I'm the guy that you showed my comment about getting the bees from cut outs etc. I should have mentioned I'd been working with an 80 year old beekeeper who has been doing it since age 14. When I cut out that first colony for myself I had already been involved in 2 cut outs and had my mentor with me. I'm still helping him, I'm still learning from him. I worked with him for several months before I got that colony. This past year here in Texas has been a crash course in keeping bees alive with the extreme heat and drought, 10 weeks of 100+ heat and no rain after a very dry spring. Ive had to feed every colony I have just to keep them alive. Hopefully God will give us a decent year this year. Thank you for the great videos, good solid information. God bless you and yours in the coming year.
Hey David, Chris here way up in Northern Alberta Canada. I’m going to be coming into my first season with bees so I am preparing this winter to get ready. I try and watch one of your videos every morning before I head out to work. You are a great presenter and I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your knowledge. Truly a testament to being a good neighbour and mentor to people like myself just starting out. Keep up the great work.
Frozen green drone comb... If you have chickens set the frame up where the chickens can eat the thawed larve. The chickens love them. The bees will clean up the rest.
This isn't an advertisement, but the best thing you can do is take some beekeeping classes from David. Couldn't have been better prepared, thanks David
Whenever I go pickup nucs or packages I put a swarm box in the truck bed, just in case I get lucky, never worked. Yes, I crack the passenger window if there are bees roaming around.
I enjoy your videos. Beekeeping first and foremost is time management and what goal your trying(key word try)to accomplish. Package is less likely to have much of any honey production the first yr. My opinion Thank you again
I was encouraged to do a package my first year for the reason of getting the full learning experience with a brand new colony literally from the start. This did help me learn as they grew but also taught me patience with them as well knowing I couldnt do too much too fast either. I did also get a nuc for a side by side comparison. It really was fascinating taking care of two colonies at two different stages of development from their start with me as a new beekeeper. I feel I learned a lot by doing both at the same time and wouldn't change that if i could start over. Thanks for the videos!
Hey Lewis, I've seen packages bought without queens for a queen breeder. Enjoy yourself at the NAHBE! My local Amish beekeeping neighbor started by a cut-out out of the family's barn about 2008. Since then he's been a commercial queen raiser. Now he's looking into AI.
I've become a fan of packages, because it seems to me there are fewer virus and mite issues. I don't see a difference in first year performance in my experience. The trick is getting to the point where a person can get bees through splits of their own colonies, and rear their own queens. Great points about buying nuc's with drawn comb, David. Love your videos and coffee times, thanks so much for creating them for us to learn from and enjoy. I hope you and Sheri have a fabulous new year!
I have done both, and I definitely think a Nuc is way easier! And I am all about making beekeeping easier in all ways, especially on my busted up back.
One thing about packages, it seems, is that watching the bee's start with comb building, seeing the beginning of the brood rearing, and watching a colony grow has a lot of good information. Especially as a newbie. That was my experience. Great video's ❤️
I am a new beekeeper and will get my bees in the spring of 2024. I bought a package ($160.00) and a NUC($220) and they both are coming from local beekeepers that are within 25 to 30 miles of my home, so I will be picking them up.
I run swarm traps. They generally have a lot of bees and nice laying Queen. After there is fair amount of brood and eggs you can replace the queen and have what you know is a new queen and the bees will make a very good queen from the new hatched eggs.
Great video in my first winter keeping bees here in north Alabama. Thank you for your straight forward info. I started with two nucs has been a delight.
I feel that buying from a reputable seller is most important. I purchased my first 2 nucs from a large local source here in northern Utah. The cardboard nuc boxes were falling apart, 4 out of 5 frames in each colony were either broken, repaired or were black with age (as was the wax). And I strongly believe the queen was from the previous year. At the time I didn't know any better. Best to buy from a source with a known good reputation
Great follow up! Bees are amazing either way a nuc or a package will do fine. At the end of the season thy will have honey for themself and some for you!!! Looking forward to your live stream!!!
Just started out mid last year by catching 2 swarms late, and am working on figuring our tha type of hive style I want to go forward in useing, langstroth or layens, and have one one big question, I want to understand ventilation flow, better in a hive, I am building my own hives, thank you sir
Love your videos David. New beekeeper here. Started with 2 packages this past spring and I have 5 strong colonies going into winter. Hope to catch you on the air sometime..de KO4DNI
A correction to your comment. A package does NOT have comb. Only the nuc. And I actually said you CAN give someone comb, but it has to be inspected in my state first if it crosses county lines.
Those early spring package Bees queens are absolute trash. Remove her to a nuc Or get rid of her mid summer so that the hive can requeen itself and get some more locally adapted genetics. Since I did that, I haven’t bought any bees because my hive seem to make it every winter when I re-queen Midsummer.
Just be sure to vet your seller, and only buy nucs from reputable beekeepers. I've been seeing way too many new beekeepers being sold seriously subpar nucs with not just poorly mated queens, but nucs with very little brood, barely a cup of live bees clinging to one of three near-empty broken frames in the nuc box, etc.
There is one place in here where you and I do not agree. you say that a good queen in a poorly managed hive will fail and a dudd quenn in a well managed hive will do well. I had one hive l;ast summer. the queen had spotty brood. I gave pollen sub until the hive was nearly pollen bound. had a close ot zero mite load. inpected the brood closely and it was healtjy I still have spotty brood. I have ruled out brood diseases, nutritonal issues and mites as a cause. if not the queen what else could it be?
I'm the guy that you showed my comment about getting the bees from cut outs etc. I should have mentioned I'd been working with an 80 year old beekeeper who has been doing it since age 14. When I cut out that first colony for myself I had already been involved in 2 cut outs and had my mentor with me. I'm still helping him, I'm still learning from him. I worked with him for several months before I got that colony. This past year here in Texas has been a crash course in keeping bees alive with the extreme heat and drought, 10 weeks of 100+ heat and no rain after a very dry spring. Ive had to feed every colony I have just to keep them alive. Hopefully God will give us a decent year this year. Thank you for the great videos, good solid information. God bless you and yours in the coming year.
Hey David, Chris here way up in Northern Alberta Canada. I’m going to be coming into my first season with bees so I am preparing this winter to get ready. I try and watch one of your videos every morning before I head out to work. You are a great presenter and I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your knowledge. Truly a testament to being a good neighbour and mentor to people like myself just starting out. Keep up the great work.
Wow that is so nice of you to say. I appreciate it!
30 packages vs 30 nucs sounds like a nice TH-cam video series with an end of the year mashup video talking about the findings. haha
Frozen green drone comb... If you have chickens set the frame up where the chickens can eat the thawed larve. The chickens love them. The bees will clean up the rest.
It was really thoughtful of you to make a follow-up video so quickly.
This isn't an advertisement, but the best thing you can do is take some beekeeping classes from David. Couldn't have been better prepared, thanks David
So kind of you to say!
@@beekI agree!
Whenever I go pickup nucs or packages I put a swarm box in the truck bed, just in case I get lucky, never worked. Yes, I crack the passenger window if there are bees roaming around.
I enjoy your videos.
Beekeeping first and foremost is time management and what goal your trying(key word try)to accomplish.
Package is less likely to have much of any honey production the first yr.
My opinion
Thank you again
With the NUC the queen is from the same hive. A package is any queen and bees shaken from other hives.
I was encouraged to do a package my first year for the reason of getting the full learning experience with a brand new colony literally from the start. This did help me learn as they grew but also taught me patience with them as well knowing I couldnt do too much too fast either. I did also get a nuc for a side by side comparison. It really was fascinating taking care of two colonies at two different stages of development from their start with me as a new beekeeper. I feel I learned a lot by doing both at the same time and wouldn't change that if i could start over. Thanks for the videos!
Hey Lewis, I've seen packages bought without queens for a queen breeder.
Enjoy yourself at the NAHBE!
My local Amish beekeeping neighbor started by a cut-out out of the family's barn about 2008. Since then he's been a commercial queen raiser. Now he's looking into AI.
I've become a fan of packages, because it seems to me there are fewer virus and mite issues. I don't see a difference in first year performance in my experience. The trick is getting to the point where a person can get bees through splits of their own colonies, and rear their own queens. Great points about buying nuc's with drawn comb, David. Love your videos and coffee times, thanks so much for creating them for us to learn from and enjoy. I hope you and Sheri have a fabulous new year!
I have done both, and I definitely think a Nuc is way easier! And I am all about making beekeeping easier in all ways, especially on my busted up back.
One thing about packages, it seems, is that watching the bee's start with comb building, seeing the beginning of the brood rearing, and watching a colony grow has a lot of good information. Especially as a newbie. That was my experience. Great video's ❤️
I am a new beekeeper and will get my bees in the spring of 2024. I bought a package ($160.00) and a NUC($220) and they both are coming from local beekeepers that are within 25 to 30 miles of my home, so I will be picking them up.
The one that is best is the one you can get.
I have had success with Better Comb, after the bees use it for storing resources my Queens have laid in it.
I run swarm traps. They generally have a lot of bees and nice laying Queen. After there is fair amount of brood and eggs you can replace the queen and have what you know is a new queen and the bees will make a very good queen from the new hatched eggs.
Great video in my first winter keeping bees here in north Alabama. Thank you for your straight forward info. I started with two nucs has been a delight.
Glad you enjoyed the video!
I don't have one but if you are using Layens, or any non-Langstroth type of hive, a package might/should work better for the introduction.
I feel that buying from a reputable seller is most important. I purchased my first 2 nucs from a large local source here in northern Utah. The cardboard nuc boxes were falling apart, 4 out of 5 frames in each colony were either broken, repaired or were black with age (as was the wax). And I strongly believe the queen was from the previous year. At the time I didn't know any better. Best to buy from a source with a known good reputation
my first yr, building the first box, this is a great channel see you at 7
Thanks so much and see you at 7pm central time.
Great follow up! Bees are amazing either way a nuc or a package will do fine. At the end of the season thy will have honey for themself and some for you!!! Looking forward to your live stream!!!
Thanks Kyle, see you at 7pm
Just started out mid last year by catching 2 swarms late, and am working on figuring our tha type of hive style I want to go forward in useing, langstroth or layens, and have one one big question, I want to understand ventilation flow, better in a hive, I am building my own hives, thank you sir
NUCs in my area $185 club members $150
Hi David, great video as always!
Well, thank you very much!
Great follow up 🎥.
Great, glad you enjoyed it.
Great video David and Sheri. Looking forward to live stream tonight 😊
Hey Brian, thanks I can't wait till 7 either 👍
How do u feed bees in a horizontal hive sugar water.
If you fall in a climate that has winter, a Nuc will give you more success. Unless you have frames that are already drawn out.
Love your videos David. New beekeeper here. Started with 2 packages this past spring and I have 5 strong colonies going into winter. Hope to catch you on the air sometime..de KO4DNI
Curious your take on vsh bees.
That video is really good information..
I appreciate it! Glad you liked it.
You said you can't give someone comb. But a package is sold with comb in it how dose that work out.
A correction to your comment. A package does NOT have comb. Only the nuc. And I actually said you CAN give someone comb, but it has to be inspected in my state first if it crosses county lines.
Problem with a nuc is that I have a Layens based hive. So I have to go with a package. I have yet to find anyone that sells a Layens based nuc.
Wow 250 for a nuc
in canada nuc280 c dol package 305 c dol
Those early spring package Bees queens are absolute trash. Remove her to a nuc Or get rid of her mid summer so that the hive can requeen itself and get some more locally adapted genetics. Since I did that, I haven’t bought any bees because my hive seem to make it every winter when I re-queen Midsummer.
Just be sure to vet your seller, and only buy nucs from reputable beekeepers. I've been seeing way too many new beekeepers being sold seriously subpar nucs with not just poorly mated queens, but nucs with very little brood, barely a cup of live bees clinging to one of three near-empty broken frames in the nuc box, etc.
There is one place in here where you and I do not agree. you say that a good queen in a poorly managed hive will fail and a dudd quenn in a well managed hive will do well. I had one hive l;ast summer. the queen had spotty brood. I gave pollen sub until the hive was nearly pollen bound. had a close ot zero mite load. inpected the brood closely and it was healtjy I still have spotty brood. I have ruled out brood diseases, nutritonal issues and mites as a cause. if not the queen what else could it be?