a Canadian Beekeeper’s Blog Caught me in the honey house extracting honey. The summer work force had all gone back to school, so Carrie and I are left to finish up our record harvest crop!
Hats off to Carrie. She'll be a leading voice in the bee industry one day. She has it mastered. Ian, I salute the employees you pick and the way you work alongside them. Servant leadership.
This is the first of your videos I watched and it was so straightforward and directed towards the viewer so simply, that is without any fanfare. My husband and I sit together and watch your videos. He’s a marine biologist and specializes in the study of zooplankton so he really “gets” the importance of bees. As do I. Thank you for all you do.
Thanks so much for the reply! I appreciate it. My 11 yr old son and I really enjoy your videos now that we’ve discovered you! Keep up the great content! 😀👍🏼☮️
Love what you are doing Ian and more importantly what you are sharing. You’ve made intelligent choices in your operations, and I can see how clean and organised your working environment is. It’s wonderful to see this labour-assisted assembly line. Make sense to me. All the best from Australia.
Very, very interesting!! And talk about teamwork. It was edifying seeing the process and how you both knew all the tasks and worked like a fine Swiss watch. Thank you for taking the time to make the video.
Excellent teamwork! Fascinating and very soothing. I appreciate my toast with honey even more now. Your videos also help with my insomnia. ;) I have to watch them several times.
Thanks for the video Ian, love the videos you are posting. Loving seeing what beekeepers outside of South Africa are doing and see how you keep your bees. Lots of love from South Africa!
Thank you for all your great videos. They are really educational and I appreciate your hard work. I learned a lot from you, specially equipment stuff and single hive management. I live in Lethbridge Alberta and I wintered 20 hives last year and they all survived. Now I got 7 more and 5 of them just 5-6 frame nucleus hives for spare. I just pulled the last of my honey off today as well and going to finish extracting tomorrow. Thank you again and your ambition makes me to be more ambitious about beekeeping !!!
WOW! What great precision team work. Thank you all for such great videos this season. You all deserved a great honey sweet season for all the dedicated hard work you put into your passion. Thanks again!!
I guess im asking the wrong place but does anybody know of a trick to log back into an instagram account..? I somehow lost my account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
@Sage Darwin i really appreciate your reply. I got to the site on google and Im in the hacking process atm. I see it takes a while so I will reply here later with my results.
Wow, my parents had bees, for 18 years of my life. Lots of hives. In Florida. They had to uncap each frame one at a time, with a hot knife. Two cylinder extractors. Oh the orange blossom honey. My parents would be in awe seeing your set up. I subscribed and will enjoy watching your process.
New this year to beekeeping, but your videos have inspired me to look at it a different way versus just a hobby...here in TX there are not many commercial guys local to me so im looking to grow...keep up the good work, yall are my virtual mentors.
Very well set up operation. I know a lot of thought went into how you set it up. Never understood why beekeepers feel the honey house is so secret, I know beekeepers who would never show anyone their setup. Thanks for taking us along. I know it was a lot of work but I for one have learned so much. Blessings to you.
Ben Barnes The reason no one shows their set up is because the place gets quite messy Bad impressions... but I think keeping the place neat and tidy, show case only helps improve overall product quality
. just finished watching the video and feel I want to make another comment.. Your equipment is amazing. You two operate it with such precision. You two make a great team! Raising, Bees, Cows, Grain, and Kids together!! Who could ask for anything more!! What a blessing you seem to be to each other!!! Thanks so much for sharing your life’s work with us here on Yiutube. May God continue to bless you and your family! PS I think Carrie was a little better at running the box lifting machine!! 😮. J/K 😊. Have fun!! Phillip Hall
phillip hall Carrie is an employee I’ve hired from Miami since she was 15. I’ve integrated her into my operation as the Farms graft queen rearer and she manages my honey house.
Thanks Ian, just what I needed. My first year as a profrssional beeker, and with backbraking heavy workload need to figure out how to ease lifting or end profession. Well planned honeyhouse really do the difference.
Whatever she's being paid, it's not close to enough! She is an integral part of the operation. She never misses a beat, non stop. I doubt I would have wanted to arm wrestle her 30 years ago, let alone now that I'm an old man!
Thank You Ian. I believe we all watch the content you produce for educational purposes and entertainment for the interest in bees. If you are looking for ideas for creating content some of us could use some basic knowledge of what you have found from 15 years ago to date. Things from growing an operation. Two years in I have a small grasp of how to manage our bees in Alabama. I personally could use some feedback or content of how to get from backyard to sideliner or commercial. Possibly a series from the best equipment/ to brood queen expansion practices. (which you have) Where we are we have taken the classes but it is taboo to really advise someone in short cuts. Its almost like they allow us to buy all the junk and make bad decisions buying, spending and mismanaging our own colonies. I know we all could use various content or a series explaining how to grow, some of what not to buy and how to scale an operation. My two cents, Thanks again for your time!
Your videos should be a must watch for all beekeepers, lots to learn. What do you do with the wet frames and how do you store for the winter? Do you make your own foundation? Hope there is still lots more to come and thanks for all your time and effort.
Hi Lytle From South Africa just wanted to thank you for your amazing and very insightful videos have really enjoyed watching them and seeing how you farm bees, quite different to how most South African bee farms farm, but looking forward to trying somethings Iv learnt from your videos on my own farm and interested to see the results.
I worked on a bee farm many years ago. The bee keeper and myself and did this on a much smaller scale. Most of the honey was sold to Nabisco for honey grahamcrackers. I worked there for 3 years.
Hi You have very informative videos and information. It is great to see such a well mechanised plant with a good team in operation. The only comment I would make is if you put industrial rubber mats down in common stand / walk areas how much better your operators would feel and last longer through the day. I have spent many years in industrial situations standing on concrete and unknowingly how much it saps energy and loads joints. Great videos, keep pumping them out as I will keep watching and learning. Thank you.
You know what would be a great series or season if you wil, is to teach us from start to finish. The complete prosses of what you must and must not do from buying a nuke to what to watch out for, sickneses, dead queen, everything you has to know if you want to start beekeeping. I can only find one youtuber that did such a season over a year and would like to get more information and see how someone else does it
Just a guess here, but I'm pretty sure those were not blow flies in the shed. Also like to add, the orientation of the frame in the centrifuge is interesting as well. As a kid we had a hive on the farm with an old 2 frame hand crank centrifuge. It basically had the frame in the plane of the "circle" so the honey came out parallel with the comb. It's interesting to see how your centrifuge works, both in volume and frame position.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Ok, that means I have no idea about physics. I mean obviously it works ok, and that is all that matters, but from the location of the frames and the direction of spin, centrifugal force would be forcing the honey into the side of the cell and not out the ends as was the case with the one we had. Like I said, horses for courses, and so long as it works, who cares. It just seemed strange to me.
The centrifugal force pulls the honey out the same, if you look at cells on the comb, they are pointed upwards We take advantage of that with simple physics
Do you have a video already about how you got started? What steps you took to expand? Your efficiency and knowledge is aspiring! Your videos have been entertaining and its a pleasant surprise to get notifications when you finish a new one.
I am disappointed Ian... I always thought you were speaking to ME! lol Thanks for all the great info you share! This is so well streamlined... It is evident a lot of thought and experience went into this working layout. Have you thought about any of the new technologies like camera-image based stuff for things like the cap chore (where comb wasn't drawn as far out)? It seems like that's something that could be better addressed with a robot as the cost of that stuff begins to drop.
Robot honey decapper. Kewl. Who is going to clean the robot and get it going again once it gets goofed up with a little propolis on its frame grabber (hand) ? Another robot?
@@mikeries8549 No... design it self-cleaning - a little heat and a "wipe" cycle could fix most of that... Was just a thought for efficiency.. labor is not cheap!
Are you heating up the honey with steam in that centrifuge? My grandpa learned me with chrystalized honey how to get it back to liquid by warming it up. But warning me to stay below 35dgr C (about 92dgr F) to keep the antiseptic function alive
Great video! Nice to see the workflow and operation. At 12.40 in the video where you're loading the full boxes. You see a hanging airline a stainless steel funnel with a black plastic bag around. Is this for blowing bees out of the box if you encounter this. Just trying to figure out the purpose of the airline and the funnel assembly.
A Canadian beekeeper's blog Couple of questions please . What temperature do bees prefer to keep their hive at. What temperature is too high when they start fanning. and the important one what temperature is too low that will kill him. please answer this for me I haven't been able to find it anywhere thank you. PS I know you said once that you incubate your Queens at 93 that's about all I know
Good afternoon, Ian! I watch your videos and marvel at how you and your wife manage such a big apiary !!! For this, you have great respect! 👍👏 I have 2 questions for you: 1. Why is the hive 10 frames, not 12? Could you work on the same system with 12 frame hives? 2. How much do you evaluate your production (building and equipment)? How much have you invested in your production?
@@carriemartindale-wetherup5243 Just wanted to say, Ian employing such person as you, is one lucky ... 😉. And your work ethic & skills can't be gratified enough! Please remember it!
Hi Ian, new subscriber here! What a fascinating process and setup! I am a novice bee keep for about ten hrs now in southeast CT. So I noticed your extractor spins two racks of about +/- 25 deep frames each. So, let me preface with, Of Course I’m sure it works great otherwise you wouldn’t be using it! LoL! 😂 .... with that being said my brain is wondering how long is the spin-off period? As I would imagine, spinning parallel to the frame surface as well as having all those frames tightly grouped seems like the inner frames would not release as much???... Also, where do you market your cappings wax or do you utilize it in house for other products? I’m kinda feeling like I could have answered that last question by watching other videos of yours! 😬. Anyway, I just discovered your vid in my feed and it’s the first of yours I’ve ever watched. Thank you for all your efforts and for sharing them with ppl who are interested. 🙏 Bee well! Best, Gary
4copper The centrifugal force pulled the honey out, my uncapper strips the frames evenly cut so that there is enough free room for the honey to flow out and up. Each cell is pointed upwards slightly enough to allow the spin to remove all honey drone the frames . 8 min spin