Great video, have two things to add. You can keep waxmoths away with a little plate of ethanoic acid. (Basically pure vinegar without any water). Boy it smells. Another tip is to use a hive card, note down how large your bees went into winter, note the mite counts (you can use this later when you select queens for breeding), note any specifics, how many frames of brood you saw. As a beginners beekeeper you can then read back your notes and learn what you did wrong or if there were any signs.
@@BKBees Thanks! :) Its something we get taught during our beginners beekeepers course here in The Netherlands. So i cant take credit for it, but its a great tool to reflect and learn things from.
@@PhillipHall01 You need to keep adding the pure acid vinegar as long as the conditions are good for waxmoths. But it doesn't evaporate instantly. I used it this year and pure an empty super at the bottom in fall while temperature was still high, I covered the top with a lid and placed in a plate. After a couple weeks frost set in and I didn't had to worry about it anymore.
@@rogierdikkes Thank you for your reply. I just don’t know if one plate of vinegar at the bottom of a 8 stack boxes of 10 frame boxes will be enough. What I was asking should I add a plate of vinegar in between boxes. For instance maybe 3 plates sorted at different levels throughout the stack? Thank you again.
Thank you for this - humility is definitely the prescription. I lost an entire hive of so many bees. Going into the winter I too thought I had done the right things but I have lots to learn. I only have one hive and your suggestion to order more than one seems wise. I feel maybe to start again with 2... I have a wonderful year with my bees last year. They were healthy and so productive. Now they're dead but I'm wiser. I have also experienced a hive that abscoded. You have given me new hope and helped me feel less sh*&ty about my hive death. peace
Thank you for the honest set of questions. How much we care about our bees is not as beneficial as mite washes. I need to start a much better job of methodical working and treating my colonies. It does make a difference according to the better beekeepers in my club.
Thank you for your informative video. I am Blessed that I don't yet need it. 🥰 I am in Awe of mySelf and my Girls for being, what seems, a Stron Healthy Double Deep Colony of Happy Bees. 🥰🐝🥂 I approach my 1st Year Anniversary as a Beekeeper here in hot dry Canyon Country, So Cal. I don't kid myself, but I hope that I never need your Important Info on Dead Outs. And Blessings on you and yours. ☮🐝💖
Thankyou so much this is a very informative video and is much appreciated. First I should let you know I live in Canada in Saskatchewan just outside Regina. This is my second winter keeping bees. My first I lost 1 of 2 hives. This your I lost 1 of 3. Both times there was heaps of bees left in the hives and lots of food. No wing irregularities of any kind. Also mite loads were almost non existant. What I've noticed is that the honey left in the hive is crystalized. I've heard from others that this is due to it being predominantly canola honey and has a tendency to do this. Can I safely feed this to my other hives or should I scrape those frames clean and start over
Another great vid! Seems like a lot of beeks lost a lot of hives this winter, and I hear "it was the cold, my bees couldn't move to the honey" Which can be true, but these guys in Canada do it every year and they don't loose as many. My guess is the mites spread viruses which resulted in weak bees during winter, which shrank the cluster size and resulted in loss of the colony. It's a vicious cycle. The saying is true, dead mites, healthy bees and great queens, after that the bees pretty much take care of themselves as long as you've left enough honey on them. I lost a couple this year and I'm sure mite played the biggest reason. Thanks for all the great content!
Great video. We are going into 3rd yr with 4 hives. Unfortunate we lost 3. We did the autopsy & 2 hives appear abandoned, no bees, queen. There is a lot of food & so we are thinking they swarmed after we treated them 4xs, wrapped them. One hive there is a lot of dead bees & so pretty sure the mites killed that colony. The 4th colony is @ different location and they are flourishing. 4th was a split with beeweaver queen. They were very aggressive last fall and so we didn't wrap them. Hope we diagnosed correctly. Thank you for your video. I have ordered bees. I am not going to give up.from southern Idaho
Late season absconds are usually because of high mite/disease loads. It's a common story, but don't attribute it to the treatment, rather, attribute it to the fact that they went so long without a treatment and the disease levels rose too high for the bees to feel comfortable going into winter like that. Aggressive bees are unfortunately often some of the most successful bees we have. Good luck with those ones, lol.
Thank You Brett.....all that info was spot on target....I thought I had did everything perfect to ensure successful survival this year/winter...I lost 17 hives...almost all had 40 lb+ of honey stores...mountain top sugar too....I treated for mites 5 times with Apivar and Oxalic acid..between September 1st and November....and still lost 17....very disheartening...discouraging....but the one thing I couldn’t tell you was my mite load....simply applying the mind set that it’s better to just treat them rather than killing a bunch of bees doing the mite wash....but now I’m left wondering.....wondering why seemingly healthy strong hives...lots of food....mild winter....would die out....it had to be the mites....bees can survive winter...they can’t survive winter with mites....love you man....
Yeah, Ed, I think if you started in May and ended in September, spread your treatments across that timespan instead of September to November, you'll keep the virus levels low all year and have more success.
@@BKBees ....I actually do start early...like right now I have Apivar on my hives....the info I sent to was what I had did to my hives trying to get ready for winter....I am convinced they will go through the winter if they are healthy....and have feed source....
@@eddevault4604 yeah I think it's worth it, honestly, but if it's too bothersome I'd do some research on a proper sugar roll. I've read from HoneyBeeSuite and ScientificBeekeeping.com that it can be really close to as accurate as an alcohol wash if done perfectly. Honestly, it'll at least give you some idea to the count, if not a perfect percentage.
Kitch-iti-kipi froze over for the first ever during winter of 20-21. It was colder in the U.P. This year Lake Superior is the coldest it's been since 1997.
Brett you are a great asset to the bee world. New bee keepers listen to Brett. And if you need bees he has good bees. I have purchased a queen from him. She is in two deep boxes and coming through winter with a ton of bees.
I started out with one colony last year. They left between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I found three dead bees in the box. I have ordered three packages for this year. I am confident I'll be successful this year
At the opening you mentioned “...... a bunch of headless bees.....”. My ears perked up, yup, headless bees abounded! In fact, most of the dead’s were headless. I think this occurred in December when all of a sudden I quit hearing buzzing and they stopped feeding on sugar water. When I would lift the lid to peek in, there were no bees were just days before there were many or I could see activity in the hive through the cover opening. Would you comment on whether wasps can do this much damage so quickly? And in the cold?
I'd question whether wasps did it if you're certain it happened in December... Maybe there was a wasp issue in the fall that depleted the hive going into winter and that caused them to die? Either that or you had a shrew visit your hives, which I think is more likely.
Hi. Thanks so much for the video. I'm trying again this year after my 2 colonies didn't make it through the winter. When installing my new packages in my existing equipment, do you recommend giving the bees any undrawn foundation in addition to frames from last year that are already drawn out? Or should I just use all of the drawn comb and not make them do any of the wax building work? Thanks!
If you have enough drawn frames for all of your packages I'd just give them all you can, and give them foundation later on when you're adding new boxes. That'll let them get a good quick start to the year, and you'll still end up getting those foundation frames drawn out.
Thank you for this. I do have a question. My Russian bees appear to have starved over our long MN winter, Nov-Apr. Last summer they had filled their 10 frames so I added a Hoover Hives medium honey super, but they never used it. It came with plastic comb boards that had a thin wax layer, so I thought they didn't like the comb boards so I removed them and only had a starter strip. Still, they didn't use it and this was during peak honey harvest time. Thoughts?
Great video. So many beekeepers need to watch! One question for you...any thoughts on why I’d have about 30 bees (in a live hive) die while nose down in the cells? They were a frame over from the queen. Did they get separated from the cluster and freeze? Haven’t had that happen before. Thanks!
Thanks, Sean! They probably froze in a part of the cluster when the cluster was bigger and encompassed that area of the hive. The cluster moved and shrunk over the rest of the winter.
:) I was curious to ask if you think in the end italians can offer a better overwintering rate, such as with getting queens, and italians like you sell, because of the italians not shrinking the brood nest during winter? (Assuming you can handle the food expenses being bigger...)
My best bees are colonies that come out the heaviest, usually with smaller brood nests. I have a bunch of commercial Georgia bees that stay brooded and go through tons of food, but we've been working to rid ourselves of that type of bee for the last 3 years. Every year toward the end of winter I see a bunch of colonies suffer because they got too excited with the brood too quickly. The colonies that I have that don't make that mistake don't stay behind the commercial bees for long, the brood nest grows quickly when the temperatures rise. So, to answer your question, I like my mutts way better than my commercial bees, and I feel way more confident in the Fall looking at a yard of Michigan Mutts than I do Georgia Packages.
Hello I have a random question. I have seen that you make your own queens and to sell. So I was wandering what's your favorite setup for queen mating? As far as the hives 5 frame nucs, spilt nucs, or mini nucs, ect.
5 frame nucs, I own hundreds of mini nucs and those are great in June and July, but not very versatile in April/May or August/September when you're slowing down and trying to convert them to something sustainable. So, last year we bought a couple hundred 5 framers and ran those, it's more of an initial investment in resources to get them going, but well worth it in the long run. If you're in Georgia or Florida or something I'm sure minis are where it's at, but anywhere akin to Michigan, go with something more robust, a 5 frame nuc or a 3 way queen castle.
@@BKBees Thanks for taking the time to answer. I like to learn from the people that are already successful using their methods. I think that's probably the best way to go for me and have both 5 frames and minis. I am not going full commercial at the moment but I want the equipment that I build to be multipurpose in case I change my mind in the future. BTW great videos, all ways enjoy them.
@@R_an_D it's probably 50 degrees today, the snow is melting rapidly. The grass is starting to pop up in our yard in the sunny spots, so I think way before June, hopefully anyway. Either way, yes, we will ship a few rounds of queens, you can either message me when you need them or just order them from the website.
Wish I had this last fall, had a colony that had a big die off after a OA dribble in December, think the cluster got so small couldn’t access honey next to them. Should have combined them in the fall. Brett when is it safe to pull boxes from under to cluster to get her on the bottom board? Was trying to migrate into single deep management so didn’t want to rotate boxes.
As soon as it's warm enough to start getting into the brood nest, which, for me is 60's during the day and not freezing at night, once that criteria hits I'd remove that extra space and start thinking about spring splits.
Lost my one and only hive. Bought 2 more hives to total 3 hoping to use the old comb as you said and build up my nuc and package fast, then do a small split with a local michigan mutt to over Winter and hope to come out in spring 2022 with 3 hives 🙏🙏🙏. Do you have a thought on this?
I have preorderd my first nuc which should be available around the first week of May. However it's a 4 frame nuc instead of a 5 frame. I have never heard of that. With the cost of boxes I plan to make my own. My question is do I transfer the frames into a 5 frame nuc or an 8 frame box? I may not be able to check the hive every week dues to my schedule. My concern is the hive swarming. The location is pretty good. A 10 acre wooded lot loaded with wildflowers, trees etc and a creek close by.
If the temperatures are nice I'd just put them into the full sized box right away. Like you said, you don't want them swarming, and the extra space will get occupied really quickly.
I only had 1 beehive that my brother bought me. They died in the winter of 2019 Someone told me that they starved to death but I don't think so because the hive was full of honey. I want to start up again but I want to make sure there is plenty of food for them. So I bought 2 apple and pear trees and this May I'm getting 2 cherry and 2 plum and if I can convince my husband an almond tree plus I purchase a lot of flower seeds and I have blueberries raspberries blackberries and gooseberries bushes growing in my back yard. I think they died because I covered the hive with insulation and I notice moister running down the outside of the hive. So it was my fault they died maybe mites but I could not tell you if they added to my bees dying.
Mites definitely played a part. You should definitely give it another shot. Do me a favor though and act as if you saw more mites than bees in that dead hive. Act as if you know for 100% certainty that mites killed your bees. Go forward with an effort to make sure that doesn't happen, and I think you'll have success.
Brett do you know of a good place to buy packages from online? I have bought local but it’s hard to find good local bees in Northern New Mexico. I have 3 hives that finally overwintered after 3 years of total loss. Mite treatment is key to overwintering. I finally figured that part out. Thank you for your knowledge
Lots of equipment suppliers also sell and ship packages, Mann Lake included, but, to be honest I think the best option is to call a package supplier, like Rossman's or L&L Apiaries out of Georgia. They're all so willing to help the customer out that I bet they'll put 'em in the mail whenever you need 'em.
Regarding wax moths: they only reproduce on frames that contained brood. Step one in storing them id to separate frames that may have had brorod in them from frames tahat did not. Frames that contaied brood will be darker than those that did not. You can aid in prparing for this by marking brood frames as you go. I use a sharpe to mark frames in which i find brood with a B using a Sharpie. Second, there are a couple orf treatments containig a bactereria called BT that are deadly to wax moths but haarmless to bees. I don't have the brand names in my head but one begins with a C and one with an X. Check to make sure they are legal for agricultural use in your state. Finally, store yor frames where there is good ciculation and exposure to light. I built annopen sided shed to store them in where they get air and kight but are protected from weather. Drawn comb is gold for a beekeeper. If you are unsure about pests on your frames (NOT diseases -- diseased comb should be destroyed, and equipment suspected of exposure to AFB should be burned. By the way, instances of suspected AFB must be reported to your local ag authorities.) This is the best summary I have seen on dealing with deadouts. Experience - good or bad - is a gift from which you can learn. Embrace it. Oh, always do a mite count a week or so after a mite treatment. There are many reasons for which a mite treatment may be relatively ineffective.
Hello! Do you worry about frames that are partially capped honey and partially uncapped, uncured? I can definitely smell an alcoholic ferment in parts of certain frames. Would you still let the bees rob these out?
Yes I'd probably leave them out but in May or June, that way if any bees get sick from the boozey honey they'll have nice weather to poop outside. The proper answer is probably to just scrape it, but I'd let the bees make that decision.
@@BKBees 🤷🏼♀️ I think that would depend on whether bees were flying during the time the hive actually died. Mites would die around the same time, if it’s too cold for bees to be flying the mites won’t go anywhere
True. Lots of mite ridden colonies get robbed out in the fall or spring. Most deadouts that are mite caused get robbed or have a chance in one way or another to transmit their mites before the decline. My advice, rather than hoping they all died at once in the dead of winter and washing, would be to assume mites killed your bees if you didn't know the count going into winter. That's a safe assumption, and amending your future practices to fix that issue will make you a better beekeeper.
Choosing the right bees for your climate should be the first thing you should think about. There's no point gettin bees that are more suited to a more southern climate with long warm summers and short winters. If you live in the northen clims with short summers an long winters then breed bees more suited the your area. You could think of it like 'taking someone that lives near the equator and expecting them to be able to survive in the arctic'. Yes disease is a problem but i think we should also look into our methods. Bees have done quite alright for the last few million years without human intervention. As soon as we start interfering with them they get problems. We need to work more WITH the bees, after all they know what they want and what's good for them. That is all.
When they take off in the fall, lots of people will call that swarming but they'd be wrong, it's technically an abscond, and the cause is usually mites/disease. If I were you this upcoming year I'd try to treat them three times, once in the spring, once before the honey flow and another time when you pull the honey boxes off in August. I think if you follow that plan you'll have success.
My hives are configured with one deep, and one super. There is a fair amount of honey in the supers. To replace the dead hives, could I install the new packages and leave the super on so the new hive would have access to honey?
They would likely cluster and start a nest in the super, and had they overwintered they would have done the same. It's best to try to remove the supers before winter so you don't have this issue in the spring. If they were my hives I'd install the packages into the singles and leave the supers out in the yard for the packages to rob.
@@BKBees Great idea. Thank you. I enjoy your videos. The reason why the supers were on in the winter is I'm experimenting with overwintering in a single brood box, and just a little hesitant to only have one brood box, thus I left the super on for winter food. Any thoughts on overwintering single brood boxes?
@@todinaca Get 'em as heavy as you've ever felt a box, by October, and they'll have more than enough food. I've overwintered tons of singles that could have gone an extra month or 6 weeks of winter, based on the food reserves. Make sure they're healthy as hell, really really heavy, and that they have ample winter sun, and they'll be fine without the super.
First winter, looks like I made it. November last year I treated OAV 3 weeks in a row, and again 3X in February (Northern California). What would have been the possibility that mites could still be a threat after treatments?
Pretty low chances that you have a high mite load to start the season. The problem with only doing it like that is the buildup over the course of the bee year, between February and November. Even if you kill them all in November you've allowed the virus, deformed wing and the like, levels to rise to dangerous heights. I'd recommend adding something mid season, between June and August, and also a mite wash to verify low counts after that mid season treatment.
@@philiplaidlaw I did 5 treatments every four days in August to help prep for winter bees. than I did another 3 treatments in November during the brood break. My bees are all ready swarm once warm weather hits here in northern Iowa. Love OAV because it can be super effective if done right. I run mostly Kenyan top bars so apivar strips and other drop in and forget treatments not really my thing since I go in and work the combs every couple weeks anyway.
I have some frames with drone brood in the freezer. I put them in there in the fall after I discovered a drone laying queen. Will the bees not clean these up?
I'd just scrape it and throw it away, when the larvae thaw they'll turn to goo, and I don't like brood goo in any hive at any time. Plus, where there's drone comb they're likely to continue drawing drones, so, I'd just let 'em restart and scrape it.
If you have Chickens, they will pick out those drones, yum (not 🤣) Another RU-vid Beek puts the Drone Comb back into the hive on the outer positions. (The bees will fill honey in them.) ... Or you could melt this frame Wax down, scim of the goo, and use your own Wax for Starter Strip's, make your own Grafting Cells, on use it in a Bait Hive....
I tried to let the bees clean out some drone brood from a drone brood frame that I had froze and it didn't work. I suppose after freezing them the dead bees are all mushy and the worker bees have a hard time getting a hold of the mush bodies. So I scraped mine out like B&K said.
I'm working on it, sorry guys. I'm actually wearing a lapel mic in this video, I recently bought that to try to up the quality of the audio, and, obviously it wasn't a great upgrade. I do plan a full equipment upgrade hopefully really soon.
I'm working on it, I promise. I'm actually wearing a lapel mic in this video, this was the first round of videos with that new microphone that was intended to improve the audio quality. I guess the majestic beard isn't much of a help in this case, lol. Anyway, I'm literally on Amazon right now trying to rectify the issue.
Yes. I love John Malkovich, and I've never heard that anywhere but from youtube comments. This is probably the third comment like this that I've received.
Mites whooped the ten hives I had hear at my house ended up with a five over five over five nuc survive everything thing else died with tons of honey looks like a mouse killed two mites got the others I have more hives at a few more places that I treated and they are all good booming hive and I think we went seventy some days not going above forty degrees f and I don't wrap my hives and all that jazz I bet it's rare that the healthy bees need all that extra jazz I started out listening to everyone one but have seen for my self that moisture boards and wraps don't seem to make a difference for me healthy bees in heavy boxes come through the winter no other magic seems to help me out I used mtn camp sugar didn't do me any good most where hauling it out come spring lol
