honey, would using a shallow super of honey have the same effect as a queen excluder? And would that enable your bees to produce even more honey?
Jim, I'm looking for plans for the Bee Barn. Are you willing to share where you are with it now? I'm a new beek, and would love to see how it works in the Texas heat (vs. your NE Winters).
Hi Vino maybe you already know this but when dealing with closed queen cells try to move/vibrate the frame as little as you can. tipping the frame and or shocking the frame can damage/kill the new queen.
@@vinofarm Hi vino even tilting the frame can do it sadly lost about 3 queens because of that mistake. luckily I had 4 queen (closed) cells that I then put in the incubator. all 4 hatched 9 to 10 days later. currently they are in small apidea hives so they can be mated on a another location with good drones. hope your queens will hatch successfully. ps you are 1 of the reasons I started to become a beekeeper in the Netherlands.
@@vinofarm Hi vino when you take the frame out of the hive straight (180Degrees) you can tilt them just a bit but going to and more then 90 degrees can damage the queen. Don't know for sure why but learned that from my mentor (beekeeper for more than 35 years) and sadly as I said earlier lost some queens most likely because of that.
@@koetjeboe91ph There are many reasons why your queens could have died. Tilting the frame a bit should not have any affect on a queen pupae in a cell as long as it’s not crushed. Queen cells are moved and shipped through the mail all the time. There’s no way to keep a queen cell upright in perfect orientation in a mailed package.
When you were deciding which frame to switch, For a split second I thought you were going to replace it with Folger's crystals. Just something in your voice...
Awesome video as usual! I have done this before myself too and was successful! My question is, how do you decide which frame has the “best queen cells?”
Great video and timing. I am looking at replacing a slow Italian queen in the next week or two but don't have queen cells in my stronger hives (at least not yet).
@@LittleDergon yes, I know this, but it costs you a minimum of 7-10 days, possibly closer to 14 (if capped cells are mature), in the re-queening or split timeframe to do so
@@randyb3120 First week of June is a great time for walk away splits with just a frame of eggs. That will get you a young laying queen around July 1. Plenty of time to build up for winter.
Hat's off to you for your well researched and experimental nature developing the Bee Barn, and congrats on your success thus far with them. I do have a few questions. I'm wondering, with the current cost of building materials, as well as the cost of your time, do you think the Bee Barn is a better option than something like say the Apimaye Langstroth style hives? With their insulation, maintenance free nature, easy swap from traditional Lang, and so many other built-in features, they seem to have virtually all of the things you might be looking for aside from the much deeper brood frames? I'm still working with the traditional Lang style myself, and been thinking of swapping to a better-insulated option. The polystyrene boxes seem like a nice option as well, from a purely insulative and rot-resistant standpoint. I know you're still working on the Mk.2 of the Bee Barn, any plans on disclosing your costs? Anyways, I really appreciate and enjoy the channel, best of luck!
There’s something about the Apimaye hives that I just don’t like. It’s just 100% proprietary pieces and parts. It’s probably a fine ecosystem to start out in and stick with, but converting over is quite an investment and the insulation is lacking (in my opinion… my hives are more than 2x the R value.) Bee barn 1.0 was almost entirely made with parts I had in the garage. I had the insulation from all the shells I had been making since my first year beekeeping. All Langstroth boxes and lids and bottom boards that I already owned. Inner covers were all scrap plywood. All I bought was the cedar cladding, which I happened to get a really good deal on in the middle of the pandemic, and a few pieces of hardware. I made those hives for less than $100/ hive in extra purchased materials. It would have been triple that if I had to buy everything new. I’m going to try a polystyrene deep+medium hive body as an experiment and see what the temps look like compared to my bee barns. I think incorporating the poly hive bodies into the design could really mitigate the mold issue and be a much simpler build. But there are other issues with the inner cover transition to supers. And of course, the added cost, but they would still be less than an Apimaye system.
I resently got into your channel, actually binged watched all. Though not a bee keeper but a perma culture gardener.. Anyway I noticed earlier on in your you said struggled with growing lavender, thyme and other woody herbs, have you tried just proargating from cuttings with those herbs it's super easy. Also have you thought about adding heaths and heathers as would love your easy drain soil and can handle you long winters and even hold flowers after being snowed on.
I’ve given up on lavender and heathers. They just do not survive our winter. Maybe one winter, but never two. I’m just trying to cultivate the natives now.
