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Best way I've found to build comb in brood box is drop a starter strip frame or plastic foundation with a couple large holes drilled in it(1 ¹/²" worked for me, place frame between open brood, they hate gaps between larvae and having it open allows them to feed back and forth as they build them out. Press on my friend beekeeping can be discouraging at times but God will help you, keep Him first and press on.
A game changer for me in drawing out the plastic foundation was to coat it with melted bee's wax before putting them in the hive. Great work! Thanks for sharing..Good luck
@@JaredBeekeeping I bought wax after I saw how fast the bees got on properly waxed frames. I melt the wax in a electric skillet with thermostat, I roll on melted wax with a trim roller. Use a light touch and try to build up wax on the ridges not in the pockets. I save all my wax now and keep a good store of wax. I can even put whole frames in my solar melter, no boiling water and no flames.
You’ve got to add wax to the foundations. Just have to heat up a block of wax in a crockpot and I use a foam roller to put the wax on. You put them on the top and they will draw it out. Sometimes a spray some sugar water on the frames to show them what they have. Hope this helps!!
I believe that you are moving too quickly.. more time is needed between splitting.. if you are letting each nuke draw out its own queen then the nuke needs actuall eggs not brood.. Lets go through the life cycle.. Egg to queen 17 days plus 4 for breeding.. she comes back starts laying eggs .. 21 days for workers.. those juveniles tend the hive as nurses for two weeks then head out to forage.. after a week of foraging the hive should be strong enough to split again.. So we have split times of 17+4+7+21+14+7 = 70 days between splits to make sure you have strong splits..
Another great video. I’m pulling for you brother. You might not be exactly where you want to be by now but you’re still off to a great start. God bless you and yours.
Amazing video. I absolutely love how original and open you are. Im following you and enjoy your content and parying for your success bud. Absolutely rooting for you.
The starter finisher is to care for the young queens (1) queenless to start the queen process usually one day until the bees accept the graft (2) move the graft into the queenrite setup to double the number of bees to care for the larvae until capped, be sure to feed them patty and syrup once you get ready to graft. I move my cells to an incubator to prevent the bees from tearing down the cells, a queenless hive will only leave five cells, the queenrite colony left you 17 queens, something about their instinct. Its worth the 50 bucks spent on a chicken incubator (TSC) set around 94 degrees. Learning to graft, some of your queens may not be the best but at least you are getting the hives started and requeen next year. For me, some hives had excellent queens and a few just did not build up as expected.
I really enjoyed this ….. I felt like I was there working with you. Keep up the good work. Thanks for making the effort to share your experience. I really enjoy it.
Couple things I’ve learned… is double or triple cinder blocks on your racks and save your back. If they are low get a bucket to sit on. For your queen cells at the end you likely had a queen in the builder. When you make your builders put excluders under the box to help keep that from happening. I also found when my waxed foundation gets dusty they will get artistic w the comb or have poor acceptance. Feed more than a quart a week and they will draw comb better and make the splits 2-3 d frames of bees and they will draw better. (Many hands make light work). Your killing it! I think I may have chatted with you at the Hillco booth but who knows we had a ton of people!
The original Tennessee bees were black until the yellow Italians were imported in 1857. I think one of the virigin queens from another box flew out to mate and decided to go into your cell bar hive instead of facing the drama of fighting for supremacy in her hive. She tore up your cell bar. Maybe I am wrong but thats why its best to keep your cell builders in a seperate yard from your mating yards
You can get too greedy and splitting after the flow is over is extra hard. Best to split right before the flow, so food is plentiful for everything else out there also. Plus, the pest like small hive beetles love invading small weak mating nucs. Best to be patient and split once in early spring. Best of luck.👍
Good work getting all the splits made and going. I would bet that the queen cells that got destroyed were killed by a queen that hatched earlier than you had planed. I hope that the sourwood honey flow is good to you and the splits.
Thanks. Unfortunately the sourwood flow isn’t great this year in my area but winged sumac is about to bloom and we have tons of it, so I’m hoping to fill several supers!
Putting waxed foundation between brood comb will create an emergency response from the bees to draw them out. Try to keep 2 drawn frames together when possible if temps still get into 50s at night. You might need to put a coat of wax on those foundation for sure. If there is no flow you need to be feeding multiple gallons of 1:1 to get comb drawn. They are using your syrup to rear brood. Keep in mind bees need to be 12 days old to develop their wax glands. If you can time it from when all the brood emerges throw a pollen patty on top of next to the feed and your colonies will explode. I got close to 800 frames drawn last year and took 7 colonies 55. Your queens are laying slabs of brood so things should be picking up and might have already and will probably see it at the end of the video!. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!
@tomahawkmissile241 If he throws the pollen patties and 1:1 to them by the gallons they will be decent 10 frame colonies come sept/October in time to make the winter brood. That's how I did it last year.....it was not cheap but I basically fed my little colonies from July to October switch to 2:1 at end of Sept. Apigaurd mite treatment first 2.5 weeks of August and OAV in Novemeber. They were mostly in double 10 frame deeps by then. I had 38 of 40 colonies make it through winter in WV. Needs to be a couple gallon a week though. I'd also recommend he switch to Global patties with the biologix "rocket fuel" its soft and smaller colonies can process it faster to keep it from becoming slimed with beetle larvae.
Thanks for advice. 800 frames?! I’m glad to hear it’s possible, I’m going to do very little splitting the rest of the year and focus on growing and drawing out that foundation.
@JaredBeekeeping yes sir it took a lot of 1:1 but I even had them building comb in October on 2:1. I put 1lb of pollen patty on them late in Sept so that kept them wanting to build brood and cycled in foundations.
You are doing great. I read all the comments and you are getting some good advice. Id reiterate what ricklee said about, it takes bees to make bees. The queen will only lay up to how much help she has. Thats bacically a 3 or 4 week delay waiting for enough bees to be born to take care of the slabs of brood you are now seeing. The gloves you are using hold the stingers so the alarm pheromone builds up and agitates even the gentle bees. Give the nitrile gloves another try, starting in the calmer hives and i believe you'll see a difference. Finally, a tip i heard but haven't tried is to run a hair dryer over the older waxed frame to freshman them. Im looking forward to seeing more videos.
Hahaha, that's what I get for commenting before the end. I'm glad the rubber gloves are working. I believe they are nitrile, not latex. I've heard latex doesn't work as well.
You are really getting after it. I applaud your drive and determination. I only have two hives and would like to get to ten in the next two years. There is a big difference between a hobbyist and a professional! I think you will do great.
Like your plan it's a good idea. I have found with my hives that are always grumpy with me going into them I tried putting my be sut into a bag and smoke it up in the bag before I put it on and I find that tend to want to stay away more.
Not with nasty bees you won’t, nasty bees know exactly where to nail you , until his hives have good queens in them he should stay with the gloves or his hands are going to be stung the crap out of , I know I had nasty bees I know what they do ,maybe you should try some nasty bees and see for yourself.
Your jar feeders have too little access for them to get it fast and need to store it. You’re slow feeding them like a maintenance level of feed not a fast feed building level of feed. Frame feeders or bucket feeders with a large area screen feeder. They need lots of access to the feed to mimic a heavy nectar flow to get them to build storage cells. They build plastic foundation much better if it’s heavily coated with wax. You can melt it and apply with a foam roller or just mash a bunch of stray removed comb into a ball and rub it onto the foundations. They will rework the excess wax in the grid of the foundation. It takes bees to make bees. A small population can only feed and warm so much brood. As population grows then they can care for more brood. It’s hard and fun trying to get bugs to do what you want them to do.
Thanks for the tips Rick.I wish had the wax, it was dumb looking back now but I sold all my wax last fall. Yes it is, Not to mention having to kill bug (Varroa) on a bug.
@@JaredBeekeeping 😂. Sometimes you got to pay up and be humble. A humble bumble. Go get your wax back. No shame in paying double ⏩. Every man deserves some profit.
The bees wont draw out the comb until there are enough bees and there's a flow on no matter what the foundation including pure wax foundation. I use both and nothing will be drawn until they need to work on it. Once there's a flow on they'll have to put the honey someplace and they'll use plastic but it's best to have it ready to go by coating it with wax first. That's hard to do when you're starting out because you don't have spare wax so possibly use pure wax or strips to start? The other thing I did and may work for you is continue with the nucs on top of the hives but do it slightly differently. Place an excluder over the bottom box. Bring up some shaken brood into the nucs, Shake them to make sure there's no queen on the frames. The nurse bees will move up to take care of the brood. If there are enough bees to keep it warm enough you can relocate the nuc at this point and Introduce the queen cell at this stage. If the numbers are low and you need the warmth leave them above the excluder and introduce the queen cell in the nucs still above the excluder. You'll need a small entrance in the nucs in this case of course. The queens will mate and start laying and you can then do the usual thing with a nuc from that point. You can keep doing this as long as the donor hives are strong enough to allow.
I enjoyed watching your video, you seem humble and enjoyable to be around. I'm a new bee keeper too, on my 3rd year. I have noticed if you want comb drawn keep the syrup to em but make sure they're taking it so it doesn't ferment. I have learned that quality is worth more than quantity. Get a old crock pot and a roller for the foundation thats old.
Bob binnie recommended adding a few drops bleach to preserve life of sugar water, also I emulsify some wintergreen and thyme essential oil to help fight mites and hinder mold. Fat bee man has some videos on emulsify mix. I'm very impressed with your geter dun mindset
Hi Jared, love your video's, a fellow beekeeper from far far away in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧. I too am trying to build a life being a keeper of the bees, would be awesome to ask you some questions and things about your journey to share with the uk 🇬🇧 big 💛 Happybees Honey 🍯
Either decal or paint different patterns on hives so bees know which hives are theres. Also place legs on hives or bases, submerged in water to keep unwanted insects from climbing Into hives, even possibly rodents. Keep up good work. Also, let hives have a chance to grow before splitting... giving them strength. Too much sugar water can possibly weaken hives strength.
Sugar water does not weaken a hive. If you use a 1 to1 sugar water mix, the bees will draw out wax much quicker And if you're getting ready to go into winter and you wanna beef up their food supply for the winter, use a 2 to 1 or. Stronger mix so they can put on weight. For the winter, it won't take as long to dry it out to make a sugar water, honey. You cannot sell sugar water, honey. But if you want to use it to sweeten your 17:46 coffee, it's good for that but it doesn't impart any antibiotics or anti allergenic properties. That is why you cannot sell sugar water honey And sugar water syrup will not make the bees any less bees. If there is a flow on, they will go after the flow as opposed to the Sugar, water syrup. If there is a flow on. They will go after nectar much faster than they will. The sugar water syrup.
Nice Video ! 👍 I don't like any / or use Foundation in my Hives. I use all Tension Wired Frames (Horizontally.) and add a BBQ Skewer stapled to the under Top Frame Bar. And drizzle a little of my own melted Burr / Or Older Dark Comb. Thats the Guide or Starter Strip Bees use. By adding a 'empty' frame between last Years Comb, means after say x3 Years or so, you can replace old with new, and use the Melt Wax Pot to aid the next Seasons Comb. Win, win. The Bees will make lovely Natural Comb (that as its strengthened by those Wires, can be Extracted with no blown out Elements.) Here in Scotland 🏴 our Bees have a Short but very busy Season. They build Comb real fast in early Spring. So get next Years Comb made in this Years Bee Season. To much Commercial Comb / Plastic Comb, thats Coated in Wax, I'm sure has a lot of Residual Pesticides / or build up of some of the older Varroa Mite Miticides in them too. Go Home Grown do 'Au Natural', and your Colonies will build up Healthy and super Strong. I'm only a Hobby Beek. Started the Season with x4 Over-Wintered Colonies. And now have x12. Have not had to feed any of them until now (Nucs mainly) as I prefer to grow Brood and Bees over Honey Harvest. Bees made now, that are Strong and Healthy, will survive a Winter no problem. Breed in the Summer, to be your Honey Makers next Spring ! 😉 Its poor levels of Nutrition and Hive moisture that kills Colonies. One style of Hive I have : the French Warre Hive, do suggest to 'take' any Honey only when Spring has come properly. Eg Honey made (last year) is left until Winter has passed, to then 'take' a Honey Crop ! The French Abbot who invented them : took his Skills from watching Nature. Good luck with your Venture ! Also good Varroa Mite prevention, minimum of x4 different ones through the Year will mean your Bees will thrive too. Eg : Splits, Frame Cage Queen, Apiguard (Thymol) Oxalic Acid are examples of the more 'natural' but successful ways to rid of VM. Agri/Pharma Varroa products are leaving to much build up in Wax these days. And I'm sure become less effective over prolonged use. Only my stance, but my Bees survive and if any Re-Queen with young Queens, that assists the Hives too. Strong Queen: Great Brood. Super Strong Colony. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
What we used to do when we had a really hot Hive back when I used to work commercial beekeeping was to put a little bit of fresh horse manure and a hot smoker my boss said that that would create something that was like laughing gas that would definitely make the bees more calm. I have always done that whenever I could get something like that.. those bees were definitely Africanized and I have dealt with that same problem whenever I came back from California with my hives. It took me a long time and making a lot of small divides to finally get my bees to where I can work them without gloves
Going to have to break down and start bucket feeding to boost drawing comb Maybe keep some larger colonies just for drawing comb to use on your other hives. Enjoying the process.
Jared if you can get your hands on some carnie queens I recommend them , they are calm and the queens lay up the hives very good , I got Italians to and the majority or them get nasty ,I really like the carnolian queens myself.
I was hoping to finish this year on 50 hives but the scottish summer weather didn't appear this year 😂 think its going to be around 30 hives, not having drawn out comb is a big disadvantage.
Once the bees build up in numbers they will build comb like crazy if you feed them. When that capped brood frame emerges thats several thousand bees each.
Also I've been rubbing a block of fresh wax on each plastic frame as I find them not building correctly on-site. 3/4" starter strips with fishing string woven thru holes seems to be their preference, they build from top to bottom in a round formation both sides as they build, I'm surprised they even build on one side of our foundations....that kinda goes against their nature of how they build
Once you add wax, they will draw off of it right away just about, I use a propane torch with bar wax and rub it in, it works amazing and is pretty fast.
You are correct if your frames are that old it does need to be refreshed with wax . You will see a lot of difference. When I Purchase new frames I automatically right off the bat rewax all my frames
At 28.00min your cell builder hive doesn’t appear to be strong enough to build the number of cells you grafted. Spring isn’t far away down here in New Zealand. Just starting to check some of my hives, looking good so far and brood is building up nicely
Hello Jared beekeeping, Many thanks for making these videos. I am following with great interest as you are doing what I have been wanting to do with my bees. May I ask, what is your end goal, is it so you can produce loads of honey next season or to sell strong colonies to other bee keepers or something different. Again may thanks and looking forward to seeing more videos.
@@JaredBeekeeping Many thanks for your reply. If I had payed attention, in the first video you did say what you have planned. It was a joy to go back and re watch the previous videos. Thanks again John a subscriber from the UK.
Queens will only lay as many eggs as the colony care care for. Meaning you have to have the population to care for brood and forage, liquid feed as you have been doing but also pollen. Brood can not develop without the protein. Slaps some patties in there. Hope you reach your goals
I’m not sure why they start ripping the cells down but it happens to me as well. I pull my cells after day 5 or 6 after the cells are drawn and put them in a finisher or more likely my incubator. I then give the cell builder another graft. You can probably get 3 grafts out of a real strong cell builder. The second graft tends to be stronger. Good luck. Your doing a great a job.
I had too much bee death in mine. I'd say your right, but I switched to the pales and have not noticed a difference. I'm also using heavy wax frames from Premier.
I think they recommend not putting grafted bars in a hive with old bees, they recommend young bees to prevent them tearing down cells.....but your definitely doing better than me, im still running behind on grafting:)
Can't tell from the video but the foundation you were looking at at about 8 minutes looked lacking in wax. The stuff you buy that claims to be pre-waxed varies wildly in quality. You might try squashing the crazy comb that the bees are building rather than scraping it off. If you do that and spread it around they aren't losing the wax they did produce and the foundation is getting better coverage for them to pull from.
Hello, don't spread your 4 fframes evenly, use a division board in each box,. when looking through your hives, you can remove the division board first, without crushing comb and bees, which gives room to remove each frame easily. This will not upset your bees so much. Kind regards, Tony Marsh.
@@JaredBeekeeping ok, so it may be a bit harder to do here bc of the shorter season. Thanks for the info! Please keep making videos about your journey. Very informative and helpful!
great video . I like nitrile gloves as they still let you have dexterity and even though the bees could sting through them they don't regard nitrile as a living thing so do try to sting it, they are also better at cutting down the spread of diseases between hives if you replace them alot . I find smoking hot hives is the only thing that calms them mean buggers down.
Do you have 4 frame nucs on top of 10 frame hives? Where are you getting 4 framers? If you got one that draws comb then keep taking from it and exchanging foundation and let it draw all your wax for you.
with new colonys, feeding helps them grow. Pollen paddies and sugar water. it takes longer to get a virgin mated and laying, two weeks to a month to get them going mostly. its down time for the colony sadly, smiles. keep watching Bob B. and Randy, you cant go wrong. smiles. cowhide seems to attract bee stings more that sheepskin. I am a small guy too. only run about 14-18, I am retired. your doing great. feed early in the spring and check them during the winter for food and use candy boards. over winter dead outs are starving alot. Double screen boards for wintering is excellant also, Bob makes some good ones. easy to build with your talent tooooo, Hi-alive works well for winter feed.
you said your queen cells were capped on day 5. is that day 5 from when you grafted them? an egg turns into a larva after 3 days, and is then capped on day 8 from being layed. so that math works out that they were all capped the day you came back to switch around the starter/finisher.
Your queens could’ve been mated to drones with bad genetics you are going to create drone yards with good calm 🧬 , that will help you move towards having more gentle hives.
37:47 Your cells got smoked by a queen, normal bees won't do this, either the original queen got to them somehow, more likely one hatched early and destroyed the competition, or maybe a random queen flew into your hive. Did you lose the original queen in the graft donor hive? Nice work btw, and your not the only one to use frames with old comb, the company I work for did the same with the same results of most frames being left or burr combed up.
36:31 how do you make new Queens with open swarm cells if they're open and not capped they're going to be dead one way or another. Either they wont mature if not capped or it means another queen attacked them already.
The second double nuc looked good to me. All that brood, in a few days you will have a lot more bees. If you are worried about the foundation, just redcoat with melted bees wax. I've bough some plastic foundation a while ago and they ignored it until I put wax one them. I kinda feel like they didn't coat it at the factory. Good on you going for it! That is a lot of expansion. Pretty soon, you will need a crew.
did you feed pollen patty's along with 1 to 1 and you should only checkerboard honey supers not brood chambers never split the brood up. what about mites
One comment you are missing a vital piece of equipment paper and pencil you document every hive condition date brood etc you can then look back see what you did right and wrong. The quicker you learn the better your business.
