The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A 353 with Frederick Dunn of The Way To Bee

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Swarms are coming! this is the audio track from today's YouTube:  https://youtu.be/5oNDsmiMpwQ

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. This is Friday, May the 1st of 2026, and this is back here to bekeeping questions and answers episode number 353. I'm Frederick Dunn and... This is the way to be. So I'm really glad that you're here. We have a lot to talk about today. Things are changing fast, so I hope that you're ready. And you probably want to know where I'm located.

northeastern part of the united states northwestern part of the state of pennsylvania if you want to know what we're going to talk about today please look down in the video description you'll see all the topics listed in order and some links that you might find helpful so i want to thank you for being here and if you want to know how to submit your own topic or a question that you have on your mind please go to my website which is the way to be dot org click on the page mark contact fill out the information and there you go and maybe have a question on your mind maybe have a picture that you want to share and you want to get the approval or amazed responses from your peers or get some answers go to the way to be fellowship on Facebook it's a great group you can find people there day and night from all over the world so it's going to be fantastic and I know you want to know what's going on outside so we're going to get right into that well it's 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside isn't that lame for May the 1st and that's

4.4 Celsius. Good news, no wind though, bad news, it's raining. So it's 99% relative humidity. And swarm risk today, since we're going to include that, what are the chances that your bees are going to swarm today right now? This minute, none, zero. Zero, I'm telling you, go out there in the rain and look at them. Of course, things are going to be different where you are, and of course, your swarms are probably happening while you're sitting there looking at this. The other thing, oh, that's a good point. Looking at this. You can listen.

You don't have to look. You can go to the way to be.org podcast. And then you can listen instead of watch. But it doesn't help me when you do that. If you use Podbean, I heart radio, audible, whatever you're using, those counts don't help me one bit. But it helps you. That's why I'm willing to give it up for you.

Okay. So I know that you want to know here in the Northeast. a lot of you are in similar weather conditions to me what is going to be the best day ahead for swarming when should you be ready what's going to be the best day to get inside your beehives and see what's going on only to find out that they're making plans to move out can happen monday this coming Monday right here in my state it's going to be 70 degrees Fahrenheit which is 21 Celsius and 99% chance of swarming so the swarm meter is way up I guarantee you somebody's losing bees on Monday right here. I'm going to be out there. I'm ready. I am on it. So, yeah, because after that, we have rain and the weather is just all over the place.

We have questions related to that that we're going to get to. And the other thing is, remember I said, for those of you who are not afraid of spiders, that I was going to release Janice, a jumping spider. I did that last week. Janus caused a sensation. So if you haven't seen it, if you're even mildly tolerant of jumping spiders, I turned her loose out there, and a lot of people are paying attention because her behavior was a little strange. So I think you should look at that.

If you really want to see what a jumping spider looks like when they get released, see what they do. So we're going to jump right in with the questions for today, and we're going to start right off with Diane's question, and she comes from Warren, New Jersey. Two more swarms. I'm getting some practice. Is it your experience that when there are two distinct separate clusters that there is likely to be more than one queen? I hide them separately, but I'm not sure I got it right. I'll find out tomorrow. So I'd also like to invite you to look at the video that I made during the week of a swarm collection because it just happened right on the blue, the one decent day.

And there were multiple, it should have known, when you have a big prime, swarm like that on a branch that I designated with swarm commander of course there are multiple queens in there so separating them out can be a challenge finding out which queen to put in the hive then what if you have multiple queens how do you decide which one is the best one that the bees are choosing well when you separate them out if you can bag your swarms in separate bags pillow cases work nicely by the way you can listen to them the ones that don't have a queen are making a lot of noise the ones that have a queen are calm and then you can find multiple queens and when you put them into the hives they calm right down but

sometimes you'll catch a let me just paint the picture for you you'll catch this big swarm of bees trash can method be vac pillowcase butterfly net whatever you decide to use and then you'll find out like a good half of them a good bunch of them go in some people commented why don't you just dump those bees in that hive and be done with it well I'll tell you why first of all dumping bees it's not fun It's not a great way to spend a lot of time staring at bees and getting to know them while they pick the hive that you've set them in front of So when you put them there while they're walking in they get excited they start fanning their nassanoff glands are all moving in But then something happens you know a bunch of them go in but a bunch of them also stay out

And then that's when some people get frustrated and just dump the rest of them in because they're tired of waiting But I want you to know there's likely a reason why they're staying out and not going in and that's because you have more than one queen on your hands and it is a popularity contest. Those workers are letting you know which queen they like the most. And in my case for the install that I just did, it was an even split. Half of the bees went in, half of the bees stayed out. And then once I realized that I had a collection of them staying out, including a queen that I found, which distracted me from the queen that went into the hive. I took the rest of them over to another hive to see if then they would go in and guess what they did so after they realized there's another hive not occupied by a queen see what

happens once a queen goes in and her pheromones in there they take up residence and the other queens don't want to come in particularly if those other queens are not yet mated so we split them up and then they'll go to their own queens and so if you see multiple clusters on tree branches try not to combine them they probably each have a queen unless you have a method for separating the queen out. So, and I separate them out by using a queen excluder on top of a bucket, a seven-gallon bucket in that instance. So if you want to see it, please watch the video. And you'll see the details.

I show all the body language and stuff so you can figure it out. Let's go on to question number two, which comes from RN. Faces. That's a YouTube channel name. Can you use this on an active high? and the reference is to eco wood. So I have a video that's called The Best Paint for Beehives just may not be paint after all.

Eco wood, demonstration and review. So here's the thing. Eco wood comes out. A lot of people are getting new hives this time of year and they're coating them with paint or protecting them from rot. And on it goes.

If you want to buy a hive, for example, that already has it taken care of that you don't need to paint or do anything about, I would recommend Endura hives. I get nothing for that. The Endora hive comes from Nature's Image Farm, it's a family business, and they won't rot. So there you go.

But let's say you have a hive that is not finished, does not have any kind of treatment. Eco wood is a treatment. So you can submerge the boxes. That's why I like to use it before you put beads in it, because I like to dip the whole thing. I get those really shallow trays, and you mix up about five gallons of it. You can get that stuff at Lowe's, Home Depot, a lot of places. and then when you mix up eco wood, which is a mineral treatment, see, I like to dip it so that it gets all surfaces,

because the bees like it no matter what. It doesn't bother them at all. And it prevents rot. It does not prevent bad craftsmanship in woodwork. So if you haven't glued all your joints, and if you haven't put that final little screw in that little rabbit joint, that thin piece up there, you know what I'm talking about, that kind of tends to

you know cup out or whatever it does glue and screw those things together then dip it but the question is can you use it on an active hive so once your bees are in the hive can you still put it on there you can it goes on like water it is just not as good as I like to do it and the other thing is they have tints and stuff that come with it I don't use any of those and have not had any experience

with any of the tinted eco wood I use just whatever their natural one is. It makes your hives look like they age quicker, which I happen to like, because then what do they do? They blend visually into the landscape where I live. Because I like that old wood look, the weathered look, knowing that they're not gonna rot,

just the same. So I use that. Now I would not mix it all up. And you know, I did have surplus because when you mix it up, it makes like five gallons. I'm also told it's five English gallons. Royal gallons or something like that which is larger than the American gallon so I actually had a greater concentration than I needed The woods you're putting it on should not be painted or have any other surface treatments on it

The second option is of course exterior latex semi-gloss or a gloss paint if you can afford it because the higher the glass more expensive it is This is where you make friends with the people at the mixing counter at your local hardware store True Value wherever it is make friends with them because you know what happens they do this custom tints and people this is unbelievable some people order paints pick a specific color and then they don't like it they bring it back when they bring it back and it's been tinted guess what happens they can't just put it on the shelf they put it under the shelf where the

mix master is and then you hit them up because they can't tell you they can't say hey fred come over here i got some paint for you you have to go over there and say hey do you have some paint that high maintenance customers turned into you because it didn't like the tent that they selected initially but didn't like it once they saw it on a whole wall kind of thing says yeah I do and I got to get rid of it so you can get these paint gallons that are 65 or 70 dollars a piece and they practically give them to you for like five bucks it's a win and if you get a bunch of different colors say you don't like the color get a bunch of different colors mix it all together it ends up being kind of a purply gray brown color that's what I'm

was told somebody else said but for Eco Wood it's really good just remember it's a treatment not a finish so prevents rot does not prevent surface aging so and if I'm talking about a particular paint you know based on consumer reports and stuff like that ValSpar is pretty high up on the chart everybody has their favorites but I'm just letting you know question number three comes from Cobber Pete one hi Fred so when do you do you do decide that you have enough hives. I have seven which is enough for me to manage and I have given away two swarms over the past season to newbies. Education is

part of the deal. So I can't decide when I have enough hives. I have too many. That's clear. I don't want to keep expanding. My wife has suggested that we expand our apiary even more. But here's the risk. So I want to talk to you about this. You have to understand what you're in front of metal loading is in other words how much forage is there going to be for your bees you're going to be feeding them all because I distinctly remember that back when I had eight or ten colonies of bees each hive produce much more honey than they do now because now we're over 40 on the same spot so we're not like spread out everywhere

and this is really important there is a website that I hope that you'll go to it's called B-Scape, B-E-E-S-A-P-E-S-A-P-E-P-S-U-D-U. It used to just be dot-org, but it was all taken over by Penn State University. So what you could do there is you look to see if you're planning to keep bees somewhere, you know how much forage there is? Is there going to be a dearth where you are? So where I happen to be, there's a lot of forage around, but 40 colonies in one concentrated.

area feels like too much. So for me it works out because I'm not a honey producer. I'm not targeting maximizing honey yields so I can package and sell it. Now my grandson will argue with me about that but tough nuggets for him because we're about the bees not about of course the honey and stuff. But what I wanted to share with you is if you wanted to get maximum honey yield with minimum numbers of hives don't overload your area with too many beehives this is one of the challenges that commercial beekeepers face because they have staging areas in the wintertime usually in the south and they leave a bunch of their hives on pallets and places and they run the risk of over drawing on the nectar availability which is why they also have these huge trucks with

these big containers on the bank that contain sugar syrup so if you'd like to avoid that size it right for the number of hives for an environmental area that you know can sustain them that's all so but i do like the part here that copper peat put out uh there are new beekeepers starting out we have a beekeeper breakfast once a month i like to go to that we get a bunch of new people at the bee breakfast because they didn't know probably until they got there that i would be there they would have avoided it but having breakfast makes the breakfast the appeal anyway I don't like them to order in a bunch of bees from other areas and here's why. I'm really trying to push for locally adapted stock,

what a lot of people are just calling mutt bees. Now sure, I like to support bee breeders, people that are doing all the work, that are trying to get the genetics right and everything else. But in the meantime, for the backyard people who don't want to buy everything, swarms are it. And if you've got all the bees that you need, collect some swarms even when you get the call. and give them away to some of the new beekeepers and use that as an opportunity to teach them how to install a swarm.

And then you can do it the patient way, which is what I do and let the bees walk in. Or you can do it the speedy way for people that have a schedule to keep and just dump them in and go. So any way you want to do it, but give the bees away, help people out, help them get started, if they're sincere about bees. Make them do the legwork. have to you should have a quiz that you have to ask them why you keep them bees what do you know about them what is it going to take to take care of them did you take a class did you do you have a mentor because those are all valuable things I'm not saying that we close the door 100% on somebody who doesn't have any of those boxes

checked but it does help them along the way because when they do everything wrong and they lose their bees and they make sick bees that they don't understand how to get involved with the bees for an entire year going to fall back on you because you hooked them up question number four comes from chrisso 6884 since you've been using the swarm commander on specific branches how often do the swarms go to the designated branch versus how often do the land somewhere else now keep in mind this happens in your own apiary so priming a branch with swarm commander which by the way i can say percentage wise for this year it's 100% effective because i've only got

two swarms on one branch but that's what they did they combined on one branch why'd they pick the branch that particular branch because I tagged it with swarm commander this is what swarm commander looks like oh yeah here's what I wanted to do after I got that I wanted to get all the different iterations of swarm commander because there's a spray which I have in the fridge there is some kind of little plastic swarm commander pregnant a thing that you can hang on stuff it looks like a little B and then of course there's the little dabs, the brake capsules that are super convenient to have that you can help prime things.

And once the bees start using a branch, they use it over and over. So statistically, though, instead of whising off, I'm going to tell you last year we had two swarms that did not go on the branch I designated. They either went really high or onto another tree altogether. So the rest of them, there's a lot of them, more than I can count, unfortunately. And they gave away a lot of bees last year. And this year I'm going to hold on to a bunch of them because they had different plants. I'm just going to like steal their queens and use them to fortify the colonies. I'm under pressure by the supervisor to make sure that he gets more honey production.

And he thinks that more bees will result in more honey. And that's true. I just don't like to tell him that he's right, you know, because he really rubs it in. 10-year-olds are the worst. Moving on. Question number five. This comes from Francis. It says, Fred, I've been watching you for a very long time. I caught a swarm. It was almost dark. I caught it and took it to an out apiary. I left it in the nuke box, which is short for nucleus. And not closed up with drawn comb and foundation to put it in a hive the next day.

I went back the next day to give it a frame of brood. put in a box and it was gone so it was dark when i caught it so i could not check for a queen what do you think what do you think uh would be your guess and then went on to say and this is the part of the question i don't like a i said i did not get the queen so they left a i said they went back to their hive and that they came from and i moved them about three miles from where there were any ideas okay AI is taken over YouTube. Don't watch them. They're fake. Artificial intelligence so ridiculous. Taking over Facebook too. There are gardening channels that are 100% AI in there killing it. So but in this case AI was wrong. Are you shocked? I'm not. So it doesn't know things. It only knows what you type in. But here's the thing. We don't want the bees to leave. So that's called an abscond. You collect your bees, you got them in a box.

You think the queen's there in this case Francis is not sure and the next day you come back to get them or in this case fortify them with a brood frame and that's supposed to anchor them there because nurse bees don't like to leave brood but without closing them up without having a queen include her on the box then you have no way of verifying that number one once the queen gets in that she won't just leave. Queens are fickle. They will do odd things.

So for example, let's say we had a nucleus hive. And I like the wooden ones. So I have a bunch of the plastic ones, but those are just tools for transporting small numbers of frames. We talk about the pro nukes. I have one sitting over here. Use the pro nukes because they're handy. They're super lightweight.

I don't put actual colonies in them. I just use them for tools. For example, when you're doing resource hive movements, things like that I have two choices of gear that I use to move those frames around the pro nukes are good they hold about five deep frames and I also have the hive butler toads which are larger they hold 10 frames and some people don't want to use the high butler tokes it's too big it's too heavy takes up too much space in the car that kind of thing so the pro new fills the gap for that

so we can go and pull a couple frames of brood over here I like to do super fortifiers go to several hives which is one of the things I'm going to be doing this coming Monday to help thwart their instinct to swarm if they're not doing it already so I'm going to swarm it's nothing I'm going to be able to do about that but I can pull frames of capped brood in particular that's low maintenance it still has to be warm and then I can put that all together with a queen in another hive and start out gangbusters so just between me and you this is I'm going to fortify my grandson's hive he's going to think

they exploded overnight. He's not going to understand why they're so prolific. And I'm going to probably tell them what's the power of positive thinking. They knew you needed honey, that kind of thing. So if you've got an established queen, but a colony that's not gangbusters, but she's laying well and everything else, you can fortify them with a bunch of brood without really negatively impacting the colony that you pulled the brood from. If you just pull one frame at a time, bring some nurse bees with you, stick it right in there. They don't even care. and it'll build them right up but if you're building your wooden nuke box these wheels this particular one comes from better be i don't know if it's branded it says um queen excluder that's not the brand

queen's drones open and ventilation so anyway if you had a hole right on the front of your wooden box whatever wooden box you're using maybe even designate one just for swarms Ooh, I just had an idea. Okay. So let's say you're going to ultimately put them in an 8 or 10 frame brood box. In a new spot, new stand, that kind of thing. Build a brood box with a big hole in the front that you put your swarms in when you go somewhere else to get them.

Put this on the front of that high. The screw goes through the back. This is just the way they come. And then you'll have the big hole there. So it's wide open when you put your bees in. found the queen put her in there rotate this around block it with the queen excluder which now we call the queen include her because she's in and then they can't abscond they have to stay the workers can come and go and i don't want that hole to be a little tiny

three quarter inch hold because we want them to be able to really come and go so by having that on there i have other queen includeers like these over here these are fantastic landing board versions so if you're putting in a full-size box but remember this is an intermediate box an intermediate hive box with this hole in the front so you can close it up for transport with just ventilation for example you get that from better be if you get it ask for the fred done discount so you can pay the same as everyone else it's just the way it is oh it says better be on it better be hive portal that's what it's called okay and then because it's where they're going to be anyway once they're established settled you you like what you're seeing now we just pull the switcher-roo on them pull that box

off to the side put your new bucks in with the landing board and just transfer all the frames over let's say a week later and then you're good to go and you have your swarm collection box with the control wheel on the front ready to go again so that's just another way to make it more complicated than it needs to be but you'll impress your friends with new gadgets and methods I think it's fun All right, so anyway, the AI guidance, though, watch that stuff. If you want AI, yeah, it's here to stay. We're not doing anything about it.

But I get a lot of quotes from people that I know came from AI. And they're questioning me. But I want you to question absolutely everything. Challenge, absolutely everything. How do you know that? Where did you learn that? Have you proven it? That kind of thing.

And then you find out that it's just information cycled back from an automated chatbot, something like that question number six bang francis snuck another one in on me that's two uh fred as i watch i write as i go but question if you know your hives are going to swarm next week why don't you go into them and remove the queens you know that they're going why not try to stop them so here is this is a conflict actually for a lot of beekeepers um why you letting swarms go What are you doing? Why are you stopping it? Here's how to stop swarms. In fact, it's a really clickbaity title to put on any kind of bee-related video this time of year. How do 100% stop your bees from swarming?

Those are great claims. So here's the thing. I don't stop them from swarming, but I do catch them. I have a very good percentage of collection at their intermediate bivouac location. So we talked about the branch before that our prime was. swarm commander and as swarms collect on it and use it over and over I don't prime it anymore I let the bees themselves create this pheromone residue that attracts other bees so I don't stop them from swarming if I am inspecting and I come across I should give you the options when I'm inspecting a hive as I will on

Monday when I'm going through and if I find queen cells in there and that means that there's a developing larva in the cell. Then I know they've decided they're on their way out and it's not finished yet, it's not capped. So I know also the queen's scooting around in there. So I'm going to look at wherever the freshest action is. So where the eggs are or larvae that are just a day old, that kind of thing, chances are you going to find the queen there.

So there's a lot of fun in doing that. And then when you do collector, pull the frame. Get yourself a queen, isolation cage. put that frame in there put the queen in there with them and set that in your box now here's an example of where if you're going to use the pro nuke as your transit box or the hive butler tote when i put these uh you know frames of the queen in a cage that doesn't fit anymore in the hive butler tote because the metal thing is just too wide so it does fit in the pro nuke but i can't put five frames in the pro nook then i only put four of the

man. So you can come with that all pre-stage knowing darn well you're going to find the queen. And then that lets you, it gives you the versatility to move them around. Now let's move on. Say you didn't catch that or you don't feel like doing that. You don't want to lift the boxes. Whatever reason as a backyard beekeeper that a swarm may catch you off guard. And like I said, mark my words. There are going to be swarms on Monday if you're in this neck of the woods. Okay. So now they swarm out. Why do I want them to do that? of just transferring frames well what if i have to put them in a top our hive then i can install a swarm it's the easiest to install ever because they're not on any frames i don't have to worry about frame

compatibility what if i want to set up a layens hive and all i have are langstroth boxes out there layens frames are totally different now i can just install the bees through the opening and put a queen includeer over it to keep them from leaving later when they realize they've been duped and there's a bunch of layans frames in there that haven't been worked before it gives you a chance to move your bees into a variety of different configurations and when it comes to observation hives often we don't like to open them up they're inside a building and you have to take the whole observation hive outside depending on the setup that you have and this removes that step all you have to do is go outside hold the bees that you've collected from a swarm up to the

entrance in they go once the queen goes in boom queen include her over the front don't forget that step the beast can come out if the queen comes out you'll lose them all so once the queen is in in fact you can lose the queen use the queen to entice them into the box so the way my observation hides are set up inside they have a blast gate which is used normally for you know dust collection in carpenter shops and things like that so i get the really really good ones the reason I got the really good aluminum ones that look nice is because I like it to look scientific and sophisticated more sophisticated than I am and and then you go inside you have your swarm outside you found the queen because she was walking up

the bucket or the butterfly net or whatever collection device you have and you collected the queen then you go inside where your observation hive is you open your blast gate you put her in through the blast gate which has a translucent connector on it so you can see her go in close that queen include around the front outside the hive the bees all start piling in and they're going to join the queen because there are pheromones in there now that is fun and you can watch it because it's an observation hive you can see it all happen so anyway that's why i don't try to stop them it's you know first of all fun it might be laziness i don't know but if i'm doing an inspection and i come across them and i see those conditions

I'll make a split and create a resource hive anyway. So that's just what it's about. Question number seven comes from George Garcia 5052. Fred, have you ever used the queen introduction frame? You always discuss them in terms of instructions as opposed to your experience. I'm always interested in your experiences. My one-time use and it failed.

Okay. So when it comes to these questions, Queen introduction, which is different from Queen isolation. If you notice I have two of those, where are they? Sitting here behind me. If I bought in an expensive queen and I thought a colony was queenless, but I could be wrong. Sometimes this is what happens.

You think a colony is queenless because you don't see any eggs. The brood is kind of waning. There's some cap brood left, stuff like that. Whoa, they need a queen. And you go and you buy a queen through the ma'amines. through the mail and you get them from whatever the reputable queen sources you spend 35 to 65 dollars depending on which one you get and you go and you stick it in there in the queen cage hopefully and if you direct release high risk activity but anyway you turn it loose in there only to have your

bees kill it or drive it out you find it dead on the landing board the following day kind of thing it's kind of a sick feeling but the thing is they didn't need it because either they got replaced by queen they have a queen that just got mated that was a little late in getting mated they were already loyal to another queen so they killed yours well the queen isolation cage prevents that now do i know that from personal experience nope so but it comes from somebody that i trust dr david peck from better be is the one that uh i talked at length about it with i have it it's a tool in the arsenal that I might need someday if I ever free up the finances and buy a really expensive queen someday or for example I'm just so critical about the queen I'm getting that I just can't

lose her and I'm trying some juxtaposition of different frames and different colonies or I'm trying to test out a colony to find out if they really are queenless or if there's laying workers I want to overcome the laying workers without them being able to attack and kill the queen that I'm putting in. So I have a lot of scenarios about how to use it when and if I decide to use it. I haven't actually done it because if I done it, I'd have a video about it. I do have videos going back many years now with the queen isolation cages that are just fantastic. Because there again, let's think about this. Remember what I said about this queen included on the front of a box. If you've got the queen isolation, which is different from the queen introduction.

cage. If you have a queen isolation cage and you're dealing with a swarm and you are lucky enough to find the queen. And we've become very good at identifying where the queen's located and finding her while we're not dumping the bees into the hive. It's really important because then we can find the queen. We can see her. We can look her over. She's in good shape. And then we can put her in a cage, a queen isolation, not queen in, yeah, isolation, not introduction. And the isolation cage lets workers pass through. So they can take care of everything. So we could put the queen in that cage on a frame and put that queen on that cage on that frame inside the hive that we want them all to go into.

And they will all sense her pheromone and go in there and the queen can't leave. So that's an example of how to do it if we don't have, for example, an entrance that is suited to putting a queen excluder on the front of. So that's just another way of controlling it and I've said before that if you've collected a swarm from somewhere else You don't know anything about them. This is a great way to see what the brood is like and I have done that Many times with a hundred percent success. So it's another way to retain the queen use her as a lure draw other bees in So that's it. But yeah, I get called out by George Garcia. That's true. I haven't done it But I do trust dr. Peck. Don't you? I do. He speaks the truth. Okay, so question number eight comes from Jason Seward, 8506. I froze a brood box

after cleaning a dead out. It was wrapped in shrink wrap and then it thawed. A little bit of condensation must have gotten onto or into some uncapped honey. I saw some foam, meaning that it must have made peroxide. So by the way, when your bees honey is defending itself, it can make hydrogen peroxide and it forms on the surface. Anyway, and it's a bit of a fermented smell. So the fermented honey, this is a challenge that some people face in the spring. Since there won't be too much uncapped stores on the comb, can I just drop that box into a hive? Or is there a way that I can clear out the fermented honey from the comb? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

All right, now here's the thing. This is going to be polarizing for bees. beekeepers because it's something I do that other people don't like I get interesting comments when I feed things like hornets and was all hornets are was all wass are not hornets but if you had fermented smelling honey that you don't want to give back to your bees because you don't because half the time they don't like it it can also be bad for them really bad for them so if you have a robbing station designated and every beekeeper I think should have a designated a robbing station you know for late in the year dirt period stuff like that i would put it out at that

because at the very least the um wasps in your area will go to it now let's say and they clean things up for you they do such a good job this is the lazy beekeepers way of cleaning up frames now sure they chew away at the bees wax and stuff like that there'll be a bunch of that and wherever you set up your robbing station it should be inaccessible to raccoons possums and skunks and last year i set up a really good one i used those support systems that people use for closets you know it's got the little angled bar the flat bar it's got the little loop on it for the hanging bar for your clothes but i set that up and i attached it to the west facing side of one of my outbuildings and it's way up off the ground so it's almost five feet off the ground and at nothing can get to it none of the predators that feed on them and it is open underneath and the only thing i'm adding to that that i'm changing this year is i did not like when the sun was constantly hitting those frames because a lot of the frames are plastic i don't want the uv rays damaging the plastic so now i have a cover for that so we have a covered extension that's attached to a building that we hang frames on

that we want just whatever bumblebees, whatever shows up, they can clean it up for us. And one of the reasons that's really interesting for me personally is because I want to see what's out here. What's coming around right now? Queens. So we have queen yellow jackets out there. I have one right now in a container. I'm going to watch her build a nest. I'm providing her everything she needs. She's a founderist, you know, she doesn't even need help. She was mated last fall. So you can find these. things on there you can see the queens you can see what's in your area and that's the interest level for me so and if the honeybees go to it then they're endorsing it they're they're

letting you know that it's not too fermented it's not too bad and the other thing of course if if there's a bunch of it and it just doesn't it smells like fermentation has started take up mead making if you haven't done it i did a video on that you can go to my website my youtube channel which is frederick done type of the right hand corner how to make mead and I show it to you step by step everything. You get a lot of me eat out of a little bit of honey. So that's it. Question number nine comes from Michael Remsen.

That's the YouTube channel name. Hey Fred, have you ever come across this phenomenon? I call shiny propolis or propylized pollen. The bees won't use it and they won't remove it. And that frame will be ignored. I end up removing it and melting it down. So I didn't see the picture so I don't know. exactly what we're talking about other than sometimes particularly in spring when

we're looking at the leftover frames and stuff and looking at stuff that your bees do not use didn't touch and aren't cleaning out sometimes you'll find really dark ruby colored pollen amber colored pollen cells that are super smooth almost like they've been provided with a thin layer of wax in some cases in a lot of cases your bees will just seal it up and not use it because something's wrong with it so what can you do i mentioned this before but these are fun and somebody else is mad because these are everything's um cordless now and this doesn't last a long time so it's only for the most stubborn stuff but you can blast things out of the cells with a water pig and this is one of the cheap versions like

i don't get the water pig brand one it was twice as much as this thing and uh you can blast it out of there out of those cells and apparently it makes your water pick yellow it can also plaster itself all over you so you can put a frame with this pollen in it in the water because you're going to soak it anyway you're going to be cleaning it up and then you stick it in the water and then you put this in the water also and just put it close and it'll blast it out of there while it's under water and then it doesn't blast out on you so it's good stuff i think it's fun and you'll find there's a lot of uses for stuff like that The other thing was I was experimenting with this, but I haven't, I didn't make a video about it. One of those nozzles for your LP air that focuses the air at a really high velocity, I was able to use that on plastic foundations, and depending on how much damage I wanted to do to the beeswax is still on there while I'm cleaning out cells, cleaning it dead out.

I could actually blast away just with air, the beeswax. was on the frame and this is brood beeswags tough stuff but there's another thing to look at is the air that you can use and power washers work too if you just want to get rid of everything just blast it away with the power washer you can crank up these power washers until it almost damages the plastic now the other part of that is too when you're all done you're still going to have to heat it up by the way when people i've had people that are having troubles getting beeswax you know there they've seen that you can take a roller heat up the beeswax and they're rolling it onto the plastic foundations and stuff you should also have a hair dryer or some means of warming up the plastic foundation don't just warm hot wax onto a cold plastic foundation

if you pre-warm the foundation also and you're going to wax coat it then you'll find out that it goes on much easier so just adding that so that'll be it but yeah the bees will ignore it for some reason they never end up cleaning it out so it's up to you you got to pull the frames make that happen last question of the day question number 10 comes from chris from spencer slant rochester new york says bee populations are increasing rapidly and foraging has been good for the past couple of weeks however the northeast appears to be heading into a prolonged period of cool gray wet weather and possible frosts or freezes i fear this may be dangerous a dangerous period for the bees any thoughts i still have feeder shims on my hives and was planning

to make some syrup available if conditions really limit foraging maybe i'm being overly cautious okay so here's i'm going to give you both sides of this we are not commercial beekeepers if i were i'd be out there the sugar syrup right away. Because what's going to happen is the bees have been bringing in pollen and nectar at a rapid rate. And the nectar, by the way, we have apple trees blooming. We have prairie fire crab trees blooming. We have

a whole bunch of different varieties out there giving nectar and pollen. So the bees are bringing it in. The other thing is, how do you know when they're bringing in a lot of nectar? We see a lot of fanning at the entrances. Okay. Now, a day like today happens. It's cold, it's rainy. What are the bees doing? Keeping their breed warm, keeping their brood warm. How they doing it? Burning a lot of calories.

Then what do they do? They consume a bunch of carbohydrates inside the hive. So they're consuming honey and nectar. Which means when I say the nectar part, they've processed it a little bit because they have an enzyme in their body is called invertase. And it creates invert sugars. And so they are passing that back and forth. and they are moving those resources around, but they also, when push comes to shove, consume it.

So if you have scales on your hives, this is where you would start to see them start losing weight. And then what happens? You run the risk of them cannibalizing some of your colonies. Now, for me, that's helpful. I'll explain. They're billing fast, just as described. They've got all these resources coming,

and what's going to happen? Monday, they're going to swarm. But if they consume a bunch of their resources, it slows them down. Because if it slows brood production, which brood production is a reflection of what's being brought into the hive from the outside. So the proteins are coming in,

the nectar's coming in. Now, let's say you want to maintain brood production, you don't want them to turn on their brood and start to consume or remove eggs and things like that. Then you would feed sugar syrup, and you have a narrow window to do it. you can put on you know fondant packs and things like that this time of year but that doesn't work as well okay so sugar syrup I use one to one highly recommends

since we don't have honey supers on yet highly recommend that you amend your sugar syrup with high-valive syrup it has proven benefits so that's what I personally would do so if I have colonies that are in jeopardy because it's the other end what's the status of the colony how big of the getting how big is the brood how much of a demand is there going to be because they can consume even the pollen resources in a matter of days so by boosting them you're just not going to lose a big bunch but it does serve to suppress the swarm instinct so it's up to you but extended rain periods can shut down brew production it can happen so for chris it just depends on what you want out of them if you want to make sure that you're

going to have plenty of brood which turns into plenty of honey and resources later then it's time to put some um you know syrup on there so and i recommend as i said one to one the other thing is i just hived a swarm into my beersville bees long lancsroth hive and i was a little late i should have set up my other top bar hive because they have another one of those and uh so when we move swarms in there uh they are building from scratch so they definitely need one-to-one sugar syrup and it does make a difference by the way when they have one-to-one sugar up one part sugar one part water makes no difference if this is cane sugar or beet sugar they will continue to draw a comb so they will ramp up fast in there once you install a swarm of bees they're prepared

to make a lot of comb if there's an interruption in that an extended period of rain for example then they stop comb production is too cold for cone production they have to burn too many calories to make it and they're going to conserve and stick with whatever brew they've already started so by giving them the carbohydrates you turn the furnace on for the whole time that we're going to get a cold snap and uh the rain that continues so that came with a rapid round and it's configured it already has a coverboard that's designed for that and uh you can feed them so off you go i'm counting on my lands hides to consume a bunch of their winter leftover honey during that period because they have too

much of it and yes i'm being lazy i'm going to have to make cut comb because i'm going to do crush and strain on the surplus honey in there uh because i don't have the extractor that's big enough for land's frames but same thing they're they're still kind of plugged up a little with honey which again this cold spell this rainy spell ahead is going to help them consume that and save me from having to harvest it honey by the way is in demand right now so that was the last question for the day don't forget if you have questions for me go to the way to be.org click on the page mark contact right in there what you'd like me to talk about or a question that you have and we'll see what happens so uh boop-pooh part of the flush monday don't forget pre-stage all your stuff because here's what happens

always have by the way during that last swarm collection i put on my pullover B-suit top. So it's a pullover jacket. So no zipper around the neck. It still has the zippered veil, but it's permanently attached to the pullover. No front zipper, no weak spots. And it has Velcro wrists. Who do you think makes it? Guardian bee apparel. It's really nice. So there's a plug for that. The Guardian B apparel pullover. That's what should be in in your swarm kit, in my opinion. And if you want to impress your friends and make a little joke out of it kind of, get that better be pocket emergency B jacket B jacket.

It comes in a packet this big. You unzip it. You flip it inside out. You pull this thing on. It looks kind of funny, but it's also effective. And you could have that in the glove compartment of your car. I think it's called the emergency B. If you have one of those and you like it, I've only brought it as a presentation.

device because I just like to have conversation starters kind of thing if you've used it and you like it tell us about it that would be cool so have all that stuff ready to go stage it so if you've got a BVAC and it runs off a battery charge your batteries right now don't wait go out say hit pause go charge all your batteries up my everything BVAC is charged and my power station DeWalt power station which runs my Colorado BVAC that's charged up we're not playing games when they start because here's what happens. It won't be just one colony that swarms. It's going to be several. Those of you who are on the beswarmed.org website registry, and I recommend that you should be, if you don't know what I'm talking about, B-E-E-S-W-A-R-M-E-D dot ORG, and you create an account with them.

That does not cost you anything. If you want to get alerts by phone text message when there's a swarm in your area and you decide which alerts you want you'll get free bees do that register also this is a time of year when social media lights up when somebody sees the swarm of bees and they post it on social what do we do who gets them and then you have all these people talking about who can go and get it just send them the link to be swarmed.org and say please report any bees that you find like that to this site and that connects to all the beekeepers in your area that are registered So charge your batteries up, don't play games, have hive live syrup ready to go.

Add it prep empty hive boxes. So once again, if you're still sitting there with add-outs, I have to be honest, I'm not done with all of mine yet either. Clean them out. And also be ready to treat for varroa destructor mites if you're going to be in the treatment category and I recommend that you do. If you find high mite counts. So while you're inspecting colonies, do a mite site. Do a mite sample if you've got Removal trays under a screen bottom board

It's time to clean those out too a lot of people might be putting that off and you put those under there and then see what a week's worth of detritus in that tray looks like and count mites down there And then you can see at least colony by colony which ones are dropping the most mites through grooming and stuff like that But I recommend I'm trying out by the way the new R-TU, which is ready to use dribble method that better be had at the conference. I bought it myself, paid fat stacks for it. The other thing is if you're buying exhalic acid and you're going to follow the rules and you're going to use actually approved oxalic acid.

Under the new doses, by the way, go to EasyOx, which is by Mike's B's. EasyTack OX. and you can get tablet forms, you can get powdered, and he's still waiting on those extended release oxalic acid sponges. And when those come out, I'm going to be talking about those extended 90-day treatment sponge packs for exhalic acid because that is it. No risk to you.

The dribble is safe also, less effective overall, but better than nothing. Exalic acid vapor is the most dangerous to people method that you can use. So you have to wear a full respirator. You have to protect your eyes. You have to protect your hands. I know there's a lot of people that say that make videos where they touch it and they let it get on them and they say it doesn't matter.

I'm telling you and I'm keeping you safe. Do not let exhalic acid vapor touch your eyes or get in your lungs. Don't fall for standing upwind from it and all this other stuff. please be safe that includes pets and stuff don't let your dog stand right next to you while you're using it so but anyway oxalic acid from it's called easy ox go to my speeds to get it i'm not paid to do that i'm just telling you it is the most reasonably priced approved material when compared to apioxyl that's it i want to thank you for watching and listening and I hope that you have an absolutely fantastic weekend, you and your bees.

I'm Frederick Donne, and this has been The Way to Be.