Your videos are amazing, never thought id be into bee keeping or gardening. But after finding your first bee video around two years ago, its become a tiny addiction. Thank you so much for inspiring and educating people. Channels like you are why I still have hope for the internet.
@@pkthtguy587 Sadly, i cant actually keep bees as everyone in my family is either deathly allergic or scared of bees (also it violates the stupid HOA rules). doesn't help that im a broke college student. BUT, that wont stop me from making some fuzzy buzzy little bee hives when I move out.
In Poland due to the temperature chages through the year we turn the box for the working season so that the frames are perpendicularly to the entrance, beter in/out for bees and better ventilation if yuo have a solid bottom, and the frames in parallel to the entrance in winter time so it's easier for the bees to keep the temperature in the hive (each frame wroks like an isolation layer :)
Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side, so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid I lose my way And it's not too long before you point it out I cannot cry Because I know that's weakness in your eyes I'm forced to fake a smile, a laugh Every day of my life My heart can't possibly break When it wasn't even whole to start with Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side, so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid I watched you die (I watched you die) I heard you cry Every night in your sleep I was so young (and you're so young) You should have known better (I was too young for you) Than to lean on me You never thought of anyone else You just saw your pain (you never saw me) And now I cry In the middle of the night For the same damn thing Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid Because of you Because of you 😂
Hey Alex, just a quick piece of woodworking advice, when your using a happer on soft wood like the wood youre using for the beehives, put a piece of scrap wood(i like a small 2x4) between the thing youre hitting and the hammer, and strike the scrap wood. This will help distribute the force and prevent structural damage to the hives/frames and hammer marks. Another small advantage is you could use the scrap wood to help with the final few nails of the frame assembly. Love the videos, never thought id be this invested in beekeeping.
Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side, so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid I lose my way And it's not too long before you point it out I cannot cry Because I know that's weakness in your eyes I'm forced to fake a smile, a laugh Every day of my life My heart can't possibly break When it wasn't even whole to start with Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side, so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid I watched you die (I watched you die) I heard you cry Every night in your sleep I was so young (and you're so young) You should have known better (I was too young for you) Than to lean on me You never thought of anyone else You just saw your pain (you never saw me) And now I cry In the middle of the night For the same damn thing Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid Because of you Because of you 😂
Hi Alex, thanks for taking the time to share your videos. All wishes for success this year. Just a note. After years of keeping bees, the equipment (especially frames) that I didnt use wood glue on are always the first ones to make it to the rubbish bin. Strongly recommend adding that to any installation. Once set, the glue will provide more holding force than any nail can. All the best
@@certified-forklifter use legitimate wood glue. Titebond 3 is what I use. No odor. Only use enough to hold it. No. Once it dries it's completely odorless
Brood boxes for honey LOL. You are right it will weigh a ton, if you try it Im sure you will only try it once. Also the brood frames are larger I suspect they will not fit in a honey extractor. You can still harvest honey but it will be a much messier and wasteful job.
Hi Alex, yes originally historians thought Egypt had the oldest honey but 5500 year old honey was found near Tbilisi Georgia is also the birthplace of wine. Im also an Ex Horsham lad that moved to Georgia because of its ancient history, one of the oldest in the world.
I actually just read about having the frames parallel or perpendicular to the hive entrance. It was saying that (at least here) it’s called the cold way and the warm way. Cold way is perpendicular and the air flow can run right through the hive. Like an air conditioning it keeps the hive cooler. That’s a benefit and the bees can easily go whichever direction they want as soon as they enter the hive. The warm way blocks the air. So if it’s cold and you wouldn’t want the cold to come into the hive as easily you’d run them parallel. Negatives are that the bees have to go around that first board and can slow them down. So cold way would be for warmer weather and warm way for colder weather. We get down to -20F (-28C) and we are thinking or running ours that way in winter may be helpful. Not sure yet cause we are only on summer 3 having gone through 2 winters. Have 2 hives and each winter we lose one.
I’m really glad you’re posting more videos. I really enjoy your bee videos and I’ve gained a new appreciation for them. I find them really interesting and I’m no longer afraid of them, thanks to you. Also really enjoy your gardening videos and I look forward to you working your allotment space. Your trip videos are also interesting but the bees and gardening are my favorites. Keep filming and editing, please!!
I really love the honest and straightforward way you present the data. I love gardening, and am planning to add bees once i am retired and able set my own schedule. Cheering you on from Dallas Texas
Just want to say this is an exelaint video. I have kept bees several years ago and your explanations of each part of the hive and how they are used is very clear. As for the two options for lining up your frames either from side to side or front to back. Front to back allows for faster air flow through the entrance and is often referred to as cold way because it is cooler with a faster air flow. It also allows the bees faster access as they can quickly get to a choice of frames as each end is presented to them as soon as they enter the hive. Side to side also referred to as warm way slows air flow from the entrance. Just inside the entrance air it is met with a wall of wax, This also slows down the bees getting from frame to frame. So depending on the time of year it is more common to set your boxes cold way front to back during the summer and warm way side to side over winter. 🐝 🍯
Thank you for a good explanation on lining the frames. I was wondering if it was a good idea to turn the frames side to side when you are packing the beehive down for the winter, and then turning the frame front to back in the summer period? Will the bees be confused when you turn the frames?
@@BySmedegaard They will be disorientated for an hour or two. But they are pretty smart and will soon settle down. As long as they have their queen with them bees will adapt quickly to changes. Like moving location or splitting a colony into two and giving one half a new queen.
The record is still 183 kilogrammes. I want to cry looking at the perfection of the craftmanship of the hive! In my country the boxes are just wood pieces glued or nailed together, no size refrences or anything other than same dimension for the boxe. Seeing the precision of frames and how they respect the distance they should be is awesome. I'll need to figure a way to get at least one hive like the one you showed 😊 .
have a 30 frame box i made that takes standard deeps and that dummy board should be mandatory on kit boxes here in the states! it is a great tool to ensure you are not rolling a queen between frames as u can pull them out and then lift
Hey Alex, little tip so the lil bees are healthy, use rough wood and a plastic bit with holes in it, this incourages the bees to make propalis making the lil bees healthy!
Thank you for your videos your kind of "how to" thats a bit all over is easy to follow. Its nice to see someone that also does not always know what they are doing but isnt scared to show that. so thank you
Heh Alex, Randy from Northernwildharvest here. Awesone video, really enjoyed this video... looking forward to seeing bees in this hive. Love the bigger broodbox idea!
Just a quick calculation for you on your question about honey supers being smaller: A standard honey super frame, when filled with honey, weighs in at around 7lbs. Even if the box itself was weightless, and you used 11 frames instead of 12, you are stuck lifting 77lbs. If you use a brood box, which is around 1.5x larger, you would be lifting a minimum of 115.5lbs of honey if the box gets fully filled. I would say you should probably just stick to using 3 honey supers instead of trying to use two brood boxes. You would get comparable yields and wouldn't need a back brace 👍
Hello @just_alex , just a small correction about history. The first bee hive with frames was inventer in 1814 by Petro Prokopovych it allowed him to had a bee-garden in almost 10 000 hives and open the first beekepes school. Onther famous beekeper like Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth(1810), Charles Dadant(1817), Amos Ives Root(1839) even were not born in that time and worked on improvement of first hives
saw your beekeeping vids about a year ago. Planning on getting my first colony of bees this summer! Except where I am I need a permit.... and for that permit I need to take a beekeeping class, then get a certificate. And THEN I go to the city and they have to check if im liable to keep bees.... might just skip that and get bees then try getting a permit!
The honeyguide birds are another way that ancient people, and even some modern people find wild bee nests, the birds lead the people to the nests so they can eat the grubs left over in the comb after the humans have taken the honey, its super interesting!
great to see you again Alex. I am expecting my bees tomorrow morning from Wales, I am buzzing with excitement. are you going to try leaving one frame empty so the bees can draw out their own comb to see how it goes? I am starting by bee journey with the flow hive but will be making some of my own i expect at some time. looking forward to seeing how you get on this year and i love the cling wrap idea for the storage.
I watched this video once of a tribe that collected honey by "sticking their hands in" and they developed a sort of immunity to the bee stings. honestly crazy to watch!
They still do it all over the world. Some of the most aggressive bees are in the himalayas, the guys have to climb massive vines to collect by hand, huge hard stinging bees. There's a video on here somewhere, scary!
My late farther, a joiner, would have gone crazy seeing you bruise the wood with that big hammer 😁always use another piece of wood on top of what your whacking, and use glue on the lovely box corners! Just saying Alex.. That's my dad, not me, I'm useless with wood, God bless him.. Lost him 2 years ago tomorrow so was on my mind. He. Would have loved your videos mate. 👍
The fram positioning will affect the airflow. I was taught that I should have them like you said in summer time and in winter have it the other way around to make the air not getting in to the nest as easily.
Watching in hospital recovering from spine surgery. Absolutely love your videos, they're so relaxing! I can't wait to start bee keeping when I move into my forever home (thanks to you and your videos). One quick question, how come you dont use any wood glue when assembling beehives?
Brother. I want you to know how calm your videos make me. They honestly make me feel so calm, i come to your videos when my head is running at 10292mph. Please upload more:( i know its to much to ask for. But your videos really do make such a big difference to my life/dayily living. Thank you bro❤️
The Dadant's beehive (475 mm x 300mm frame) is the most popular type of hive in the world. But here, in Poland, the most popular one is Wielkopolski beehive.
At serious risk of attracting the internet trolls, I wanted to say that I think its good that people still want to practise the old ways. I would love to get into bee-keeping but where I live - right next to the driest place on the planet (barring Antarctica) and having very few flowering plants to create honey, there is little chance of being successful with it. Still, I think youre doing well, and I encourage you to continue to expand.
i think your not thinking highly of desert flowers and cacti and succulants :D just keep your beehives under a shade house never in full sun and have cool water on a pebble tray in shade always available and if theres pollen out there the bees will find you can help them with seed bombs :D and water collection holes to keep the water on your desert longer :D
Good stuff Alex, this is a video that on paper doesn't sound interesting, but actual having mini tutorials like this will get more people in to beekeeping
i personally prefer the frames to be vertical of me becouse when im behind the hive i can simply lift it from one side and rest it on the other. Also with one look you can see the honey between the frames
for assembling fragile wood tongues like this 6:00 you should use a soft non-marring hammer. it is less dangerous to accidentally break the wood fingers. the correct hammer is similar to a hard plastic. i understand if you have limited budget then you might not be willing to spend another 10$ just for this.
They are called supers because they are (usually) in a "superior" (above) position in the hive stack, while the brood chamber is in an inferior, (below) location. I think it's from Latin.
I think you can use wood glue on those joints to make it last indefinitely. If you're really fancy you can use a band clamp to square them up, or a ratchet strap.
Hey Alex. Really enjoying your beekeeping videos and all your other content. Have you thought of trying out a flow hive to compare the beekeeping process and honey production of these different style bee hives?
Hey alex im loving the fact you were on itv a few times with alan titchmarsh i bet you never thought that would happen easy to see why tho great to see how far you've come since leaving the fishing channel with carl 😊😊😊
I really appreciate that you explain the birds and the bees. Well, just the bees. I appreciate that you don’t assume we know anything my about them 🐝 B/c I don’t! And it’s fascinating to learn
hello Alex! winter is finally over and I'm really looking forward to your work! 😉 I have a mini garden on my balcony, but I'm fighting aphids! 😞😖😩 Fingers crossed and looking forward!
Very interesting video. Usually people don’t try to do the research you’re doing especially when there are just techniques in place that can be learned or followed, so nice one. Today i learned that a german guy from America invented the beehive as we know it
That was a brilliant video, very well articulated and really interesting to the point that I want my own beehive 😂 keep up these videos, you are absolutely smashing it Alex 👏
Thank you for this content. It really makes me feel like there are some people who do thing out of pure enjoyment and not for any direct monetary gain or to push some sort of agenda
in Romania our supers are the same size as the brood boxes! If u want to use a brood box as a super u must take in consideration the size of the frames and the model of the honey extractor u are using!
Wax moth doesn't like walnut leaves, because of the hight level of iodine. A close friend's parents are beekepers in Bulgaria and they keep their frames in wooden chests filles with walnut leaves for the winter.
You normally put electricity on the wired wax things and then it is stuck on the wires and you attach the wires to the frame rather then having to construct the entire thing
I think it’s great that you’re into beekeeping. Have you ever thought of giving some of that honey back to the bees for their nourishment, instead of giving them processed sugar water in their feeding reservoir? You took the time to explain how bees have been around so much longer than humans, although scientist don’t agree on the details of that calculation. We know that bees have their purpose in nature. So, why should humans think that they can change something that has been purposeful even before humans walked the Earth? In other words, a lot of table sugar comes from a genetically modified vegetable beet. It’s a pale, white colored beet grown to make sugar. Unless it says cane sugar on the bag or any other type of specific sugar, it is a genetically modified vegetable. Even cane sugar is processed so that the minerals are stripped, which is why it looks white. The bees honey is specifically designed for their nutrition and survival to ward off predators. A similar example would be commercial farming of animals in mass production versus regenerative farming. Commercially farmed animals in mass production are unhealthy animals. The land and soil is also affected. Recently, you planted a tree and you dipped the roots in a mycelium solution. You forage for mushrooms, but you don’t strip the forest of all of its mushrooms. There’s a purpose to why those mushrooms are there. There’s a purpose to the soil structure just as there is a purpose to a beehive. The mass production of certain crops with the use of pesticides is unhealthy. Bees need to pollinate. So these bees already are up against a lot of chemicals, in nature which weaken their ability to ward off predators. Predators know when their victims are weak, or have a week immune system. Why not just take a little bit of honey and give the rest back to the bees in the reservoir? Do you know how the chemicals used in a beehive to kill off mites affect the production of honey? Do you know if that affects the quality of the honey or the microbiome of the person eating it? I know a lot of beekeepers think it’s OK to give bees artificial sugars in replacement of taking their honey, but it doesn’t make sense to me especially when you look at the big picture.
Hi Alex! Once again a wonderful video. Great job explaining things to those of use that have little or no experience with bees. Quick question - Once the hive is in use by the bees and your moving pieces around to check on the hive, how do you keep from crushing little bees walling around on the various pieces?
Hi Alex, i love seeing the notification that you have posted a new video, and watching your videos makes me so happy🎉i love your beekeeping videos and soon ill be doing my own beekeeping as well🤗happy to be viewer 263🎉😂
I look forward to your new vids Alex. Very informative and entertaining. But I really do feel sorry for your neighbours with all that banging🤣 . your home built hives are more that adequate. One man’s imperfection is another man’s perfect 👍
I'd be interested to know if there's a big difference between the two different ways you can face the brood box. Does one promote more honey production? It'd be cool to see someone do a comparison between the two different ways to face it.
You asked about which way you orientate the brood frames. I currently use the 'warm' way (frames parallel to the entrance block), however I do think this is right or wrong. I dont think the bee's care. I orientate the frames to make inspection easier. I inspect from the back, so I use warm, if I had to inspect from the side (or was working with a partner) I would use cold.