I am so glad you said what you did about social media. I run and teach a beekeeper club and I get a lot of questions and comments about things they saw. And a lot of things will not work here in the desert like it does elsewhere.
Great video Ian! Thank you for spending your time sharing your progress. I live where it never freezes, and yet I am still most thankful to have the opportunity to understand your approach in terms of your management techniques. It's fascinating how this hobby can bring so many folks together to achieve a common good. Wishing you nothing less but the best of success for you & your honeybees 🐝🐝🐝☮️☯️
Congratulations, things certainly look wonderful there! Your Nozema tests are awesome, your bees are doing well coming out of a tough winter, its really nice to see.
Fascinating information on the nutrition and getting the bees to fatten up for winter. I'll keep that in the back of my mind if that happens in our area again. Thanks
I fed late actually put 15 box,s in the shed oct 27 with patty,s on them complete loss Iv been scratching my head wondering what happened the box,s that were fed early 100% survival Most came out as what you call a box. Lesson learned Thanks again for the posts
Well said, Ian. Even neighboring local beekeepers here in Ohio have different microclimates as well as different goals for their apiaries, all of which affect the choices we make.
Great video. I use the same method of paper combining and sometimes if I don't catch it in time and have a laying worker box, I set it above a box with brood and active queen with #8 hardware cloth between them. The pheromones suppress the laying worker and in one week remove the wire and they combine just fine every time. Better to use the bees in queen-less hives to our advantage as it boosts population quickly.
I live in Michigan and was also surprised to find no brood Sept 1 last year. Winter came very early for us. The bees seemed to know it was coming. My bees usually have brood well into October.
Glad they are holding own with nosema. So right about social media. All bee keepers only my observation have an individual and personal approach to their apiaries. You get settled in so to speak .Every master chef do things their way nor change their approach when someone eludes how things should be done! Keep the great knowledge and videos coming thanks. Oh forgot to ask with a hive that you had nosema do you scorch said hive or just burn and destroy.
I'm taking this opportunity to ask Why don't your hives all swarm? They all seem to be very full of bees when they are strong and healthy and you don't seem to be taking much action to prevent swarms. Many hobby beekeepers have swarming even with multi box hives that are nowhere nearly as crowded as your hives. I watch every video, thanks for all your efforts to educate us.
Dave Gross Remember...timing, at this time of year, that winter nest, simply put, concentrates only on switching out. Once the old winter bees are replaced, they will move into growth
Very good video. Totally agree with not being able to the same across Canada with our bees. There are just too many variable conditions in beekeeping to do exactly the same as another beekeeper.
Right on nice one. Im trying to get into bees but i its a little hard to get set up im hoping to get a couple more hives built this summer then get some bees next spring.
great video. Question....no upper entrance for the top box of the combined hives? Also, so true on the comment of what works for one may not work for any other.....especially with the difference in geographic location....flowers, trees, bloom different times in different places...etc....there are some basic beekeeping rules that everyone must know and follow, clearly you have mastered them, but other than that, i never act on another beekeepers suggestion, I'll ponder and observe but we all know our own bees and act accordingly. You just proved why that should never be done. Bravo!
When one closes his ears and mind to different ideas he will stop growing and learning. Many ideas maybe dumb or wrong for your area but you need to always listen and try to sort it out to see if it makes sense. Trying out a different way of feeding on 6 hives was smart. You lost 4-6 hives out of 1,400 - not a big lose. If the idea was right you could have improved your overwintering of 1,400 hives. It is always smart to keep trying to do better and not rely on - Well I always did it that way. Good job Ian!! Keep learning.
You make a good point what happens in Manitoba isn't the same as the issue others are having just 200 miles away. Just for point of reference though what losses can you expect realistically do to simple attrition? i think losses are normal to a certain extent. But what do you think your baseline loss is? P.S I really like watching your videos. Very knowledgable.
Hell yes! Perfect example is you are farther south than I. Our weather doesn't match up perfectly and the pussy willows here just popped so today the bees started bringing in natural pollen. It's very specific. When I pulled my supers off we still had a lot of bloom. Because the bees shut down early they used a whack of that to back fill the nest then I had to go to pails because my neighbors bees had found my open feed and were robbing open feed blind. So my hives got back filled early. Even then with the rain just before freeze up and cool temps and high humidity, I had a hell of an issue with humidity in the shed. 90% humidity in the shed for over two weeks right at the beginning. There was water running down my walls. At +4 C my dehumidifier wouldn't work either. then it finally got cold and dry out and I had to modify my vents to keep them from frosting shut. The first few weeks of winter were not a cake walk. If I hadn't been paying attention I would have lost them all. Was just a perfect storm Probably some uncured syrup. it was high humidity the days before and raining when I put them in. Then two weeks of high humidity minimum of 75% every day for two weeks after. Here's an interesting observation I made today. For the last month bees have been storming in and out of the hive bringing in Ultra bee and some syrup. I have spent a whack of time observing their spring behavior. There were no guards guarding any of the landing boards.Even the last two days the nearest beekeepers 34 hives found my ultra bee and flew away with what would be a weeks worth for my bees in under two days. Still no guarding. and the neighbors bees wern't doing anything to my hives.Then today at about noon I started seeing white, yellow and brown pollen starting to come into the hive and it ramped up hardcore by this afternoon in all 4 hives. this evening when it cooled down and the foraging slowed down all 4 hives had guards up right across the entrance. I just found it interesting. No guards since the 19th of march and now today with fresh pollen in the hive guarding becomes a priority.
Would you consider adding a few frames of eggs to the queenless hive to keep that colony (hope they create a queen )and also give a few frames of bees to the small queen hive to boost thsst colony? Possibly end up with two hives instead of one.
Scott Gould You need drones to create well meted queens, no drones, These are also old winter bees. Their time clock will not last the time needed to rear a queen and then rear a round of brood
Will you come back to the combined hive in a few days and condense down the frames of bees and brood into one box again? That is what I do in that situation because I run single brood box hives also.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Right, a decent queen should increase her egg laying proportionate to the increase in bee numbers. Might take a week or so to accurately assess her.
Is there a difference between pollen patties and the open bag with dry feed? What I understand is that the bees are getting pollen substitute from the bag. So the question is not feed or not feed a pollen substitute but whether or not it should be in the patty form or in a dry open air form? The only thing I see from your comments is that open air feed is open to rain etc. But it activates them in forraging and the patty does not. Is there something that I am missing?
On those 6 that got late pollen sub the ones that died did they shit all over the inside , we had a bad run in one of the sheds and lost most of the colony’s all had patties on till October somtime just before going into the shed we pulled the unused patties , the had plenty of bees and honey but shit everywhere and dead
Had a queen start laying all drone brood .. cold wet windy couldn't find her .. so i get bright idea grab a nuc with a 140.00 dollar breeder queen id just bought week before.. add queen excluder news paper thought ill find drone laying queen later .. so few days later go look .. breeder queen got thru queen excluder and killed drone queen.. not even sure what i was doing but it worked .. have plenty of nucs to chose from
I think I just lost a queen. Two boxes of bees. I’ve been adding larva and egg frames from another hive. Hopefully they will make a new queen or I won’t get a laying worker. Lucky queen mr. beekeeper person😁. Pollen bound exists??
It's not bee feed it's cattle (and particularly lactating ones) feed. But since the bees have interest in it, Ian might do an experiment (and as you are suggesting) blend some of it finer and feed it to a few random hives to see what affect it might have on their development. It must be useful to the cattle (cow/calf) operation and being an obvious bee attractant its use on the bee operation should be assessed.
@@Don.Challenger There is this great old series called Connections by James Burke. Many of the discoveries of man kind were nothing more than byproduct. In this case, it could be a two fold use for byproduct!
How can feeding patties kill six colonies? What is happening to the bees that causes them to die simply because they ate pollen sub? Was there too much ash and they were unable to defecate because of the cold?
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog when Heather Matilla did her studies of FeedBee at Guelph she found supplement feeding later in the season was associated with higher winter loss. She couldn't say that this causes it or how, only that she saw it. So something might truly be going on as you saw. Very interesting observation of how bees reacted to August supplement feeding and that it seemed to benefit although not by increasing new brood.
Hi, could you elaborate on "unusual behavior" of that one hive that had nosema? Also how did you lower your nosema count? Third question, do you usually feed suplements to your bees late in autumn and during wintertime?
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog So just to be clear you feed protein supplement both in autumn and winter. I ask that because we here feed supplements ONLY after queens start laying eggs in early January and not before. We also have 2 frames of pollen during winter time in hives.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Ok that is a different approach. We place sugar patties at start of winter and then protein sugar patties jan-march. It makes big difference.
hi guys, do you know that in the holy quran, the divin book of muslims, there is a full chapter called The Bee, I quote from it 16:68-69 And your Lord inspired to the bee, "Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and [in] that which they construct. Then eat from all the fruits and follow the ways of your Lord laid down [for you]." There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought.
I am so glad you said what you did about social media. I run and teach a beekeeper club and I get a lot of questions and comments about things they saw. And a lot of things will not work here in the desert like it does elsewhere.
You're such a good teacher. Thanks for posting these videos. I learn so much from them!
Yes sir!
Thank you for that word Ian! I find myself so excited and eager to help other beekeepers I forget about location.
Thanks for all videos. Happy Easter to you and your family.
Great video Ian! Thank you for spending your time sharing your progress. I live where it never freezes, and yet I am still most thankful to have the opportunity to understand your approach in terms of your management techniques. It's fascinating how this hobby can bring so many folks together to achieve a common good. Wishing you nothing less but the best of success for you & your honeybees 🐝🐝🐝☮️☯️
Congratulations, things certainly look wonderful there! Your Nozema tests are awesome, your bees are doing well coming out of a tough winter, its really nice to see.
That's not a hum, that's a ROAR! I wonder how long it will be before the next generation beekeepers ask, "What are newspapers?"
The supply houses will soon have to stock merge paper. Lol
And a few years ago he would only need a single page - now, it's fewer newspapers, thinner editions and smaller page sizes.
Good job on keeping your hives healthy... And a good call on not feeding the rest of the hive winter patties!
Experience definitely pays off!
Fascinating information on the nutrition and getting the bees to fatten up for winter. I'll keep that in the back of my mind if that happens in our area again. Thanks
So right you are! Location, location. Thanks for sharing and the reminder
And the three bedroom unit "here" might not be the market favourite "there".
I am impressed you can recognize a queenless hum from other hums.
Ian, it seems, is just a humdinger.
I fed late actually put 15 box,s in the shed oct 27 with patty,s on them complete loss
Iv been scratching my head wondering what happened the box,s that were fed early 100% survival
Most came out as what you call a box. Lesson learned
Thanks again for the posts
Brad K Kimberlin
Confirmation, 👍
Well said, Ian. Even neighboring local beekeepers here in Ohio have different microclimates as well as different goals for their apiaries, all of which affect the choices we make.
Great video. I use the same method of paper combining and sometimes if I don't catch it in time and have a laying worker box, I set it above a box with brood and active queen with #8 hardware cloth between them. The pheromones suppress the laying worker and in one week remove the wire and they combine just fine every time. Better to use the bees in queen-less hives to our advantage as it boosts population quickly.
The beekeeper knows his bees.
I live in Michigan and was also surprised to find no brood Sept 1 last year. Winter came very early for us. The bees seemed to know it was coming. My bees usually have brood well into October.
Glad they are holding own with nosema. So right about social media. All bee keepers only my observation have an individual and personal approach to their apiaries. You get settled in so to speak .Every master chef do things their way nor change their approach when someone eludes how things should be done! Keep the great knowledge and videos coming thanks. Oh forgot to ask with a hive that you had nosema do you scorch said hive or just burn and destroy.
Hell we have beekeepers within 10 miles apart , like you said what works for one will not work for another.👍👍
I'm taking this opportunity to ask Why don't your hives all swarm? They all seem to be very full of bees when they are strong and healthy and you don't seem to be taking much action to prevent swarms. Many hobby beekeepers have swarming even with multi box hives that are nowhere nearly as crowded as your hives. I watch every video, thanks for all your efforts to educate us.
Dave Gross
Remember...timing, at this time of year, that winter nest, simply put, concentrates only on switching out. Once the old winter bees are replaced, they will move into growth
Very good video. Totally agree with not being able to the same across Canada with our bees. There are just too many variable conditions in beekeeping to do exactly the same as another beekeeper.
Right on nice one. Im trying to get into bees but i its a little hard to get set up im hoping to get a couple more hives built this summer then get some bees next spring.
great video. Question....no upper entrance for the top box of the combined hives? Also, so true on the comment of what works for one may not work for any other.....especially with the difference in geographic location....flowers, trees, bloom different times in different places...etc....there are some basic beekeeping rules that everyone must know and follow, clearly you have mastered them, but other than that, i never act on another beekeepers suggestion, I'll ponder and observe but we all know our own bees and act accordingly. You just proved why that should never be done. Bravo!
Good method. I've used it several times!!!! I also just add a flavor to unite to colonies!!!!
It's just wild that the bees are looking so good this year after everything they endured last year.
Tony lalonde. I bought some stuff from him.
Excellent job ,thanks 🙏 a lot
When one closes his ears and mind to different ideas he will stop growing and learning. Many ideas maybe dumb or wrong for your area but you need to always listen and try to sort it out to see if it makes sense. Trying out a different way of feeding on 6 hives was smart. You lost 4-6 hives out of 1,400 - not a big lose. If the idea was right you could have improved your overwintering of 1,400 hives. It is always smart to keep trying to do better and not rely on - Well I always did it that way. Good job Ian!! Keep learning.
You make a good point what happens in Manitoba isn't the same as the issue others are having just 200 miles away. Just for point of reference though what losses can you expect realistically do to simple attrition? i think losses are normal to a certain extent. But what do you think your baseline loss is?
P.S I really like watching your videos. Very knowledgable.
Hi Ian, what do You do if You find Nosema within Your hives?
Hell yes! Perfect example is you are farther south than I. Our weather doesn't match up perfectly and the pussy willows here just popped so today the bees started bringing in natural pollen. It's very specific. When I pulled my supers off we still had a lot of bloom. Because the bees shut down early they used a whack of that to back fill the nest then I had to go to pails because my neighbors bees had found my open feed and were robbing open feed blind. So my hives got back filled early. Even then with the rain just before freeze up and cool temps and high humidity, I had a hell of an issue with humidity in the shed. 90% humidity in the shed for over two weeks right at the beginning. There was water running down my walls. At +4 C my dehumidifier wouldn't work either. then it finally got cold and dry out and I had to modify my vents to keep them from frosting shut. The first few weeks of winter were not a cake walk. If I hadn't been paying attention I would have lost them all. Was just a perfect storm Probably some uncured syrup. it was high humidity the days before and raining when I put them in. Then two weeks of high humidity minimum of 75% every day for two weeks after.
Here's an interesting observation I made today. For the last month bees have been storming in and out of the hive bringing in Ultra bee and some syrup. I have spent a whack of time observing their spring behavior. There were no guards guarding any of the landing boards.Even the last two days the nearest beekeepers 34 hives found my ultra bee and flew away with what would be a weeks worth for my bees in under two days. Still no guarding. and the neighbors bees wern't doing anything to my hives.Then today at about noon I started seeing white, yellow and brown pollen starting to come into the hive and it ramped up hardcore by this afternoon in all 4 hives. this evening when it cooled down and the foraging slowed down all 4 hives had guards up right across the entrance. I just found it interesting. No guards since the 19th of march and now today with fresh pollen in the hive guarding becomes a priority.
What kind of microscope do you have?
Great Advice know your bees and your area to make good decisions.
When you combine the two boxes is there an upper entrance also? Thanks
Can you open up the hives in the winter and check them
Never seen you open feed pollen that I remember only patties,do you feed pollen sub powder ever,?
Great information Ian. Do you have any idea why the bees hum like that when they are queenless?
Dan Ski
Panic, desperation
Well said ian
My ears are ringing about 11:30. :)
Wendy Jarrett
Ha ha ha , ya but your ears would also be burning a bit earlier in this video, because of my yielded success
Is it possible the food they were fed was contaminated?
Well said ! 😎
Would you consider adding a few frames of eggs to the queenless hive to keep that colony (hope they create a queen )and also give a few frames of bees to the small queen hive to boost thsst colony? Possibly end up with two hives instead of one.
Scott Gould
You need drones to create well meted queens, no drones,
These are also old winter bees. Their time clock will not last the time needed to rear a queen and then rear a round of brood
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Ah. Good point. Brushed over that minor detail.
Early spring, focus on boost or merger. Retain what survived as opposed to build
Will you come back to the combined hive in a few days and condense down the frames of bees and brood into one box again? That is what I do in that situation because I run single brood box hives also.
john mizak
Oh ya, along with a detailed queen assessment
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog
Right, a decent queen should increase her egg laying proportionate to the increase in bee numbers. Might take a week or so to accurately assess her.
Is there a difference between pollen patties and the open bag with dry feed? What I understand is that the bees are getting pollen substitute from the bag. So the question is not feed or not feed a pollen substitute but whether or not it should be in the patty form or in a dry open air form? The only thing I see from your comments is that open air feed is open to rain etc. But it activates them in forraging and the patty does not. Is there something that I am missing?
Do any of the fields around your bee yards get sprayed with round up or similar? If so, what negative side affects do you notice?
86offroad
Yes, spraying
Zero side effects
Great thanks for replying. I have opertunityn for a field accross from our home but they do spray prior to planting and I was concerned.
On those 6 that got late pollen sub the ones that died did they shit all over the inside , we had a bad run in one of the sheds and lost most of the colony’s all had patties on till October somtime just before going into the shed we pulled the unused patties , the had plenty of bees and honey but shit everywhere and dead
You're ethanol residue smells of brewers yeast. Isn't that an ingredient in bee polen supplement?
What magnification are you using for nosema inspection?
travelbug
400x
Had a queen start laying all drone brood .. cold wet windy couldn't find her .. so i get bright idea grab a nuc with a 140.00 dollar breeder queen id just bought week before.. add queen excluder news paper thought ill find drone laying queen later .. so few days later go look .. breeder queen got thru queen excluder and killed drone queen.. not even sure what i was doing but it worked .. have plenty of nucs to chose from
Interesting! How do you know they will accept the queen?
Allan Waddington
It’s up to the bees, not me, but slow release/merger increases the chances
What do you say to the neighbors complaining about the "bothersome bees"?
Robert Bennett
🙂
Nice
No pollen sub in your winter bees gut .. intreasting to see what happens..
What if they kill off the queen?
I think I just lost a queen. Two boxes of bees. I’ve been adding larva and egg frames from another hive. Hopefully they will make a new queen or I won’t get a laying worker. Lucky queen mr. beekeeper person😁. Pollen bound exists??
TWO WEEKS?
We have to wait two weeks... Man, that's just mean!
I use a push in cage and combine them immediately and release her in 2 days...
Could you pulverize that feed for the little hungry bees?
It's not bee feed it's cattle (and particularly lactating ones) feed. But since the bees have interest in it, Ian might do an experiment (and as you are suggesting) blend some of it finer and feed it to a few random hives to see what affect it might have on their development. It must be useful to the cattle (cow/calf) operation and being an obvious bee attractant its use on the bee operation should be assessed.
@@Don.Challenger There is this great old series called Connections by James Burke. Many of the discoveries of man kind were nothing more than byproduct. In this case, it could be a two fold use for byproduct!
How can feeding patties kill six colonies? What is happening to the bees that causes them to die simply because they ate pollen sub? Was there too much ash and they were unable to defecate because of the cold?
My guess is too late to make a difference but good question
understand that our hives endure 5-6 months of confinement through winter
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog when Heather Matilla did her studies of FeedBee at Guelph she found supplement feeding later in the season was associated with higher winter loss. She couldn't say that this causes it or how, only that she saw it. So something might truly be going on as you saw.
Very interesting observation of how bees reacted to August supplement feeding and that it seemed to benefit although not by increasing new brood.
Hi, could you elaborate on "unusual behavior" of that one hive that had nosema? Also how did you lower your nosema count? Third question, do you usually feed suplements to your bees late in autumn and during wintertime?
maxmagnus777
Protein patty supplement, specifically
Nutrabee
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog So just to be clear you feed protein supplement both in autumn and winter. I ask that because we here feed supplements ONLY after queens start laying eggs in early January and not before. We also have 2 frames of pollen during winter time in hives.
@@maxmagnus777 , no feeding during winter. We feed spring, late summer into fall, then stop
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Ok that is a different approach. We place sugar patties at start of winter and then protein sugar patties jan-march. It makes big difference.
why not add a queen cell?
Silly me! Thought newspapers were only good for bottoms of bird cages or housebreaking a puppy.
I've occasionally been known to read one - but, yes, lots of uses beyond just information..
I don't understand how pollen supplement could kill a hive
hi guys, do you know that in the holy quran, the divin book of muslims,
there is a full chapter called The Bee, I quote from it
16:68-69
And your Lord inspired to the bee, "Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and [in] that which they construct.
Then eat from all the fruits and follow the ways of your Lord laid down [for you]." There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought.