Great example of “real time” beekeeping. Thank you for sharing this - not always easy to assess hives and make instantaneous management decisions. I really appreciate “in the trenches” videos.
I used your combine method for a weak hive on 3 colonies 2 weeks ago. I went back after 2 weeks and 2 of the 3 had built up and had 2 full frames of brood both sides. I moved them back on another bottom board and they are doing well. The third didn't make it. I think I was too late getting to them. Saving 2 out of 3 is great though so thank you.
Could you have down sized the last hive to a five frame hive since they had a functioning Queen or would that not work? Love your down to earth approach to bee keeping.
Could you combine the drone laying hive with the very small cluster to possibly save the good queen? I live in south central Maine and I was thinking my bees were behind where they should be until I watched this video. A very informative video.
@@BeekeepingwithTheBeeWhisperer I check my hives today and I discovered one was queenless. I combined the queenless hive with one that could use the extra bees.
@@BeekeepingwithTheBeeWhisperer Combining the drone laying (and now queenless) hive with the small cluster hive would also save that queen with (in my opinion) better survival chances for that queen.
When scraping wet off of a plastic foundation, do you have to remove all the wax like a brand new foundation piece or could you just leave a little of the wax on and apply new wax over that?
Would like to know what is the silver looking sheet that you put on top of the hive under the telescoping cover. Is it available to buy from a supply house? Thank you.
Hi I’m just outside Portland Maine. I wintered some in 5 frame boxes. So I’m trying to get everyone into full hives and make sure everyone has honey. Doing some equalizing as well. A few came out very small Only a couple frames of bees. I was thinking maybe I’m getting in them too early but it’s looking nice like you said. I actually took a big colony and setup to graft on Saturday. I grafted yesterday. 24 queens, unfortunately some cups fell down. I forgot to add some wax to the bar. I was only hoping for 10 and it looks like I should have a bit more than that. I’m going to be using an incubator this time. Try and get some queens going real soon. Drones are flying I’ll setup at least 10 mating nucs next week. get them banked until everyone is ready for splits. What do you do for your early queens? So expensive to buy. I tend to have better quality queens when I make them anyway. This is the earliest I’ve tried for queens by a week or two. They would be getting ready for swarming in a couple weeks I predict. I like to make sure they are not trapped with too much honey as well.
@@BeekeepingwithTheBeeWhisperer a part of me believes that if I get grafts in early those queens will mate with drones from strong overwintered colonies. Come June there is tons of drones but they include package bees and nuc colonies from the south as well as weaker wintered colonies. So I figured it was good for breeding stock going early just limited amount. A bit risky but normally works out
Newbie here- I have a week old nuc. My objective is honey. Can I add a super and then another deep when my first deep is full? What’s the best way to do it ?
Can vary a lot with location. I like to build up to a double deep brood chamber then when the honeyflow is on and a honey super goes on I shake the queen into the bottom super and put a queen excluder on to change things to a single deep brood chamber, the upper deep becomes a honey super as the brood emerges. See my videos about running single brood chambers.
No those queen cells had already failed and here in Maine even viable cells whiched emerged with healthy queens would fail to mate well as so there few drones around till the end of May.
@@BeekeepingwithTheBeeWhisperer then should I try the Demaree method put on queen excluder on first brood box . Then stack the second one on top . ? Thank you 😊
Peter can l ask you why the two Queens won't meet for at the queen excluder and fight to death, the reason I ask is because they can meet each other and sting.. thank you in advance for the reply
I must have adhd or something , I can’t stand burr comb left on frames , it’s gotta go ,they can still climb all over frames with out it, messy hives don’t appeal to me , it might not make much difference but it’s something that bugs me with bee hives for some reason.
