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I’m a first year beekeeper and I really value the information you put out Kamon. I find a lot of beekeepers in the forums who are dangerously under informed about raising bees and I feel like they could learn so much from your videos. Thanks for taking the time to do what you do!
I have been told off because I am smoke heavy and my thoughts are exactly like yours. I smoke em to move em. Better than crushing them. I was wondering how the cells needed to be started so thank you for making sure to add the royal jelly reasoning.
Hi my name is Jani I’m from Australia I have a question, whatever I do, my bees throw the eggs out of where they are. If you can give me a bad explanation about this, thank you.
Ok so for my own notes... Fill the cups with royal jelly to make it easier (dilute with distilled water if needed). Eggs hatch on day 3.5 and you want to graph with larvae around 4.5 days old. Cover with a warm damp towel to keep the larvae from drying out. Once again make sure there are no queen cells on the existing frames then put the graphed frame in beside a bee bread frame. Pull the graphs when they are 10 days in the starter/finisher nuc (14.5 days old total) as they will hatch around day 16.
You are the first to actually show priming the cell and a close up of floating the larvae in. Great job and I'm going to share this video for other new beekeepers because of the great details. Question , maybe I missed it in the other video, do you have the bees polish the cups first? I have found that I get better results, but I also dry graft. Have a great beekeeping season, young man.
@@kamonreynolds I do it overnight. Usually I put it in last thing in the evening and pull it out around 10AM when I start grafting. It's just my opinion that I got better acceptance or maybe I just got better at grafting. lol I usually start in the bee yard after 10 AM when most of the forgers are out working. Keep up your great videos, I'll be watching.
@@OklahomaBeekeeper I've heard that this helps with better acceptance too. I also heard that putting a little bit of honey in the cup the night before grafting might help them polish the cups out better too. All things I've heard, not tried.
Hey Kamon, it's Bob, your newest subscriber! Great video - I'm a newbee beekeeper and work like yours is my bee bread - I can't get enough. Did not have any idea about the queen rearing gig. In fact, I'm the guy who just BOUGHT 3 queens for 30 bucks each. They are mite resistant, but wow. I just checked to see if they are being accepted and it looks like one is kaput! Anyway, I am grateful for turning me on to this aspect of the craft (there are so many aspects!). Cant wait to see then next one when you pull those puppies out.
Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees Kamon it’s Bob in San Diego - Here’s a funny tidbit - TH-cam (or maybe it was my phone?) auto corrects your name from Kamon to Jamón - which is Spanish do ham. No offense intended. Two quick questions. 1. Noticed your feeders are the same as mine but without the wood insert and plastic ladder. Not needed? 2. Your migratory lids look great. How do you construct them? I’ve had warping issues. Thanks Kamon!
When you get ready for some free help for some hands on training beings I’m not far from you I’ll be there,and I need to purchase all the tools,interested doing queen rearing that way instead of my old way.
Firstly, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. After (I) place my queen cup frame in a hive can I place the hair roller type cage over her cell and leave the entire queen frame in the top box with a queen excluder in between and the nurse bees will provide for them and the other bees will not kill them?
Hey neighbor. I'm planning out my beekeeping year and could use a little help. I've never seen a video on scaling a queen rearing operation. I'm going to try grafting again this year. I want to set up my queen rearing operation to take best advantage of the resources I have and make the most increase possible. I have about 30 nucs 5 over 5 frame, 5 double deep 8 frame, 2 double deep 10 frame, one double medium 10 and one single deep 10. I was thinking I'd use two cell builders here in my back yard. I would keep my breeder queen here along with 2 nucleus colonies to feed nurse bees to the cell builders. I was thinking I could make a double queen colony (I'd like to play with one anyway) and use it as a finisher that I could also keep here. It is hard to know how much is too much for queen production when I'm just trying to see how many colonies I can make out of what I have. I forgot to say I'm planning to sell 5 overwintered nucs to start things off. Any advice? It's hard to know how to scale it when I've not done it before. Thanks!
I adore your tutorials. Stupid question - doesn't the larvae fall out of the queen cups when upsidedown? Seriously conscidering becoming a patreon. Thank you so much! Bee blessings of joy from Ireland. 💖🙏🌻
Hi Jamie, Thanks for watching! They stick very well to the cups. They royal jelly that they are floating in does a good job of keeping surface tension even after transfer. However, if you drop a frame or shake it hard they still can become dislodged but only rough handling will dislodge them.
@@kamonreynolds Ahhhh, wow! thank you brother, I was disturbed thinking they're upsidedown but suspected it was the miniscus that held them. Superb and tx for such a prompt answer! Blessings of joy to you and your family. 💖🙏🌻
Love your videos! What do you do for drone population? Do you have specific queens you use to produce drones or just allow virgin to mate with the drones from your stocks in that yard?
So, you are using this one box to use as both a cell starter and finisher? If I understand you, by adding more nurse bees and emerging/capped brood (no eggs or larva), I can continue to use it to raise queens all season. That is just too easy Brilliant!
Kamon, I love in North Florida and have only 4 hives. I love your very informational and educational videos. However, due to my age, failing eyesight and number of hives, I don't need that many queens. Would you do a video on selecting the best hive to split moving the queen and maybe two frames to cause the good hive to naturally requeen. This would allow me to cage the newly mated queen and move her when I need to requeen another hive. Thank you for what you do.
Hey im not sure if you have a video on this or not but my neighbor has a couple of hives she got this spring and one of them is extremely weak right now due to the direction the box was facing. The queen is still laying but there arent enough bees to raise all of the larva. There are about 3 or 4 frames of eggs and larva and only 2 or 3 frames of bees in an 8 frame box. My question is how can i boost them without combing the two hives if possible?
bit confused with when you start counting days, so the 16 days it takes to make a queen includes the 3day egg period ? so you take them out on day 10 leaving them 6days sat in the nucs or whatever to hatch
hey john when we say things in graft terms it is 10 days from the graft. This means a 10 day cell will emerge in 2 days or less since they are eggs for 3 days and we graft larvae 12-24 hours old.
Hello from Romania! Kamon,whi do you mix distiled water and not normal drinking water in the cell with royal jelly? And you said 50:50 , do you mean 50%water and 50% royal jelly?
Hi Alex! It is to prevent anything like bacteria effecting the larvae. I personally don't dilute my royal jelly . Many pros and scientist do and they all recommend distilled water. Taking water and boiling it would work just fine once it is cooled. Likely a good water source would be fine without being distilled. When it comes to our queens we try to give them the best we can.
@@kamonreynolds thx a lot...i will probably too not dilute it...royal jelly is royal jelly,comes direcly form the bee to the larvae...i don't think bees put water in it too.
I am new to beekeeping and dont quite understand how you are getting royal jelly. Do you open a developing worker cell and take it from that? How much do you add to the queen cup to make a queen from it? Also when these virgin queens hatch what is the process for getting yhem mated. I would love to try raising some queens myself. Thank you for doing a video on this process.
In the first video. I talked about place a frame of larvae in for 2 days prior to the graft. This causes them to raise emergency queen cells and we can use the royal jelly for our queens on day 2. Thanks for watching!
Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees i just watched the first video. Now it makes much more sense on what you are doing. I have watched other beekeepers trying to explain how to raise queens but they didnt go into how they got royal jelly. You have made it really clear on the process. Thank you. I did raise raise a single queen in a nuc for my step dad and it was successful. She is really big and lays like crazy. I have some videos on my channel if you care to watch me stumble through my learning experiences. G&h honey bees
About 3:28 you are placing the larva into the cup. You used the word "under" are you tucking the larva into the royal jelly or setting it on top of it?
Hi Mark thanks for watching and for the comment. I have don't put my cups in for cleaning. Some beekeepers swear by that method and some don't see any advantage. (I am one of the latter) I have always had great success with using them straight out of the bag
Hey Kamon. I love all your material. Thank you for all the knowledge you share with us beginners. I have a question as a beginner. In my bee yard I have some swarms that got inside some old beehives that I was not using. And I also have some beehives without a queen (Unsuccessful cuts). The swarms are small in population 3 frames / hive. But the queens are laying eggs and they do just fine. So my question is, can I merge them together so I can make some strong and productive hives?
Merge Bee hives by using Newspaper between each colony. This will allow bees to merge gradually as they munch through that sheet of paper. And in this time, they both get used to each others scent. Main Brood Hive, with Queen in base, add a Queen Excluder, then a piece of newspaper covering everything in that box, add your Queenless Hive box on top. Then add inner cover and roof. After a few days these two bee hives become one ! Hope this helps. 🐝
Dave Maloney .... You use Newspaper to merge bees of different colonies, because, bees with the Queen carry her phremones about their hive. While those 'being merged' are 'queenless' by eg Split, the Beekeeper put her somewhere else (Sold her !) Or she might of died re age, incident, has swarmed etc, etc .... These bees still have 'memory of their former Monach,' and need to learn and adjust, be loyal to the new Majesty (!) Newsprint slows the merger process down, each side can start to communicate the existing Queens pheromone to all. 👑 Queen excluders are used to exclude the Queen from :Honey Supers (stop eggs being laid) in honey stores : Keep Queen in a certain place by choice by the Beekeeper. Eg Queen Cage, break Brood cycle to control mites. Crown of Thorns, to maybe mark the Queen. A QE (sized mesh) on the entrance, like those vent Dials seen on Nuc Hive Boxes... To keep the Queen "in" as her colony get used to her new home. Foragers fly to get nectar and pollen, but Queen stays put, because she cannot get through the QE unlike the Workers, Drones, and possibly an odd slim virgin Queen... 😉 .... So QE has lots of uses. Hope this explains things. 🐝
@@mmb_MeAndMyBees Thanks for this. Some use only newspapers to combine. Others might use newspaper and on top of that also place a QE. I think the reason the QE is uses along with newspaper is to keep the queen from inadvertently rushing into the other colony as soon as a big enough hole is made in the newspaper. Without the QE, perhaps rushing into the other colony before the other colony got used to her smell might cause the other colony to kill her. The addition of the QE would prevent that from happening. Does that sound right?
Sorry bout that! Dadant and mann lake have them. I am trying some cheaper ones on amazon but so far I wouldn't recommend one off of amazon. Use to you could get a german grafting tool for 5 bucks. It is like 15 dollars now. Still looking for a cheaper source. If I find one I will let you all know!
Royal Jelly is taken from those Queen Cups, he didn't want (that he mashed) on the frame where QC's the bees made (as Emergency ones.) He then put his 'chosen egg of choice' from what his 3yr old Queen had laid, into that royal jelly by grafting into his plastic 'graft cups'. Hope this clarifies what Kamon did.🐝
i have a German grafting tool but have never really used it because i don't know how to get the tiny larva off the tool. do you have a video showing how to use the tool or another link to study?
@@kamonreynolds I have a chinese one too, but you said you liked the German better and I wanted to see if I had the same opinion once I learned to use it. Not sure how to place and rotate to get the larva off the end. And what is the difference between the two ends? Preference?
@@traceyrichardville9134 I use the fat end on the german tool. In this video we show how we graft with it and prime the cells. th-cam.com/video/VQ9T1mCo5l4/w-d-xo.html
Kamon, Greetings from South Central Kentucky! I really want to use your 5-frame nuc method and raise about 20 queens ASAP. I think I can do it but I don't know when I should start the grafting process. Here in KY, the average date of last frost is April 15. I suppose for you in TENN, your average last frost date is about 25 April. I think right now (February 11) is obviously much too early to start the grafting process. Actually, we are stuck in a massive ice storm and nothing is moving. So, if you can, please, tell me an earliest recommended TENNESSEE date for grafting and I will increase that date by 10 days and use that for a grafting date. I think we're about 100 miles North of you. Regards, Mike Godbey
Kamon, Sorry but I made an error. Assuming a 10-day seasonal difference your last frost date would be 10 days earlier or approx April 5. Please forgive!, Mike Godbey
I notice a wire fence near the Hives, is that your land on the other side or some one else's ? Just as a warning if you may not speak to them or even not know them, you could have what happened to a friend of mine that went to check on his hives and found most had died as the neighbour had sprayed along his fence line as well as further into his property to kill off who knows what, but it blew over onto my friends hives and 30 hives lost, thanks to no communication. Same happened to a Friends Son, his first Hive that I helped him set up, was killed by a neighbour spraying his fruit trees for bugs. We went and had a chat with the neighbour explaining it's fine to spray in your own yard, but if the breeze is blowing into other peoples yards they may not want a free pesticide over their back yard. He was very sorry but it didn't help the hive. I am sure many others have had similar experiences, it's also why I don't keep my hives any where near a fence. My Neighbours these days are all more like me as far as not using poisons, once they realise they will have less problems with bad or nuisance bugs if they don't keep killing the good ones :)
hi Kamon, I just ordered a queen rearing kit to try this as its hard to get queens in April in Central florida. my question is your method and process of banking queens if you have too many? I have 7 colonies, just a backyard beekeeper and don't want to expand beyond that really. I thought i could sell queens to make some extra money but how long can one bank them and how do you do that? thanks
What kind of frame bars are you using? & are the queen cups & frame bar a specific matched set? If so, what are they? & Where can I get them? Thanks Again, 👋 California Mike
@@kamonreynolds The shirts rock. First year beekeeper here. Soaking up all the knowledge i can so thank you for all the work you do putting these videos together.
Hi my name is Jani I have a question, whatever I do, my bees throw the eggs out of where they are. If you can give me a bad explanation about this, thank you.
Thanks Kamon I figured out that is it going to be $40 for the equipment I need for making my own. I love your method of queen rearing it makes sense and is easy to understand.
Both look too old to me, larvae should be harvested at 12 hours old after the egg has fallen over, The younger the better. Good video though Kamon, as you know there is a multiple methods to rearing queens, hope it all goes well 👍
I’m a first year beekeeper and I really value the information you put out Kamon. I find a lot of beekeepers in the forums who are dangerously under informed about raising bees and I feel like they could learn so much from your videos. Thanks for taking the time to do what you do!
Third year beekeeper. Really appreciate all your videos. So informative. Keep up the great work.
Another great video, Kamon. You make things seems SO simple! Thank you from PA.
Thank you I really like your videos very informative
Great video. Every one of your videos are very informative, and very entertaining. I am very glad that I stumbled across your channel.
Very good information! Definately useful for helping get onboard with queen rearing!
Thanks for the vids!
Thanks for showing the two sizes side by side. Perfect
I love how your cat is nearly always in your videos.
Truly enjoy your videos!
Another simple great informative video Kamon, well done
Love queen videos. Thank you
excellent, thank you for sharing your knowledge in such detail.
Thanks for the videos Kamon, very helpful.
Great video and nice shirt Ha.Ha. I remember when I didn't need glasses.
Going to follow your process this week to do my first grafts
About to try grafting tomorrow for the first time
thanks from Australia
Great video, thanks!
wow! you are my new fav bee youtube channel.
@ken williamson you aint my mama
Great video mate. Thanks
Well done! Thank you for this nice video. I'm following you
I’m about to try my hand at grafting for the first time. Thanks for sharing my friend.
The shirt!! 😂😂
I have been told off because I am smoke heavy and my thoughts are exactly like yours. I smoke em to move em. Better than crushing them. I was wondering how the cells needed to be started so thank you for making sure to add the royal jelly reasoning.
Great video thank you
Just like the Tide “Great “ but far advanced for me and this hobby... RTR!!! RKR (Roll Kamon Roll)!!!
You have some really good videos I love watching thanks for sharing
Love your videos!
Your shirt cracked me up!
great videos
Another great educational video. Looking forward to next one. Especially with Jimmy. Cincinnati
Hi my name is Jani I’m from Australia I have a question, whatever I do, my bees throw the eggs out of where they are. If you can give me a bad explanation about this, thank you.
@@yavarjani5339 Try putting the grafting frame in the hive a day before so the bees can polish the cups. Might help.
Ok, I just watched your “Making Queen bees using a Chinese grafting tool” video. That answered all my previous questions. So...Never Mind
Great video Watching closely
Thanks !!
i need that shirt. well, not that one specifically but...
Ok so for my own notes... Fill the cups with royal jelly to make it easier (dilute with distilled water if needed). Eggs hatch on day 3.5 and you want to graph with larvae around 4.5 days old. Cover with a warm damp towel to keep the larvae from drying out. Once again make sure there are no queen cells on the existing frames then put the graphed frame in beside a bee bread frame. Pull the graphs when they are 10 days in the starter/finisher nuc (14.5 days old total) as they will hatch around day 16.
Graft egg that is 24 hours old or less
You are the first to actually show priming the cell and a close up of floating the larvae in. Great job and I'm going to share this video for other new beekeepers because of the great details.
Question , maybe I missed it in the other video, do you have the bees polish the cups first? I have found that I get better results, but I also dry graft.
Have a great beekeeping season, young man.
Thanks Malcolm! I have never tried letting the bees polish them I might give that a shot a some point. How long do you stick them in? 24 hours?
@@kamonreynolds I do it overnight. Usually I put it in last thing in the evening and pull it out around 10AM when I start grafting. It's just my opinion that I got better acceptance or maybe I just got better at grafting. lol
I usually start in the bee yard after 10 AM when most of the forgers are out working.
Keep up your great videos, I'll be watching.
@@OklahomaBeekeeper I've heard that this helps with better acceptance too. I also heard that putting a little bit of honey in the cup the night before grafting might help them polish the cups out better too. All things I've heard, not tried.
Hey Kamon, it's Bob, your newest subscriber! Great video - I'm a newbee beekeeper and work like yours is my bee bread - I can't get enough. Did not have any idea about the queen rearing gig. In fact, I'm the guy who just BOUGHT 3 queens for 30 bucks each. They are mite resistant, but wow. I just checked to see if they are being accepted and it looks like one is kaput! Anyway, I am grateful for turning me on to this aspect of the craft (there are so many aspects!). Cant wait to see then next one when you pull those puppies out.
Thanks Bob!
@@kamonreynolds Kamon, could you provide some info (brand, where to order) on the german tool and the cups/frame you used? Thanks again!
Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees
Kamon it’s Bob in San Diego - Here’s a funny tidbit - TH-cam (or maybe it was my phone?) auto corrects your name from Kamon to Jamón - which is Spanish do ham. No offense intended.
Two quick questions.
1. Noticed your feeders are the same as mine but without the wood insert and plastic ladder. Not needed?
2. Your migratory lids look great. How do you construct them? I’ve had warping issues.
Thanks Kamon!
Good #saraikiLearning
👍
When you get ready for some free help for some hands on training beings I’m not far from you I’ll be there,and I need to purchase all the tools,interested doing queen rearing that way instead of my old way.
Firstly, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. After (I) place my queen cup frame in a hive can I place the hair roller type cage over her cell and leave the entire queen frame in the top box with a queen excluder in between and the nurse bees will provide for them and the other bees will not kill them?
Hey neighbor. I'm planning out my beekeeping year and could use a little help. I've never seen a video on scaling a queen rearing operation. I'm going to try grafting again this year. I want to set up my queen rearing operation to take best advantage of the resources I have and make the most increase possible. I have about 30 nucs 5 over 5 frame, 5 double deep 8 frame, 2 double deep 10 frame, one double medium 10 and one single deep 10. I was thinking I'd use two cell builders here in my back yard. I would keep my breeder queen here along with 2 nucleus colonies to feed nurse bees to the cell builders. I was thinking I could make a double queen colony (I'd like to play with one anyway) and use it as a finisher that I could also keep here. It is hard to know how much is too much for queen production when I'm just trying to see how many colonies I can make out of what I have. I forgot to say I'm planning to sell 5 overwintered nucs to start things off. Any advice? It's hard to know how to scale it when I've not done it before. Thanks!
if you put royal jelly in a small sealed cup how long would it keep in Frig?
I adore your tutorials.
Stupid question - doesn't the larvae fall out of the queen cups when upsidedown?
Seriously conscidering becoming a patreon.
Thank you so much!
Bee blessings of joy from Ireland.
💖🙏🌻
Hi Jamie, Thanks for watching! They stick very well to the cups. They royal jelly that they are floating in does a good job of keeping surface tension even after transfer. However, if you drop a frame or shake it hard they still can become dislodged but only rough handling will dislodge them.
@@kamonreynolds Ahhhh, wow! thank you brother, I was disturbed thinking they're upsidedown but suspected it was the miniscus that held them. Superb and tx for such a prompt answer!
Blessings of joy to you and your family.
💖🙏🌻
btw, do you have a patreon or some other tutorial group set up? lol
Clean around the each hives my friend keep them out from 🐜
Love your videos!
What do you do for drone population? Do you have specific queens you use to produce drones or just allow virgin to mate with the drones from your stocks in that yard?
So, you are using this one box to use as both a cell starter and finisher? If I understand you, by adding more nurse bees and emerging/capped brood (no eggs or larva), I can continue to use it to raise queens all season. That is just too easy Brilliant!
Kamon, I love in North Florida and have only 4 hives. I love your very informational and educational videos. However, due to my age, failing eyesight and number of hives, I don't need that many queens. Would you do a video on selecting the best hive to split moving the queen and maybe two frames to cause the good hive to naturally requeen. This would allow me to cage the newly mated queen and move her when I need to requeen another hive. Thank you for what you do.
dip the Chinese grafting tool in warm water it works a lot better.
Hey im not sure if you have a video on this or not but my neighbor has a couple of hives she got this spring and one of them is extremely weak right now due to the direction the box was facing. The queen is still laying but there arent enough bees to raise all of the larva. There are about 3 or 4 frames of eggs and larva and only 2 or 3 frames of bees in an 8 frame box. My question is how can i boost them without combing the two hives if possible?
bit confused with when you start counting days, so the 16 days it takes to make a queen includes the 3day egg period ?
so you take them out on day 10 leaving them 6days sat in the nucs or whatever to hatch
hey john when we say things in graft terms it is 10 days from the graft. This means a 10 day cell will emerge in 2 days or less since they are eggs for 3 days and we graft larvae 12-24 hours old.
how long can you keep royal jelly? I saw in your other videos that you mentioned saving it to use on your next batch
Hi can you tell me, is there any open brood in the hive other than what you just put in?
Just the larvae we graft is all they have. Thanks for watching!
Could you please put the queen rearing videos in a playlist?
Sure thing Mark I will have that straightened out this evening. Thanks for reminding me!
Hello from Romania! Kamon,whi do you mix distiled water and not normal drinking water in the cell with royal jelly? And you said 50:50 , do you mean 50%water and 50% royal jelly?
Hi Alex! It is to prevent anything like bacteria effecting the larvae. I personally don't dilute my royal jelly . Many pros and scientist do and they all recommend distilled water. Taking water and boiling it would work just fine once it is cooled. Likely a good water source would be fine without being distilled. When it comes to our queens we try to give them the best we can.
@@kamonreynolds thx a lot...i will probably too not dilute it...royal jelly is royal jelly,comes direcly form the bee to the larvae...i don't think bees put water in it too.
I am new to beekeeping and dont quite understand how you are getting royal jelly. Do you open a developing worker cell and take it from that? How much do you add to the queen cup to make a queen from it? Also when these virgin queens hatch what is the process for getting yhem mated. I would love to try raising some queens myself. Thank you for doing a video on this process.
In the first video. I talked about place a frame of larvae in for 2 days prior to the graft. This causes them to raise emergency queen cells and we can use the royal jelly for our queens on day 2. Thanks for watching!
Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees thanks, i missed the first video, going to watch it now.
Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees i just watched the first video. Now it makes much more sense on what you are doing. I have watched other beekeepers trying to explain how to raise queens but they didnt go into how they got royal jelly. You have made it really clear on the process. Thank you. I did raise raise a single queen in a nuc for my step dad and it was successful. She is really big and lays like crazy. I have some videos on my channel if you care to watch me stumble through my learning experiences. G&h honey bees
About 3:28 you are placing the larva into the cup. You used the word "under" are you tucking the larva into the royal jelly or setting it on top of it?
Old video, got a guestion about closing the hive after new larva are added. Totally closed or do you use a queen excluder in the opening?
Three year old queen!!!???!?!? I thought all you real beekeepers requeened everything every year!!! Cant wait to hear more...
We are trying to get all our queens to give us 2 good years. We will talk on that at some point!
Define 'real beekeeper' bro.
Great videos a lot of information. Do you put in your grafting cups in to be cleaned before you graft?
Hi Mark thanks for watching and for the comment. I have don't put my cups in for cleaning. Some beekeepers swear by that method and some don't see any advantage. (I am one of the latter) I have always had great success with using them straight out of the bag
Okay thanks
never saw a link for a stainless german grafting tool--the site you posted does not have them listed?? thanks!
Sorry there is a few things I forgot to add. You can find them at Mann lake and dadant also
@@kamonreynolds thanks!!! keep the videos coming....they really help alot! you are great teacher
@@kamonreynolds Just checking - Is Mann Lake still in business in 2020?
Hey Kamon. I love all your material. Thank you for all the knowledge you share with us beginners.
I have a question as a beginner.
In my bee yard I have some swarms that got inside some old beehives that I was not using. And I also have some beehives without a queen (Unsuccessful cuts).
The swarms are small in population 3 frames / hive. But the queens are laying eggs and they do just fine. So my question is, can I merge them together so I can make some strong and productive hives?
Merge Bee hives by using Newspaper between each colony. This will allow bees to merge gradually as they munch through that sheet of paper. And in this time, they both get used to each others scent.
Main Brood Hive, with Queen in base, add a Queen Excluder, then a piece of newspaper covering everything in that box, add your Queenless Hive box on top. Then add inner cover and roof.
After a few days these two bee hives become one ! Hope this helps. 🐝
@@mmb_MeAndMyBees I also add newspaper along with the QE, but do not know why. Why do you need the QE?
Dave Maloney .... You use Newspaper to merge bees of different colonies, because, bees with the Queen carry her phremones about their hive. While those 'being merged' are 'queenless' by eg Split, the Beekeeper put her somewhere else (Sold her !)
Or she might of died re age, incident, has swarmed etc, etc ....
These bees still have 'memory of their former Monach,' and need to learn and adjust, be loyal to the new Majesty (!) Newsprint slows the merger process down, each side can start to communicate the existing Queens pheromone to all. 👑
Queen excluders are used to exclude the Queen from
:Honey Supers (stop eggs being laid) in honey stores
: Keep Queen in a certain place by choice by the Beekeeper.
Eg Queen Cage, break Brood cycle to control mites.
Crown of Thorns, to maybe mark the Queen.
A QE (sized mesh) on the entrance, like those vent Dials seen on Nuc Hive Boxes... To keep the Queen "in" as her colony get used to her new home. Foragers fly to get nectar and pollen, but Queen stays put, because she cannot get through the QE unlike the Workers, Drones, and possibly an odd slim virgin Queen... 😉
.... So QE has lots of uses.
Hope this explains things. 🐝
@@mmb_MeAndMyBees Thanks for this. Some use only newspapers to combine. Others might use newspaper and on top of that also place a QE. I think the reason the QE is uses along with newspaper is to keep the queen from inadvertently rushing into the other colony as soon as a big enough hole is made in the newspaper. Without the QE, perhaps rushing into the other colony before the other colony got used to her smell might cause the other colony to kill her. The addition of the QE would prevent that from happening. Does that sound right?
I didn't see a link to the german grafting tool you used?
Sorry bout that! Dadant and mann lake have them. I am trying some cheaper ones on amazon but so far I wouldn't recommend one off of amazon. Use to you could get a german grafting tool for 5 bucks. It is like 15 dollars now. Still looking for a cheaper source. If I find one I will let you all know!
Hi Kamon, thank you for all the helpful videos! I'm not understanding where you get the royal jelly from for the queen cups. Can you clarify this?
Royal Jelly is taken from those Queen Cups, he didn't want (that he mashed) on the frame where QC's the bees made (as Emergency ones.) He then put his 'chosen egg of choice' from what his 3yr old Queen had laid, into that royal jelly by grafting into his plastic 'graft cups'. Hope this clarifies what Kamon did.🐝
Are you putting the larvae into the jelly? I’ve learned they have gills on one side they need to breath from, will they eat their way to fresh air? 😅
i have a German grafting tool but have never really used it because i don't know how to get the tiny larva off the tool. do you have a video showing how to use the tool or another link to study?
using royal jelly or a Chinese grafting tool helps tremendously
@@kamonreynolds I have a chinese one too, but you said you liked the German better and I wanted to see if I had the same opinion once I learned to use it. Not sure how to place and rotate to get the larva off the end. And what is the difference between the two ends? Preference?
@@traceyrichardville9134 I use the fat end on the german tool. In this video we show how we graft with it and prime the cells. th-cam.com/video/VQ9T1mCo5l4/w-d-xo.html
Kamon, Greetings from South Central Kentucky! I really want to use your 5-frame nuc method and raise about 20 queens ASAP. I think I can do it but I don't know when I should start the grafting process. Here in KY, the average date of last frost is April 15. I suppose for you in TENN, your average last frost date is about 25 April. I think right now (February 11) is obviously much too early to start the grafting process. Actually, we are stuck in a massive ice storm and nothing is moving. So, if you can, please, tell me an earliest recommended TENNESSEE date for grafting and I will increase that date by 10 days and use that for a grafting date. I think we're about 100 miles North of you.
Regards,
Mike Godbey
Kamon, Sorry but I made an error. Assuming a 10-day seasonal difference your last frost date would be 10 days earlier or approx April 5. Please forgive!,
Mike Godbey
Hey Michael I start right around the first of April. Some years I push into the last week of March.
How do you store your dry pollen. Will it stay fresh if you leave in original bag. Ps I watch your videos every day thanks.
Hi, Christopher, we store pollen in the freezer and we never buy it. Could have diseases.
Where are you getting the royal jelly from and how do you store it?
I notice a wire fence near the Hives, is that your land on the other side or some one else's ?
Just as a warning if you may not speak to them or even not know them, you could have what happened to a friend of mine that went to check on his hives and found most had died as the neighbour had sprayed along his fence line as well as further into his property to kill off who knows what, but it blew over onto my friends hives and 30 hives lost, thanks to no communication.
Same happened to a Friends Son, his first Hive that I helped him set up, was killed by a neighbour spraying his fruit trees for bugs.
We went and had a chat with the neighbour explaining it's fine to spray in your own yard, but if the breeze is blowing into other peoples yards they may not want a free pesticide over their back yard.
He was very sorry but it didn't help the hive.
I am sure many others have had similar experiences, it's also why I don't keep my hives any where near a fence.
My Neighbours these days are all more like me as far as not using poisons, once they realise they will have less problems with bad or nuisance bugs if they don't keep killing the good ones :)
hi Kamon, I just ordered a queen rearing kit to try this as its hard to get queens in April in Central florida. my question is your method and process of banking queens if you have too many? I have 7 colonies, just a backyard beekeeper and don't want to expand beyond that really. I thought i could sell queens to make some extra money but how long can one bank them and how do you do that? thanks
What kind of frame bars are you using? & are the queen cups & frame bar a specific matched set? If so, what are they? & Where can I get them? Thanks Again, 👋 California Mike
How do you get the bees off the frame that you are grafting from?
Love the channel, new subscriber. Does your wife buy your shirts?
Yes she does. I never buy anything clothes wise
@@kamonreynolds The shirts rock. First year beekeeper here. Soaking up all the knowledge i can so thank you for all the work you do putting these videos together.
Hey Kamon what if you do not have royal jelly, can you still graft??
Absolutely that is called dry grafting and that is what I typically do.
Can I use jelly from cap drone or brood?
Do you need to keep the entrance closed
Is that Nuc closed so the bees don’t get out? Thanks
Hi my name is Jani I have a question, whatever I do, my bees throw the eggs out of where they are. If you can give me a bad explanation about this, thank you.
@Kamon Reynolds do you like/have you tried Nicot Cultivating Box cup queen system?
I haven't jack perhaps someday
Hello, i'm Indonesia. How to make a royal jelly???? Thx
Kamon where do you get your queen rearing equipment
Mann lake and Kelley's. You can get cheap grafting tools on our Amazon link as well. Which is in the video description
Thanks Kamon I figured out that is it going to be $40 for the equipment I need for making my own. I love your method of queen rearing it makes sense and is easy to understand.
I checked out your amazon store (I BOOKMARKED IT), but I did not see the German Grafting tool. Where is it?
Unfortunately, amazon no longer has a seller for it. Mann lake and Dadant sell a quality grafting tool it is just more expensive.
do you find the JZ bee cups have same success as beeswax cups?
Hey man. The acceptance is better in my experience
@@kamonreynolds so better acceptance with JZ plastic cups?? thanks
Whoops yeah better with the jzbzs
@@kamonreynolds well ill be dang...alrighty then :)
so that white stuff makes a larva to become a queen instead of worker?
Both look too old to me, larvae should be harvested at 12 hours old after the egg has fallen over, The younger the better.
Good video though Kamon, as you know there is a multiple methods to rearing queens, hope it all goes well 👍
Why can’t you just use an egg to graft with?
For whatever reason honeybees won't accept them as eggs
@@kamonreynolds huh. That’s so bizarre. I wonder if they can tell based off the level of pheromones once hatched? Interesting.