This is such an important topic to mentor to newer beekeepers. It’s very specific to the microclimate and seasonal bloom where a beekeeper is as well as the style of colony, drawn comb resources and bee strength at different seasonal points. Nuance for sure with this. Great topic and one many new folks miss in all the “beginner” information they have to absorb. Colony inspections for resources in the frame to support not only growth but survival during a dearth is hugely important and can prevent “in season” losses.
I got my first 2 packages last Friday. I think the 2nd package I installed last some bees to the first. I check the feeders every day to see how much they are consuming and add as needed. For me this is easy as the Hives are in my backyard.
New beekeepers look into trickle feeding. Feeding can help build them up fast yes and sometimes that's overwhelming, and creates semi-advanced problems like nectar-bound brood nests and a tendency to swarm. Great video as always, Kamon!
Wish I would have found this earlier. I didn't feed my NUC and we had a few cold days and some rain. They have been in the hive almost a month and they have drawn no new comb. I managed to find the queen today and she looked okay but I am going to get some food in there to see if it helps them go.
Today is June 16 2023. On May 5 or 6 a small swarm moved into my lure (8 frame mediums) and there's enough bees to fill one box. They've taken about a gallon of 1:1. They had no foundation to start on and they've drawn 7 frames about half way. I turned the box around hoping they'll draw on the bare end of each frame. My queen looks good. I watched her about 2 minutes on a frame. She's cruising the cells, but I didn't see her lay. With snow white combs I don't think I can see eggs anyway so I'll have to see her lay to know for sure. There's some pollen on a frame or two and some nectar at the frame tops and there's a little dark nectar in there. I was wondering what to look for to know when to stop feeding. This year it's been cold longer than usual and rainy so I think bees were late in swarming. If I understood your video I think I need to keep feeding for another week or two so they can draw another box full of comb. I'll keep yout 30% guideline in mind and I'll weaken my sugar ratio a little. Please correct me if I don't have that right. Oh, I mark one end on the tops of my frames to keep up with honoring their frames orientation. Thanks for the video.
Kamon, with a brood pattern like that maybe you should pinch that Queen or just send her to me and I will give her a hive to live out the rest of her life. lol All jokes aside she looks like her last name must be Saban because she’s a winner! RTR
Hi Kamon. I have one hive new this year with two double deeps up on the Cumberland Plateau in East TN. My question is how much honey does one hive need when going into winter? They are packing in the honey and pollen like mad right now and I would like to take one frame and extract it for personal use, but I don't want to deprive them if they will need it.
Know your seasons, yes, but also yes to be prepared to see those seasons messed up by irregular weather patterns, or climate change. The past few years nothing has been falling into any regular pattern where I live, and I think most of us are seeing this happening regardless of where we live.
Ha Kamon your bucket was black from mold, and u used it any way, I only say that because I would always wash them out if they looked like that. I believed it would mess up the new syrup, well because u did that it must be OK so I am not going to worry about it any more the brood pattern on frame was beautiful. U did a good job with the video hope u enjoy the rest of your week.
Thanks, yes we just leave them as is and can clean them up at the end of the year. Frame feeders stay cleaner since bees can get in there and keep them clean but buckets get like this fast if some type of agent isn't put into the syrup.
My eyes popped out at that moment, too! I thought for a moment that it was an old paint bucket ;). But good to know that the bees (and the syrup) can tolerate that.
@@kamonreynolds i know what you mean work 9 hr a day and spin honey 5 days last week 5 hrs 650 lbs cant complain the bees are working hard in Northeast Ohio.
Thanks for the video Kamon. Can you tell me if the silver retardant on the top of the frames helps keep the hives cooler for the bees in the Summer? Thanks!
I've heard of using the thinned sugar syrup for comb building. (I believe Bob Binnie uses 1 pound of sugar to 1.5 pound water for that). Since you don't need to build comb, is the thought that they'll just use it right away for feeding brood and themselves and store or keep stored the actual nectar? Thanks for sharing.
The thought for this particular case is that it will keep them going forward without adding a lot of weight or congestion in the combs. I believe the prime honey flow will start in a week or so and that on top of heavy feeding could plug the colony and stimulate swarming.
I tried to get Bob Binnie to provide info but he didn't really answer..do you use community feeders during a dearth?? I was told it keeps the foragers working..but my bees seem to be fighting each other.
Question; I had a 3 box hive (1 deep & 2 supers small amount of bees) collapse to 3 frames of bees in the deep. It had 6/7 swarm cells, found the queen and some eggs. This hive had a 25 mite count prior to the collapse but didn’t get to them in time. I pulled both supers off and added 2 frames of capped brood from a strong hive. The queen was only laying on 1 side….. is that a defective queen? I also did a OA drip. I covered the single box and feeding them 1/1 sugar syrup. The queen isn’t laying a lot…. My actions sufficient? How would you handle that scenario? Thanks!!!! (Bob Binnie says you need to reply more) I’m joking!!!! Just causing trouble
Hi Kamon, I’m starting out my beekeeping experience with 6 nucs. I have them for one week and have fed them twice. I gallon per hive. Had a look inside today and they’re off to a great start. They are drawing out the comb on most of the frames, there’s lots of feed and lots of brood. I feel like they need an additional box in a few days. Woul I be doing any harm putting a super on? Thanks a lot. I appreciate your videos and knowledge
If the weather isnt going to dip very cold in the next week you can do it. I like to wait till they start work on the 7th frame but that isn't a rule that can't bend a little in either direction. Sounds like you are giving your bees some TLC keep it up
One Thing i noticed is that beekeepers from US insist on feeding bees with sugar most of the time when its not neeeded. We beekeepers in Serbia give sugar just after winter when bees run out of honey and during bad weather days when there is a lot of bees and they are running out of food. Our bees are resistant because we dont burn them with sugar feeds. We treat bees 1 time in spring with smoke, 1 time in fal with smoke and in winter 1 time with oxalic acid. On the other side I see you treat bees like 5 times more. Many differences between us
It is how the Carniolan bees originated. In a poor country.. old Yugoslavia. Where people never had inaf money to keep bees like pets. If our ancestors had money to overfeed and pamper them like we see it these days we would never have this great resistant carnies we have today. It's just the reality of how good bees get selected in poor environment. And that's why great bees always come from poor countries. It's just a theory, but when I see a beek in England with all that protecting equipment and a cloud of bees around his head, well... Than they import and breed and act like they did it.. just watch the germans with their breeding programs. If l wasn't so old and knew the history l could almost believe it. Kamon I'm not criticizing you.. you have a teaching channel and you do a great job. That's how bees should be kept. And we all have much more to learn about varroa control and many other new problems we have today
I have a new nuc that I got Sunday. They were 4 1/2 frame of brood and barely one frame of nectar. I gave them maybe 1 quart of 1:1. Yesterday I opened them up and the queen had already filled up the 3 empty frames so I added another brood box and pulled up a frame of brood and filled up my frame feeder. At what point should I look at splitting them/ putting honey boxes on them? This is my first time to have a hive large and healthy enough to do either. Thank you so much for your videos! They have really helped me in my journey as a new beekeeper!
I would suggest waiting a bit on adding more room since you just added a brood box. Two weeks from now might be a good time to look at the hive and make the decision on adding a super/or splitting. Best to split a strong hive than a medium sized hive which leaves you with two weak hives. Good luck.
But what about living in the city. The concrete jungle. Yes there are parks and small nurseries. But how do you tell what is in bloom and how much to feed.
I wonder if these beekeepers remember what it was like to have mostly bare foundation to start with. There seems to be much less margin for error when you don't have frames of drawn comb to work with.
hey Damon im a newbie , have one langstroth , one flow hive and two horizontal I just build , ,,, what is the maker oy your vail in this video , and which is the best jacket I can get im XXXL
Ultra Breeze makes a great Jacket. Mine is 4 years old and has worked alot of 10+ hour days. The veil is a Clear view from mann lake. They don't have a ventilated jacket to go with it. Which is stupid! Thanks for watching
You answered to all my spring questions. Cheers 🥂
This is such an important topic to mentor to newer beekeepers. It’s very specific to the microclimate and seasonal bloom where a beekeeper is as well as the style of colony, drawn comb resources and bee strength at different seasonal points.
Nuance for sure with this. Great topic and one many new folks miss in all the “beginner” information they have to absorb. Colony inspections for resources in the frame to support not only growth but survival during a dearth is hugely important and can prevent “in season” losses.
I got my first 2 packages last Friday. I think the 2nd package I installed last some bees to the first. I check the feeders every day to see how much they are consuming and add as needed. For me this is easy as the Hives are in my backyard.
New beekeepers look into trickle feeding. Feeding can help build them up fast yes and sometimes that's overwhelming, and creates semi-advanced problems like nectar-bound brood nests and a tendency to swarm.
Great video as always, Kamon!
That's exactly what I'm worried about
Wish I would have found this earlier. I didn't feed my NUC and we had a few cold days and some rain. They have been in the hive almost a month and they have drawn no new comb. I managed to find the queen today and she looked okay but I am going to get some food in there to see if it helps them go.
Today is June 16 2023. On May 5 or 6 a small swarm moved into my lure (8 frame mediums) and there's enough bees to fill one box. They've taken about a gallon of 1:1. They had no foundation to start on and they've drawn 7 frames about half way. I turned the box around hoping they'll draw on the bare end of each frame.
My queen looks good. I watched her about 2 minutes on a frame. She's cruising the cells, but I didn't see her lay. With snow white combs I don't think I can see eggs anyway so I'll have to see her lay to know for sure.
There's some pollen on a frame or two and some nectar at the frame tops and there's a little dark nectar in there. I was wondering what to look for to know when to stop feeding. This year it's been cold longer than usual and rainy so I think bees were late in swarming.
If I understood your video I think I need to keep feeding for another week or two so they can draw another box full of comb. I'll keep yout 30% guideline in mind and I'll weaken my sugar ratio a little. Please correct me if I don't have that right.
Oh, I mark one end on the tops of my frames to keep up with honoring their frames orientation.
Thanks for the video.
Thank you Kamon for the advice on last nights chat, any advice is always welcome.
Kamon, with a brood pattern like that maybe you should pinch that Queen or just send her to me and I will give her a hive to live out the rest of her life. lol All jokes aside she looks like her last name must be Saban because she’s a winner! RTR
Or could call her Mrs. Terry!
@@kamonreynolds That is appropriate.
Trust the (queen’s) process, guys!
Nice frames! That’s a carpet of brood.
It is all about getting the balance right 😀
Hi Kamon. I have one hive new this year with two double deeps up on the Cumberland Plateau in East TN. My question is how much honey does one hive need when going into winter? They are packing in the honey and pollen like mad right now and I would like to take one frame and extract it for personal use, but I don't want to deprive them if they will need it.
Know your seasons, yes, but also yes to be prepared to see those seasons messed up by irregular weather patterns, or climate change. The past few years nothing has been falling into any regular pattern where I live, and I think most of us are seeing this happening regardless of where we live.
How can I protect my 3 hives from climate change? I live in California. Thanks.
Wow, what a frame! Beautiful
That frame of brood looks like a honey crop to me , sweet deal
Ha Kamon your bucket was black from mold, and u used it any way, I only say that because I would always wash them out if they looked like that. I believed it would mess up the new syrup, well because u did that it must be OK so I am not going to worry about it any more the brood pattern on frame was beautiful. U did a good job with the video hope u enjoy the rest of your week.
Thanks, yes we just leave them as is and can clean them up at the end of the year. Frame feeders stay cleaner since bees can get in there and keep them clean but buckets get like this fast if some type of agent isn't put into the syrup.
My eyes popped out at that moment, too! I thought for a moment that it was an old paint bucket ;). But good to know that the bees (and the syrup) can tolerate that.
A teaspoon of surgical spirit in a gallon of syrup is supposed to reduce mould growth
Thanks for that information, that really answered a lot of questions I had on feeding. God bless you and your family, Matt
Thanks for the feedback Matt
Kamon, you are a great teacher. Excellent instruction; right on target!
Thanks Harry! Hope things are going well for you in the northwest.
Hive tools have legs... So true >.< On a more serious note, this kind of advice is incredibly invaluable to newer beekeepers. :)
Thanks Lagrange for the support. This info should have been smacked into me when I started!
How many brood frames should healthy colony have? Thank you.
dang Kamon clean those buckets!
I barely have time to sleep as it is!
@@kamonreynolds i know what you mean work 9 hr a day and spin honey 5 days last week 5 hrs 650 lbs cant complain the bees are working hard in Northeast Ohio.
Showed up to the yard today without a hive tool. Found some bandage scissors from work. Surprised how well I managed 😂
I'm so graymteful to find your channel. ❤ you are an excellent teacher!
Thanks for the video Kamon. Can you tell me if the silver retardant on the top of the frames helps keep the hives cooler for the bees in the Summer? Thanks!
Best feeding explanation I have seen
Thanks. Bees didnt add any frames. Found out i didnt feed them enough. Hopefully they can catch up these next few months
Thanks!
Wow thank you Toys in the closet shop!
Sorry for the misspell its auto correct , KAMON ,, anywho thank you for great videos and respond in advance ,,,
When you say feed a gallon, as an example, what is the time frame for that, a gallon a week?
I just picked up that same hive tool! I love it!
Great video sir. I like to feed thin syrup in the spring to my small colonies.
Great information, Thanks for sharing.
I've heard of using the thinned sugar syrup for comb building. (I believe Bob Binnie uses 1 pound of sugar to 1.5 pound water for that). Since you don't need to build comb, is the thought that they'll just use it right away for feeding brood and themselves and store or keep stored the actual nectar? Thanks for sharing.
The thought for this particular case is that it will keep them going forward without adding a lot of weight or congestion in the combs. I believe the prime honey flow will start in a week or so and that on top of heavy feeding could plug the colony and stimulate swarming.
@@kamonreynolds Thanks Kamon. Makes good sense. I'll have to give that a try.
I tried to get Bob Binnie to provide info but he didn't really answer..do you use community feeders during a dearth?? I was told it keeps the foragers working..but my bees seem to be fighting each other.
Just in time Kamon...Thanks for posting this and looking forward to more information...!
Question; I had a 3 box hive (1 deep & 2 supers small amount of bees) collapse to 3 frames of bees in the deep. It had 6/7 swarm cells, found the queen and some eggs. This hive had a 25 mite count prior to the collapse but didn’t get to them in time. I pulled both supers off and added 2 frames of capped brood from a strong hive. The queen was only laying on 1 side….. is that a defective queen? I also did a OA drip. I covered the single box and feeding them 1/1 sugar syrup. The queen isn’t laying a lot…. My actions sufficient? How would you handle that scenario? Thanks!!!! (Bob Binnie says you need to reply more) I’m joking!!!! Just causing trouble
Hi Kamon, I’m starting out my beekeeping experience with 6 nucs. I have them for one week and have fed them twice. I gallon per hive. Had a look inside today and they’re off to a great start. They are drawing out the comb on most of the frames, there’s lots of feed and lots of brood.
I feel like they need an additional box in a few days. Woul I be doing any harm putting a super on?
Thanks a lot. I appreciate your videos and knowledge
If the weather isnt going to dip very cold in the next week you can do it. I like to wait till they start work on the 7th frame but that isn't a rule that can't bend a little in either direction.
Sounds like you are giving your bees some TLC keep it up
@@kamonreynolds ok great. Thanks a lot! I’m in East Texas btw
For now…for my bees they need as much suppllimental feeding unless I mostly focus on well aged honey.
One Thing i noticed is that beekeepers from US insist on feeding bees with sugar most of the time when its not neeeded.
We beekeepers in Serbia give sugar just after winter when bees run out of honey and during bad weather days when there is a lot of bees and they are running out of food.
Our bees are resistant because we dont burn them with sugar feeds.
We treat bees 1 time in spring with smoke, 1 time in fal with smoke and in winter 1 time with oxalic acid.
On the other side I see you treat bees like 5 times more.
Many differences between us
👍If you say so
It is how the Carniolan bees originated. In a poor country.. old Yugoslavia. Where people never had inaf money to keep bees like pets. If our ancestors had money to overfeed and pamper them like we see it these days we would never have this great resistant carnies we have today. It's just the reality of how good bees get selected in poor environment. And that's why great bees always come from poor countries. It's just a theory, but when I see a beek in England with all that protecting equipment and a cloud of bees around his head, well...
Than they import and breed and act like they did it.. just watch the germans with their breeding programs. If l wasn't so old and knew the history l could almost believe it.
Kamon I'm not criticizing you.. you have a teaching channel and you do a great job. That's how bees should be kept. And we all have much more to learn about varroa control and many other new problems we have today
Your bees are so calm. What breed are they?
These are normal Italians. They will get feistier as they grow and especially once the dearth comes around.
If I was to add a full frame of capped honey to a 5 frame split would you still feed them 1:1 sugar water?
Yes they would be good for a bit but in a week I would check back and see if they are diving into that frame's reserves or if it is not diminishing.
That is one monster queen. I am really surprised there was so much capped brood for such a small colony.
Thanks for sharing!!!
My pleasure thanks for watching :-)
I have a new nuc that I got Sunday. They were 4 1/2 frame of brood and barely one frame of nectar. I gave them maybe 1 quart of 1:1. Yesterday I opened them up and the queen had already filled up the 3 empty frames so I added another brood box and pulled up a frame of brood and filled up my frame feeder. At what point should I look at splitting them/ putting honey boxes on them? This is my first time to have a hive large and healthy enough to do either. Thank you so much for your videos! They have really helped me in my journey as a new beekeeper!
I would suggest waiting a bit on adding more room since you just added a brood box. Two weeks from now might be a good time to look at the hive and make the decision on adding a super/or splitting. Best to split a strong hive than a medium sized hive which leaves you with two weak hives. Good luck.
I just added a 2nd box. If/when the brood emerges I would think 1 box is too small.
Thank y'all both for the help 👍
But what about living in the city. The concrete jungle. Yes there are parks and small nurseries. But how do you tell what is in bloom and how much to feed.
do you prefer single or double brood Kamon and why please
Can I use pressure treated lumber in making swarm traps
Some people will say not too but bees will certainly swarm into PT lumber areas
I’ve got a new nuc that doesn’t seem to be eating. It has less bees than the other nuc I got. Why aren’t they eating??
I wonder if these beekeepers remember what it was like to have mostly bare foundation to start with. There seems to be much less margin for error when you don't have frames of drawn comb to work with.
Yes I remember that decade + and we mention that issue in several videos. But we have 600 videos so not every one do I remember to mention that
Thank you so much
hey Damon im a newbie , have one langstroth , one flow hive and two horizontal I just build , ,,, what is the maker oy your vail in this video , and which is the best jacket I can get im XXXL
Ultra Breeze makes a great Jacket. Mine is 4 years old and has worked alot of 10+ hour days.
The veil is a Clear view from mann lake. They don't have a ventilated jacket to go with it. Which is stupid! Thanks for watching
How do you keep the bees out of an open top bucket? Great video blackberries gonna explode here soon
Where do you get the 1 gallon bucket’s from and do they already have the holes in the lid
Hey David, These buckets come from naturesimagefarm.com
they came to our conference in January
Hello what kind of bees are these
Try Vino bee barn please
Great vid man, thank you
Great info 👍 Thanks
If you would?? If you introduce two queen cells into a queenless Nuc..(to make queens) why are the bees killing the cells??
What you do is an extremely intuitive process taking years of expertise. You must become an instructor for others!
A 1 to j 10 all your numbers at the north and all your letters to the south
I would like to order a package of bees I would like to start small maybe 1000 bees for small yard
🙏🙏🙏 super video 👍
There's no honey on my hive right now then it has been the last 4 years
Sending my full support my new friend DONE THANKS from dj host @WTFMIKE THANKS