Ian, the energy and activity in your apiaries and the intensity and dedication that you and your team demonstrate each and every season is flat out inspiring. Thank you for sharing such a rich education in beekeeping!
Gréât explantation of the brood management. Especially regarding removing those odd emergency cells above the exclude. Excellent. It explains a it all so well. Hope those boxes fill up nicely. Good luck. I also say it’s never good luck, you create it by giving the bees everything they need. They do the work, you just set it up right before. Brilliance personified! 👍💯💥🐝🐝
Normally bees will kill every emerged queen upper the queen excluder if there is no way for her to fly out and mate , here in Greece we normally don't bother for queen cells in the floor and we check only the brood nest for swarming cells and giving space to the queen to lay, Canada seems to be a blessed place for bees, personally I haven't seen such a heavy flow in my place as i see in yours , be healthy and keep going ..
Hi , absolutely love your videos and I’ve almost watched every one of them. I’ve learnt so much about managing bees on a commercial level. It’s help me set up my own business in Australia, climate is very different however because you explain things so well I’m able to adapt the advice to suit my conditions. I also love the fact that you let the bees requeen them selfs when conditions are right. Thank you very much 🐝
They wanted to fill my brood boxes this year with nectar and my queens didn’t have much room to lay and I found swarm cells in several hives. Had to do a couple splits to keep them from swarming Wish I could cut back to going in the brood nest a couple times through the spring but I’d probably loose them to swarms. This is my second year and have 7 hives. Thanks for your videos their really helpful!!!
In production honey, drawn out comb is the most important tool you have out side of strong numbers.. The main reason a colony would back fill the brood nest is lack of usable comb and or obstructed excluder .
I am surprised you don't get more queen cells above the excluder. My experience in NZ is if there is eggs and lava above the excluder they will make queen cells.
Ian, sorry to ask a question that may have been covered before. I see you scrape off the tops or bottoms of frames but it seems random. What are you looking for that you don't want on there? I've heard some say that you don't want wax on the ground that attracts unwanted vermin to your hives. Your take? So appreciative of your time and knowledge...you are a mentor to many! My personal thanks.
Lara M I randomly scrape to help remove frames and keep a tidy house. Each hive basically gets a complete top bar scrape down each spring ... then I just tidy up if I have time Ya kept it off the ground , but it’s not a big deal here
Ian, not sure if you have ever been asked this before, but do any of your brothers help out on the bee farm like you do in other farm operations? I'm sure they are plenty busy too, as my dad often said when we were growing up "there is always something to be done on a farm", but I can't say I've ever seen anyone but you in front of the camera. Thanks for another excellent learning video.
Ian, Here in South Africa we have the Cape Honey Bee (Capensis). It is very difficult to split our bees without developing laying workers. What we o is, on canola, with 2 deep boxes, we shake all the bees from the top box to the bottom box. Move all open brood to the top and sealed brood to the bottom. All bees in the bottom. Place queen excluder on the bottom and placed open brood in box above. All the nurse bees will go to the top box. They will immediately start making supercedure cells on the top. Perhaps this is what you are seeing? IF your balance of open brood is skewed to the top box, this may be the cause of queen cells in the top box.
Had a weird thing happen with TH-cam today. Many of my subscriptions were somehow off/unsubbed, had to go back in and hit subscribe and the bell on a number of my subscribed channels. I don't think I've done anything against their ToS, but you never know these days.
Great video again! But this huge amount of work to shake them down to one box, raises the question: Whats the benefit of this? Let me put the question another way. If one brood box is enough for the rest of the season. (And a quick calculation of hypothetical egg laying rate and cell capacity of one box seems to confirm this) One broodchamber should also been enough up to this point in the season. Your boxes are full of bees, no question there, i wouldn't want to confine them to one box. But if you added the first box above an excluder, couldn't you just have your first box of honey in the second box already? Or since you are feeding heavily, a box of food for splits or even winterstorage?
I think his goal is to grow the brood to have enough bees to gather the huge nectar flow. More bees = more honey. Also, to offset the yearly attrition, he wants to be able to replace the bees he's lost over-wintering by way of splits. He has the time and equipment to do that in the spring when the flow is minimal. Out of winter - feed, assess hive strength, equalize the apiary, build brood (two boxes), take splits to replace winter losses and create huge work force to gather every bit of honey out in the field. Then, get the queen out of the honey supers and down into the first box where she will have plenty of room to replace the bees that are naturally coming to the end of their life cycles. Since each frame of brood translates to three frames of bees, the queen keeps the colony numbers strong throughout the honey season with enough bees to get into (and through) winter. When he shakes her back down into the first box, the growth phase of season is complete and he can then turn his concentration toward collecting the fruits of all of that planning and management. Because he takes the time to use that second box to build brood instead of using it to collect honey, he is taking the minimal loss of a questionable amount of honey (due to the unpredictable weather in his location) to invest in the workforce he will need to bring in the definite huge honey flow later in the season (and to keep his hive numbers consistent from one season to the next). Having planted the crops himself, he knows almost exactly when and where that nectar will be available to his bees! At least, this is what I have gleaned from watching him. I hope I explained that coherently.
@@LaraLovesBees Thank you, for your efford to explain, what is happening. I'm well aware of the idea behind the temporary expansion of the broodnest, to allow for maximum growth in the hives. Still I'm wondering, if this really is helping the growth, or if it is a mere "brooddilution". Meaning, the same amount of brood is just stretched over two boxes instead of one very compact one. Granted a compact broodnest, where almost every cell is filled with brood, has its risks. You don't have much reserves if a cold spell hits your bees. If you want to take splits, every comb you take, is already a big amount of bees (which could set back your hives more than you anticipate). On the other hand, a compact brood nest, can probably be tended more easily by the bees and almost heats itselves. In an apiary, where feeding and supplementing already is well established, the minimum reserves, probably are not that big an issue. A self heating brood nest in his cold environment, could be a bonus. What do you think?
@@ludgermerkens Yes, I see your thinking. Heat is important in his region. My thought is that once the feed is on their hive, the queen starts laying like crazy, so the nest is now getting crowded and quite warm = swarm conditions --> bigger house. If the numbers aren't there, no extra box because then heating the cluster would be an issue. It sounds as though he lost around a dozen hives to swarm this year, so finding that balance appears to be a lifelong pursuit. Still, not a bad ratio considering the number of hives he manages. It seems that the sheets of brood we see are pretty solid. If the brood were being diluted over the two boxes, I think the sheets would look more spotty, spread out. He did pull around 200 splits from a single yard that then produced a lot of honey, so it appears that the hives handled the expansion pretty well. I'm grateful for him sharing his experience in having learned the optimal conditions for a hive to thrive and remain healthy from year to year. Thank you for sharing this conversation with me. It solidifies my understanding and keeps me asking questions.
@@LaraLovesBees yes 12 swarms in an operation this size, is pretty good. Congrats to his breeder selection there! Especially if you consider the low amount of work, he can put into swarm controls. yes his hives managed the expansion pretty well. Probably no harm done there. (expecially if you consider the harvest he now has). From a workload perspective it might still be interesting to know, if this expansion actually provides him any benefit. I'm not saying, what he does isn't working. (it obviously does for him) I'm just wondering, if the expansion step could be skipped without doing any harm.
So let me get this right, you drive the queen to the bottom box and then all the cells in the top box will emerge and then they just pack that top box with honey and then you start adding supers? Are your supers seeps or mediums?
When the new queen emerges in the brood box wouldn't the old queen leave with a lot of bees? What happens with the swarm and what is the chance the new queen does not make it back? Also, do you mark the box as having a self-produced queen? I do enjoy your listening to your expertise.
I am a new 1st year bee keeper and I have bought 4 queens on line 2 Virgin 2 marked and mated i have only 1 new virgian queen i bought laying and the others still haven't started laying even the so called mated one r not laying i put Virginian box on 4 16 20 and mated queens 5-7-20 I'm new to this but they should be laying. What can I do to fix. All queen are still in the boxes
Please do not forget to allow the option to "translate automatically" for the Spanish language. I can read and understand a text in English perfectly, but sometimes I have a hard time understanding when they speak to me in this language, even if you have a very good diction. Thanks and see you next video. A hug.
Aloha Ian from Hawaii , I have been inspired to run our yard with single brood chambers and have a question about wear and tear on the bees moving through the excluder . Thats the down side that I hear . Whats your opinion about that and what about a secondary opening in the supers to bypass the excluder ??
Regularly getting 200 lb. honey crops with me using excluder's tells me that I shouldn't worry about wear and tear on bees going through them. I don' believe in secondary openings above the excluder either, I experimented with them years ago and found that the bees put way too much pollen in the supers, which is something you don't want.
Ian, what are your thoughts on putting the supercedure cell frame into the bottom box to let the requeening process play out? Too much work, incorrect timing for the flow...?
Why don't you take the frame with the queen cell and another brood frame and make a split? This would increase your stock and provide more for next year.
Need help in bee community, I have Russian hive swarm on me all of a sudden. A week goes by got my queen. Inside only drowns and nurse bees very few workers. Add brood and queen wait a week no activity of bees outside. Open box no eggs , queen there, lot of drones and nurse bees that hatch.. I am stumped. Anybody had this before in hive.
So you have a bit more vigor in the last couple of videos can you see a record crop coming???Love the way you don’t carry on about queen cells what’s wrong with a colony re queening itself it’s like a car putting a new engine in by itself why would you try and stop that??? $$$$
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You have got a well oiled machine operating set up on how you do all this . What great ideas . Thanks for you videos with great information for us .
Ian, the energy and activity in your apiaries and the intensity and dedication that you and your team demonstrate each and every season is flat out inspiring. Thank you for sharing such a rich education in beekeeping!
Gréât explantation of the brood management. Especially regarding removing those odd emergency cells above the exclude. Excellent.
It explains a it all so well.
Hope those boxes fill up nicely. Good luck.
I also say it’s never good luck, you create it by giving the bees everything they need. They do the work, you just set it up right before.
Brilliance personified! 👍💯💥🐝🐝
So what about swarm prevention?
@@linoleumbonypart385 seems like his bees have little or non at all swarm tendencies, thats only explanation
Normally bees will kill every emerged queen upper the queen excluder if there is no way for her to fly out and mate , here in Greece we normally don't bother for queen cells in the floor and we check only the brood nest for swarming cells and giving space to the queen to lay, Canada seems to be a blessed place for bees, personally I haven't seen such a heavy flow in my place as i see in yours , be healthy and keep going ..
Hi , absolutely love your videos and I’ve almost watched every one of them. I’ve learnt so much about managing bees on a commercial level. It’s help me set up my own business in Australia, climate is very different however because you explain things so well I’m able to adapt the advice to suit my conditions. I also love the fact that you let the bees requeen them selfs when conditions are right.
Thank you very much 🐝
They wanted to fill my brood boxes this year with nectar and my queens didn’t have much room to lay and I found swarm cells in several hives. Had to do a couple splits to keep them from swarming Wish I could cut back to going in the brood nest a couple times through the spring but I’d probably loose them to swarms. This is my second year and have 7 hives. Thanks for your videos their really helpful!!!
In production honey, drawn out comb is the most important tool you have out side of strong numbers.. The main reason a colony would back fill the brood nest is lack of usable comb and or obstructed excluder .
Great videos. Thanks for all your information.
Hola, felicitaciones por tu trabajo!! Si fuera posible activar subtítulos. Muchas gracias
What a great explanation! Thank you.
I am surprised you don't get more queen cells above the excluder. My experience in NZ is if there is eggs and lava above the excluder they will make queen cells.
Ian, sorry to ask a question that may have been covered before. I see you scrape off the tops or bottoms of frames but it seems random. What are you looking for that you don't want on there? I've heard some say that you don't want wax on the ground that attracts unwanted vermin to your hives. Your take? So appreciative of your time and knowledge...you are a mentor to many! My personal thanks.
Lara M
I randomly scrape to help remove frames and keep a tidy house. Each hive basically gets a complete top bar scrape down each spring ... then I just tidy up if I have time
Ya kept it off the ground , but it’s not a big deal here
Ian, not sure if you have ever been asked this before, but do any of your brothers help out on the bee farm like you do in other farm operations? I'm sure they are plenty busy too, as my dad often said when we were growing up "there is always something to be done on a farm", but I can't say I've ever seen anyone but you in front of the camera. Thanks for another excellent learning video.
Glen Copeland
Not so much, very busy on the farm spraying and hauling cattle to pastures
Ian,
Here in South Africa we have the Cape Honey Bee (Capensis). It is very difficult to split our bees without developing laying workers.
What we o is, on canola, with 2 deep boxes, we shake all the bees from the top box to the bottom box. Move all open brood to the top and sealed brood to the bottom. All bees in the bottom. Place queen excluder on the bottom and placed open brood in box above. All the nurse bees will go to the top box. They will immediately start making supercedure cells on the top.
Perhaps this is what you are seeing?
IF your balance of open brood is skewed to the top box, this may be the cause of queen cells in the top box.
Thanks again...you've made a sleepless night well worth it.
Had a weird thing happen with TH-cam today. Many of my subscriptions were somehow off/unsubbed, had to go back in and hit subscribe and the bell on a number of my subscribed channels. I don't think I've done anything against their ToS, but you never know these days.
Great video again! But this huge amount of work to shake them down to one box, raises the question: Whats the benefit of this? Let me put the question another way. If one brood box is enough for the rest of the season. (And a quick calculation of hypothetical egg laying rate and cell capacity of one box seems to confirm this) One broodchamber should also been enough up to this point in the season. Your boxes are full of bees, no question there, i wouldn't want to confine them to one box. But if you added the first box above an excluder, couldn't you just have your first box of honey in the second box already? Or since you are feeding heavily, a box of food for splits or even winterstorage?
I think his goal is to grow the brood to have enough bees to gather the huge nectar flow. More bees = more honey. Also, to offset the yearly attrition, he wants to be able to replace the bees he's lost over-wintering by way of splits. He has the time and equipment to do that in the spring when the flow is minimal. Out of winter - feed, assess hive strength, equalize the apiary, build brood (two boxes), take splits to replace winter losses and create huge work force to gather every bit of honey out in the field. Then, get the queen out of the honey supers and down into the first box where she will have plenty of room to replace the bees that are naturally coming to the end of their life cycles. Since each frame of brood translates to three frames of bees, the queen keeps the colony numbers strong throughout the honey season with enough bees to get into (and through) winter.
When he shakes her back down into the first box, the growth phase of season is complete and he can then turn his concentration toward collecting the fruits of all of that planning and management. Because he takes the time to use that second box to build brood instead of using it to collect honey, he is taking the minimal loss of a questionable amount of honey (due to the unpredictable weather in his location) to invest in the workforce he will need to bring in the definite huge honey flow later in the season (and to keep his hive numbers consistent from one season to the next). Having planted the crops himself, he knows almost exactly when and where that nectar will be available to his bees!
At least, this is what I have gleaned from watching him. I hope I explained that coherently.
@@LaraLovesBees Thank you, for your efford to explain, what is happening. I'm well aware of the idea behind the temporary expansion of the broodnest, to allow for maximum growth in the hives. Still I'm wondering, if this really is helping the growth, or if it is a mere "brooddilution". Meaning, the same amount of brood is just stretched over two boxes instead of one very compact one.
Granted a compact broodnest, where almost every cell is filled with brood, has its risks. You don't have much reserves if a cold spell hits your bees. If you want to take splits, every comb you take, is already a big amount of bees (which could set back your hives more than you anticipate). On the other hand, a compact brood nest, can probably be tended more easily by the bees and almost heats itselves.
In an apiary, where feeding and supplementing already is well established, the minimum reserves, probably are not that big an issue. A self heating brood nest in his cold environment, could be a bonus.
What do you think?
@@ludgermerkens Yes, I see your thinking. Heat is important in his region.
My thought is that once the feed is on their hive, the queen starts laying like crazy, so the nest is now getting crowded and quite warm = swarm conditions --> bigger house. If the numbers aren't there, no extra box because then heating the cluster would be an issue. It sounds as though he lost around a dozen hives to swarm this year, so finding that balance appears to be a lifelong pursuit. Still, not a bad ratio considering the number of hives he manages.
It seems that the sheets of brood we see are pretty solid. If the brood were being diluted over the two boxes, I think the sheets would look more spotty, spread out. He did pull around 200 splits from a single yard that then produced a lot of honey, so it appears that the hives handled the expansion pretty well. I'm grateful for him sharing his experience in having learned the optimal conditions for a hive to thrive and remain healthy from year to year.
Thank you for sharing this conversation with me. It solidifies my understanding and keeps me asking questions.
@@LaraLovesBees yes 12 swarms in an operation this size, is pretty good. Congrats to his breeder selection there! Especially if you consider the low amount of work, he can put into swarm controls.
yes his hives managed the expansion pretty well. Probably no harm done there. (expecially if you consider the harvest he now has). From a workload perspective it might still be interesting to know, if this expansion actually provides him any benefit. I'm not saying, what he does isn't working. (it obviously does for him) I'm just wondering, if the expansion step could be skipped without doing any harm.
So let me get this right, you drive the queen to the bottom box and then all the cells in the top box will emerge and then they just pack that top box with honey and then you start adding supers? Are your supers seeps or mediums?
the colburn farm
Deeps
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog when is the best time add a second super?
When the new queen emerges in the brood box wouldn't the old queen leave with a lot of bees? What happens with the swarm and what is the chance the new queen does not make it back? Also, do you mark the box as having a self-produced queen? I do enjoy your listening to your expertise.
Raj Beekie
This business is all up to chance
Sometimes we need to let it play out
I am a new 1st year bee keeper and I have bought 4 queens on line 2 Virgin 2 marked and mated i have only 1 new virgian queen i bought laying and the others still haven't started laying even the so called mated one r not laying i put Virginian box on 4 16 20 and mated queens 5-7-20 I'm new to this but they should be laying. What can I do to fix. All queen are still in the boxes
Please do not forget to allow the option to "translate automatically" for the Spanish language.
I can read and understand a text in English perfectly, but sometimes I have a hard time understanding when they speak to me in this language, even if you have a very good diction.
Thanks and see you next video. A hug.
Aloha Ian from Hawaii , I have been inspired to run our yard with single brood chambers and have a question about wear and tear on the bees moving through the excluder . Thats the down side that I hear . Whats your opinion about that and what about a secondary opening in the supers to bypass the excluder ??
Regularly getting 200 lb. honey crops with me using excluder's tells me that I shouldn't worry about wear and tear on bees going through them. I don' believe in secondary openings above the excluder either, I experimented with them years ago and found that the bees put way too much pollen in the supers, which is something you don't want.
Don‘t worry about that, just use good metal excluders made from round bars, not the ones with punched holes.
@@kaistumer198
Exactly, those cheap flimsy plastic ones are useless.
won't the hive swarm since there is a super sedure cell and a queen in that box?
👍👍👍
Ian, what are your thoughts on putting the supercedure cell frame into the bottom box to let the requeening process play out? Too much work, incorrect timing for the flow...?
Lara M
I’m too busy
I count these as summertime casualties. It’s just business
Seems like that queen was holding her own, wondering how old she was?
Why don't you take the frame with the queen cell and another brood frame and make a split? This would increase your stock and provide more for next year.
BeeHavin' Apiaries also he makes his own queens
Are you not concerned when the flows on that it won’t get honey bound in brood box.
Debbie Rodda
Hence the scramble to box up the hives
One day empty, next full
Streamline. What about adding your supers when you put excluders on? Any reason why you don't do that?
Bee Bob
We were scrambling to get excluders in before the boxes got too heavy to shake. Some yards got thirds
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Gotcha
With a supercedure cell, do you mark the original queen?
Can you show us the flowers
By average how long your boxes last
Need help in bee community, I have Russian hive swarm on me all of a sudden. A week goes by got my queen. Inside only drowns and nurse bees very few workers. Add brood and queen wait a week no activity of bees outside. Open box no eggs , queen there, lot of drones and nurse bees that hatch.. I am stumped. Anybody had this before in hive.
give them a frame with eggs then in couple days check if there will be a qeen's cocoon
can be that for now your qeen is virgin yet
Ian how long after they hatch before they start to forage you figure ?
Ryan Nims oh 15-20 days or so
But as they emerge they send others to the field
According to my chart bees orient on day 22 after emerging from pupa. Field bees are 3 weeks old minimum.
I d remove that queen and multiply in case it is genetique requeening in such a way is superbe ;)
who knows if it is genetique ?
So you have a bit more vigor in the last couple of videos can you see a record crop coming???Love the way you don’t carry on about queen cells what’s wrong with a colony re queening itself it’s like a car putting a new engine in by itself why would you try and stop that???
$$$$
Munibungbee King
It happens all the time, we just see the failures
Please don’t burn those boxes many younger commercial beekeepers like would love to use them