I could see that was very emotional for you to talk about. Thank you for spreading the word that we should seek to understand where we are now and not continue our behaviour just because that's how we've always done it. I very much like your posts!
This is more than incredible. So many layers of this, and so vital to hear that you in the middle of a natural swarm. Survival Mom has a swarm in an owl house. May I pass along your video to her to read your active study.
I really enjoyed the video. I think adding "All about bees" to title would get people clicking that want to know this knowledge. I love your videos, and especially this one, it was so informative!
So interesting. So though provoking. Never stop sharing. Never lose your soapbox. I hope to be a beekeeper before my end of days and I think you just guided the study I will undertake.
This was what I needed today. Validation of a conversation I had this afternoon...animal totems and whatnot. So cool you posted this. Definitely going to check out the links. Thank you for those. Just cut down a couple of dead trees. I would love to make a place for some guests. ;). Thank you again. I stand next to you on that soapbox.
Comparing managed bee hives to wild hives should tell us a lot. Thanks for sharing. Understanding what you said about: 1) hive size 2) humidity and 3) insulation should explain a lot about how to keep bees. It makes sense to look at how bees swarm in the wild to determine the best way to keep bees! Good information. I enjoyed the video. I don't mind the admonition (soapbox) to learn how to live with animals. We need people to remind us of the importance of improving our food supply!
In my part of the U.S, Middle TN, I haven't heard of any hobbyist or sideliner bee keepers, which I consider to be 20 hives or less in 2 to 10 bee yards, have hives that were confirmed CCD. I'm sure there are, I've not talked to anyone with that type loss. Who does seem to suffer significantly are the bee ranchers. Big outfits with 1000s of hives, transporting them across the country to meet pollination contracts. I usually have between 3 and 10 hives, use Langstroth style hive boxes because our bee keeping regulations and encourage controlled swarms with my hives. I crowd 1 or 2 hives a year to get them to swarm and do this with different hives each year. It is definitely amazing when they swarm. I have been keeping bees for over 10 years and my first hive has always had a strong colony in it. I catch swarms with a lure hive and add to existing hives or they become a new hive. I think this approach has really increased the colony count that is around my bee yard as well as increase overall genetic diversity.
Loved this Corrin! Working with bees is on my bucket list! Very interesting about natural hives vs the boxes… So, what are your thoughts as far as that is concerned? Are we (as a society) getting a little greedy with the honey? Should we watch the beekeepers in our local area and encouraging more natural methods? By creating so many of the boxes and not allowing the natural process are we contributing to the demise of our bees? We hear so much about how our society as a whole could collapse without the bees and that they are threatened ... just wondering what we could do or is the jury out still?
logs = bee gums. That is how they do it in the Appalachians. Don't know if that is good or bad, I never raised bees. Hope I get to some day. I came to the same conclusion with fresh water aquariums. The more I messed with things the worse they got. I learned to just leave them alone and only do maintenance when absolutely necessary. My fish thrived.
So enjoy hearing you discuss bees, as a new beekeeper, I'm mostly interested in the health of my colonies.....honey is a very distant concern if at all. We all get enough sweetness from our fruit. BTW, how are your apples? 😃
Is there a happy medium between offering the bees a more hospitable, natural type of home and harvesting the honey? I know nothing about bees but, want to learn and found this fascinating. It made a lot of sense in the management approach but, just curious if then, if there is an appropriate time to break that barrier and extract the honey?
+Dawn Wise given what we know about beekeeping and the detrimental effects of our approach to management, I don't believe there is. But someone keeping a few well insulated hives on their property and taking a frame or two early season is s far better approach than buying commercial honey where nearly all of the bees honey is taken and replaced with glucose syrup or HFCS. Taking 'someone's' food for our own just seems wrong to me.
Fresh Princess, regarding male drone bees, there is some new evidence I heard that says the drones wander into any colony unstopped, unlike the worker bees that are stopped by the guards if they drift, and the drones make this humming sound or lullaby to the incubating baby bees. Perhaps telling them something. Similar to the bee dances the worker bees do regarding location of nectar etc. Bees colonies are very complex super organisms!
Hey P, really interested to know who you're referring to when you talk about studying wild bees and their survival over so many years. I've been keeping bees for four years now, after your brother introduced me to top bars. The whole lang setup was cost prohibitive in my circumstances at the time. At any rate, I regularly see it argued (heavily within my local beekeeper's association) that there are no wild hives. Hives swarm in, stay for a year, die over winter, are replaced by other beekeeper's mismanaged swarms, and people just assume there are feral hives living for years in their garage/shed/church choir loft. I take a treatment free, genetic expression approach so I'm the black sheep of the group (and one of only three that runs top bars) and would love to add your resource to my own bibliography. Thanks! Jim
+Rev. Blue 50 F-1 Seeley, Thomas. I put the links to his website and a study below the video. He's written extensively. You'll also want to read anything by Michael Thiel, his website is giasbees. It's lonely swimming upstream, but you're certainly NOT alone.
Yay! You got your pressure canner!!! I'm not going to say anything about the bees, because every time I open my mouth about bees it causes a controversy...
We literally drove through a swarm of bees in my husband's semi a couple of years ago. I was just heartsick, but there was nothing we could do. A big cloud of them just flew right across the interstate right at windshield level on the truck. We were actually blinded for a second because they plastered the windshield!😢😢
SWEEEEET! WISH there was a way I could share with you and ur brother ( who actually peaked my interest in beekeeping ) my FIRST wild swarm I managed to catch this spring. I videoed it! I recall watching you climb WAY up that ladder and shaking a swarm. And the girl ( property owner HAUL TAILIN' !!! LOL! ) 😂 LEMONGRASS OIL IS THE STUFF!!! Btw I also wished I could get ur brother TO RESPOND to my question or comment on how his Top Bar hive is fairing. I built one to his plans last fall and thus far it is THRIVING! But between now and next spring things are subject to go south with Top Bar Beekeeping. His no response kinda reminds me of years back when my firefighting brother was attempting to sell his Dalmatian. The lady showed up to buy it and he was explaining to the lady WHAT A FINE PUP IT WAS!!! His VERY HONEST SON who was 6 at the time was in attendance and listening carefully to his daddy when he politely interrupted and said "" BUT DADDY WHAT ABOUT HOW THE PUPPY CHEWED UP THE KITCHEN FLOOR AND THE SIDING AROUND THE HOUSE ????!!!! " 😂😍
Very interesting, I have been planning on having bees this year but realisticly it'll be next year and I was going to build hives Warre-style (it's topbars but in langsrothstyle boxes adding new ones in the bottom) but now I have to check these guys to see if it still will be my choice of hive.
FRESH PRINCESS I thought that the hives environment would be disturbed with a top bar hive that you lift the roof off, that was a big part of why I thought adding top bar boxes from the bottom was essential, same thing with harvesting. That way the bees' smell, humidity and propolis layers were never disturbed. The only drawback would then be the heavy lift although I had some ideas for that. Does it not matter that the roof ģets lifted up? I mean, as I only watched and read a little bit now, especially as it seems to harvest only one comb at the time.
so fascinating. I have been kicking around the idea of getting honey bees but 2 things have kept me from them. 1: I don't understand how the setups work. I always thought it seemed unnatural and hearing that you feel the same way definitely solidifies that for me. But how does one create a habitat for the bees that will still provide wax and honey for me? 2: buying bees and hives is really expensive and to repurchase bees every year or 2 is less than desirable. Gosh I would just love to pick your brain over a giant mug of tea on this subject. I bet we could come up with some pretty clever ideas and maybe even a better design.
I'll answer briefly here for others who might also be interested. Firstly, I don't buy bees and I don't recommend buying them. You can capture swarms, join a bee group or hookup with a beekeeper and ask to be on their swarm list, you can also set traps for swarms in the spring. So no, it's virtually free. You can build well insulated bee habitats, log hives, sun hives in warmer climates, there's a lot of info on line about habitat hives, check out the websites I included under my video. Lastly I don't keep bees for wax or honey. I provide habitat. When the colony dies, the bonus is that I get both. It's just a different way of thinking about beekeeping.
Have you ever found honey in an old hollow tree? Also have you heard about bees collecting mycellium (mushroom) to help fight the mites? Paul Staments the mushroom guy figured this out.
Tanging pick a tree and start tanging by it. oddly enough they will calm down and swarm to that tree unless they have a spot they started then tang by that spot and it will speed up the swarm process so you can get them.
It's typically hitting two pieces of metal together. I have heard some claim they used a bucket and hit it with a stick. The sound seems to calm them down.
Temperature + humidity = fungus. Fungus in a wood environment, would mean huge decay. So something has to be there for this to not happen. As well, bees use temperatures to kill invaders. They are masters of temperature regulation, so I'm not surprised that humidity is a way they manage all this. Third, cell generation requires water lysis. Low hydration stifles cell growth. Without intracellular transport, not much goin on. So a hive is like a womb. The next question I would ask is about gas permeability by a natural hive wall. I would study the [CO2] in both types of hives with temperature, to see the difference.
I find your theories on colony collapse fascinating although somewhat flawed. if wild colonies have the ideal blueprint for survival..then why have feral colonies become non existent? I believe the same things as you do and would like to do whatever possible to ensure survival of the bees but i think the opposite.
+mrsargemeister I didn't give a theory on colony collapse, as I don't believe a unified theory yet exists and feral colonies do exist, but know that apis mellifera are non native species to NA. I do have the philosophy that nature best governs itself, so maybe that is what you're taking issue with? We are so limited by our 'knowledge' when it comes to the natural world.
Sorry, lame joke alert. Hey do you supply your bro bees wax for his carpentry, I finish lathed pine timber with wax to protect it. Pine pestles I finish on the lathe directly then apply a rag to polish up.
why is there a moment against beekeeping husbandry? a wild horse is healthier than a domestic horse but is unridable by humans. actual wild bees are so nasty you could keep them so close to your home. bees are domestic animals and will always need help from humans to survive.
![Pro Tips for Growing Organic Fruit: Tree Pruning & Spray [Permaculture] | Fresh P](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yXrOLDUvZQE/mqdefault.jpg)
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Fascinating, and yeah let's take REALLY good care of these great little guys who do so much for us.
I could see that was very emotional for you to talk about. Thank you for spreading the word that we should seek to understand where we are now and not continue our behaviour just because that's how we've always done it. I very much like your posts!
+Kim Harris thanks Love ❤️
The ever growing wise fresh P. You’re very inspiring to me. I love watching, keep it up!
+momason74 ah thank you Love
This is more than incredible. So many layers of this, and so vital to hear that you in the middle of a natural swarm. Survival Mom has a swarm in an owl house. May I pass along your video to her to read your active study.
+Goldstar 36 yes, I'd love that 🦉
I really enjoyed the video. I think adding "All about bees" to title would get people clicking that want to know this knowledge. I love your videos, and especially this one, it was so informative!
We just had a huge swarm travel through our yard, I walked into the middle of it and just felt them. It was very surreal. Thanks for sharing P!
+Neil Post isn't that amazing. Sometimes I sit in the beeline with my eyes closed to experience the same.
So interesting. So though provoking. Never stop sharing. Never lose your soapbox. I hope to be a beekeeper before my end of days and I think you just guided the study I will undertake.
This was what I needed today. Validation of a conversation I had this afternoon...animal totems and whatnot. So cool you posted this. Definitely going to check out the links. Thank you for those. Just cut down a couple of dead trees. I would love to make a place for some guests. ;). Thank you again. I stand next to you on that soapbox.
Comparing managed bee hives to wild hives should tell us a lot. Thanks for sharing. Understanding what you said about: 1) hive size 2) humidity and 3) insulation should explain a lot about how to keep bees. It makes sense to look at how bees swarm in the wild to determine the best way to keep bees! Good information. I enjoyed the video. I don't mind the admonition (soapbox) to learn how to live with animals. We need people to remind us of the importance of improving our food supply!
In my part of the U.S, Middle TN, I haven't heard of any hobbyist or sideliner bee keepers, which I consider to be 20 hives or less in 2 to 10 bee yards, have hives that were confirmed CCD. I'm sure there are, I've not talked to anyone with that type loss. Who does seem to suffer significantly are the bee ranchers. Big outfits with 1000s of hives, transporting them across the country to meet pollination contracts. I usually have between 3 and 10 hives, use Langstroth style hive boxes because our bee keeping regulations and encourage controlled swarms with my hives. I crowd 1 or 2 hives a year to get them to swarm and do this with different hives each year. It is definitely amazing when they swarm. I have been keeping bees for over 10 years and my first hive has always had a strong colony in it. I catch swarms with a lure hive and add to existing hives or they become a new hive. I think this approach has really increased the colony count that is around my bee yard as well as increase overall genetic diversity.
Loved this Corrin! Working with bees is on my bucket list! Very interesting about natural hives vs the boxes… So, what are your thoughts as far as that is concerned? Are we (as a society) getting a little greedy with the honey? Should we watch the beekeepers in our local area and encouraging more natural methods? By creating so many of the boxes and not allowing the natural process are we contributing to the demise of our bees? We hear so much about how our society as a whole could collapse without the bees and that they are threatened ... just wondering what we could do or is the jury out still?
You were in the right place at the right time for a reason.
What a beautiful place! Thank you!💖🐝 thank you for the links,I need to research this, for a business plan!🙏🏼🌻🥰
logs = bee gums. That is how they do it in the Appalachians. Don't know if that is good or bad, I never raised bees. Hope I get to some day. I came to the same conclusion with fresh water aquariums. The more I messed with things the worse they got. I learned to just leave them alone and only do maintenance when absolutely necessary. My fish thrived.
So enjoy hearing you discuss bees, as a new beekeeper, I'm mostly interested in the health of my colonies.....honey is a very distant concern if at all. We all get enough sweetness from our fruit.
BTW, how are your apples? 😃
I can't believe how much I learned from this video, thank you :)
+misstine71 thank you for being here with an open heart.
Hello Corrin, Thank you for talking about the bees, Love your stand on their existence. What source of heat are you using for the canning outside?.
+bihbgm a propane burner.
I see the bear deterrent is working well. It has been quite a while since I've seen these bee "houses". Have a lovely week!
Your friend,
Randy P.
+02pwrstrk I don't know if it's working well or if that was just a freak encounter. It's been unplugged all spring.
Is there a happy medium between offering the bees a more hospitable, natural type of home and harvesting the honey? I know nothing about bees but, want to learn and found this fascinating. It made a lot of sense in the management approach but, just curious if then, if there is an appropriate time to break that barrier and extract the honey?
+Dawn Wise given what we know about beekeeping and the detrimental effects of our approach to management, I don't believe there is. But someone keeping a few well insulated hives on their property and taking a frame or two early season is s far better approach than buying commercial honey where nearly all of the bees honey is taken and replaced with glucose syrup or HFCS. Taking 'someone's' food for our own just seems wrong to me.
+Dawn Wise that being said, buying honey from local beekeeper whose practices you know is far better than imported China 'honey'.
Fascinating.
Fresh Princess, regarding male drone bees, there is some new evidence I heard that says the drones wander into any colony unstopped, unlike the worker bees that are stopped by the guards if they drift, and the drones make this humming sound or lullaby to the incubating baby bees. Perhaps telling them something. Similar to the bee dances the worker bees do regarding location of nectar etc. Bees colonies are very complex super organisms!
Hey P, really interested to know who you're referring to when you talk about studying wild bees and their survival over so many years. I've been keeping bees for four years now, after your brother introduced me to top bars. The whole lang setup was cost prohibitive in my circumstances at the time.
At any rate, I regularly see it argued (heavily within my local beekeeper's association) that there are no wild hives. Hives swarm in, stay for a year, die over winter, are replaced by other beekeeper's mismanaged swarms, and people just assume there are feral hives living for years in their garage/shed/church choir loft. I take a treatment free, genetic expression approach so I'm the black sheep of the group (and one of only three that runs top bars) and would love to add your resource to my own bibliography.
Thanks! Jim
+Rev. Blue 50 F-1 Seeley, Thomas. I put the links to his website and a study below the video. He's written extensively. You'll also want to read anything by Michael Thiel, his website is giasbees. It's lonely swimming upstream, but you're certainly NOT alone.
Yay! You got your pressure canner!!! I'm not going to say anything about the bees, because every time I open my mouth about bees it causes a controversy...
+TrollForge bring it on.
FRESH PRINCESS Sweetie, I knew as soon as I proofread what I typed, that that was going to be your reply!
+TrollForge ha ha ha. I'm clearly too predictable. 😬
Beautifully said.
Well said. Thank you
We literally drove through a swarm of bees in my husband's semi a couple of years ago. I was just heartsick, but there was nothing we could do.
A big cloud of them just flew right across the interstate right at windshield level on the truck. We were actually blinded for a second because they plastered the windshield!😢😢
HEY!!!! Its your homemade welded frame in the background complete with (pizza oven?) on top! Glad to see it out in the wild. Hope your well. :D
+Jonathan Cook and I just got a cord of hardwood, it's pizza time.
A cord of hardwood? In the UK a cord means rope - what does it mean over there? Sounds tasty!
+Jonathan Cook its more or less a pickup truck load because we must stick with our totally obscure ways of measuring things.
I would never have guessed!
Canning video? I've been using my pressure cooker recently for veg Indian.
+BeeRich33 yes!!!
How many hives do you usually have? Such beautiful scenery!
interesting topic and theories. we should all be worried about the bees. thanks for spreading the word.
SWEEEEET! WISH there was a way I could share with you and ur brother ( who actually peaked my interest in beekeeping ) my FIRST wild swarm I managed to catch this spring. I videoed it! I recall watching you climb WAY up that ladder and shaking a swarm. And the girl ( property owner HAUL TAILIN' !!! LOL! ) 😂 LEMONGRASS OIL IS THE STUFF!!! Btw I also wished I could get ur brother TO RESPOND to my question or comment on how his Top Bar hive is fairing. I built one to his plans last fall and thus far it is THRIVING! But between now and next spring things are subject to go south with Top Bar Beekeeping. His no response kinda reminds me of years back when my firefighting brother was attempting to sell his Dalmatian. The lady showed up to buy it and he was explaining to the lady WHAT A FINE PUP IT WAS!!! His VERY HONEST SON who was 6 at the time was in attendance and listening carefully to his daddy when he politely interrupted and said "" BUT DADDY WHAT ABOUT HOW THE PUPPY CHEWED UP THE KITCHEN FLOOR AND THE SIDING AROUND THE HOUSE ????!!!! " 😂😍
Very interesting, I have been planning on having bees this year but realisticly it'll be next year and I was going to build hives Warre-style (it's topbars but in langsrothstyle boxes adding new ones in the bottom) but now I have to check these guys to see if it still will be my choice of hive.
+Johan Mattsson check out Golden mean hive, they're modified Warres.
FRESH PRINCESS Thank you, I will absolutely check those out 😊
+Johan Mattsson if I were to start today, I'd build those.
FRESH PRINCESS I thought that the hives environment would be disturbed with a top bar hive that you lift the roof off, that was a big part of why I thought adding top bar boxes from the bottom was essential, same thing with harvesting. That way the bees' smell, humidity and propolis layers were never disturbed. The only drawback would then be the heavy lift although I had some ideas for that.
Does it not matter that the roof ģets lifted up? I mean, as I only watched and read a little bit now, especially as it seems to harvest only one comb at the time.
+Johan Mattsson yes, but you don't have to open the hive.
so fascinating. I have been kicking around the idea of getting honey bees but 2 things have kept me from them. 1: I don't understand how the setups work. I always thought it seemed unnatural and hearing that you feel the same way definitely solidifies that for me. But how does one create a habitat for the bees that will still provide wax and honey for me? 2: buying bees and hives is really expensive and to repurchase bees every year or 2 is less than desirable. Gosh I would just love to pick your brain over a giant mug of tea on this subject. I bet we could come up with some pretty clever ideas and maybe even a better design.
+Angel Serbina email me your telephone number, we can chat: freshprincesscooks@gmail you know the rest.
FRESH PRINCESS sounds good to me (:
I'll answer briefly here for others who might also be interested. Firstly, I don't buy bees and I don't recommend buying them. You can capture swarms, join a bee group or hookup with a beekeeper and ask to be on their swarm list, you can also set traps for swarms in the spring. So no, it's virtually free. You can build well insulated bee habitats, log hives, sun hives in warmer climates, there's a lot of info on line about habitat hives, check out the websites I included under my video. Lastly I don't keep bees for wax or honey. I provide habitat. When the colony dies, the bonus is that I get both. It's just a different way of thinking about beekeeping.
I can't beelieve I'm first to post this - and I captured the idea from reading the previous posts:
Bee Love.
+InTnMnNmAz 🐝❤️🐝❤️🐝❤️🐝❤️
yes!
Very interesting. But when do you harvest the honey?
+Dolly Perry only when the colony dies.
I don't know if I'm ready for that.....Once a year...I could go for that...
Have you ever found honey in an old hollow tree? Also have you heard about bees collecting mycellium (mushroom) to help fight the mites? Paul Staments the mushroom guy figured this out.
I so miss you and your videos!
Tanging pick a tree and start tanging by it. oddly enough they will calm down and swarm to that tree unless they have a spot they started then tang by that spot and it will speed up the swarm process so you can get them.
+Wayne Roark what's tanging?
It's typically hitting two pieces of metal together. I have heard some claim they used a bucket and hit it with a stick. The sound seems to calm them down.
+Wayne Roark I vaguely remember reading about this years ago, thanks so much for the reminder.
THANK YOUU SO MUCH FOR THE BEE EDUCATON...I WANT SOME TOO
My bees swarmed last year , but they went up 40ft in a tree so I just let them go.
+Jessica Weirich yes, they aren't always retrievable. Have you tried baiting traps with lemongrass?
I will look in to that, Thanks!
Temperature + humidity = fungus. Fungus in a wood environment, would mean huge decay. So something has to be there for this to not happen. As well, bees use temperatures to kill invaders. They are masters of temperature regulation, so I'm not surprised that humidity is a way they manage all this. Third, cell generation requires water lysis. Low hydration stifles cell growth. Without intracellular transport, not much goin on. So a hive is like a womb. The next question I would ask is about gas permeability by a natural hive wall. I would study the [CO2] in both types of hives with temperature, to see the difference.
+BeeRich33 propolis is anti fungal
+BeeRich33 Michael calls the brood portion of the hive the uterus ❤️
I find your theories on colony collapse fascinating although somewhat flawed. if wild colonies have the ideal blueprint for survival..then why have feral colonies become non existent? I believe the same things as you do and would like to do whatever possible to ensure survival of the bees but i think the opposite.
+mrsargemeister I didn't give a theory on colony collapse, as I don't believe a unified theory yet exists and feral colonies do exist, but know that apis mellifera are non native species to NA. I do have the philosophy that nature best governs itself, so maybe that is what you're taking issue with? We are so limited by our 'knowledge' when it comes to the natural world.
amazing!
Bee Sweet !!!
Behive yourself, and bee careful around the swarms.
+Staarker99 ha!
Sorry, lame joke alert. Hey do you supply your bro bees wax for his carpentry, I finish lathed pine timber with wax to protect it. Pine pestles I finish on the lathe directly then apply a rag to polish up.
nice.
God created bees to go about things in a certain way.
Why do we mess everything up?
+Brad Vlogs good Q
Bee 🐝 careful
why is there a moment against beekeeping husbandry? a wild horse is healthier than a domestic horse but is unridable by humans. actual wild bees are so nasty you could keep them so close to your home. bees are domestic animals and will always need help from humans to survive.
Unbelievable: You have been a "beekeeper" for 7 or 8 years and you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.