The Central Commandments of Natural Beekeeping
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ส.ค. 2024
- Today we are so excited to bring you the philosophies we follow as Natural Beekeepers. We ask that you join us on this journey as we define what it means to be Natural Beekeepers and show you how we conduct ourselves in our Apiary.
You can find copies of "Keeping Bees with a Smile" on "www.HorizontalHive.com" as well as a bunch of great information on how to build your own hives and swarm hives!
Would you like some behind the scenes content? Become a supporter on our Patreon and you can get it and other cool benefits while helping us better our apiary! Visit here:
/ secureacresnaturalbees
You can also make a one time donation to our "buymeacoffee" page, these funds always go towards new planted flowers and Bee equipment!
www.buymeacoffee.com/SecureAc... - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
I took commandment two to heart with my Langstroth hives. I built all my frames to be the standard 19" wide, yet lengthened them to all be 18.5" deep. They do get heavy at times, but nothing I can't handle, and Its easy to see that the bees work them more like what is found out in wild colonies. And my hives are all made out of Cedar, which holds a much greater R-Value for retaining heat and cool.
As for Commandment 3, it can be vary hard being that part of the joy of beekeeping is being with them and inspecting them. So I have altered this commandment a little. I only visit my hives every 5 weeks, and longer if its cooler weather. But love getting inside hives--its part of the great joy of beekeeping.
With all this said, I believe in these commandments--they are put in place FOR THE BEES!.
Commandment four--I STAND BEHIND. Great job explaining all this.
Same with me. Although I live in central Florida, I don't have to feed them at all, especially in the winter.
Just finished the book GREAT read.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I love this and how you refer closely to our learned icons! I am watching it today as a revision short cut as I'm thinking about preparing for Spring! I also love how you talk compassionately about bee stress... that's exactly the point! We dont want to stress out our stripey neighbours! Best wishes to you and your colonies 😃🐝
Thank you Vicki!
This book means the world to us and I think if most beekeepers could indulge in it the bees would be much better off. We did traditional beekeeping from 2012-2017 and we faced failure every year. It wasn't until we discovered this book with its natural beekeeping methods that we learned that beekeeping can be easy, fun and successful!
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees that provides extra evidence for you then, that you can compare one type of beekeeping to the other! You know for sure ours is best 😃 Yes I'm doing a good bit of study before the Spring to arm myself with confidence with the gospels of Layens, Sharashkin and Lazutin! I love your videos 😃 best wishes
Keep up the videos! Love the message! Agree with all of your points.
Thank you so much! We really do appreciate the very kind words. :)
I am currently reading this book but I really enjoyed your video and summary of the book! I am a brand new bee keeper and caught a swarm Around June
That's awesome! Keep us updated on your colony!
Fantastic! Your property is beautiful!
Thank you!
You calling me fat? Lol. Great video. Got the book for fathers day. I have not finished it yet, but so far like everything that I see.
Thank you! Its quite a book that can really make people think outside the box for their beekeeping.
I have langstroth hive with 10 frames. How many honey frames should I keep in the hive with for the winter to last four months? As the bees multiply through out the summer should I put a box on top of the existing hive? Also would you recommend using queen excluders between the bottom box and the added box above?
Generally a single deep of a Langstroth hive is enough for the Bees to winter on, remember adding too much honey is harder for them to heat! We don't use queen excluders on our Layens hives and I can't say if they are best for Langstroth or not.
You should make a video on how u build your hives
We've been thinking about it!
Bee Boy Bill has an excellent video on making Layens hives at this link: th-cam.com/video/1_RThkHPs0E/w-d-xo.html
Great video bro what is the size of your hives and how many frames do u have in them..
Thank you!
Most of our hives are fourteen frames but our sourwood acres hive (where I talk about sugar water) is a nineteen frame.
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees from your recommendations i just bought the book "keeping bees with a smile" and I'm going to learn all i can about this great little worker and how late can u catch bees in a swarm trap
That's great!
For swarming It generally depends on your location (warmer climates have longer swarming periods), but in the mountains of NC we start seeing swarms in early April and the latest we've seen one is August. Now I understand they can swarm all the way till October so generally April-October you have a chance. :)
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees so if u catch a late swarm then u probably will have to feed them threw out the winter rite or will it depend on how fast they can make honey for there reserve for the winter
You should feed them when you first catch them but once it's November you shouldn't go into the hive until the Spring.
I recommend KETO
Keto is a great diet!
I've never had a problem feeding sugar. Feeding honey to bees risks spreading disease, unless it is from that colony. In some ways sugar may be better than honey for over wintering bees. Honey has substances that the bees need to excrete with cleansing flights, from which they may not return. Sugar metabolises to CO2 and water. No need for a risky cleansing flight.
Hey Naboo,
We have quite a few reasons for not feeding our Bees sugar water but Ill read you an excerpt from "Keeping Bees with a Smile" which we base our beekeeping off of.
"As is well known, worker bees feed on nectar or honey by drawing on precious stockpiles. In addition to carbohydrates, nectar contains vitamins and micronutrients, while honey also contains traces of pollen. Unlike these natural products, sugar-based supplements contain nothing but carbohydrates. Therefore, sugar based food is one of the main reasons for bee diseases, including the widespread varroa mite. One principle common to all living things is that an organism weakened by a shortage of necessary substances is most likely to be targeted by pathogenic microorganisms and parasites. And it is simply impossible to avoid such problems unless bees live on their wholesome natural diet."
Before we became natural beekeepers and listened to Fedor Lazutin, we had many many years where our entire apiary would die out and one of the things we did frequently was feed our bees sugar water. Now along with other adopted principles we've switched to only feeding honey and our Bees have been doing great for years.
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees Varroa mites are not a consequence of sugar syrup. They are a consequence of keeping honey bees in the same habitat as apis cerana and the mite jumped species. I would not recommend stealing all the honey from a colony and replacing it with syrup. However, 2/3 honey to 1/3 syrup reduces the need for cleansing flights. Don't forget that to all intents and purposes, an adult bee has finished growing and needing the nutrition to grow. Nutrient needs other than fuel are minimal. Nutrients for raising brood will come from stores of pollen processed into bee bread.
@@nabooshaman6107 Just curious if you had a source for this..."Don't forget that to all intents and purposes, an adult bee has finished growing and needing the nutrition to grow. Nutrient needs other than fuel are minimal." If you have a link to that info I would love to read it. Intuitively this doesn't make sense to me. As I understand it, just because a living thing is "done growing" doesn't mean it no longer needs adequate nutrients to continuing metabolizing effectively and functioning with good health.
I am raising bees to be locally adapted to my area.
It is nearly impossible to catch a swarm of bees in my area.
People here don't call to have honey bees removed from a building or tree or whatever else they make home, they just kill them.
Yes in the wild you will find bees in trees and most of the trees you will find them in are NOT horizontal but rather vertical with less space horizontally in all directions most time than a Langstroth hive.
Bigger spaces with bigger frames does not equate to healthier bees.
If you put bees into a large hive and leave them to their own devices you will find out that the bees WILL reduce the size of the cavity by drawing out very deep comb around the primary brood area and fill it full with honey and never touch that honey.
Do these larger hives work and do well? Sure they do. Any size hive will do well. It is not the size of the hive that matters but rather the colony strength that matters.
You catch wild bees and those bees do well because they are stronger in so many ways.
If you are gong to go out and remove bees from nature and put them in an unnatural environment (your hive box) and do nothing to help them assimilate to the new environment, such as feeding them sugar syrup to get started, just leave them in the wild and set up your boxes and wait to see if they want you make your box their new home when they swarm.
Obviously honey is much better for the bees, but what do you do after taking them out of their natural environment and put them in your boxes? Let them starve because you have no honey for them?
It's called farming and animal husbandry.
Some times you have to do things that don't match nature.
Farmers feed their cows hay that they cut down a bailed. Cows in nature don't eat bailed hay. So should the farmer just let his cows die when their is no grass growing naturally? Should the chicken farmer let his chickens die because there is nothing to pick and scratch? Chickens don't eat combined grains in nature.
Don't bother your bees but twice a year.
This is not farming. This is housing bees in an unnatural environment. If you are not going to farm them then leave them in the wild and go looking for your honey in the spring and fall in the wild and leave the bees alone where they are in the wild.
I can't listen to this any longer. what I have ever heard from this "Dr. Leo" he is very critical of people who use a method of keeping bees that is not his way.
Have a great day!
Last I checked there are a few subtle differences between bees and cows. Bees don't need your husbandry. They just need the right place to live and to be left alone. Also you're not exactly "removing them from nature" if you set up a swarm trap which they accept. Especially if the trap is near the location of the intended hive.
The beauty of this is that it gives incentive to create the perfect space for them as they will know best. No sugar needed unless you tamper with the hive or raid the honey before they've had chance to build up plenty of reserves.
while i liked your presentation, i cant find logic in some of what was read in that book. Not to any fault of yours. A hive that goes up(Lang) not out is more natural for bees. The widest parts of the tree grow up. bees will NOT grow to "like sugar water better than nectar". This theory can be proven wrong by robbing. Robbing is far less likely to occur in the spring when nectar sources are available. I personally have never seen robbing in the spring. Bees will sometimes ignore open feeders in the spring when a nectar flow is on. I do believe honey is better but i would more liken sugar water to tofu than soda. The idea that feeding sugar contributes to mite infestation is not true. if i am mistaken i would like to read a study to change my mind(and dont say that book lol). I do believe local stock is best. I would also like to know more about your management. How many hives do you manage? how much honey do you get from each hive? what percentage of your hives dont survive winter? What is your local climate? I also do not want to treat my bees but treating bees for pests is no different than treating live stock. i would assume if you owned a cow with worms, you would not leave it to live or die? you would intervene to ensure its survival. if you want to look at bees as more a pet than live stock, you would not leave your dog to fight the worms on their own.
Thanks for stopping by James,
While a Langstroth hive does go up like a tree, frames are separated from one another if you use multiple supers which is not how a hive in the interior of a tree works. A tree hive has solid comb that's longer which is why Layens is more natural in the fact that the comb is much longer and gives the bees more space to winter on. Also we don't winter the Bees on the full cavity of the Horizontal hive but just seven Layens frames which comes out to be about 10 gallons of space, the size bee colonies prefer when looking for tree space according to Thomas Seeley.
As far as feeding sugar, I would ask you check out our video "The Natural Beekeeping Sugar Free Diet" for our reasoning as to why we don't feed sugar:
th-cam.com/video/RjI4_gRUo-M/w-d-xo.html
We currently have nine colonies and we have grown our apiary every year since starting Natural Beekeeping in 2019. We originally started Beekeeping in 2011 and did traditional styles for six years and lost all our Bees every year and we fed sugar, treated, bought packages and NUCs (instead of catching swarms), etc. So we tried all of that, failed every year, quit Beekeeping, started back as Natural Beekeepers, and have been successful every since. It works for us, we enjoy it, and it's a very easy style of Beekeeping.
Hope that helps!
Best,
- Wes
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees man it sounds like you had a rough go your first few years. I can definitely sympathize with that. I lost both my first 2 hives in my second year. I tried treatment free and when the bees were all dead, it got too expensive to be practical. No swarms around our area to go after at that time. I bought 2 more nucs that year. I also learned queen rearing and started following Michael Palmer's teachings about overwintering half nuc hives. That was in 2018 and I have not bought bees since. I have been able to recover winter losses and sell nucs I dont need. Its devastating to open a bunch of dead hives in the early spring. When you say you grow every year doea that mean you have no losses? One thing about the lang is that the bees connect the frames with bur comb. A very common method for a lot of lang fans is to have 2 deeps. 2 deep frames are about a little over 18" tall. This puts them 2" over the laynes frame if I'm not mistaken. And they can have multiple boxes as you explained. The only limit on comb space is how good you are at jenga. I think the laynes would have some use in my apiary as brood factories. One thing you said in your reply rang true and that is your style works for you and you enjoy it. If you aren't having fun with your bees then your doin it wrong. I wish you and your bees the best of luck!
It was definitely devesting the first go around and cost us thousands of dollars.
We have definitely had losses as Natural Beekeepers but every year even if we have 50% mortality we still catch swarms the following year which grows our total. For example in 2019 we caught four swarms, lost two over the winter, then caught four the following year which put us at a total of six. We've done that since and now have grown our apiary to nine colonies with plenty of swarm season left in this year. I expect we will have around twelve going into this winter.
What was really the game changer was just catching swarms and saving $150-$200 for every colony caught, and if we lose that colony it doesn't hurt the wallet as much. I can sympathize with those who have trouble catching swarms, but I tend to think the more traps you put up the greater your odds!
Cheers
Principles are not commandments, but I guess a heathen wouldn't know that.
Thanks for stopping by!