The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A 334 LIVE Chat on Black Friday. Do Ethics Matter if the price is lower?

Episode Date: November 29, 2025

This is the audio track from Today's YouTube:  https://youtube.com/live/kl-du_S7mwA?feature=share

So hello and welcome. Happy Friday. Today's Friday, November the 28th, and this is Backyard Be Keeping Questions and answers episode number 334 live edition, Black Friday. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this is the way to be. So, because it's live, we have people already in the chat, and I think some of you already know. I know Kevin knows because he already typed his question in all caps. And so if you have a question for me, it should be in all. caps. It's not considered shouting today. And we will get to those in a minute. And that's a redundant question because I already have it in my list for today about fondon. But before we get started, I know what you want to know. What's the weather like where I am right now? Well, I can tell you, snowing. In fact, we canceled our Thanksgiving travels because of the snowstorms that came in. And what part of the country did they arrive in? Well, they're all over the place. I wouldn't want to be in the upper peninsula of Michigan these days. But anyway, Right here in the northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania, the northeastern part of the United States.

We already have snow. It's everywhere. It's 29.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 1.2 Celsius. So plenty of cold, not to mention the cold, the wind that comes with it. 13 mile an hour winds. That's also 21 kilometers per hour. 74% relative humidity. So there you have it. That's the whole rundown right there. and for those that are in my area, they might be wondering, hey, what's the next day that's going to be the warmest in the next seven days? I can tell you, because I checked it out. Sunday, November the 30th, it's going to soar to 34 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1 degree Celsius. It's going to be fantastic. So I'm glad that you're here, even though it's Black Friday.

I questioned whether or not we should even do the live, but I figured, you know what, some people just sitting around because they might have eaten too much on Thanksgiving. and maybe you just want to talk about some bees. Plus, I had a bunch of questions that came in through email. You may be wondering while you sit there, how do I submit a question or a topic? Well, you go to the website, the way to be.org, and there's a page mark contact, fill out the form, and there you go. You can also comment, take your chances, comment on a video, and I might notice that one and see how it goes. And if you're driving along and this shows up on your phone, don't look at it.

at it. This is also a podcast. Go to Podbean. Go to Google and just type in the way to be podcasts. And you'll be able to listen while you do other things. So please don't wreck your car or get in trouble at work by watching this. The other thing is maybe you want to share a video. You've got a picture of something that is on your mind. You want to know what that's about. And you want to ask your peers. You don't want to talk to me. You want to talk to people in your area. Well, you go to the fellowship. It's called the way to be. it's on Facebook and you can there share your pictures and ideas and see what your peers have to say about it. So that's it. That's all the housekeeping. Now we can jump right in and I will go right

into Kevin Murphy 1481 says, good afternoon when feeding fondant in the winter. How often should you check your hives to see if you should add more. Thanks. So the fondant, by the happens to be my favorite feed in wintertime now and uh you just happen to have a pack of it right here even though that was not a plain question but look so this is fondant this happens to be high while i found it five pound pack and what i'd like to talk about because this is also a question that's in my lineup today this needs to go on top of your insulated inner cover i hope that's what you're doing because it really does change your visibility to get through a winter if you've got a standard langstroth hive.

You cut a little hole in this right in the center there and it sits right over the hole that's in your inner cover. On top of this goes insulation. On top of that goes an insulated outer cover and there should be a feeder shim around it. The reason that's a great setup is because it makes what is being asked about here very easy. If you get a day like, let's say that's coming up on Sunday here

when it's going to hit 34 degrees Fahrenheit, height. We could go outside and pull off the outer cover, pull out the insulation, and look right through the back of this. See how clear that is? That's why we cut the hole on this side. We can see the progress the bees are making inside here. And because this is a plastic sealed up packet, the air, the warm air that's up there in that little heat capsule doesn't just dissipate. We can actually see the progress. And when you go out there, bring a spare with you. So if they are out to the corners and the weather's even going to get worse coming up, then you'll pull this off and put the new one on and you did that so quick, it doesn't even matter to the bees. So you can check it

anytime. But of course, if you have a chance and you have a choice, pick your best day. So it's very easy and it doesn't trouble the bees. Do it quick. Like I said, not look at it and find out you need fun and then you go running back to your shed or your garage or whatever and just be ready to do it. So I took care of the first question. I'm way ahead of time. Thank you, everyone, for being here. And I want to thank Keith Spillman for being here,

Half Tracks and Honey. If you act up, he's going to get you by the collar and show you the door. Although he tells me he never has to do that. So this is basically a walk in the park because all of my viewers and listeners are super happy, easygoing people that don't cause trouble.

So the first question I have comes from Wendy in Seattle, Washington. and wendy says happy thanksgiving so the same to all of you once you put five pounds hive live fondant on your hive see i already knew that this was going to be a question today let's say for example a 10 frame deep meeting configuration when do you check to see if they need more low's highs 20s don't want to unnecessarily open the top and let heat out even though appamate feeders are blocking heat escape somewhat the appamate heaters are super easy too and i hope you've got to out the new ones that are a single unit liquid liquid and in the center it's got a fondant

pack or solid feed option and it's a translucent insert so you can see again how things are doing inside there and it's the same thing that i just described so we'll take care of that and if you type in caps today it is not considered shouting uh that just means you need my attention because your question is for me if you're talking to one another i encourage that in fact you can even answer each other's questions. Have a sideline conversation. That's fine. Question number two comes from Greg P.I6W.

Now this one, I almost wasn't going to answer it, but it bothers me a little bit. So I'm going to put it in here. It says I see some cheaper versions of the flow hive available. Is there any real difference between the generic brand hives and the original from Australia? So here's the thing. I've been keeping bees a while in research and development, R&D, is something I like to help people with. And I'm often asked, hey, Fred, why don't you make that? Why don't you launch that? Why don't we have it produced and sell it on the market?

And you know what I do? I say no and I just give them my ideas freely. Here's why. When you have a good idea and you spend the time, money, and research and effort and everything else, you build infrastructure. structure, you do a fundraiser, whatever you do, and you produce your product and you put it out there, and if it is fairly popular, the flow hive is, there are other hive designs, by the way, that are out there that are patented, and a copycat shows up right away. And by right away, I mean remarkably fast, and that's because these days, our climate is international, people have the ability to reproduce materials and copy one another. And so right here in the United States, if people do it, you can go after them. You can not.

them out pretty quick but when it's overseas and somebody makes a copy of something there's very little that you seem to be able to do with it so often if you got a patent by the way it's an expensive process even the guys at the keepers hive have patented their hive the flow hive for example is the flow frame system has been patented so when somebody makes a knockoff here's what I want you to do so and I did a little checkup on this today because I get the question so often, what's the difference? Well, one's a criminal and one's the original designer of the hive.

I can actually say that, and it's not liable because I know that they directly copied someone else's patent. And then you go to look at the company that made the easy hive, the honey squeezer, whatever they want to call their knockoff of it. You look at the company that makes it. Usually it's on Amazon or some other big format that has an international selling group. And what happens is you go to look at that company and find out who they are. Then you find out the company doesn't exist. You find out there's no one you can contact at that company.

You find out that the same company that's selling that knockoff item is also selling pierced earrings and nose rings and things like that. And there's no accountability. So that's the main thing that I want to get to on the knockoff angle other than the fact that they're thieves. When you look at their stuff, we don't know what the material is that they even used. There's no accountability. Therefore, they don't care what's coming in contact with the honey inside your beehives and things like that. Since the honey is going to be consumed, it's pretty important that the materials that it's housed in are food grade, high quality, and that the people that manufacture them are 100% traceable. So I know it's tempting because I looked up one company and you could get a, it looks just like a flow hive, by the way, and it's $264.

And I don't want to name the company because who knows, but this particular company, I did a search on it. You can find out through who is, it's called, and you can find out who owns a website, for example, and they have a website. The website has no contacts on it, and it's a company that comes from China. No great surprise, and if you have a patent, you're the one who shoulders the burden of going after them and suing them, which is why I can say I'm 99% sure I'm never going to patent anything that I've had an idea to build because I would have to defend my patent. I have a hard enough time defending my YouTube videos, by the way, they get snagged right and left. So beside the point, so it's about quality. There's no guarantee the materials that are used. Safety. They have no responsibility for whatever happens when you buy a knockoff.

The companies are shady. And then there's the ethics. So your greatest vote, as I've said online before, is the dollar, the money that you spend. And so rather than buy something that's been stolen, either wait or just avoid buying the product altogether if it's just too expensive for you. That's my input on that. So, Shevlin says, this is Shevlin 2650, have you thought about putting a Flow Hive super

or super's on top of your two queen hive setup? Okay, I hate it what people read my mind because it bothers me a little. It's exactly what I'm doing with the two queen, two colony keeper's system. It's the Keepers Hive, and it did really well this year. I was just talking with my wife about it because we got so much honey off of it. I just finished harvesting the honey in this room, the other side of this room I'm in right now, and it was from the Keepers Hive, and we started it late, and they are honey producers.

It only makes sense that I'm going to put a flow super on the two colony Keepers Hive system. because I think they're just going to go gangbusters. I'm also going to do something else to it. I'm going to change the bottom boards. Right now, they're 180 degrees from one another. And if you're sitting there scratching your head, wondering if this is some kind of insider conversation, what is the Keepers Hive?

If you go to my channel, the YouTube channel is Frederick Dunn. And if you type in the top right hand corner, the Keepers Hive, I show step by step, putting it together, setting it up with bees. And it is a fantastic unit. And that's number one on my list, getting a flow super next spring. So yes, it's going to do great things.

But I have to flip the landing boards, so they're both on the same side, both facing south. I don't think that's going to be a problem. The reason I say that is because, for example, the AZ hives, you know, they have 40 hives in a single building entrances or, you know, just 10, 14 inches apart from one another across every level. And they all find their way into their own hives. So I think the keeper's hive will be much the same. and that's what I'm going to do.

So great question. I had a ready answer. Next one is Less 0613. High Fred sent you a question on the way to be as to whether or not it could place a flow hive super on top of the key. Oh, that's the same thing. Okay, never mind. So we have two people saying the same thing.

Let's see, Home Steady Farm, say Fred, first winter. If I do not have a thermal camera to see. where the cluster is, when would you estimate it's time to throw a hive-alive pack on for insurance is winter here in the mid-coast? I have a little bug in Maine. So I talked about this already earlier, but I'll say it again. When your hive-alive packet goes on your hive, it should be setting on an insulated area, and you should have insulation on top of your packet, and it should be on top of your hive with an insulated cover on top of that. It should be easy to check the packet.

Anytime you have a decent sunny day, it could be 32 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny outside, pop the lid, look at the packet. You have not let all the air out of your hive at the top and see what's going on with them. And it's very easy. Always bring the replacement packet with you so that if you find it, if I find them, by the way, 60 or 70% done in January, I would pull it and swap it. They come in two pound packs and five pound packs. So last winter, I had half with the two-pound, half of the five pounds.

And the five-pound packs is what I'm going with across the apiary this year, because most of them lasted all winter. So that's it. So anyway, Les 613 says that you're going to try it on your Keepers Hive. What the heck? Okay, so I'm telling you, man. Everybody's on the same page here with the Keepers Hive. I don't know if you have one yet, if you don't.

I highly recommend those even now. They're making moderate improvements. They have a feeder shim design that I just looked at. I just talked to them at the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association Conference. And they've got things that they're changing. So it's actually a good base system. And I could say that even though I haven't finished a whole year with the two queen system, I do have the single colony keeper's hive system.

It does well too. Great for kids. You're only lifting nucleus hives. Keith Spillman says, did you see the conversation between David Peck and Cameron Jack on the Apel, apobioxal. So apobioxal, that's oxalic acid, by the way, and the legal dose of the OA being raised of four grams per brood box. Thoughts was on BetterBee's YouTube channel. So that's a great shout out for BetterBee. They have a YouTube channel. Dr. David Peck, fantastic resource. Cameron Jack, also

fantastic resource. So if they're talking about something and they're saying that it's good, I would endorse that ahead of time. But I know what they're going to say. Apobioxal, by the way, is very expensive. And it is exhalic acid. It was the first approved exhalic acid here in the United States. And now we have easy ox, which is much cheaper. And they also come in tablets. But I know what they're going to say without even looking at that. I also know that because that dose has proved higher efficacy, killing more mites. I also know that they will say you can't do it unless the label on your packet is updated

to show that higher dose. I don't know some people think that you can just keep dosing higher and higher and higher and it won't make a difference as far as detriment to your bees. That is not entirely true. There is some detriment. So just don't go crazy with it.

And I think that's great that they put that out and that there is a dose increase. And also I want people. to look at the dribble application method, much safer. I personally do exceolic acid vaporization, but the dribble delivery system is something. I just bought a new dribble gauge unit for that that I planned to put into implementation in the spring,

although this is the time of year, here where I am, where if you get a fairly warm day where the bees are breaking cluster, you want to give them that exhalic acid vaporization treatment, if you have the opportunity because Brut is at an all-time low this time of year. And that means the mites are in the dispersal phase, which means they're exposed, and they'll all be dying on the bottom board, and it would be because of you.

So, and if you don't have an OAB system, but you've got a friend in your B club that does have one, and they're willing to come visit you and do that work for you because you only have a few hives, invite people out to do it. So here comes Ross Wagner. By the way, Ross, thank you for the donation of $10. I appreciate that.

Super nice. If you did a Demiree in a brood box, queen excluder, super, super brood box with an upper entrance, isn't that kind of like a double keeper's hive assuming a queen is raised? Is that like a double keeper's hive assuming a queen is raised? Well, the Demery system, probably somebody sitting there wondering what the hooey that is, you put a queen excluder over your brood box you pull a frame of brood out from under the queen excluder you put it in an upper box and of course your queen stays down below it decongest your brood area those that are above emerge from their cells and their workers so they come right back down

through the queen excluder and off they go they're happiest can be the designers of the keeper's hive recommend the same method of preventing swarming in spring. It is the Demerie method. The upper box is already there. Remember that because it's wintertime, we don't have the queen excluder in. So right now, it's the brood box. And then we have, I have a super of honey on for them. And the queen excluter goes back on in spring.

I will share that in my own version of the Demerie method on my hives this year, and it works really well. It also means that you don't have to change your hive configuration or swap boxes. Some people have a deep and a medium, which is my standard one. So I don't want to pull the medium off, put it on the bottom, put the deep on the top. Because remember, in spring, your cluster is going to be up at the top underneath your inner cover. So what I did, just for fun this year, is put in a queen excluder under that medium box, which is where the bees are, where the brood is, and where the queen is.

And then I put the queen down below the queen excluter, which now puts her in the bottom box in spring. And the nurse bees trickle down and they join her. And of course, the nurse bees are up above, eventually leave as those, the brood that they're attending up there emerges from their cells. They go down through the queen excluter. And then that gets repurposed for honey. And it's okay because it's been brood and you have really crappy beeswax up there now because it's been used for brood. So it gets dark brown, burnt umber looking. for the artists who are out there.

But we don't care because that medium box gets back filled with honey and that becomes their winter surplus again for the following year. And then as the year goes on. So it's a modified, lazy person's demure method. But as far as the Keepers Hive, you've got a queen on both sides. You've got a box up above. And they talk about that a lot. But I believe they want you to skip the box directly over the brood box.

and move your brood to the third box in spring. Something I'm personally not interested in doing, not because it doesn't work. It's a lot of work. You've got to make sure there's no queen cells and things like that up there. But that's what we're talking about. And let's see, Ian, UK,

when you flip the entrance on a two queen keepers hive, will you have each entrance centralized or in far right and far left. That's a great question, by the way. I'm going to have them both in the center, although one of them is already to the east side, so it's a little off center. And that's a good thing, too.

Why not just move the entrance within the full 10-frame bottom board, have them farther apart. That works. You can also put a wind break right between them, something else I've given some thought to, and a like an awning over the top of it

like the high visors that would cover them and then of course have some configuration change but you know what they do such a good job of going in there I think there's so much drift going on I don't think it's going to be a major difference the problem you will have that would kick off a lot of drift is if one of your colonies loses its queen

and is not queen right while the other one is queen right the queen right side will through pheromones alone attract more of the returning foragers to that side and so you kind of have to keep an eye on that and then guess what you can do so if you've got a colony that's replacing its queen on one side the other one's queen right but they are actively replaced in or in other words you see queen cells you're going to let them generate a new queen you can swap them they're right there you can take brood frames from the weakening colony and put them in the colony that's really strong and pull full-capped brood from the strong side and put them in the weak side

and you can just maintain equilibrium until the new queen shows up and is meaningfully replaced and in production. That's what I would do, I think. Okay, so home steady farms. Sorry, I mean when to put a pack on for the first time. Medium super is full of cap tony in October. Okay, I don't know what part of the country you're in, but when you get freezing temperatures at night, put it on now. Mine are on, even though they have full supers of wall-to-wall capped honey. It's an emergency and I leave it on there for the whole winter. So even before they do, and some of the hives don't use it at all. They use maybe a third of it, if any. So because right now they're clustered, they're committed to where they are. Early in the year, we don't like to put

the hive life fondant on there because the bees tend to bypass their honey and cluster under it too soon. That's why we wait until it's getting good and cold at night. And the bees are kind of committed to some part of the lower honeycomb area where they're starting some small winter brood because it anchors them down there. So you can put it on right now unless you're in a really warm area. And if you're in a really warm area, you probably don't need fondant at all. So I hope that answers the question what gee what did i do do to do do do we're talking about a cut out from a house okay this is b t v p t z's cut out from a house four frames of comb with eggs late in the day and a quarter of the bees made it in the hive first cold night next day the hive was full queen includeer yet it's

right, Queen Include entry and some eggs died. How long to keep the Queen Includer on? Okay, so the Queen Includer, for those you don't know what we're talking about, it's just a Queen Excluder that sits on the front of the hive. I wish I had one right here to show you. It looks kind of like this. This goes on the entrance after you've hide your swarm. And the Queen's inside, so she can't get out, which prevents absconding. So now, how long to leave this on? If you know you've got a colony in production and the queen's in there and she's laying eggs, when you see them bringing in pollen and they make a commitment, they're not going anywhere. So the only reason you would take this off in about three days is if you think there's a chance

that the queen is not mated and needs to complete a mating flight, which is very unlikely this time of year. But depending on where you're located, if you're in Australia, you would pull this off after three days. It's an unmaided queen. She needs to get out, get mated, and come back. But why the three days then if we want to let the queen go out and get mated? Because we want them to commit to the space before we take this off. That's where that comes from. So I hope that answers the question.

I think they're going to stay because the cut-up from the house, you've already got eggs, brewed, everything. That's a pretty solid anchor. I don't think they're going anywhere. Let's see what we're doing here. okay he says we'll wait for pollen okay good all right 21st B is here by the way who makes those really cool frames hope to run into me at Hive Live North American Honeybee Expo I keep calling hive live sorry it's a North American Honeybee Expo which is going to be in January of

2006 and we're going to be there we're going to talk we're going to go over those frames and talk about how it's gone for them this year and they're definitely going to be in my video. That place is out of control and I actually have people coming with me this year that are going to help me locate the vendors that I need to talk to because it's overwhelming

and I can't get to everyone. So I have scouts out that are going to find cool stuff for me to look over but definitely 21st B is going to be there. They're one of the ones. So that's it for that one. you have a question for me please type it in all caps you're not being rude you're not yelling

you're just sticking out from the crowd so that i will know that your comment is directed at me so this one comes from emil and drusco 8597 that's a youtube channel name it says what's your opinion which scenario causes bees to use up foods to use up food stores quicker warm weather where the bees are flying or cold weather where they have to consume food to generate heat for the cluster okay that's great question it's very common for people to be concerned about that if you don't know already i live in the snow belt we get the weather we're having right now and it kind of sticks around all winter long and you would think it would be better for the bees if it would warm up once in a while and give us three or four days of maybe mid 50s in Fahrenheit that's actually not good at all here's why

The bees fly out. We want them to fly out because they need to eliminate. They need to do what's called cleansing flights. But when they warm up, their metabolism kicks in. So think of the honeybee colony as a living organism, one big organism. When you wake it up and it gets active and starts doing things, it's going to consume calories. So it needs to replenish those calories. And so when they go out to forage, they're looking for things right away like water.

It's the number one thing they need in winter, summer, and every other time a year. But they also need proteins and nectar. And if they don't find it, because the environment hasn't kicked in because it's midwinter, then they're expending their resources in stored energy and honey. And then they're coming back empty. So they're not getting any benefit for the exercise that they're doing. And here's a phrase, if they're flying, they're dying, they're wearing out their motors. They're wearing out their wings.

and the foragers are going to be dying through attrition. So that's another part of it. We want them to stay inactive and in torpor as much as possible, so their metabolism is reduced. Therefore, the consumption of the carbohydrate in the hive, which is the honey, is also reduced. And so we've had the greatest surpluses of extra honey in spring in my neck of the woods when we had the longest,

coldest, consistently cold winters. So the warm-ups without resources outside are going to cause your bees to consume more, which means you need to potentially provide more for them as far as your emergency feeding goes. And if it stays cold, they conserve their energy, their activity is reduced, and they don't do cleansing flights or other things. So they're better off. So they consume less when it's cold. I know it feels backwards because like us, our heating, our furnace would be really kicking in.

But remember, they're in torpor. And unless they have a lot of brood in there, they're not. generating a lot of heat to keep the brood really warm in the center of their cluster. So 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit in the center of the cluster over the breed, over the brood, no matter what the outside temperature is. But if you have a lot of bees, the what's called the mantle of the cluster is much colder than that. So they're not like heating everything when it's really cold.

They're actually encapsulating the areas that they need to take care of. Okay, so here it is Banks, 8292. Man, it would be cool if that was Banksy, the graffiti artist. Anyway, what number of hives would you say you move from hobbyist to sidelineer? Okay, well, the B-in-Fourn partnership, nail that down. You're considered a sideliner if you have 500 or less colonies of bees. That's right. And 50 or less is considered the hobby.

Now, there's another, these are, I don't know why people really need these distinctions, but if you're earning money from your hive, you're a sidelineer, no matter how many, in my opinion, because you're earning money, it's kind of commercial, it's a sideline activity, people call it a side hustle, whatever, because there are some people with 20 or 30 hides that are making a lot of money off of the resources that they're selling, especially if it's a really good quality honey in there in a great area and they're on top of that. But anyway, sidelineers, it sounds weird, 500 or less, hobbyist 50 or fewer, back-air beekeepers. Next one comes from Matt Curtin, 3185.

Getting into beekeeping this year, planning on using five-gallon buckets as swarm traps. Going to get swarm commander. Should I buy wax or something else too? No, but you know that bucket? buckets are okay i like them when you shake them out the branch and stuff but uh and i have those by the way get the seven gallon buckets really deep ones and get the ones that are translucent i forget the name of the shipping company that sells them but you can get a pack of 10 of them pretty darn cheap and you can see where the bees are inside plus it's nice and tall and i do a

whole presentation about that but i also like those expanded metal wire trash cans that i learned about for Mr. Ed, Jeff Horchoff. So, but yeah, the buckets are easy, and should you buy wax or something else? The only reason I use buying wax, so I don't know what that's for in particular, but if you have old frames of, you know, they've been used by bees, brood frames in particular, you can put that in your bucket, spritz it just the lightest amount of honeybee healthy, tiniest amount. Don't overdo it.

It actually can repel the bees if you use too much. and then you put that in your bucket and you get your bucket up to where the bees are and then they move into it if they're out of reach i recommend the trash can method it is fantastic don't use a bucket if you have to go 10 15 20 feet and in my case 26 27 feet to get the bees the trash can is the best it's lightweight air passes through it you put a frame in it the bees move off the branch into the frame you bring it down you've got your bees it's fantastic but the bucket is great if you need to go up and shake them off a branch or something and then you just cover the bucket and off you go it's easy to do so let's see now uh we're into uncle junior who is a frequent

viewer and commenter is there such a thing as special backyard bee aviary live insurance just in case one of my cranky neighbors decided to sue me over my beehis okay so i was just at the ohio state annual conference there was a honeybee insurance but they were ensuring the bees themselves so this was not like liability insurance against if your bees sting a neighbor kill their cat their dog something like that your pet squirrel gets stung so um check in with your homeowners insurance because that's what i did so i have regular homeowners insurance there's also farmers insurance you want to find out If your backyard beekeeping may qualify you for farm insurance. Anyway, you have to be zoned and everything else.

I'm zoned agriculturally. So when I checked it with my regular insurance company, for me, that's Erie insurance. They cover, I don't know how many states now. I was covered under my regular because I was concerned. What if the UPS guy pulls up, gets out of his truck, they drive up in the summertime, the truck's wide open. I just get into the bees and they're zipping into the truck. that mad. What happens if he gets stung or she gets stung?

Are in my in big trouble? Now I'm covered. So the mailman, I'm covered for that. I'm covered for people just visiting my yard and things like that. This is why I'm not allowed to teach beekeeping in my way to be academy to strangers, random people. I cannot bring them here and teach a class on my property because the insurance quote is astronomical. So always check with your insurance company and make sure your communication with them is in writing. Don't let someone talk to you over the phone and say, oh, yeah, you're covered, you're good to go, no problem. Make sure it's in writing, that it is covered in your policy and that they know you're a beekeeper, that that's written down, that you have beehives in your yard, and make sure that you are covered because it can go bad. And I know the beekeepers are not being sued all over the place very often, but there are,

couple of precedented cases. One is in the town where I went to high school and a person a block away from a beekeeper successfully sued the beekeeper. So be careful. Check with your insurance company. So that's it. That's why it's really annoying to me because I want to teach beekeeping here. I want to bring six or seven people. But if it costs me so much an insurance just to do that, I can't afford to do it because I don't want to charge people a pile of money to get them into beehives to walk them through a year in beekeeping, which is what I would like to do. Okay, that's the end of my rant. So Ed, Ed Swart says, would you ever consider an AZ Slavonian hive set up in your B Academy

building? Most beekeepers are elderly like us and would love to get your take on the AZ operation. Okay, so I have an opinion about that because there is a, building like that and there's a modular bee setup and it is like the A-Z system for those who don't know what this is it's a Slovenian hive and that part of the world they build these buildings that have a nice space inside for the beekeeper to work the bees and they're all compartmentalized interchangeable and protected from the weather protected from predators and everything else so there is a beehive called Apever a A-P-I-V-E-R-T-E-E-R-T-E-E-E-R-T-E

and they're in Canada. Now, it is like the A-Z-Hive, but they've adapted it for the full-size Langstroth frames. And I interviewed the owner of that company. So that's actually this hybrid of having that kind of a setup and that convenience where all that you're everlifting is the frame itself. And they work those very well. Look into that, and you can just Google it, APA-V-E-R-T-E.

and see what their hives are like. And yeah, I would consider it. But not in my way to be Academy building. That's my observation hive building, which we have plans to add more observation hives in there. I have another building that I'm planning that's going to be like a row barn, single row of hives all the way down the line. And it's not going to be like the AZ hives,

but it is going to have all the hives inside the building. And the only thing that passes through the wall will be the entrance to the and then we can attend to them because guess what else when you're in a building like that you don't have to paint the hives you don't have to preserve them at all you're out of the weather so if it's a nice warm day but it's rainy you can still get in there and attend to your bees do inspections uh you can have hopper style windows in the wall which means they open out any bees that get loose inside the space fly to the light go out the window underneath an eve so it's not raining in it and there's just so much that you can do um so i have looked at it and if i had a

very small space if i couldn't do a sizable building i would definitely be looking at a z hive style buildings because it's very small and you don't have to worry about predators which can be a big deal look at people that have lost stuff due to bees and everything so due to bees due to bears that don't like to get into those things uh do to do so that's that one thank for the suggestion, leave the dead out hives in the apiary and had two deadouts in spring, both had swarms move in. That's right. This is Ian in the UK. Thanks for validating what I want people to do. So what is talking about? Just to be clear, I don't use swarm traps anymore. I don't think I'm ever going to. In the spring, if you're a backyard beekeeper, you're going

to have some colonies that did not make it. So the very first order business for you is going to be to clean out those colonies and pack them down if it's two or three boxes reduce it down to one clean every dead bee out of it get rid of any leftover honey uh put the entrance on it as if the hive were occupied by bees close it up scouts will find it sometimes they'll just voluntarily move right into your empty dead out hive and uh it's the most effortless thing i call that a self install and it happens so often in fact you'll be surprised you go to to pick up the gear and finally move it somewhere else and you find it's completely occupied. So if you're in an area where bees are flying and checking things out already,

people have put stuff in storage and sheds and garages and things like that only to find a colony of bees moving into their stored gear. If you've got previously occupied hives, it is your very best way to attract a new colony of bees in spring. And I'm glad that worked out. So Timothy Mitchell, 8310, happy Thanksgiving. Did you harvest anything from your top bar hive? And how did you prepare them for winter?

This is coming up a lot. And here's why I did not harvest anything. I left them with all that they had in there. And they really kicked in. There's two colonies in it. So for those of you don't know, we're talking about a top bar hive. Top bar hives have no standard, by the way. And I have friends that have top bar hives.

I have a friend that has more than 100 top bar hives. And the first thing she said is, aren't you going to put insulation on that? I said, well, because I'm testing out a hive design for a company that adheres to this design and wants me to run it through its paces, I'm going to leave it as is going through winter. And people will look at the video and say, Pennsylvania is not Texas, Fred. I says, I know that. I know what the map looks like. But I was told by the innovator, and this is Natalie B, so that did the top bar hive and said that it's going to do okay even in my climate.

Now, to be fair, the top bars on this thing are like two inches thick. They're not little, you know, like the top bar on a frame. They're not the little thin top bars. They're nice and thick. There's a good size colony in there. they have 15 fully involved, fully developed frames of comb with capped honey and everything that they needed. I would say their chances are 50-50.

I'm not going to insulate them. Now, if I were left to myself, let's say I was just putting it together. I didn't have to satisfy the people that designed it. And of course, because if it fails and I made modifications, then they'll say, well, you did things to it that we told you not to. so when something's new I have to let it go through the first year on its own the way it's designed

that's what I'm doing with the top bar hive and it's from Be Mindful if you want to check out their designs so we'll just see what happens in spring but I will say this the colony is surprisingly strong so they might make it and I did not take anything out of it

but in spring if they got stuff left over I want to be right in there and have in their leftover honey and uncle junior paid me fat stacks thank you for that and so we have uh is the a z system the same as a z in the alphabet system if your question is for me it has to be in all caps here comes from trish sonder your horizontal hive plan is perfect for older people like me I'm just going to truncate that sentence and say, your horizontal hive plan is perfect.

We'll just leave it at that. But thank you for that. I've seen a lot of that. And for those of you don't know, you're sitting there listening and watching. You can go to my website, which is the way to be.org and click on the page, prints and drawings.

If you go there, guess how much they cost? Nothing. They're PDFs. You can download them. These are designs that have, worked for me here. The Langstroth setup is in there. What's going to be new, what we're going to add to that will be what I consider to be my personal favorite features in an observation hive. So that will be the next thing to go in there. But if you go, you can download them,

you can use the prints. You just can't sell, repackage, repurpose, print them, and recycle out the prints, of course. But also on that page, you can see people have sent photos of the hives that they've built based on those prints and we feature your work right there so if you're a craftsman and you want to show off and you follow those prints even if you change up things a little bit even if you add something that's not in there it's a foundation for you to innovate outward from one of the reasons i really like horizontal hives and if you don't want to build things if you're not handy one of the companies that shows up at a lot of the big conferences Beersville Bees, B-E-A-R-S-V-I-L-E-Bs.

They make layens hives, and they also make the long Langstroth hive. And they build them very well insulated. His background is in cabinet-making and fine woodcraft. And so the hive is built with very tight tolerances and specs, and they do their own lumber processing from their own forests. So right now, they're a shining star in the long Langstroth. if you're going to go out and you want to buy one, they're a company I would look at.

In fact, if you're anywhere near them, it's worth your while to drive and pick it up. Don't pay for all that shipping. I had someone come up to me and show me an observation hive that they wanted to buy, but shipping for an observation hive, and this is a different company, was like $800.

I would drive all day to save myself, $800 and pick something up in person. you should not be paying that kind of freight anyway so for the horizontal hives in the future let's think about this when a big storm comes through and people are looking at their their standard langstroth hives which i have a lot of them and if they're two and three tall going through winter and they're on a tall stand because you're trying to keep them away from skunks and things like that when these heavy winds come through and i'm talking 60 plus mile an hour wind systems you know what hives i don't worry about all the horizontal hive format. I know that that top of our hive is going nowhere. That thing

could take a hundred mile an hour wind. That's not a challenge, Mother Nature, but I know it can take it. We line them up so that they don't stand proud to the wind. And what I mean by that, if we have a prevailing wind, which we have here, out of the west, then I face the long axis of the hive to the south. So they have a small profile facing the prevailing winds, and they've never gone anywhere. They don't budge. It's one of the beautiful things about having a long langstroth or any other horizontal high format.

You can build it as heavy as you want. You can build it in place because you don't have to move it around. We're not doing pollinator services and stuff. We're backyard beekeepers, and we're building it for unconvenience and for our honeybee safety. So when you build those things up, my long lang is a two-man carry. empty the thing is heavy and that's why it just doesn't budge and I know it's tested year after year they're not going anywhere and people talk about hydraulics and things like that you know like you're when you're lifting the hatch on your back of your car you've got those little hydraulic lifters on

the back some people are putting things like that on the lid of their long langstroth hives so they can make their lids really heavy and bulky and well insulated and they hold up to everything so if you're looking at getting some together so nice to have a long langstroth and know that it's bulletproof okay so timothy mitchell back to insurance for teaching friends and not strangers what amount of association qualify them as friends okay so here's the thing let's say i want to do a week-long workshop in my apiary and i try to sideline, I try to skirt the man a little bit and say donation only, I still charged money for the thing, because here's what's going to happen. You say donation only, you earned an income. And I know that, you know, some people are perfectly fine. You know, then you don't or just don't

tell anybody that you paid for the class. Most of the people I know charge $80 they had to teach a beekeeping class. I just want to teach the class. But, But if we want to have coffee and donuts and maybe a pizza party at the end and stuff like that, everybody needs to contribute. We can turn it into a potluck. So if they just came over and there was no money involved, then the insurance holds. But if you're teaching a formal class, somehow that is a trigger and you need to talk to the insurance people about why that is the case. If I just say, hey, come on over to my house after breakfast and let's talk bees.

and everybody shows up and there just happens to be 12 seats sitting up and there's a whiteboard and there's a bench covered in burlap and we're all going to look at and study what's on the bottom of an observation hive in the middle of winter, then gee, that's just a bunch of friends that happen to show up and I was ready for him. I don't know. I don't want to play games with it, but I can have a few people over. I can't advertise a class, have people come and sit and get in-person training without the insurance that covers it. And, you know, it all seems great until one person slips on an icy step or does something, you know, just I need insurance for my own peace of mind.

So anyway, here's Jose, says, Fred, when are we starting flowers inside and happy holidays? Well, thanks for asking, and by the way, that is a great, ask everyone to sign a waiver. You guys, I'm going to get back to Jose. here for a second. But it says, why not just ask people to sign a waiver? Do you know what waiver? I have people sign waivers all the time because I'm a photographer. And when you specifically have a waiver that says up, okay, here's an example. So I'm going to take somebody into a house that was built in 1890. It's a three-story Victorian and it's haunted. And I want to take really scary portraits in it. And I say, I need you to sign a waiver so that if you step on a nail or

inhale asbestos or you know get cut on a broken window or something like that where you get chased by a ghost you fall down the stairs you break your leg sign a waiver saying that you understand going into this you know what the lawyers do this guy knew there was danger that's why he made him sign a waiver he knew the house was haunted he knew a bat was going to fly out of the chimney scare them they were going to fall down the stairs waivers don't always hold up so now you have to get the my youngest sister is a lawyer and waivers are sketchy you got to be careful too because you're almost saying that they need to sign a waiver because what they're about to do has some risk associated with it so i want my insurance company to cover me i just want to leave it at that

someday i might pay the essentials so anyway let's get back to this uh what am i starting flowers inside so last year i started i have a grow room and uh i used those sancy grow lights and i have really cool watering system this year and it's a great way to break up your winter and also that room is so warm and it's humid and it's full of oxygen it's a great place to read books and everything else so i will be starting them after the first of the year last year i started too soon my stuff was really overgrown and so i'm going to start a nice grow room i would like to get some um different ground cover going i like time all there's creeping time all i'd like to get that started I tried that a little later.

I grew Irish moss everywhere because I wanted that on the banks of my pond and things like that. But some of the things you don't need to start indoors. So the biggest things that I grow, the sunflowers. I start those outside. There's plenty of time for that cosmos. Start them outside. Borage, start that direct sew outside. So the really big things that are really big benefits for the bees, I start them all outside.

But the ground cover and things like that, I try to start inside hyssup, blue giant hyssup. an east is up things like that i try to start those indoors and we need to kind of plan that so we're moving them outside before they become root bound and stuff like that but so i'll be starting at the first of the year probably when i get back from the north american honeybee expo will be the trigger for starting my indoor growth so thanks for that question let's see it says hunt lady oh yeah there you are it says i accidentally import in small high beetles in a package from the eastern u.s. beetle traps with diatomaceous earth have not caught a single beetle however two hives have

been slimed out what to do well first of all diatomaceous earth is it's good for your chicken coop it's not good in your beetle traps now i'm not a beetle master but let's say this were a beetle trap there's beetle buster entrances i would use these dudes on the front of my hives But anyway, let's talk about this because I interviewed, I'm going to mess up his name, but his name is Minaswee or Manaswee or something like that. He won the National Science Competition. They have little bait packs in the middle here. University of Florida, the B-Lab.

That's the place you want to go to to find out what the current best small-hite beetle bait is. Now, keep in mind, you're getting an opinion from somebody who has never had small-high beetles in my hives, ever. but the bait see that's the thing diatomaceous earth is designed to lacerate and desiccate so for developing soft-shelled animals right it's good for feather louses on your chickens and things like that it's good for the nest boxes and things like that so you want a bait that attracts them. Now, he was using derivatives from beer. And they had some very interesting formulas. The problem they had was that it was so volatile that, you know, it lost its potency pretty darn quick, but trapped and killed a lot of beetles really fast. So I recommend going to one of the

research institutes like the Florida B-Lab and see what the current bait is, see what the current research and literature says. And I would be putting that in there. But see, the bait's in here, untouched. The beetles go in here, get trapped. You can put mineral. oil in these packets that are away from the bait, and then they get trapped in the mineral oil. They don't get out. Diatomaceous earth doesn't attract anything. And for an adult beetle, for example, diatomaceous earth would take forever to kill it. Now, if there were larvae scooting around in there, diatomaceous earth would kill them or a soft-bodied insect. It would kill them because it lacerates the exoskeleton, defeats the cuticle, and then dries them out,

which means that they can't survive. But you definitely want to bait. That's the best I can do. on that one. So, but as far as importing, see, that's another thing. If I could tell everyone in backyard beekeeping, please keep your bees local. Please use bees that are cycling around in your area locally adapted stock. The troubles that we've had even here have come

when somebody bought packages from somewhere else and brought them in and kicked off a colony because they didn't want to start the year without bees. And my point is, start the year without bees. and collect some swarms and get some locally adapted stock your spring swarms are going to be your very best bees because they've been through at least one winner for sure don't get bees from back if you can avoid it just try not to bring everything in okay uh do do to do glen perkins fred did you cut the wing supports off your insulated be smart intercover yet now i didn't

didn't cut up didn't modify anything on that i'm lazy in the sliker um but i think it's okay to do uh but i have not done it so if i do it i'll make a video about it and then the owner of these smart designs will be very unhappy but it sounds good to me it looks like it would work uh now beekeeper carmine uh have you discussed the new increase of foreground per brood box for OAV. Yeah, somebody early on today, I already did because that was a discussion apparently between Dr. Peck and Dr. Cameron Jack.

And so I guess it's been boosted. And so, but again, I'm going to have to say what I always say, which is you have to follow the label. I know they're talking to Ava Bioxel. And I also would recommend if you want to save some pennies, more than pennies, you want to save some dollars, you want to get your easy ox. And I was talking with the easy ox owner,

by the way. And they've got the new higher doses coming out. He also indicated that they might have an extended release formula also coming out soon. But I've heard about it. I'm going to be seeing Dr. Peck pretty soon. So we can talk about it, but as far as that, it'll be whatever's on the label. So if Ava Bioaxil is what they use, you know, there's going to be new Ava Bioxyl coming out that's going to have the 4 gram dose. And we'll be delivering it and so i would think too that they're going to of course give you the chance to do a dribble method and i always thought dribble would not be great in the middle of winter for example but apparently people do dribble their hives i've never done it so i have to say that

but uh i guess that is a new dose and people that want to see it or hear more should go to better V's YouTube channel and watch the latest discussion between Dr. David Peck and Dr. Cameron Jack. So that's the best. Send them to the source. Give a shout out. So what else are we're in? We're live, very litigious society. Let's see.

Quoting Judge Judy. Also, Flower Street Farm says EZiox is also working on a bucket of tablets. A bucket of tablets. So they sell the tablets, too. I can't believe I don't have them around here. And so the tablets might be, because those are metered already. Those are, the tablets are in set doses. I think they have one gram and two gram tablets.

For sure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they. So now see, Aaron Perez says he uses higher than four grams anyway. Everyone should ignore Aaron because we have to say, you have to say, follow the label. okay let's see oh yeah I already did that I'm way off track here everyone is everyone okay with going longer because we're already at five o'clock it's been an hour I haven't got through all my questions here yet see they do 50 and 100 count bags so I'm gonna get in here at PTL Science 380 it says here Milstrom is the word I would use to describe the experience I had trying to inspect my hive this week it was a

It was a nice sunny day, about 1 p.m., my dual queen 20-deep-frame high was overflowing with bees. There are a few resources for them to forage, so almost every bee was home. The smoke didn't move the carpet of bees at all, so many were pinging my bee suit. It sounded like I was in a rainstorm. I was concerned that a bee would sting my neighbor, so I inspected only two frames before closing it up. Next time, I'm planning to use CO2 to put them to sleep before opening. it you have a better suggestion for inspecting an exceptionally large hive this time of year where they have no resources thank you so the reason i really wanted to address this question

please do not use CO2 on your bees to do an inspection it can be tempting i get it you knock out those bees it's more than just putting them to sleep and i learned this from the super smarty beekeeping okay so it actually impacts and accelerates their juvenile hormone you end up getting bees to get old fast it also can mess up their brains and make their memories poor and make their forage badly they can't remember where they live they can't remember where the forage is CO2 is a bad thing to use to calm your bees to inspect your hive so please don't do that I do recommend things like putting a piece of cloth over the hive while you do the inspection so you're only exposing the frame that you need to look at get in get out make sure you're in there for a reason

not just seeing kind of what's going on and if they're testy close them right back up have a plan some people just want to see what's going on in the hive that's not a good plan and the minute they're at all defensive and they will be because they don't have resources and things are touch and go for them, but I will say, and I wanted to cover today, not to use CO2. I just wanted to use CO2 to knock out the nurse bees and then look for varroa mites on their abdomens because you could go through 300 nursebees pretty darn quick with a magnifying glass. But Dr. Tom Seeley said you'll accelerate the juvenile hormone, and I just thought, well, thanks a lot for ruining my day.

But you can, if you're doing like varroa accounts and things like that, you can just chill them without long-term impact. But you can't CO2 them or shouldn't because it's far more detrimental than you think. Timothy Mitchell says, when will I start live call-ins? I don't even know how to do that. I don't know how to do a live call-in. So here is Lambert Farm 4528. Fred, what are you going to do when the tropy mite gets here? I'm worried for the the treatment-free beekeepers. The tropolololapes mite, which they're calling the tropymite, that is a bad news, little rascal.

I don't know if you've ever seen them. They move like super fast. They're like little ants. You can't get away with being treatment-free with tropemites. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, but let me quote Dr. Samuel Ramsey. There were entire parts of the world in beekeeping when tropi mites showed up, wiped out every single colony. I don't mean there was one left to work from the tropolololap's mites wiped out every single colony. So they don't get a chance to build a resistance.

They don't get a chance to develop, you know, survivor stock and things like that. the varroa mite is you know a crazed rabbit compared to these things you are going to have a real problem when tropolololapse mites show up the good news is you know formic pro works there are things that work on the tropololap's mite but i did not like what i saw um when they were uncapping uh brood worker brood and the tropi mites just came flying out of there and swirling all over the surface of the frame i haven't seen anything like it not only that you You think you have troubles. I don't want to be a downer.

But some people have trouble seeing a varroa mite. There are people that will tell you, they have no varroa mites. And you go and look in their eye with them, and there's mites everywhere. So they don't know why their beans died. There were no varroa mites. And the whole bottom board was peppered with varroa mites. And what I realized was they really didn't know what a varro mite looked like. They thought there were little specks of propolis or something.

And if you have a hard time seeing the varro destructor mite, you will not see the tropium. mites at all. I was a guest speaker at the Empire State, beekeepers, you know, their state conference, their banquet for the end of the year. And a guy walked by and just handed me, he's the head of the honeyboard for the United States or on the board or something like that. And he handed me a little vial that said tropemites. And there were varomites in there. Well, I only saw the varomites at first until I realized these little tiny specks. that looked like hairs or a leg or two from the varomite were actually the tropolalalap's mites. I did not like that at all.

I'm not going to be able to see them. We're just going to see the damage they do. So not happy. What am I going to do? I don't know. Support the people that are smart enough to launch an attack on these things. I just don't know. The people, I suppose, you know, they're trying to take the fight to the tropymite.

So we have people like Dr. Samuel Ramsey, who, go to these countries where the troponite battle is being fought and they're trying to come up with ways to prevent them from getting here but we've already had a close call and uh this is another thing with people bringing in bees from all over the place eventually whatever those bees have with them will come with them and then they will be impacting the bees that you have locally so and keep in mind i'm a teeny tiny backyard beekeeper i'm not one of these guys with 10 000 beehives i'm blown away when I meet these people that have companies like that. Blake shook, what's he going to do?

I don't know. These guys are huge in the bee industry as an industry. I would like to close all the gates and doors and fences and roads leading to my backyard apiary, but bees fly. And so I say it's just probably a matter of time. I don't know what I'm going to do. I wish I had an answer. I'm just going to support the scientists, the smart people that are going after them and

deal with it. guess but you will not like it when you see those things it's bad let's see if it's for me it should be in all caps so remember that i think i'm caught up and uh sarah's happy hive says good chat fred have a wonderful weekend same to you thanks for sticking around i know it's seven minutes late here let's jump into question number five which comes from sue in northern indiana question regarding feeding fondant in Langstroth Hive. Okay, I have a four-foot horizontal with small August swarm. Only 10 frames, then a follower board.

Not enough honey for the winner. This year I tried different top configurations using a canvas directly on top of the frames, a triple-ply wool blanket on top of the canvas, purchased from the beekeeper's carpenter, and a body pillow case filled with sheep, wool on top of that hanging over the following board since all of this is directly on the frames how would you recommend feeding fondant now this thing has never been used to feed bees so this is a frame feeder man it doesn't show on the camera but uh all the little lattice

work and stuff here is full of propolis and this is by mother load products This is a deep frame lankstraw size feeder. So now what I have recommended in the past using these for is when, like, you know, spring shows up. Your bees are making replacement queen cells and your queen is still in there. And so if you recall, I suggest getting the queen out of there with at least one frame of brood and starting a nucleus hive as an insurance policy in case they don't successfully requeen. Now you have a space in there.

What do you do with the space? You put a frame feeder in the space as a placeholder so that if you ever need to bring her back, if they fail to requeen, now we have the space, we bring her back. This is also something that you can put, if you had a long Langstroth hive, as described by Sue,

you can turn your hive live on its side, put it right inside this thing, cut the top off, pull this top, off and leave it wide open because it's a fondant and not going to drown in it and then put this inside then your cover boards go over that so the cover boards are up here you have a space for the bees to go in to get to the fondant and then all your cover boards your insulation everything else you don't need anything to penetrate through that now where would you put that so we've got the entrance over here we've got frames of brood we've got brood and resources we've got pollen and cap tony we've got cap tony we've got honey. And then so that last full frame of cap honey is where this goes, then your follower board is just beyond that. This is a great way to feed fondin. And by the way, we talked about the top bar hive earlier. The top bar hive has a reservoir style feeder that came from the

company that made it from Be Mindful. So in the wintertime, I put fondin in that emergency feed. Same thing right against a follower board. So it's the farthest away from the entrance. So they're going to have to work their way through their stored capped honey first, then the fauna. But if they get a warm day, they can scoot right over and get those resources. So Jason Seward says, from what I've seen in presentations is that it's not, but formic with a brute break is decent. Okay. So we must still be talking about those dreaded tropol a lapse. You're allowed to hate them. All right, let's move on. Oh, by the way, the frame feeders that I just showed you, I did some price shopping around, and you can get those for $10.60 a piece at the Blythewood B Company.

And I ordered three more of them today. By the way, don't forget, Black Friday. It's Black Friday right now. You can get deals on stuff everywhere. Somebody mentioned, earlier about the planting, Jose did, about planting. Get your seeds now because they're 35 and 45% off. Ernst Brothers was running a sale. I'm sure a lot of places are running sales. Today's a day. If you want to pinch pennies, it's the time. Question number six comes from Pete in Green, Ohio. In your intro, each week you include the current weather observations as a sailor. helping increase general knowledge. I think it would be great if you included knots in your wind speed observation. Keep up the good work. So here's what I'm going to do for Pete. If at least

three people, or if one person makes a comment that they want to see knots added to my weather report that I start off with, wind speed, if it gets at least three thumbs up on a comment like that or three people comments, they include knots. I'll add it. We'll do it every week. But if it's just one person, probably not. Probably not. Okay. Question number seven. Here comes from Francis, huh, Fred?

This is really good. I had an idea that you have a lot of nice equipment. Do you think you could do a video on testing microscopes? Microscopes, it comes up all the time. That's the other thing I want to know. How many of you want to see a demonstration on? using a microscope. So what would we use it for, first of all? So it's middle of winter, what's going on? So the microscopes that we have, and I have more than one, because just I do

photography and video on a microscopic level, what would you use one for in the wintertime? What do we need to know? So number one would probably be that you want to see what nosema looks like, and how to use a hemocytometer, for example, which is the specialized slide. that we use to count nozema spores. The other thing is some people want to see what a tracheomite looks like. How would we test for that? So now that's a dissection microscope for the tracheomite. They're much easier to see.

And you need a much more higher-powered microscope to see the nozema. People are already starting to say microscope on here. So, oh, yeah, if you wrote it on here, then, yeah, we should do it. So anyway, yeah, so we want to see nozima and tracheomites. Easy to do. I guess we could do it during the winter time. But it's just, you know, Celestron microscopes, all the different microscopes. I did mention to some people that microscopes are expensive.

Check with your local library to see if they even have microscopes. Now I'll see three people did it. Is that three different people? No, three different people. Okay, for those of you who are listening, three people want their microscope videos. I guess we're going to do it. So why not? Show the stuff because it also has, I don't want to reveal all my tricks.

That's the thing. Because I use special LED lighting so I can get a raking light. I have dark field microscope so I can get that surface texture. And we show the translucence, of course, also. I don't know how beneficial this is. Scientific beekeeping.com. That's Randy Oliver, has the most detailed step-by-step instruction on how to read Nozima, right? So we would show the microscope and the features that I personally like.

People get mad when they realize how expensive some of the stuff is. My grandson puts things under microscopes that have nothing to do with beekeeping. That's why he's not allowed to come near microscopes anymore. I don't need to see another sponge from the kitchen counter, things like that. All right, we'll do microscopes. Thank you. So the guests have spoken. So we're going to do that.

Next one, question number eight. I'm in Paradise PA near Lancaster. I'm so excited to find your videos. Do you think purchasing the Flow Hive super lifter is important? I thought a lot of people don't know about that thing. It's a very simple mechanism. And it's called a superlifter, not like it's a super lifter. but it's for lifting super's.

And it works on nucleus hives, 8-frame lankstroth, 10-frame lank stroth. Some people thought it was a flow-hide thing because it comes from flow-hive. If you want to see the details of it, please go to the Frederick Dunn YouTube channel and up in the search panel on the top, write flow super lifter or hive superlifter.

And I do a demo of it step by step. What holds people back, is that you have to put load-bearing screws into the boxes, the base box, which is your nucleus box, not your nucleus, but your brood box. And so there are two screws that go in there, replacing screws you already have if you have screws in your box joints and whatnot. When you put that on there, now we have to put two other screws onto the box that's going to be lifted, and it's intended for you to leave those screws on the boxes. The good news is you can lift two honey supers full at the same time on this thing so is it worth it now here's the thing

what does a hive lifter cost you there's a lot of different companies that make a lot of different hive lifters and this thing is pretty expensive the thing of it is so it's made really well if you'll use it if you have any trouble at all jamming your hive tool in there you're trying to split those boxes apart and pry them up and it can prove to be difficult and then when it comes time to get things back together you're trying to align everything if it's full of honey you just won't do the inspection and so the superlifter as soon as you bring the leg down and engage it with the ground it cracks that seal and lifts that box and separates them so you do some light puffs, it is effortless. It takes such little effort and you're tipping the super, the honey super,

on in alignment with the frames. So when you tip it forward or backwards, you have the option to put it on the front or the back of your hive. And then it has a little leg that supports the box. So even if there's wet nectar in there that is not yet capped or finished, it won't run out because you're following the long axis of the frames. It is an extreme. extremely well-designed system. People will get sticker shock when they see it. But what's it work to you? I'm not selling them.

I have no skin in the game. Is it worth it to me personally? Yes, it is. I like it. So some people like them with a set. Have you seen anyone incorporate them into the supers inside Slovenian? House for extracted containers on the workbench. Oh, flow hives, we're talking about still.

So 21st B wants to know, let me see what we're doing here first. I have a superlifter for my national beehives, a demuree split, and it's brilliant, worth it, for sure. There you go. See, somebody else says it's worth it. They're never going to wear out. It's fantastic. It's portable. It's easy to use.

In fact, the only thing that's got me from buying a big electric lifter, is because of the space it takes up, even the ones a full flat go up against your garage mall or whatever, that's a big piece of gear. The super lifter works on uneven ground. It works in tight spaces. You have to have about two and a half or three feet of clearance beyond just for the foot and support system

because you're going to tilt your box out. But they take up almost no storage. You throw them in the back of your car and go to outyards and stuff like that. that. I think they're fantastic. So I'll leave it at that. So anyway, inside a Slavian house, what 21st B is talking about here is exactly what when I mentioned early on that I'm doing a row barn with nothing but hives in a row. Those are all going to be flow hives in the building. And that's because you're out of the weather. You have an entrance.

and exit through the front of the building there's no free flying bees or any other insects anywhere no wass or hornets to deal with and i can extract honey from the flow hive because it's already tilted back two degrees and work inside a building it is perfect for that setup in my opinion okay so that's i do i think it's worth it is worth it and you by the way You know what the holdup was on the flow superlifter for me? I way overpurchased the load-bearing screws because when it first came out and I got one, made my video, I didn't have enough screws for all the hives to put it on. So that kind of slowed me down.

And it was weeks before because once you know it, they had to design a stainless steel screw 400 series stainless by the way, so it would be tougher. And because it was unique to them, you had to get it, and so I had to wait a long time. So there was a little bit of a bottleneck for supplies. I have everything I need now, so I'm good to go. We're getting down to the end.

I have two more questions that I want to get through. If anybody else has a question for me, type in all caps. We're running out of time here. Okay, moving on. Question number nine comes from Anthony Musserri, 89, 19. Do you think there's a promise with keepers? Oh, do I think there's? promise with the keeper's hive and do you like it i think you saw your video you only had it on

there for not even a season what do you think of it okay so for the keeper's hive we talked about this earlier too by the way just insulated the little flip out panels those were they just have heavy glass underneath of them and then an enclosed space and i have double bubble in there so i did that they're promising i like them in fact uh the longer i have it the more i like it and we spoke about this earlier already. We're going to put flow supers on there. And it's very interesting. The other thing is, here we are in the middle of winter. Well, not in the middle. It just got started. It just feels like the middle of winter because it gets dark immediately and there's snow everywhere and it just seems like we live in the North Pole. Anyway, because we have two colonies side by side in that central

riser, there's a central pedestal that they are supported by that's an empty space, but we have colonies up against each other. Now we have kind of a neutral warmth there. that's benefiting the bees. I expected when I opened it up to put my insulation in there because the glass is off to the side but I wouldn't see any bees. I thought they would all be off

towards that center column, but I could see all the bees right up against the glass. They were easy going. They're in there. They seemed laid back and I insulated them, closed it right back up.

I like it. So the only thing I really wanted them to change was I wanted a really good insulated hive top feeder for that central column. It's a 10-frame box. Somebody else said they only wanted eight-frame super's going up on those, and they had an easy answer for that too.

You put in a shim that just closes off the space so that you go up with, it's like an adapter plate. So you just go up with your eight-frame equipment. So I think it's good stuff. with the appamate bottom board so this question comes from bees in the abyss Kevin Fred do you think there is an advantage for not having a slatted rack

or not with a slider rack with the appamay bottom board with the apamah hives I don't see the need for the slatter rack under there I just don't keep his hive yes i support them okay now i like this one which i'm just going to show you really quickly says i have a quick question for you look at this right up quick question for you says i'm looking uh to attempt be keeping this spring i have never done it before my reasons

for attempting this range from boredom to wanting to leave something behind for my niece and daughter if it goes well granted they're only five and seven but who's to say they don't take what they learn and turn it into something in the future since that's where a lot of families and businesses has started after all everything starts from nothing but an idea or a dream right it says the biggest benefit i see to trying beekeeping is it's a hobby that doesn't require a lot of expensive out-of-pocket cost compared to other things and you have a bigger chance to make your money back from it and expand if done right compared to other hobbies that are just money pits. So I live outside Augusta, Georgia, where the fall and winter

usually run around late September or October to March, but for the last several years, the winters have been very mild. I live within a quarter mile of a large wholesale plant nursery who do not use insecticides, and within that three to five mile radius, There's also a dairy farm who grow their own crops for livestock and your natural gardeners. My question for you is, how successful or established do you think a bee colony would be in my environment? Okay. So here's the thing. First of all, when you're starting off with bees for the first time, I'm going to say the same thing always.

find people that know about bees in your area and try to learn from them see if you can see how they're set up see what's going on this other thing is about the environment that you're in the farming the agricultural practices and things like that there is a place we can find out what the pesticide loading is often people will say we don't use any insecticides but you'll find out the pesticides include a lot of other things that are sprayed on plants and crops there's a way for you to find out. You can go to a website. It's called B-Scape.org. B-E-E-S-A-P-E-A-P-E-D-R-G. Every farmer, every agricultural practice has to register the pesticides that they're using. That's all of them. And you'll find out what the pesticide load is where you live. The other thing about kids, I'm on board. If a child shows interest in what

you're doing, I back them up 100%. That's why I have a supervisor who's 10. He'll tell everyone he's been keeping bees since he was two. I don't think he remembers anything from when he was two, but here's the thing. He has wanted to be out in the bee yard every waking moment that he's been around here. So he's kind of born a beekeeper. I have three other grandchildren who are pretty darn neutral when it comes to beekeeping. So if you can light a spark in one child and get them going, it's not too early. I have a three-year-old granddaughter. She has her own bee suit. She can just look at bees as close as she wants to. I support that.

If one day she decides she doesn't care to look at bees anymore, that's great. I live in an area that I want you to know about on a dirt road. It's farm country. There were eight family dairy farms here. Eight. Do you know how many operating dairy farms there are now in my neck of the woods? One. One on my road.

So what we have are a bunch of farmhouses, barns and fields that are no longer occupied by cattle. So one of the biggest problems has been not, you know, the environment, the climate for business, which by the way is very bad for farmers right now. It's very bad for farmers. But getting their children, so it used to be farmers had as many kids as they could because the kids were going to grow up there, they're going to take over the farm. I come from three generations of dairy farmers. I don't know if you know that. But My dad had to leave the farm. Here's the thing.

The kids don't want to stick around to work farms. They've seen the world. They're awake. They know what's up. They know what's out there. And so they cannot get their sons and daughters to want to grow up and work farms. And so that's kind of the detriment. The small family dairy farm is about phasing out.

If you go and look at small towns, Midwestern towns, and see what's going on there with the farming. It's government subsidized. The diversity in farming is so profoundly reduced. They are working in a deficit. In other words, what it's causing them to produce the crops exceeds more than the value of the crops when they're done, which means they need subsidies from the government to do it,

and the lack of diversity, the corporations that are running farming in this country. So what's happened is they've turned over to crop farming, so and they changed hands rapidly like in the space of just a few years where i am all the crops went over to corn and soy there used to be alfalfa cover crops all kinds of stuff going on out here and it's gone there again because they stick with what's subsidized and with the companies that they're crop farming for they also dictate the seed they use and the pesticides that they use and also the soil prep, the fertilizers that they use.

Everything is electronic and AI, and the farmer sits out here just before he can run his combine and waits for 15 minutes for his software to update in the tractor before he can go on. But anyway, I just was on a little bit of a rant there, but farming's in jeopardy. I don't know if you know. You should know.

We need diversity in farming. We need young kids that are inspired. And there needs to be a future in farming. The diversity needs to come back. So you can't have everyone be one type of farmer. But I want you to learn. So here we are in wintertime. Join a bee club if you can.

Join an organization that's open-minded if you can find one that doesn't have one type of hive, one way of keeping bees. Hopefully an all-encompassing group of people that just begin from the biology you have bees and then branch out from there and then you'll find people that are like-minded in that community and then you eventually click with someone and you become their mentee and you can learn there are a lot of online resources but and i've been to places where the first thing a

speaker will say is stay away from youtube it's garbage you know and i can't say they're wrong there's a lot of misinformation everywhere you go but that's why you go to a club and that's way you find out and you'll see the people that are reasonable and you'll find someone who's been doing it for a while who's kept in touch with kind of the updates of some of the modern challenges of beekeeping and learn to do that well because if you don't get a mentor that knows what they're doing you can end up joining the 80% of new beekeepers that quit in their third year at the end of their third year. It seems really open and optimistic if you can bring kids along to do that fantastic if you can get them off of whatever these games they play on their

computers and stuff and get them out in the B yard but winters here so it's a time of learning and guess what that's it for today wait let me see if there's any questions do do do do do do to do do do do do do do do do do do do do do so that's the one the slide of right okay so plan of the week coming up people in the northeast keep your feet on keep it going by the way if you didn't get your hive alive don't forget to use fred 10 wherever you go shopping ask for the frederick done discount final oavit treatment so exhalic acid vaporization for those of you're doing that this is your window of opportunity end of november beginning of december this is it clean entrances you can use

portevacs to suck bees out of the entrances if they're kind of plugged up a little little bit there or you can scrape them out like these cleaners three dollars whatever the cost reaches all the way to the back scoop things out have a hive cleaner nine out of ten of the beehives you visit won't need it the one that needed it you'll be glad you were there as soon as you scrape those out and the bees fly out to do cleansing flights you know you saved them so what else clean entrances monitor for cluster position you want to know where your bees are located in the and if they're moving up too soon you have to get food on please put on some kind of resource if it's a sugar break dry sugar fun that you made yourself anything's better than nothing

you can save your bees lives and order seeds are on sale get those and don't cancel if you're a member of a bee club and you're a decision maker I've noticed that some members on board will say, let's not have a meeting in the middle of, you know, around Christmas or the holidays, everybody's so busy. No, that is exactly when you should be having a gathering, a B breakfast, a meeting, because there are people in your B club that their only social interaction is the B club. Cancelling meetings because it's the holidays is the exact. opposite of what I personally think we should be doing.

If you have a bee breakfast and my group does, there are some people that that's their only time to get out. That's your only time to interact with other people. Keep those meetings going and keep them coming out because otherwise they're just sitting at home watching YouTube or something. So bad. All right. So I want to thank everybody for being here.

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving. And I hope that you and your bees are going to do well. I'm Frederick Dunn. This has been the way to be. I want to thank everybody for being here. And yes, I'm reading the comments. I know you want knots. And I know that we want to talk about microscopes and how to use them. So thanks a lot. Have a great weekend ahead.