Checking the bees - First Beekeeping inspection of the year (good and bad news)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 มี.ค. 2024
- I'm inspecting the bees for the first time of the year and things aren't looking too great. The colonies seem much smaller than last year but I'm hopeful things will improve soon!
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I'm so glad you took the time to record that "Bee Birth". It filled me with such joy!
Hi Alex, just a small tip. You can place some frames with fresh comb in the hive with so little bees. It works wonders for the colony as the queen loves fresher combs. Lovely video as always.
Yes please no more moldy frames for the bees
Yeah i heard that queens dont like to lay eggs in totally black (old) combs. So i would recommend scrapping that old ones for wax and let the bees build fresh combs.
I have heard the opposite. In the spring queen likes darker comb and in the middle of the season she is more comfortable with lighter colored comb. But yes you should rotate old moldy frames out so that the bees dont winter on the exact same frames they did last year(helps keeping the diseases out).@@michalferdinandkubinec488
@@michalferdinandkubinec488 How old is too old for comb? I've had my bees for 3 years(this is the third year), do I need to start replacing comb?
@@samwhite7308 it depends on how quickly your comb changes color. For my hives it usually takes 4 to 5 years before it changes color. You should be good for this year. Just check the comb once a year. When it is as black as Alex's then it is a problem. You can change 2 combs a year. No need to change all of them at once.
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Yes, what a lovely young person trying to do nice things in a not-so-nice (sometimes) world. It's refreshing.
I'm Brazilian. I'm trying to learn english and was finding quite hard to find someone I really enjoy listening. I'm so happy I found your channel. You are so sweet and I believe you were born to teach. Thank you. 😊
Agree100%
Sometimes a break in laying is a natural way to eliminate mites, as the mites need to have brood to survive. My queen did this last year, but i didnt have the heart to kill her, and when i looked two weeks later, it was thriving! and no mites :)
I was thinking that maybe she would lay later. I'm glad you confirmed it.
I also didn't notice much, if any, food stores in Alex's broodless hive. Low feed stores and food being eaten faster than it's coming in are yet more reasons a queen might halt laying. Also she looked darker than Alex's other queens so I suspect she may have more of the Carniolan breed in her and they winter on smaller clusters than the lighter Italian breed.
Glad to see you’re growing your apiary. I’m sure you’ll have lots of success! Joe from Georgia USA,just about 20 miles from Atlanta airport.
Yeah I thought was lacking food and pollen so might have stopped laying to preserve stores and nothing to feed young, a pollen patty ?
Hive 1 / adding your old frames to centre of hive then new frames either sides work better…. then bees can expand in both directions keeping brood nest in centre.
Hive 2 / I would have grabbed the 6 best frames and all bees & Queen and popped into the Nuc, smaller space more warmth could have kicked started the Queen. That red Queen looked a good size and a shame to kill. - feed with surup, they would have picked up, then in a week if still no eggs grab a frame from another hive.
Hive 3 / just leave it alone for a couple of weeks
I am near Bristol if you need to chat.
This is exactly what I would of done. The colony was too small for a standard brood box to keep brood warm. Put them in nuq and feed syrup. I suspect she would lay in a week. We have all made mistakes. It's how we learn, christ I've made worse, lol.
I also thought like "this queen is just one year old, shouldn't have stopped laying because of old age either" but then i saw the queen with the pink marking? How's your colour coding in the UK on queens?
@@OkararuI think it was meant to be red but just a shade closer to pink
i am no beekeeper but i too would have guessed that it may be to cold for that second colony and thats why she was not laying eggs and thinks its still winter and i would have waited another week before getting rid of her
Yours is one of the few youtube channels I enjoy watching with my kid without any mom guilt, she is 4 years old. Now she keeps asking me for "the gentleman making bees" =)
"Babe, wake up...Alex just dropped another YT video"
Yup! Top priority this morning! ☕️
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I never knew I needed Bee Keeping content in my life. But here we are, and I keep watching every video. 😂
Hey Alex! Love your work, keep it up. But as a fellow beekeeper, I would give that young queen a few more days at least. It looked healthy and if she laid last year, means there is something else. Sometimes they start laying a little late when the hive is small. Its triggered by the resources coming so not enough workers means not enough pollen and that means no eggs yet. But its fine to just change the queen and boost your hive too so no judging.
I do not see any honey in that hive. No food no eggs I guess
@@MyCroatianHomestead partially true but he offered some fondant. Pollen is their source of protein. So if no pollen flow, queen stops laying even with surplus honey. Another thing is I think he should switch to liquid feeding(not sure tho depends on weather).
At this point i would have just moved 1 or 2 of those brood heavy frames from his NUC into the hive, pinched the queen and waited for them to make a new one.
@@arsenic0 That would work but I think(from his old videos) Alex wants to get some honey from those hives this year. Allowing a queen to emerge naturally and waiting her to start laying eggs takes too much time :) Season already started for him. Just shaking a few frames from the stronger one into the weak hive and keeping the queen was the way I would go...
And thats not the way to merge two hives. They will kill each other. You cannot stack one over the other like this. The bees that come back, and dont find the hive cannot enter in the other ones, the guard bees will kill them. Whats the point of killing a queen without replacing it. I dont understand what youre doing. I sugest asking for help with the local beekeepers or taking some classes. The beekeeping it's not a business. They are familly and depend on you to take care of them.
Hey Alex, you could have just put a frame of eggs into the bad hive and let them make their own queen. By the time she is ready to mate, there would be plenty of drones available. 100 beekeepers and 101 different ways/ideas. 😊
That little bee coming out for the first time was really cool
seeing that baby bee being born gave me such a serotonin boost. bees are awesome
Congrats on your hundredth video!! I love watching these videos with my morning coffee☕️ (and wow that bee being born was truly magical)
47 seconds ago 💀💀
Uniting this early in the year has just caused the bottom hive brood chamber to be colder. Warmth goes up to weaker empty comb. This is slightly detrimental to stronger bottom hive. The nights are still very cool here in U.K.
Take pause and have more time to think before rushing into things.
when you put your nuc into a normal hive, you should have let the 6 frames stayed in the middle, not push all frames to one side, good luck with the season :)
I was thinking the same.
Finally my favourite TH-camr is posting again🎉
I was thinking the same 👌🏽
Hi dude. A little constructive critism here from someone that just wants to help. Some of these manipulations are too early in the year and you may find the bees will struggle, especially the hive unite. Night time temperatures are still cold. You may have noticed that the temperature has dropped even further the last few days. That is a lot of space for colonies to maintain temperature for brooding at their size at this time of year. You may find chilled brood. I would only be doing emergency feeding for colonies light on food at this time of year. All the best
Oh fantastic to see you posting Alex. To miss you when you’re not on TH-cam. One of the many things I admire about you is you are a man of conviction. Happy spring and another season of bee keeping. 🌷🌻🐝🐝🐝🐝 oh and fishing. 🎣 😊love and friendship from Edmonton Alberta Canada 🇨🇦
Wow! I've never seen a bee birth before and didn't know I needed to! That sure is something! Thank you for being you, Alex! And for sharing these videos with us!
Hi Alex Just a small tip, when you transfer from a nuc to a full sized hive, your nuc frames need to be in the centre of the hive, and your empty frames working out from them.
There's a video on my channel showing you how to do it.
I transferred one of my weak hives back into a poly nuc. Put the poly nuc back in the same place as the hive and took the hive to one side. You get the queen to start laying at this time of year with a bit of sugar syrup feed.
Alex dropping videos within two days 😮😮😮😮
We use a newspaper to unite hives. The smell of the ink prevents infighting.
The paper is thin enough that when they chew through the newspaper, the pheromones have mixed between the hives and bees are harmonised on the same communication and don't kill each other. Sadly nothing to do with ink.
Something about these videos is just so refreshing and allows me to take an actual break from life. So genuinely thank you for these little bee-logs
Aye good luck to you mate. Some time's you just have to take a step back from your own reality and indulge in someone else's lol. I do the same when my s#-ts getting on top. And even though every now and then I do manage to find time to do the things I take pleasure in watching others do on TH-cam... When I can't it's such a good way to decompress and chill, it helps me soooo much to forget the ills of real life and then I'm ready to keep stepping forward. Sorry for long message TH-cam friend. All I'm saying is sometimes a little TH-cam escapism is good for the soul❤
Edit*** I will no doubt probably just paste this to someone else in the comments section. Just cos I feel the same as you when I watch these vids... And so do many others but feel stupid saying it... Have a good weekend much love❤❤
@@hello-tv1hi Have a nice weekend too❤️
Thanks for the kind message!
What a start to a wonderful Friday 😎🇬🇧💪🏼 good luck with your honey production this season
I am pretty scared of bees, I don't even like honey but for some reason I was incredibly happy to see a new video about Alex beekeeping. Great to hear that there will be regular updates and a new video every now and then about it. Ciao from Italy
Bees are wonderful creatures 🥰 Excellent video as always Alex 👍👍
🎉 Thanks for bee-ing back 😉 this became a lovely week filled with Alex & Bee’s❣️
I’m so happy to be watching your videos again, I’ve just started my own little homestead and I desperately want to get bees, you give some major inspo ❤
*For the weak hive, I would give them some 1:1 sugar and a bit of pollen patty and they will build back up. She will start laying. Bees are looking GREAT my friend! Good luck this season. May you harvest lots of honey!*
I am so relieved! I am thinking about doing a course on beekeeping. But I saw this, and thought that there is no way I could kill my Queen.
Your videos bring me such peace ♥️ been loving having something so wholesome to chill and fall asleep to
Good morning Alex, good morning to everyone 😊 on this lovely spring morning
You should decrease the number of unused frames to help concentrate the bees in an optimal area, enhancing the queen's egg-laying efficiency.Once the queen begins laying eggs, you can introduce additional frames.
Please keep up with this activity, missed watching your videos!!! ❤
A queen will often not lay if she doesn't have enough worker bees to support her eggs. That could of been a perfectly good queen. Maybe even better than your older queen. You could of boosted that hive with bees and larvae from a stronger hive and "Bob's your uncle."
This was a very interesting watch, your sense of humor is cool to, cheers Alex.
Black comb is "bad." It makes bees born in them smaller, weaker. scrape it and let them make newer stuff. BUT only do them a max of 2 at a time until those frames are built out again. ALSO, when putting a nuc into a new hive, put the empty frames OUTSIDE the established nest, will help them build out a bit better. Loving your journey, you're learning, young beek.
Hey! I just wanted to leave a comment on your newest video as ive been watching recently, I really enjoy your content! I love doing things "the old way" like making a ritual out of making tea, or brewing my own beer, etc.. Watching your videos has been so fun and inspiring because you seem to take a lot of satisfaction in doing things like that too!! Your videos are structured really well and are fun to watch, and your also extremely informative to the point that I can learn and do things from your videos. Thank you so much for sharing the cool things you do and please never stop doing that stuff, I love watching! Have a great day bro
TO THE BEE MOBILE! You mean your chevy? Yes...
"Thank you" for this bee keeping video. It's a learning experience. The birth of the baby bee was amazing. The next time I consume honey I'll appreciate it more knowing how it's produced. I wish you much success on your journey as you travel along in your bee mobile. Have the best day you ever had!
With that second hive, you could have caught the queen from the 1st hive, caged it, introduced it to the 2nd colony and closed it up. The 1st colony will raise their own new queen
I love that you also use Thorne's packaging as smoker fuel! Cutting corners can be fun.
Alex, i want to thank you for inspiring me. Because of you I am starting with the girls this year and I hope I will be successful.
I am absolutely loving the bee content please keep up the amazing work.
I'm a new bee keeper from the Northeastern part of India. Your videos are inspiring and educative for me. Keep going bro. Thanks a lot
Brilliant! Love seeing you doing all the things you taught yourself! Well done!
Man I've been watching your videos for a week now, started with the Skiing and now on the beekeeping ones. Your videos are so real and calming, great work my friend. I want to start beekeeping myself but gonna give myself a year to observe the nature around me and meet some beekeepers in the area before I commit. It overwhems me to be responsible for a whole city of insects :)) Loving the videos!!
And save some money. It's a very expensive hobby. I started last year.
Fast becoming one of my fave Beekeeping channels- great video Alex- always an exciting time of the year- I'm 'going in' this weekend!
Alex watching you and your innocent honest comments hilarious you are a good young gentleman and I am happy to come across to your videos
Still an absolutely fascinating miracle of life!😮. Thanks for sharing Alex!❤
Nice video. Hopefully some helpful advice as I am in the UK as well. Quite a few hives are off lay at the moment with the poor weather. You can trickle feed some 1:1 syrup to stimulate laying as I didn't see much in the way of stores in the frames, or balance the hives by adding a frame of brood in all stages (check for disease first and shake the bees off) from a strong hive to help supplement the nurse bee population or to act as a test frame in case the queen has a problem.
I just love all of your bee videos. Its so interesting and that subtle "I'm a murdere" realy got me :D
Hey Alex, a quick tip: add frames with fresh comb to the hive with a small bee population. It benefits the colony greatly as the queen prefers fresher combs. Your videos are always delightful. Thanks for capturing the 'Bee Birth'; it brought me so much joy!
That was so cool thanks for sharing your journey with us Alex ❤🎉
Always a pleasure mate ,Brummie born lad, but Welsh built
*almost drops bees*
“Oopies - sorry” 😵💫😂
We are new fans to the channel and just love Alex's honesty and zest for life. We're also new to beekeeping so it's great to learn along with him!
Hi Alex,
Beekeeper from the Netherlands here. It looks like your colonies didn't have enough food to go trough the winter. What did you feed them?
And how is Varroa levels on the small colonies?
Are your hives located in the shadow? Temperature can be an issue. My hives get the early morning sun and then they are active like crazy. Later that day, with shade they are way less active. You just moved. Make sure that you get to know the location and surroundings.
Keep up the good work man!
Don't forget to write everything down in your bee book 🐝 ❤
Such a relaxing video, thanks Alex! We love the bee content
Hi, nice video. When you are trying to grow the small hive. (Min 07:00 )A good advice i learned is to put the "new" frames between the "old frames" So the natural hive is already bigger then before and the bees start to work a bit faster on the new frames. You should not put all the new frames between them but 1 or 2 between the 6 older frames should work perfect.
Thank you Alex for some more bee videos. I really want to start a bee business. :)
I love your videos my man... good luck this bee season!
always a great watch, Alex❤❤❤
One other option rather then merging, is take a frame of fresh egs from the first hive and drop into hive #2 with no bees on it,the give should take one of the eggs and make. A queen. From a 1 or 2 day old egg😊
Glad to see your bees have been busy and collecting loads of stuff for harvest. Sad for your second hive that has a queen but no eggs.
BEEEESSSSSS!!!🐝🐝
I'm jealous. So much green in England already and we are about to get half a meter of snow.
Not everywhere. In the North of England still cold, wind and rain.
@@dickturpine2250 My bees have eaten everything from autumn. I'm going to give them syrup as had to find fondant to buy. They've already finished one box of fondant.
For the tiny colony I would have replaced the frames with newer (more yellow) build out frames and give a few frames with a bit of honey. (I keep frames from honey harvest that might have some leftover honey)
Loving the double upload week!!
Thank you for sharing the baby bee, being born, very informative, 💯
Great video as always! I'm on a similar beekeeping journey to you so always enjoy seeing what you're up to.
Fascinating stuff, well done for your perseverance and enthusiasm keep it up!
it was sooo cool seeing a bee being born you just dont get to see that in other bee keeping videos it was magical
What a treat, 2 videos in one week!
Very interesting, Alex. Thanks!
take a frame with freshly laid eggs and introduce it to that hive. Early enough in season for hive to make a new queen.
Nice one, Alex it's always very interesting when you are doing things with the bee's 🐝🐝🐝😁👍
Thanks Alex, I've missed watching your videos.
Keep uploading more videos bro ❤❤❤
Wow Alex... noticed how many followers you have... nearly half a million... Well done!!! Bet the risk of going it alone now feels like the best decision.. would be a good topic for a vid. Following you're heart and taking a risk.. Keep it up buddy
Thank u for taking good care of the bees 🐝 ❤
Another bee video?! YES!
Love your videos, Alex. Thank you!
The 2nd hive. Give them a little sugar syrup everyday and you might find the queen will start laying. She might not have been triggered to lay with a flow being on.
If that doesn’t work move one frame of brood in to the 2nd then you can buy a new queen in under 2 weeks
So happy to see you again🥰
Much love from germany 🇩🇪♥️🙏
Great video Alex 👍
The trials and tribulations of Bee Keeping ♥
Hope you're well.
LOVING all the bee videos Alex ♥️
You look so much more comfortable with the bees than when you started!
I had 2 out of 3 hives make it this year. One hive is actually smaller than your worst hive. With that few bees they can't keep brood warm so it's a vicious cycle. I'm debating stealing a frame of brood from my strong hive and putting them in a nuc box. I'd isolate my queen and when I take the frame of brood I'd leave the nurse bees on it. Of course you want the queen protected so the new bees don't try and kill her. Not sure if it's worth it yet. Also, when you pinch the queen it often good to leave the bees for 24/48 hrs so they KNOW they don't have a queen anymore. Then it's good to merge them like you did.
Yay! We didn’t have to wait weeks or months!!!!
Your video is very nice, thank you.
Cheers Alex!
hello there....back in east part of europe, we hibernate hives in a small number of frames..like 6-7 frames ,in the bxz, and insulate all the space around...that helps the brood to stay warm, and keep the bees over the brood...the more empty frames you have in the box, the more the bees spread and the Q does not lay egs, thinking that there is not enough bees to warm it up..!!
works wonders, belive me..!!
and feed them water sugar, not that stupid bricks on top..!
kudos for the Caddy, I have the same..!
Love the videos mate! You got me into beekeeping here in Australia. I keep native stingless bees 😊. Keen for all the videos to come this season
You switched the camera off & on twice, & we missed the bee being born 😢
Bees are so precious! Your amazing!
Hello from Canada.... Just stumbled across your channel. And I've subscribed.
Very interesting information about bees and fascinating bee birth footage.