Spend the money for push in queen cages for brood breaks. A slight misting of sugar water gets bees cleaning each other and hive. Plant rhubarb and thyme around hives.
So what your saying is to take out my present queen and let the hive raise another queen ? The Hive I have now has raised their own queen this spring so is she good or should this be the queen I should take out ? It is now July so will there be time for them to raise a new queen and make it thru the winter ?
My biggest colony (feral bees, they swarmed 4x last year and requeened themselves), swarmed 6x this year ! Making new families is healthy, it’s what we want ! And they do have several other forms of mite control that I have observed. Lots of propolis, for one, which I never remove. I’m rooting for them. They’re going into their third year.
Thank you!! I may try this. I found two other methods of dealing with varroa mites naturally, but I'm still super new to bee keeping and haven't tried them yet myself. One is to heat the hive up to 108F for 2.5 hours being careful to not let the temperature fluctuate. Then retreat them again the same way 3 weeks later to kill off any mites that happen to survive the first treatment. The second method is to put bait boxes out and catch wild feral bees swarms that have already developed mite resistance.
During the period of no brood, the mites attach themselves to the bees. Therefore those bees become carriers of the mite effectively transferring them to other foragers and hence spreading to other hives. Is this not the way you see it?
I was thinking the same thing. Mites also attach them longer to bees and also may jump to more bees at the same time period and infect more bees with viruses and bacteria that mites carry .
@@FloryJohannBees , especially feral and Russian /Caucasian bees, have hygenic behaviors. They groom each other, remove sick bees and infested brood, are naturally bigger propolis makers (fights viruses etc), aand have more tendency to swarm (which is mite control). Mites evolved with bees for many millions of years. It is likely that the huge influx of pesticides, miticides, on stressed bees travelling to monocrops for commercial beekeeping, as well as the practice of killing queen cells to keep bees from swarming naturally, is actually what is causing colony collapse disorder. Bees have been beekeeping themselves for 100 million years. We should probably not assume we know better than they do 😂 On the large scale, we just got here while they’ve been holding down for many millions of years :)
Good info on this video. I did have two smaller hives that made new queens in mid to late july last year. One of them even had two queens in the hive, it was a deep box. I took one of the queens with a frame of brewed and bees, she did start laying but it kept getting robbed. It didn't survive. I always thought the whole brewed break thing was when there was no larvae and eggs was the best time to treat with OA and get your mites down because they were on the bees versus in the capped cells so you can kill them on the bees. I guess I was confused on that, either way I'm going to do more of that in July and August this year.
Johnny. You are Correct re Oxalic Acid (OA) use. YES... You need a "Brood Break" aka as few Capped Cells as possible (which hinders Varroa Mites hiding in them) that the OA can Kill without that Wax Capping being a 'barrier.' Splits, Queen (x2 Sided QE )Frame, Caging Queens. Adding a Queen Cell or Virgin Queen all do similar, in that it is a "Brood Break" : No Eggs survive :( as you take an odd Frame out) and Freeze it, to add it back to the Colony to eat up that dead larvae ! Or let Chickens eat that Comb. And give the Bees a New existing Drawn Comb : one to lay up in for making Winter Bees. [Drawing out fresh Comb in Autumn, then laying it up doesn't work so well in timescale before Winter ! Wax building is a "Spring Activity" done in Days ! Not in months & months to make (!) So get all those increasing pre Swarm Populations to build 'next years Frames' now ! And Extract that Honey, keep the Dry used Comb, stored safely for the Bees in Spring 2024 ! Hope this helps. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
November i did 5 treatments 5 days apart until my mite load was low. It wasnt huge, but bigger than it had been. OAV traetments in cold weatger is tge way to go! I love how you showed the colony size by the deop pattern. Mites were very low all spring and summer. Fall I did a thyme treatment and had some mite drop.
OAV is great! If I was to ever treat again that is what I would go to for sure. It sounds like you are doing great! Happy beekeeping! ♥️☺️looking forward to 2024!
I do OA 5 treatment , 5 days apart which will eventually treat all the bees and mites including the mites and bees that are still capped. Back to your way of reducing mites. If you lose 1 frames of brood to mite overload, that is 5,000 dead bees and that is a lot for summer when the bees are fighting drought and food shortage while building up winterbees that pose to have higher fat contents to survive.
I'll preface this by saying everyone is entitled to keep bees how they want, so you do you. But... The science does not back up most of what you said in this video. Brood breaks don't eliminate mites - they knock them down a bit. Mite lifespan is about 2 months. Unless you are going to cage your queen for 2 months and collapse your hive population, a brood break will not get you to zero. If you want your bees to ramp up brood rearing at any time, including post-solstice, you don't need to requeen the hive. Just feed them 1:1 sucrose syrup. They don't slow down laying because of the sun - they slow down because the flowers are not producing the necessary resources to support a large amount of brood rearing like in Spring. If you feed post-solstice (especially during the dearth), monitor for mites and treat for them responsibly, you will have healthy bees that get through winter. By choosing not to control mites, you are killing bees unnecessarily, and spreading mites to other colonies in the area.
Really interested to see if there is any science behind not feeding pollen in the Fall as she suggests. Pollen is protein and is necessary for the development of the exoskeleton.
@ ryanferreri The people who sell science, and bees do not want you to believe OTS works. I've been using it for 5 years now and have had 100 % over wintering survival. Up from 20-50% in the 12 years prior. What treatment do you use that eliminates 100% of mites? What treatment do you use that doesn't taint honey and severely weaken your bees? What does the science say about that? Follow the money. And another thing, It is impossible to sell pure honey when you're feeding sugar syrup.
@@gr8belayr….have a real hard think …in the fall is pollen naturally available to the bees , I’m thinking not but I’m not from your area so anything is possible depending on your flora where your bees are . Mostly flora is dieing off so how would bees have pollen naturally, so the question is why would you put pollen on them when they don’t have it normally in the fall , also the queens are laying less why feed pollen it doesn’t make sense to me to be doing this but for your own benefit and not the colonies. Please show where there is proof on feeding pollen for the bees exoskeleton development in the fall ,I’d like to see that ,or did you just read it off the internet somewhere.
I read the page you had a picture of the screen, and it did not say that they started it and died. It said that they emerged with the emerging workers. Could you please explain where it does
Literally never ceases to Amaze me the sheer amount of information u are able to convey in a short 10min video🤯Not to mention the sheer amount of information there is on even One particular subject in the vast world of beekeeping🤯🐝🤯Brood break is Fascinating to me tho and I agree with u it really does seem like not only the best way to get rid of mites just numbers wise but also the Safest way for the bees themselves which after all is what this is All about💛🐝💛This isn't a hobby in the traditional sense, u are dealing with living breathing creatures and Their well being short and long term should Always be your first priority and that is why U are Favorite Keeper😊Can't wait to see ur brood break in action, meanwhile u stay Warm my friend and I shall see U in the next one☺️✌️🐝💛 P.S. Love ur theme song🤣👏🤣 #emilyisthebeesknees #beefitbeekeeping #beefithoney #beefitbeeyard #beekind #downwithvarroa #queenbeeemily #mynicknamesgotnicknames🤣
What about if their are not enough drones around ? And right now in Texas there are not any local queens to buy. What do you suggest for the next best way to control the mites & in 102 degree weather? Thank You! Love your videos ♥️🐝♥️
Totally disagree with miticides. Better to let bees swarm as they do naturally for 100 million years. Brood breaks with virgin queens work best for creating genetically strong bees with healthy immune systems. I’m always surprised when humans think they are better beekeepers than bees themselves. Which species has been on earth for 100 million years ? Not humans ! 😂
Such a refreshing brake from the commercial oriented presenters that are all about chemicals, chemicals,chemicals! I can appreciate that their focus on honey production and wanting to maintain their market of people who need queens and bees because their’s die every winter. However, as a hobbyist, my needs are not their needs. I’ve been using powdered sugar treatments monthly to have grooming behavior reduce the mite population. I also am making splits from my strongest hive and requeening weak hives with cells from my strong ones. In my mind varroa will out evolve any chemical so think improved genetics is the ultimate solution. The alpha bee trigger seems to require the absence of the queen so a forced superceedure looks like the optimum. Question for the community: Is it better to not take steps to reduce the mites prior to the break to make sure the population is high enough to have a successful die off crash at the break or should I continue as is up to the break with my powdered sugar treatments?
Do you consider Thymol (Thyme Essential Oil) : not when Supers are on, [to stop oil tasting in Honey] .... As a 'Chemical Treatment' ??? Ancient Greeks used Thyme Plants in their Clay Hives. And fed Bees Egg Yolk and Sweet Juicey Lemons as an enriching boost in time of Dearth like modern day 'Protein Pollen Substitute feed ! Nothings new over the Millions of years of Bees. 🙃 Check out Randy Olivers Varroa Seminars here on TH-cam: He does various 'different V.M methods' to outwit any resistance whether Agri-Meds, Pharma, or by Natural methods. Hope this helps. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Someone here in Scotland 🏴 sent me and old 1900's Beek Photo: Head Beek, Beek Boy Trainee, Bee Hives in a Walled Yard with a Huge patch of Rhubarb at the Hive Entrances. (Way before OA was Sold to Kill: VM.) 🙄 Yet Botanically OA exists in Rhubarb Leaves ! That's why we cut the greenery off before Cooking Rhubarb stems so eat it safely. Wonder if Folklore knew more about Apiary and Veg Patches than we do ? 🙃
@@ME_MeAndMyBees Here is the issue on feeding. In nature, you do not have twenty to fifty to 100 to 1000 hives within a mile or less of each other. All these bees are foraging over the same terrain. Stripping it to varying degrees. We are doing the cattle rancher equivalent of overgrazing the land. Oh, and then we take from the bees a significant proportion of their stores. Then we see bee robbing and try to prevent it at the hive being attacked instead of solving the cause. Then we are told to inspect every week to two weeks which stress the bees. So we have hungry stressed bee that we douse with different chemicals throughout the year then are surprised they don’t make it through winter? Commercial methods of raising bees is not appropriate for hobbyists. They factor in dead outs and the cost of chemicals. They are all about production. Bee health is secondary. Potentially weakening the hive through chemicals is ok as long as the numbers are high enough to maximize production. These chemicals also build up in the wax to the detriment of the bees. These commercial operations crank out hundreds to thousands of queens from the same weak stock so they can replace dead outs and sell them to hobbyists whose hives died out even with all the chemicals applied. Anyone who buys replacement bees from the same guy who sold them the last batch that didn’t make it through winter is making a huge mistake along the lines of the definition of insanity. Randy’s seminars are terrific. To my knowledge he is the only large scale commercial operator who is actively working to upgrade his breeding stock on a large scale. He is seeing tremendous results but to improve the stock nationwide there needs to be a coordinated effort by all large scale operators as they will have the most effect on the gene pool due to their tremendous numbers. Ancient techniques prior to varroa is interesting but of little utility today. The question to ask is why are we not using more of the asiatic honey bee genes. The varroa only attacks drones with them? We know that africanized bees have significant resistance to mites yet are too defensive. What about breeding out the defensive traits and increasing resistance? The Russian Sikorsky bee evolved naturally over the past 190 years to be far, far more resistant to mites up in Siberia yet we hear little about them. Did you know there is an active breeding program to keep these traits within the Sikorsky strain? Why do we not hear more about this? Commercial keepers cannot maintain the same profit margins so have no incentive to change out their stock. The short term cost benefit outweighs the long term benefit to the bee gene pool. Randy is a welcome exception.
@@temijinkahn511 Agree ! Yes : Max use of Chemicals, Synthetic Nectar, Faux Pollen is causing Bee Disasters on all levels. I keep "Local" Mutt Bees (Black Strain of Scottish Bee) and let them Re -Queen themselves. Think Bees know what's the best Larvae (over Grafting by Human means.) Earlier Message was showing what's occurring now is not new. Been tried and or tested as an "Idea of Use" over the Centuries [To Succeed or Fail !] I'm lucky to not have Deserts of Faceless Agri : like x100sq Miles of Almonds, Canola, etc. Here in the Scottish Borders I have plenty of Native Trees Oaks, Ash, Willow, Birch, also open Meadows, River Banks, Moorland Heath. As well as Fruit Trees : Apple, Cherry, Pear, Plum and Plenty of Wild Flowers in my Garden and my Neighbours Gardens too. My Bees Survive each Winter. If they Reproduce themselves as required. Have Honey Stores, are Cosy* and Dry in their Hives. (One is Insulated with x4 Inches of Wool !) My Horizontal Hive* is my best Colony for Bees. They have a lovely Calm demeanor gentle Temperament. The way they Survive V.M and have no Disease or Virus issues. Our long Wet and Cold Winters requires us to treat them kindly and they return the kindness. Simples. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
@annettemarydever7207 I have been putting my queen in a queen cage and leaving her in her hive for three weeks for the brood break. She is still fed by her attendants while in the cage. If there is a superceedure, I split the hive so half the bees get a new queen and the others still have the original. After three weeks, I release the original queen so she can get back to laying and that first batch of brood is sacrificed (same for the split queen once she matures and is bred). I do this after the summer solstice. This is more work than commercial operations are willing to do. It's easier to treat with chemicals and pass the cost on. I also have switched to Russian and Russian hybrid varieties from Italians. Russians are mite resistant but have quirks that make them unattractive for commercial bee keepers who prefer Italians who are easier for them to work profitably. The Russian quirks are not bad for hobbyists but are extra work that adds costs for commercial keepers.
I am lead to believe that post summer solstice you may have few to no drones flying arround. Wouldnt that make the brood break tech "risky" at best??? 🧑🌾
I did a brood break by dividing the colony, the half with old queen and no brood. The other half was left with brood and no queen. The colony with the old queen survived the winter, but the colony that had no queen, despite that the had a brood break and the new queen has mated successfully, they did not manage over the winter. What happened? All the varroa went off brood and went on the adult bees. After the brood break the colony collapsed because of infection and high varroa load. So this experience showed me that the brood break alone is not enough to get the varroa out...
I’m thinking you may have needed to do this earlier before your colony is over loaded and infested to far , sounds like your colony had large number of mites to start with , I could be wrong but the mites should have lessened a lot but yours was still mite effected , how early did you start with the brood break ie spring summer etc
@@fishmut did it mid July, after harvesting honey, because there are still drones available to mate the queen. It is to be noticed, that I did no drones pruning during the season.
OTS still leaves the colony without a laying queen for close to a month. I prefer to get my queens ready to go so that I can control the length of the brood break down to about a week.
Totally agree with treatments chemical,and physical ie screened bottom boards drone frames do many splits through summer. Split during a dearth and feed internally give them a venue to do what bees like to do procreate. People catch feral bees think their super bees there not. They have multiple swarms through summer and cluster isn’t large any diseases left behind
Hi My bee friends in Texas are suggesting I don’t do a split now in late July because of less drones, he hasn’t seen any drone cells. Another Friend said to wait until spring when the hive is strong. Another friend said do it now and give the new split some of the frames from the old hive. I’ve not done a split yet, I’m a little worried about doing one now. I appreciate your thoughts! And what is the next best way to treat for mites if I don’t requeen?
@@annettemarydever7207….hpe😢you didn’t do the split , drones are a must for queen matting ,new queen will become laying worker being not fertilised , adding frames from other hives is not a great idea ether because your just transporting mites from one hive to your split ,kinda beats the purpose I’m thinking . But hey if you did do the split let us know how it went . Cheers
I love my feral bees. They’re very gentle, Caucasians seem to be dominant genetics around here; very prolific foragers, as they fly in rain and colder weather; lots of propolis; hygenic behaviors; mate locally so they have strongest genetics suited for the area. Yes they swarm. I’m very convinced bees are much smarter than humans at just about everything, including gardening and mite control😂 Sometimes colonies die, for many reasons, including from pesticides and even miticide (I’ve heard many stories of this, too). We didn’t have colony collapse disorder until we started dumping glyphosate and nicotinoids by the metric tons on everything - not good for us, either. Feral bees are ace!
Very helpful. A best organic practice dear. Im from JAFFNA SRILANKA struggling with bee mites for 3 years since i knew about the mite attack, we dont have any varroa here but very tiny than varoa mite in out apis cerena bees. I can remeber in the off season only in the june starting most of the hive get affected by these mites. some hives stop layung becaususe of no flow and after a period of time if they lay egg the hive is 95% cleared out of brood issues. And im also trying the requenning method it reducing honey any how its give benefits rather than keeping it further in to disaster. Thanks. I like to connect via social medias if possible can i Get your contact please.
Thought... Hey : Right Hand Drive Car in USA ??? When did that happen !?! Then Bee Book you showed as came up "Back to Front?" in Writing / Images (Mirrored ?) Why did the Video Footage do this ? Not seen it this way in a TH-cam Video before. Weird trying to Read that Page ! 🙃 Can we have that Book Reference please. 🤞 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 We had one of our first warm days today here in Scotland 🏴 Bees out and flying doing their first orientation flights since late November. Nice to see Bees ! To early to do Beek work though. About 10C (50f)
Only issue with this does it kill the varroa mites or they simple fall off , if it’s not killing them there is nothing stopping them from returning is my thoughts , more information on that would be great if you can get any .
@@fishmut it's a natural way Bees handle the Mites, when a supply is made present for the Bees the Mites are dealt with. It's about Balance not Obliteration. We need to work with Nature not bring Chemicals that are so Dangerous HazNat Suits and Breathing Apoaratus is Needed. Blessings 0/
Not a better way to kill mites it’s one of the many ways and this is old news. Let the bees be bees. They know exactly what they are doing, we have theory’s of why but until we can communicate with these lovely creatures we realy don’t have a clue. Let them be bees. If I were to see them flying upside down and backwards. Wouldn’t be thinking why is this happing. Would think that’s weird.
It isn't very practical to do these treatments that don't kill at least 80%. Maybe a drone frame with an rightly timed brood break... but one needs experience for that. Or a vertical split and recombine after it. Try to learn about stuff like that... if you do only a brood break, without something that will kill or collect mites you won't do much for them
Have you heard Is product called ride x They used on lawns To keep the grub From eating the rook. They are studying that in a University of Georgia You can go to Blue Ridge honey and find a video on it.
In my opinion, that’s not a good thing to do because all that larvae are still going to develop into bees, very sick bees would be better to remove that brood when sealed and burn it.
Essentially it is "walkaway" splitting with a little more direction. It works for increase. I'm not convinced by any means through my own practice that it "kills" mites ----it does help spread them around to your splits though...
A better way to kill varroa mites ? A great way to keep buying bees again every spring ! So, you do a split and let them make emergency cells.. and then you call it a "method" and give it a name, OTS. I love YT and I love YT Gurus even more... lets make a split and put an acronym on it !!
Not a better way to kill mites one of ways to kill mites, let the bees be bees they know what they are doing. We can make assumptions but realy that’s all they are.
Please stop making videos on how to kill your bees. Alot of the stuff you talk about does not work. There is no such thing as treatment free. And the varroa that changed the game for all the people popping in saying just let the bees do bee things they know best.
Sure there is. They forgot to write the second half. Treatment free - mites for all. There's always some secluded beek without neighbors bragging about it. Or some guy that doesn't even have an extractor.. living in bee haven, surrounded with swarms, doing removals.. who thinks that having those conditions is normal for everybody. And thinking that letting hives swarm out is normal practice
It is normal for bees to swarm, I stopped all but 2 out of 25 hives from swarming last summer. There is nothing normal about bee keeping in North America. One they are actually an invasive species here. They aren’t even Indigenous. And basically we have forced them into an inviroment I can only compare to industrial farming which encourages disease and problems. When you take any species out of their natural environment, cage and overcrowd them we wonder why why they get sick and then we do what we always do try to correct the problem not by changing practices but use chemicals antibiotics pesticides to relieve any problems from our own doing. So in reality normal practice, in reality how we treat them is a receipt for disease as they can’t do what bees do
There is no treatment free if your country has double or triple the amount of hives it should have... if everybody is driving around to catch the next flow, spreading diseases.. if your dearth and drought starts every June right after they swarm, and lasts 3 -4 months, without pollen, killing everything in the wild. But there is chemical free organic beekeeping and good selection.. good beekeeping practice.. without GMO crops and places where spraying crops isn't a practice. I understand that some want to keep bees as pets.. but that isn't what beekeepers do.. (well, maybe YT beekeepers). Where l am we want their products, clean and healthy.. we like organic and one of us just got a reward for cleanest, GMO free, chemical free honey in the world.. something a US beek can only imagine.. but you don't have one peace of land where you could do that. So, I would rather have my bees with one organic treatment in the summer brood break, do good selection and keep them alive.. produce healthy human food.. much better than letting varroa kill them, peeking in numbers right when the drought starts
@@Swarmstead you don't know enough to critique other beekeeping practices. All you know is your local conditions. Just by thinking that swarms are everywhere, you're already wrong. When in reality most of us have a summer dearth, right at the time when varroa is at its peak and bees suffer drought stress. I would like to see you do treatment free with my conditions. Who knows, maybe if l could have your smooth summer.. maybe l would preach treatment free too
Misleading information - brood breaks on their own are not a sufficient mite control. Ask anyone that professionally runs mating nucs year round - mites will still find a way into those hives, even after 3-4 breaks throughout the season. Not all of the mites will "starve to death" and you can still have a mite experience that is above treatment threshold. Beyond brood breaks, treatment still needs to be considered as part of the mite control regimen. Trialing something on 2 hives is a poor representation of its efficacy.
Hello, I am from Algeria, I am 29 years old, I am looking for a job in the field of beekeeping, and I have five years of experience. My name is Djilali, and I hope that you will help me to work in your country. Thank you. I love this field. I love bees❤
Totally agree, been saying for years bees know what they are doing not us so much. This is old knowledge. And to label the best way to eliminate mites over zealous should read one of the many ways to reduce mites
Spend the money for push in queen cages for brood breaks. A slight misting of sugar water gets bees cleaning each other and hive. Plant rhubarb and thyme around hives.
So what your saying is to take out my present queen and let the hive raise another queen ? The Hive I have now has raised their own queen this spring so is she good or should this be the queen I should take out ? It is now July so will there be time for them to raise a new queen and make it thru the winter ?
My biggest colony (feral bees, they swarmed 4x last year and requeened themselves), swarmed 6x this year ! Making new families is healthy, it’s what we want ! And they do have several other forms of mite control that I have observed. Lots of propolis, for one, which I never remove. I’m rooting for them. They’re going into their third year.
Is it too late for a brood break now? (Early September)
What do I do with my old queen?
Thank you!! I may try this. I found two other methods of dealing with varroa mites naturally, but I'm still super new to bee keeping and haven't tried them yet myself. One is to heat the hive up to 108F for 2.5 hours being careful to not let the temperature fluctuate. Then retreat them again the same way 3 weeks later to kill off any mites that happen to survive the first treatment. The second method is to put bait boxes out and catch wild feral bees swarms that have already developed mite resistance.
Thanks for info! We’ve had 102-105 temperatures in Texas last two weeks & continuing, maybe the heat helped kill off the mites! :)
@annettemarydever7207 it's possible. If the heat is lower, around 106F for a longer period of time it will kill some of them off.
what method do you use to heat the hive to 108F?
Our club is practicing OTS this year. We did it last year too. Mel is a smart guy. Very easy to make alot of queens this way.
Make qweene s without buying them got have cells
During the period of no brood, the mites attach themselves to the bees. Therefore those bees become carriers of the mite effectively transferring them to other foragers and hence spreading to other hives.
Is this not the way you see it?
I was thinking the same thing.
Mites also attach them longer to bees and also may jump to more bees at the same time period and infect more bees with viruses and bacteria that mites carry .
@@FloryJohannBees , especially feral and Russian /Caucasian bees, have hygenic behaviors. They groom each other, remove sick bees and infested brood, are naturally bigger propolis makers (fights viruses etc), aand have more tendency to swarm (which is mite control). Mites evolved with bees for many millions of years. It is likely that the huge influx of pesticides, miticides, on stressed bees travelling to monocrops for commercial beekeeping, as well as the practice of killing queen cells to keep bees from swarming naturally, is actually what is causing colony collapse disorder. Bees have been beekeeping themselves for 100 million years. We should probably not assume we know better than they do 😂 On the large scale, we just got here while they’ve been holding down for many millions of years :)
Good info on this video. I did have two smaller hives that made new queens in mid to late july last year. One of them even had two queens in the hive, it was a deep box. I took one of the queens with a frame of brewed and bees, she did start laying but it kept getting robbed. It didn't survive.
I always thought the whole brewed break thing was when there was no larvae and eggs was the best time to treat with OA and get your mites down because they were on the bees versus in the capped cells so you can kill them on the bees. I guess I was confused on that, either way I'm going to do more of that in July and August this year.
Johnny.
You are Correct re Oxalic Acid (OA) use. YES... You need a "Brood Break" aka as few Capped Cells as possible (which hinders Varroa Mites hiding in them) that the OA can Kill without that Wax Capping being a 'barrier.'
Splits, Queen (x2 Sided QE )Frame, Caging Queens. Adding a Queen Cell or Virgin Queen all do similar, in that it is a "Brood Break" : No Eggs survive :( as you take an odd Frame out) and Freeze it, to add it back to the Colony to eat up that dead larvae ! Or let Chickens eat that Comb. And give the Bees a New existing Drawn Comb : one to lay up in for making Winter Bees. [Drawing out fresh Comb in Autumn, then laying it up doesn't work so well in timescale before Winter !
Wax building is a "Spring Activity" done in Days ! Not in months & months to make (!)
So get all those increasing pre Swarm Populations to build 'next years Frames' now !
And Extract that Honey, keep the Dry used Comb, stored safely for the Bees in Spring 2024 !
Hope this helps. 😎
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Happy Beekeeping 2023
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
November i did 5 treatments 5 days apart until my mite load was low. It wasnt huge, but bigger than it had been. OAV traetments in cold weatger is tge way to go! I love how you showed the colony size by the deop pattern. Mites were very low all spring and summer. Fall I did a thyme treatment and had some mite drop.
OAV is great! If I was to ever treat again that is what I would go to for sure. It sounds like you are doing great! Happy beekeeping! ♥️☺️looking forward to 2024!
I do OA 5 treatment , 5 days apart which will eventually treat all the bees and mites including the mites and bees that are still capped.
Back to your way of reducing mites.
If you lose 1 frames of brood to mite overload, that is 5,000 dead bees and that is a lot for summer when the bees are fighting drought and food shortage while building up winterbees that pose to have higher fat contents to survive.
What is the thyme treatment?
I'll preface this by saying everyone is entitled to keep bees how they want, so you do you. But...
The science does not back up most of what you said in this video. Brood breaks don't eliminate mites - they knock them down a bit. Mite lifespan is about 2 months. Unless you are going to cage your queen for 2 months and collapse your hive population, a brood break will not get you to zero.
If you want your bees to ramp up brood rearing at any time, including post-solstice, you don't need to requeen the hive. Just feed them 1:1 sucrose syrup. They don't slow down laying because of the sun - they slow down because the flowers are not producing the necessary resources to support a large amount of brood rearing like in Spring. If you feed post-solstice (especially during the dearth), monitor for mites and treat for them responsibly, you will have healthy bees that get through winter. By choosing not to control mites, you are killing bees unnecessarily, and spreading mites to other colonies in the area.
Really interested to see if there is any science behind not feeding pollen in the Fall as she suggests. Pollen is protein and is necessary for the development of the exoskeleton.
@ ryanferreri The people who sell science, and bees do not want you to believe OTS works. I've been using it for 5 years now and have had 100 % over wintering survival. Up from 20-50% in the 12 years prior. What treatment do you use that eliminates 100% of mites? What treatment do you use that doesn't taint honey and severely weaken your bees? What does the science say about that? Follow the money. And another thing, It is impossible to sell pure honey when you're feeding sugar syrup.
Hi What do you use to control mites? Thank You!
@@gr8belayr….have a real hard think …in the fall is pollen naturally available to the bees , I’m thinking not but I’m not from your area so anything is possible depending on your flora where your bees are . Mostly flora is dieing off so how would bees have pollen naturally, so the question is why would you put pollen on them when they don’t have it normally in the fall , also the queens are laying less why feed pollen it doesn’t make sense to me to be doing this but for your own benefit and not the colonies. Please show where there is proof on feeding pollen for the bees exoskeleton development in the fall ,I’d like to see that ,or did you just read it off the internet somewhere.
@@fishmutWeeds, such as goldenrod, provide pollen in late summer and early fall.
I just got that book a month ago! Someone in my local bee club talked about OTS at a meeting. Great video!
Where did you get the book from? I'm unable to find it
I read the page you had a picture of the screen, and it did not say that they started it and died. It said that they emerged with the emerging workers. Could you please explain where it does
Literally never ceases to Amaze me the sheer amount of information u are able to convey in a short 10min video🤯Not to mention the sheer amount of information there is on even One particular subject in the vast world of beekeeping🤯🐝🤯Brood break is Fascinating to me tho and I agree with u it really does seem like not only the best way to get rid of mites just numbers wise but also the Safest way for the bees themselves which after all is what this is All about💛🐝💛This isn't a hobby in the traditional sense, u are dealing with living breathing creatures and Their well being short and long term should Always be your first priority and that is why U are Favorite Keeper😊Can't wait to see ur brood break in action, meanwhile u stay Warm my friend and I shall see U in the next one☺️✌️🐝💛 P.S. Love ur theme song🤣👏🤣 #emilyisthebeesknees #beefitbeekeeping #beefithoney #beefitbeeyard #beekind #downwithvarroa #queenbeeemily #mynicknamesgotnicknames🤣
What about if their are not enough drones around ? And right now in Texas there are not any local queens to buy. What do you suggest for the next best way to control the mites & in 102 degree weather? Thank You! Love your videos ♥️🐝♥️
I cant say I agree with you. Just beekeeping talk. Ask 10 beekeepers get 13 opinions ✅️😂I use Formic spring and fall.. Md here.
She doesn't know too much! she is just trying to make a buck from TH-cam! She is far away, from reality.Look at her population, summer time!!
@@geanitsucuneli4791 all you have to look at is her thumbnail to know she's only on youtube for attention.
Totally disagree with miticides. Better to let bees swarm as they do naturally for 100 million years. Brood breaks with virgin queens work best for creating genetically strong bees with healthy immune systems. I’m always surprised when humans think they are better beekeepers than bees themselves. Which species has been on earth for 100 million years ? Not humans ! 😂
Thanks for the follow up, gonna give it a try this fall.❤👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Many people feed pollen patties in the fall. I am one of the them.
Such a refreshing brake from the commercial oriented presenters that are all about chemicals, chemicals,chemicals! I can appreciate that their focus on honey production and wanting to maintain their market of people who need queens and bees because their’s die every winter. However, as a hobbyist, my needs are not their needs.
I’ve been using powdered sugar treatments monthly to have grooming behavior reduce the mite population. I also am making splits from my strongest hive and requeening weak hives with cells from my strong ones. In my mind varroa will out evolve any chemical so think improved genetics is the ultimate solution.
The alpha bee trigger seems to require the absence of the queen so a forced superceedure looks like the optimum.
Question for the community: Is it better to not take steps to reduce the mites prior to the break to make sure the population is high enough to have a successful die off crash at the break or should I continue as is up to the break with my powdered sugar treatments?
Do you consider Thymol (Thyme Essential Oil) : not when Supers are on, [to stop oil tasting in Honey] .... As a 'Chemical Treatment' ???
Ancient Greeks used Thyme Plants in their Clay Hives. And fed Bees Egg Yolk and Sweet Juicey Lemons as an enriching boost in time of Dearth like modern day 'Protein Pollen Substitute feed !
Nothings new over the Millions of years of Bees. 🙃
Check out Randy Olivers Varroa Seminars here on TH-cam: He does various 'different V.M methods' to outwit any resistance whether Agri-Meds, Pharma, or by Natural methods.
Hope this helps. 😎
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Someone here in Scotland 🏴 sent me and old 1900's Beek Photo: Head Beek, Beek Boy Trainee, Bee Hives in a Walled Yard with a Huge patch of Rhubarb at the Hive Entrances. (Way before OA was Sold to Kill: VM.) 🙄
Yet Botanically OA exists in Rhubarb Leaves ! That's why we cut the greenery off before Cooking Rhubarb stems so eat it safely.
Wonder if Folklore knew more about Apiary and Veg Patches than we do ? 🙃
@@ME_MeAndMyBees Here is the issue on feeding. In nature, you do not have twenty to fifty to 100 to 1000 hives within a mile or less of each other. All these bees are foraging over the same terrain. Stripping it to varying degrees. We are doing the cattle rancher equivalent of overgrazing the land. Oh, and then we take from the bees a significant proportion of their stores. Then we see bee robbing and try to prevent it at the hive being attacked instead of solving the cause. Then we are told to inspect every week to two weeks which stress the bees. So we have hungry stressed bee that we douse with different chemicals throughout the year then are surprised they don’t make it through winter?
Commercial methods of raising bees is not appropriate for hobbyists. They factor in dead outs and the cost of chemicals. They are all about production. Bee health is secondary. Potentially weakening the hive through chemicals is ok as long as the numbers are high enough to maximize production. These chemicals also build up in the wax to the detriment of the bees.
These commercial operations crank out hundreds to thousands of queens from the same weak stock so they can replace dead outs and sell them to hobbyists whose hives died out even with all the chemicals applied. Anyone who buys replacement bees from the same guy who sold them the last batch that didn’t make it through winter is making a huge mistake along the lines of the definition of insanity.
Randy’s seminars are terrific. To my knowledge he is the only large scale commercial operator who is actively working to upgrade his breeding stock on a large scale. He is seeing tremendous results but to improve the stock nationwide there needs to be a coordinated effort by all large scale operators as they will have the most effect on the gene pool due to their tremendous numbers.
Ancient techniques prior to varroa is interesting but of little utility today. The question to ask is why are we not using more of the asiatic honey bee genes. The varroa only attacks drones with them? We know that africanized bees have significant resistance to mites yet are too defensive. What about breeding out the defensive traits and increasing resistance? The Russian Sikorsky bee evolved naturally over the past 190 years to be far, far more resistant to mites up in Siberia yet we hear little about them. Did you know there is an active breeding program to keep these traits within the Sikorsky strain? Why do we not hear more about this? Commercial keepers cannot maintain the same profit margins so have no incentive to change out their stock. The short term cost benefit outweighs the long term benefit to the bee gene pool. Randy is a welcome exception.
@@temijinkahn511 Agree ! Yes : Max use of Chemicals, Synthetic Nectar, Faux Pollen is causing Bee Disasters on all levels.
I keep "Local" Mutt Bees (Black Strain of Scottish Bee) and let them Re -Queen themselves. Think Bees know what's the best Larvae (over Grafting by Human means.)
Earlier Message was showing what's occurring now is not new. Been tried and or tested as an "Idea of Use" over the Centuries [To Succeed or Fail !]
I'm lucky to not have Deserts of Faceless Agri : like x100sq Miles of Almonds, Canola, etc.
Here in the Scottish Borders
I have plenty of Native Trees Oaks, Ash, Willow, Birch, also open Meadows, River Banks, Moorland Heath. As well as Fruit Trees : Apple, Cherry, Pear, Plum and Plenty of Wild Flowers in my Garden and my Neighbours Gardens too.
My Bees Survive each Winter. If they Reproduce themselves as required. Have Honey Stores, are Cosy* and Dry in their Hives. (One is Insulated with x4 Inches of Wool !)
My Horizontal Hive* is my best Colony for Bees. They have a lovely Calm demeanor gentle Temperament.
The way they Survive V.M and have no Disease or Virus issues. Our long Wet and Cold Winters requires us to treat them kindly and they return the kindness. Simples. 😎
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Happy Beekeeping 2023
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@mmb7310. Thank You for your info!
How do you handle mites?
@annettemarydever7207 I have been putting my queen in a queen cage and leaving her in her hive for three weeks for the brood break. She is still fed by her attendants while in the cage. If there is a superceedure, I split the hive so half the bees get a new queen and the others still have the original. After three weeks, I release the original queen so she can get back to laying and that first batch of brood is sacrificed (same for the split queen once she matures and is bred). I do this after the summer solstice. This is more work than commercial operations are willing to do. It's easier to treat with chemicals and pass the cost on.
I also have switched to Russian and Russian hybrid varieties from Italians. Russians are mite resistant but have quirks that make them unattractive for commercial bee keepers who prefer Italians who are easier for them to work profitably. The Russian quirks are not bad for hobbyists but are extra work that adds costs for commercial keepers.
And another extremely informative video. This is definitely seasoned beekeeper info. Keeps it interesting. Thanks.
100% Wrong!!
That loses lots of bees
@@geanitsucuneli4791 if you don't agree with treatment free then keep.using.your apivar. Your the ones going to be without bees.
@@jasonfought apivar loses lots of bees.
@@geanitsucuneli4791 what part of the process do you not understand? If you like kindergarten beekeeping the you just keep kindergartening.
Very informative! Do you produce northern queens for sake? I’m in NW Indiana.
Yes I do! And will have some available this summer 🙂
We do the same here. Remove the queen end of July and 24 days after when the hive is completely broodless we treat once for the year.
I am lead to believe that post summer solstice you may have few to no drones flying arround.
Wouldnt that make the brood break tech "risky" at best??? 🧑🌾
If you have a strong queen consider keeping her and create a brood break by caging her for three weeks. Just a thought.
One of the tricks my father was taught is get the worker bees to direct you to the weakened queen if possible.
@@havanadaurcy1321….And how do you do that ?
I did a brood break by dividing the colony, the half with old queen and no brood. The other half was left with brood and no queen. The colony with the old queen survived the winter, but the colony that had no queen, despite that the had a brood break and the new queen has mated successfully, they did not manage over the winter. What happened? All the varroa went off brood and went on the adult bees. After the brood break the colony collapsed because of infection and high varroa load. So this experience showed me that the brood break alone is not enough to get the varroa out...
I’m thinking you may have needed to do this earlier before your colony is over loaded and infested to far , sounds like your colony had large number of mites to start with , I could be wrong but the mites should have lessened a lot but yours was still mite effected , how early did you start with the brood break ie spring summer etc
@@fishmut did it mid July, after harvesting honey, because there are still drones available to mate the queen. It is to be noticed, that I did no drones pruning during the season.
Getting Pol-line VSH, curious to see how they fare with zero treatment or manipulation.
Good video tho.
OTS still leaves the colony without a laying queen for close to a month. I prefer to get my queens ready to go so that I can control the length of the brood break down to about a week.
Totally agree with treatments chemical,and physical ie screened bottom boards drone frames do many splits through summer. Split during a dearth and feed internally give them a venue to do what bees like to do procreate. People catch feral bees think their super bees there not. They have multiple swarms through summer and cluster isn’t large any diseases left behind
Hi My bee friends in Texas are suggesting I don’t do a split now in late July because of less drones, he hasn’t seen any drone cells. Another Friend said to wait until spring when the hive is strong. Another friend said do it now and give the new split some of the frames from the old hive. I’ve not done a split yet, I’m a little worried about doing one now. I appreciate your thoughts! And what is the next best way to treat for mites if I don’t requeen?
@@annettemarydever7207….hpe😢you didn’t do the split , drones are a must for queen matting ,new queen will become laying worker being not fertilised , adding frames from other hives is not a great idea ether because your just transporting mites from one hive to your split ,kinda beats the purpose I’m thinking . But hey if you did do the split let us know how it went . Cheers
I love my feral bees. They’re very gentle, Caucasians seem to be dominant genetics around here; very prolific foragers, as they fly in rain and colder weather; lots of propolis; hygenic behaviors; mate locally so they have strongest genetics suited for the area. Yes they swarm. I’m very convinced bees are much smarter than humans at just about everything, including gardening and mite control😂 Sometimes colonies die, for many reasons, including from pesticides and even miticide (I’ve heard many stories of this, too). We didn’t have colony collapse disorder until we started dumping glyphosate and nicotinoids by the metric tons on everything - not good for us, either. Feral bees are ace!
Very helpful. A best organic practice dear. Im from JAFFNA SRILANKA struggling with bee mites for 3 years since i knew about the mite attack, we dont have any varroa here but very tiny than varoa mite in out apis cerena bees. I can remeber in the off season only in the june starting most of the hive get affected by these mites. some hives stop layung becaususe of no flow and after a period of time if they lay egg the hive is 95% cleared out of brood issues. And im also trying the requenning method it reducing honey any how its give benefits rather than keeping it further in to disaster. Thanks. I like to connect via social medias if possible can i Get your contact please.
Please help me
I lost my 6 bee colony this year, last year lost all bee colony. I like beekeeping, but always isn’t successful.
What was that book,and were do I find it
Thought...
Hey : Right Hand Drive Car
in USA ??? When did that happen !?!
Then Bee Book you showed as came up "Back to Front?" in Writing / Images (Mirrored ?)
Why did the Video Footage do this ? Not seen it this way in a TH-cam Video before. Weird trying to Read that Page ! 🙃
Can we have that Book Reference please. 🤞
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Happy Beekeeping 2023
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We had one of our first warm days today here in Scotland 🏴
Bees out and flying doing their first orientation flights since late November. Nice to see Bees ! To early to do Beek work though. About 10C (50f)
Another BeeKeeper has found Bees covering themselves up Oil from Mountain Mint causing Mites to Release and Fall off the Bees.
Only issue with this does it kill the varroa mites or they simple fall off , if it’s not killing them there is nothing stopping them from returning is my thoughts , more information on that would be great if you can get any .
@@fishmut it's a natural way Bees handle the Mites, when a supply is made present for the Bees the Mites are dealt with. It's about Balance not Obliteration. We need to work with Nature not bring Chemicals that are so Dangerous HazNat Suits and Breathing Apoaratus is Needed. Blessings 0/
Where can I find the study that proves what you just said here.
Same ? about powdered sugar dusting to git rid of mites?
Depends how many mites you got!! Sugar doesn't work every time!! But helps!
Not a better way to kill mites it’s one of the many ways and this is old news. Let the bees be bees. They know exactly what they are doing, we have theory’s of why but until we can communicate with these lovely creatures we realy don’t have a clue. Let them be bees. If I were to see them flying upside down and backwards. Wouldn’t be thinking why is this happing. Would think that’s weird.
It isn't very practical to do these treatments that don't kill at least 80%. Maybe a drone frame with an rightly timed brood break... but one needs experience for that. Or a vertical split and recombine after it. Try to learn about stuff like that... if you do only a brood break, without something that will kill or collect mites you won't do much for them
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All good stuff.
Ya know….you impressed me.
There is a new round of brood everyday. The queen just doesn't stop laying eggs then waits 21 days to lay again. You need to remove the queen.
Yes that is correct
Superb 👍
Great idea ❤
I never heard anything about winter bees before
Have you heard Is product called ride x They used on lawns To keep the grub From eating the rook. They are studying that in a University of Georgia You can go to Blue Ridge honey and find a video on it.
This is cool
In my opinion, that’s not a good thing to do because all that larvae are still going to develop into bees, very sick bees would be better to remove that brood when sealed and burn it.
If every single mite is inside the cell... that may work. But how to be sure when is the best time to do that?
Ots is the worst way to requeen a hive
Essentially it is "walkaway" splitting with a little more direction. It works for increase. I'm not convinced by any means through my own practice that it "kills" mites ----it does help spread them around to your splits though...
I think this just might work…. Especially if your bees die the mites will definitely die so you will accomplish what you wanted to do. Kill mites 😂
A better way to kill varroa mites ? A great way to keep buying bees again every spring !
So, you do a split and let them make emergency cells.. and then you call it a "method" and give it a name, OTS. I love YT and I love YT Gurus even more... lets make a split and put an acronym on it !!
Truth
True and I laughed out loud funny
There should be a warning before and after these videos to not take them seriously. This much lack of knowledge is dangerous
Not a better way to kill mites one of ways to kill mites, let the bees be bees they know what they are doing. We can make assumptions but realy that’s all they are.
Salam
mites can partially survived on the adult bees when they are facing the 3 weeks without any broods(queen caging)
I didn't understand Anything 😕
Please stop making videos on how to kill your bees. Alot of the stuff you talk about does not work. There is no such thing as treatment free. And the varroa that changed the game for all the people popping in saying just let the bees do bee things they know best.
Sure there is. They forgot to write the second half. Treatment free - mites for all. There's always some secluded beek without neighbors bragging about it. Or some guy that doesn't even have an extractor.. living in bee haven, surrounded with swarms, doing removals.. who thinks that having those conditions is normal for everybody. And thinking that letting hives swarm out is normal practice
It is normal for bees to swarm, I stopped all but 2 out of 25 hives from swarming last summer. There is nothing normal about bee keeping in North America. One they are actually an invasive species here. They aren’t even Indigenous. And basically we have forced them into an inviroment I can only compare to industrial farming which encourages disease and problems. When you take any species out of their natural environment, cage and overcrowd them we wonder why why they get sick and then we do what we always do try to correct the problem not by changing practices but use chemicals antibiotics pesticides to relieve any problems from our own doing. So in reality normal practice, in reality how we treat them is a receipt for disease as they can’t do what bees do
@@researcherAmateur interesting.
There is no treatment free if your country has double or triple the amount of hives it should have... if everybody is driving around to catch the next flow, spreading diseases.. if your dearth and drought starts every June right after they swarm, and lasts 3 -4 months, without pollen, killing everything in the wild.
But there is chemical free organic beekeeping and good selection.. good beekeeping practice.. without GMO crops and places where spraying crops isn't a practice.
I understand that some want to keep bees as pets.. but that isn't what beekeepers do.. (well, maybe YT beekeepers). Where l am we want their products, clean and healthy.. we like organic and one of us just got a reward for cleanest, GMO free, chemical free honey in the world.. something a US beek can only imagine.. but you don't have one peace of land where you could do that.
So, I would rather have my bees with one organic treatment in the summer brood break, do good selection and keep them alive.. produce healthy human food.. much better than letting varroa kill them, peeking in numbers right when the drought starts
@@Swarmstead you don't know enough to critique other beekeeping practices. All you know is your local conditions. Just by thinking that swarms are everywhere, you're already wrong. When in reality most of us have a summer dearth, right at the time when varroa is at its peak and bees suffer drought stress. I would like to see you do treatment free with my conditions. Who knows, maybe if l could have your smooth summer.. maybe l would preach treatment free too
Misleading information - brood breaks on their own are not a sufficient mite control. Ask anyone that professionally runs mating nucs year round - mites will still find a way into those hives, even after 3-4 breaks throughout the season. Not all of the mites will "starve to death" and you can still have a mite experience that is above treatment threshold. Beyond brood breaks, treatment still needs to be considered as part of the mite control regimen. Trialing something on 2 hives is a poor representation of its efficacy.
$75 for book...😢
Hello, I am from Algeria, I am 29 years old, I am looking for a job in the field of beekeeping, and I have five years of experience. My name is Djilali, and I hope that you will help me to work in your country. Thank you. I love this field. I love bees❤
You speak to much !
Nothing new here
Well, what i understand from what you say is almost this: don't touch the bees, they do everything perfect all by themselves :)
Totally agree, been saying for years bees know what they are doing not us so much. This is old knowledge. And to label the best way to eliminate mites over zealous should read one of the many ways to reduce mites
Salam