The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A 365 LIVE Chat pre-recorded with Frederick Dunn

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

This is the audio track from Friday's YouTube Live Chat:  https://youtube.com/live/KnQ_yFMHBk0?feature=share

Okay, so we're live. Had to hold a funny pose because I never know it's going to take a picture that turns into the thumbnail for the video and I didn't want to be blinking. So I want to thank everyone for being here today. Those of you that are in the chat, Rock Wagner. I saw your comment. We're going to catch up on that.

But first I have to say, hello and welcome. Happy Friday. Today's Friday the 31st. That's the last Friday of the month. That's why we're doing the chat here. And so this is Q&A number 365 for backyard beekeeping. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this is the way to be.

So I'm glad that you're here. I hope you got the notice. I'm doing the best I can. Some people say they never know when the live is coming out, and it's the last Friday of the month. So this also just happens to be the last day of the month as well. And Castle Hives is here. Rodney's here.

Hello. All the normal, all the people that are, faithful, you know, consistent. We have a shout-out later, but I don't want to do it right away. I want to let you know, first of all, if you want to know what we're going to talk about, and it'll take a while because this is live, so the information takes some time to catch up down in the video description. So that will show up later, and all the topics that we discussed today will be listed there because I don't know what we're going to talk about. The wild cards are in the chat right now, and you're more than welcome to talk with one another, of course, if it's for me,

It's in all caps. Ross Wagner has set the standard already. You're not considered shouters when you do that now. It's just to help me notice that you're not talking amongst yourselves, which is perfectly welcome, but that it's for me. It's for my attention. Okay, so we're here in the northeastern part of the United States, northwest from part of the state of Pennsylvania.

I'm sure that you are somewhere else. But I still have to let you know what's going on outside. It's 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit right now. so nice and toast you, but listen to this. What do you think the temperature was? First thing this morning, it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And I want to thank Ross Wagner for his cash contribution already. So anyway, and so overnight it dropped the 50.

And what that does is our bees that are gathering the nectar right now, and we're just kicking off our next nectar flow here in the state of Pennsylvania. And so when it gets cold like that, they're also brooding up, which means they use a lot of their resources. So they're going to consume the honey that they just brought in. It's not even finished yet. That's what they use first. So in these cold nights, what could you do?

Well, if you're top venting right now, you might want to stop. If you don't have an insulated cover on, you might want to add one. If your entrance reducer is really large right now, if you've removed it all together, you might want to put an entrance reducer on and shrink that a little because guess what else is high right now, the potential for robbing? these will rob each other out in short order. I also want to let you know that Haptrax and Honey, Cis Spillman, is in the house. He's the bouncer.

So if you act up, he's going to accelerate your departure. So, but that never happens. He's like the Maytag repairman who never has a problem. So anyway, guess what else is happening right now, which is pretty cool if you like to stare at things in the sky, full moon. Probably be a couple of people on social media take pictures of the moon, as if no one's ever seen it before. and share it with everyone. But you know what you can also do? You can go outside and stare at things without a flashlight.

It's pretty fun. Let your eyes adjust and wander around. In the wintertime, it would be called a hunter's moon or something. But that's going on tonight. Air quality. We're in the green zones. Really good. Where I am.

Now I know. Canada is making contributions all over the United States and other areas. So you might have hazy, low quality air right now, but us right here, Pennsylvania. Things are going great. So here we go. That's good stuff. The pollen is high. So pollen counts are really high. If you're wondering, how do I know if pollen counts are good where I am, and if that means that my bees are going to get what they need to brood up? Well, check in with the allergy specialists. So if you look at things like allergy networks and things like that, find out where their sensors are. Sometimes they're hundreds of miles away. But it also lets you know the source of the pollen. And I've complained about deer a lot. But, lately around here the white-tailed deer are eating the tops off of all of the ragweed and

wouldn't you know it it's at the time when i wanted my bees to have access to that pollen but the deer are beating me to it so there you go jimmie's neighborhood bees is here too and he made it to alive so thanks for being here i'm going to try to acknowledge people as they come in but if i miss you it's not personal i'm just trying to stay on task so i don't get yelled at by anyone so the pollen counts are high uh there's a lot going on John, wow, thank you, John, for that very, very generous contribution. I really appreciate it. So another thing I'd like to know in the comments section, did the preview help?

I launched a three-minute preview. That's a max that it can be, by the way. And I put it on YouTube just to help people have a tickler at least 30 minutes in advance. Did it help? Did it not matter? Did anybody notice it? Do you care? I don't know.

So if that works. I'll continue doing that in the future. So there we go. So the opening sequences, by the way, I had an interesting thing. The supervisor was here, and a swarm was passing through the backyard. But also, we ran out into the apiary.

We could see the hive that the swarm was departing from. And I thought, if I just put a queen includer on the entrance of that hive, I could keep the queen from getting out. And then when she bumps up against the queen includer, I would pull it off and have the queen inside, catch the queen, control the queen, put in a queen pipe and then I'd own them. They would come back.

I missed the queen and off they went. They, by the way, went into a tree, way above the 30 foot mark. I couldn't get them. Castle Hives. Brian is back. And I want to thank Brian for inviting me and taking a huge personal risk to come and present to his B club. When you are the person that recommends a speaker or a presenter and that person shows up,

they own that. So if it goes bad, it's all on them, but it didn't. People were okay, and I think I lived up to Brian's expectations, so thank you for that. Thanks for having me. So we're going to go on here. I lost this worm. I would like a word of caution here. I'd like to share it. I have these poles that we put the swarm collection basket on.

And in this case, I was using the swarm reacher, because it's the smallest, lightest weight piece of kit that you can use for collecting swarms. right here. This is this warm reacher. It just goes on the end of your paint stick or something, but in my case, because I have to nuke it, we have a 30-foot pole, and then it dawned on me when I got this thing up there with a frame clamped into it. And I was using Honeybee Healthy with sugar syrup.

I put that up there, and I kept raising it and raising it. Of course, I had witnesses, so if things go bad, there's people that can talk about you. And I realized a 30-foot pole is a really long pole. And that, I've never extended it all the way. So I thought, you know, why not buy a 30-foot pole? Now, this thing is designed to change light bulbs. I don't even think I would do that with it at 30 feet.

Because once it got a little off-center, other than a normal incident angle, which is 90 degrees to the surface of the earth, then you tip it away. and it started a bow over, you better have some upper body strength. I almost lost that thing in front of everybody. And insult to injury, I didn't even get the swarm. They didn't follow the honeybee healthy sugar syrup. They didn't go on my frames. They flew away.

I don't even know why I'm griping about it. But it's a cautionary tale. Don't extend those really long poles with your milk jug or anything else. Whatever you have on it, if you get up to above 25 feet, up in the 30-foot range, off-center, that will, you could lose control of that. Plus, they're aluminum. Think about the electrical wires and stuff. That's enough.

I'm going to get off of that. Okay, just a second. I know people are typing in caps. I'm going to get to you. I just want to go over what's going on outside. So milkweed. And I learned something this past week. So the opening sequences, which now see they're still available to everyone,

because even though this is live, I put it up separate. So in the opening sequence, there's something called Tussick milkweed caterpillars. And so there's Tussick moths all over the place, the ones that put their hairs in you, and you feel like you've been in the fiberglass and stuff like that. But these have the monarch butterfly colors, so they're orange and black and white. And they really, it was interesting because they're in a cluster, so there's like 15 of them all together. on this milkweed plant and they of course just turned the whole thing into really thin lacework because

they're eating all the leaves and then I also showed the droppings from these caterpillars which was interesting but within like 10 minutes none of them were together so what they did is they had collected overnight on one leaf and that's when I videoed them and then they all spread out and they went everywhere on their own so that was like a moment too realizing how they cluster up And let me just tell you, the tussock moth isn't that cool to look at. So, you know, they're neaterpillar. So anyway, the other thing is I want to brag a little because I've had terrible results trying to grow swamp milkweed this year.

Not only did the grow, did I grow the swamp milkweed? Because I'm taking full credit for it, the sun, the rain, everything, the quality, the earth, the soil that it's growing into. I'm taking full credit because I'm the one that provided the seed for all that to happen. and now they have seed pods. So I have my own seeds. See, now it's going to perpetuate itself. So that's also in my opening sequences.

And I hope you'll look at that and just celebrate with me that I'm getting swamp milkweed. It's going to work. It's finally happening. So also outside bees are on the buckwheat. Finally, they've ignored it all up until now. Dutch clover, really strong. I learned a few things about Dutch clover. If you wanted to really spread, we have to continue to mow it.

shorter than four inches if you're mowing, which I recommend you do. Because that makes it competitive with the grasses and stuff like that. So we want that clover to prevail. And so that's doing really good. We already talked about swarm reach. Don't do it. And so here we go. Let's look at some of the questions that have already come in. And the very first one here is from Ross Wagner. It says, finished a six treatment over 21 days of OAV. And so for those of you don't know, that's exhalic acid vaporization. I'm a hive that swarmed July the 3rd. The new queen started laying last week.

And I'm thinking of doing a single OAB blast since it's broodeless. Thoughts, yes. When they're broodless and you have a chance to put the smack down on those Verodistrikeer mites, which I have a bunch of them around behind me here, that's one. That's how big they are, too. When they're 3D printed, it's how big they are. Anyway, but definitely because here's the thing. They're in the dispersal phase.

They used to call it ferretic mites. That means they're right around on things. Dispersal phase mites are actually feeding on adults, sustaining themselves until they start to have larvae that they can feed on. So they're exposed. It's time to get them. That's when exhalic acid works. Hit them once, of course.

Follow the label on everything you do. let's move on i just love seeing mites drop and uh i don't want them to suffer i just want them to be dead it's no big deal there's a big difference so i thanked everybody let's move on i know there's some more caps down here i'm going to get my new glass queen pipe now is that are you serious this is from when groved okay this queen pipe are you really getting glass one you better not be tease me because these are lightweight plastic and I know I've mentioned them before but this is live we're just talking we're just hanging out like you know at a breakfast or something although now it would be supper um I collect flies off the window with these two and if you turn it like this here's your

window and there's a fly in your window and it's really bothering you what's the emotional well-being worth you put this on the window and you know what the flight is it goes right up in here then you put your sponge in here. Now you've got the fly and you put this in inside your jumping spider enclosure. You release the fly and little Jasper or Joan or whatever your jumping spider is named gets a fly. Or you can let it go right outside. So these things work great. I really would like to see a glass one though. Does it be cool. So Troja says during your master beekeeper class at Cornell, what was the topic of your oral presentation. I'm not trying to cheat. I've already completed mine. Okay, well, congratulations on completing your oral presentation. What they did is it was

kind of unfair. I mean, I'm not going to be critical of the Cornell Master Bekeeper program, but they post, so you had to be like sitting by your computer ready because they post available topics for presentations. I don't know if they still do that. So I waited, and as soon as they posted them, I clicked on the one I wanted because I thought. thought there was going to be a lot of competition for it. And so I did mine. It was called the Master Beekeepers Review of the Flow Hive. Now that was low-hanging fruit because I already had a lot of experience with the flow hive. So I thought it would just be a walk in the park super easy. So that's what I chose. And of course, I was able to include the inventors of the flow hides.

So Cedar and Stuart Anderson. And so I had the horse's mouth kind of thing. And it was a lot of fun. And you know what? I missed that program. And I would. wish that Cornell and other master beekeeper programs had things beyond that, continuing education. Like if you're a teacher, you need continuing education credits. I think master beekeepers should not just be given a certificate at the end of whatever program they've participated in. And that's it. Now you're a master beekeeper. I think it should be we need continuing education every single year to validate and continue that credential. What do you think?

So that's what I did mine on. And so this is beekeeper Carmine. Says, hello, Fred. Hello, to Keith. Hello, Carmine. In New York City. So let's go. Okay, here we have Jeanette Gerard, 2496.

I'm a newbie. If I treat my hive from mites with a product that taints the honey, do I really throw away any honey left over from winter? Seems like a terrible waste. There's so much I don't understand. Okay, so this is kind of a wink nudge thing. I don't know if you know anything about Monty Python. But anyway, a lot of people have honey left over

and they know full well that they may have treated for varroa destructor mites and that potentially does end up in the honey and the beeswax and other things. And so are you safe to feed it back to the bees? Sure you are. Can you guarantee that it won't be in the honey that you take off that you give to others, not 100%.

Kind of a judgment call, but here's the thing. I'm going to help you out. I'm going to save you from all that stress. If the only treatments that you put on your beehive, I think a lot of you know where I'm headed, for pro-destructor mites, if the treatments that you use are already approved for use with honey super zone,

then you have zero concerns about it tainting surplus honey later on. So I don't ever use anything but organic treatments. I also don't use anything but treatments that are permitted to be used with honey supers on. So. But as far as that goes, if you want to feed it back, like for example, hold it in reserve. And when there's a dearth, and you know for sure that what they're being fed is just going to get consumed while they're trying to survive and extend a dearth. wherever you are or something like that, then that's when you, of course, would feed it back to them

because that's when they're going to consume it. So then it becomes supplemental, and it's for the bees' carbohydrate use, and I think you're pretty safe. Pretty safe. Okay, so there's tacos B-casa. When do you think the golden rod will start blooming by you? How about two days ago?

So it has started blooming cursory, just little bits and pieces of it. And guess what it's called? People say, oh, we have early goldenrod. There's actually golden rod called early goldenrod. And guess what? It's early. It's the stuff that's blooming right now.

So the supervisor's on me, if you don't know who that is, it's my 10-year-old grandson. He was just out here. And my wife is all over me about surplus honey because we have orders waiting. And I'm sorry, but I can't hurry my bees along. But this is when it's going to happen. The golden rod is the kicker. it's starting to open up.

We're going to start to smell honey in the air. And so right now, it has already started. So, and it's not full flesh. And I wanted to take its time. I wanted to slow down. There's like 20 different species of goldenrod. I don't know a species is the right term. But anyway, there's 20 different types of goldenrod out there.

And so as it continues to bloom, we're going to get this massive nectar flow. Aster's going to kick in. Guess what else? I was thinking about Astros. But anyway, what else is coming on right now are the max a million sunflowers, cosmos, are blooming. But those are the things you plant yourselves. They're not just out in the environment. And they're heavy on, as I said before, the clover, which creates a really light honey.

My spring honey this year was dark and apparently a lot of other people had dark, super flavorable. Super flavorable. Super. It had a strong flavor. And it smelled really good, too. and it tasted great mouth feel everything i don't even know it was in it but it was great i didn't get enough of it and people want more of it and now i can't provide it and now we're going into what some people say smells like old socks which is astor and goldenrod but i don't agree with that

because i really like the late season honeies too buckwheat i can't even tell so uh do too too let's see what else after extracting supers okay let's see So we did that. When you think golden around is blooming, I think that topic is still on RHE list. Ha ha. Okay. Hello, Fred.

After extracting supers. After extracting supers, I put it right back on the high that you took them off of. I do have a feeding station, which is a rack system now, which has worked out really well, and it's well away from the apiary. It's another question I get a lot.

How far away from the apiary should the robbing station be when we can clean up? these frames. But if you can get them, all right, let me back up. I have a tendency to get in a hurry during live chats, I don't know why. When you go out and you're going to pull frames of honey, which is coming up for us here in the northeastern United States, bring a big tote with you, have drawn comb in the tote, and when you pull out your capped honey frames, let's say you open it up and they're 60%, 70% full on all of them, but you've got three or four, four frames in a 10 frame box or an eight frame box that are absolutely captain ready to go.

Pull those out. Put them in your hive butler tote, whatever you have. Put the drawn comb immediately right back. And keep the empty combs to the middle. And by the way, if you have the number one and the number eight, number one and number 10, and they're usually only half drawn, usually the exterior is the last. Rotate those to the middle too because those are drawn. And then so add those and do a one-stop visit. Because here's what's happened in the past. We've had capped honey, pulled it out, put new frames in, come back and within 11 days, had it refilled and capped.

This is a very short time frame at the end of the year, about three weeks from now. So we're talking the third week of September. Wait, August. I was jumping ahead. third week of August is a heavy nectar flow and they refill really fast. If they have to draw out comb, because it's another thing that new people end up with, is foundation that isn't yet drawn out.

If they have to draw out the comb, now I know the loose quantity that people describe is a pound of honey, an ounce of comb. I don't know what it really is. But the more drawn comb you can put in there, the quicker they're going to fill, seal, and that you can then recover it. Now, I will warn you ahead of time that I stop collecting it around halfway through September, and I know we're forecasting way ahead right now, but I just want you to have this thought on your mind, that we want the Vs to store their winter survival honey at the end of the year.

I do, anyway. And that saves you from, even though we will put emergency food and resources on those hives, we don't want them to get that far. And we'll talk about that even later on through the year. But by having them back fill and provide their own resources at the end of the year, it's really good. So, thank you B. Donna Marie. Thank you so much for that donation. I really appreciate it.

Everybody's generous today. This is really nice. Okay. Now I have this after extracting super, wait for on the apiary. should I set them out for the bees to clean out without creating a robbing situation? So for the robbing situations, that's a real deal because at the end of the year, particularly, now here's the thing, less of a concern in the middle of the nectar flow. The robbing is very reduced, but I've seen people take them out and set them right on top of the hive,

take the cover off and let bees clean it up on top of the hive. Please don't ever do that. I highly recommend wind plays also. Mine is downwind. So my robbing station is downwind of the apiary because I want the bees to leave the apiary and go to that and then come back. If it's upwind, that honey that's open and exposed wafs through the apiary and robbers from other areas come through your apiary on their way to it.

So it's just something else probably not critical. but the farthest you can get them from your apiary, the better. Because what happens is as soon as it's exhausted, remember, it's not just honeybees that are coming after it. If you're open feeding, you have wasps, hornets, bumblebees, and everything else that has a sweet tooth goes after it. Now, I personally like that aspect. And here's why.

When I set out the feeding station, I like to see what else is in the environment. So all the was species show up, everything that wants nectar and who doesn't. So we get to see how many different bumblebees are around. So it's a great way to see it. And then we'll know. And last year, if you're at all interested, we were tagging bald-faced hornets and tracking them to their nests. It was a lot of fun. Anyway, so that's good.

Just get them as far as you can because some people don't have a big property, of course. The other thing is they don't leave it out overnight. Here's why you can be attracting other critters. raccoons, possums, skunks can't reach it if it's up off the ground. So that's the other thing. That's why I built the rack up off the ground, out of skunk range, out of raccoon range, and possums can't get to it either. So you have to think about what else is going to come to that.

We have a bear that comes through here every three or four days, which I don't like, not even interested in the bees or honey so far. And of course, it hopefully will not tear up my apiary. But, yeah, never the key, really don't put it in your be. and don't put it on your hives. That is really bad news, potentially. Okay, so beekeeper carmine. Fred, what are your thoughts on hive sensors

that monitor QMP and brood pheromone? I've read they are in experimental phase, very expensive and sensitive to propolis and wax. I don't want to step on anybody's innovation, especially the high-tech things. I don't know if you've seen the auto hives. They're an entire system. I think that's where that kind of thing is headed.

They look like shipping containers. They hold multiple hives. They have sensors. So they're using AI really strong. They're monitoring sounds of the hive, pheromones, as Carmine is saying here. They're sensing when Varroa destructor mites are present, and that's a visual scanning system that scans mites.

and then knows when to release or apply a pesticide for the mite, so a mite aside. And they're headed towards total automation. I don't even know if that's achievable. So as far as my thoughts on the hive sensors and things like that, if you're a techie and you love the idea of it, I don't know if it's going to improve your beekeeping. I'm kind of torn about it because people that are doing new technologies, and there are several in the works right now that I've actually signed non-disclosure agreements

as a consultant for some of these, which is really interesting. But if we want to simplify things, that's kind of not the direction we would go. I think the long-term goal is industrialization of B management and everything gives you an alert on your phone or your system or whatever your analytical units are and how they transmit.

that information and then of course being able to punch in the response of the system to that so CO2 build up sensor for example vent more well there's a lot going on that i think the tech can get ahead of the biology and like i said i don't want to step on anybody's stuff but i think the most usable let's just fall back the most usable sensors in your hives if you're going to put any tech in there are the temperature and humidity sensors. Here's why. I've used those myself. I kind of like them.

But there again, you have to consider, what will you do when the information gets your way? So you get the phone alert, and you find out, well, my brood area should be 94 degrees Fahrenheit. But instead, right now, it's at like 80. What does that mean? Well, it's broodless right now.

So that's just kind of normal in-high temperature when they're clustering around one another, and they're not putting forth the extra energy to brood up, so 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. And when you realize that, you get a notice, oh, so now it's just the bees themselves in there, and they're not ramping up the temperature to maintain brood.

So I may have lost the queen, it may be broodless, but when you get that information in mid-January, the first week of February, something like that, what do you plan to do? Maybe it helps with your planning. If it's a big operation, then you can, a plan. Yep, we're down 600 hides or something. But for the backyard beekeeper, we're not going to run out there and install a queen in the middle of winter. We would just

then know that something's not right that we really can't correct unless it's diet related. So there are other reasons why they draw back on brood in the middle of winter is when they've exhausted their resources and they're actually starving out. Now, that is actionable. It's something you could go out there and you could actually boost them with some carbohydrates. But by the time you got that notice, they're almost too far gone. Resuscitation is very difficult. Maintenance ahead of time is much better. So the people that just do things really basic,

here's an example of a sensor, the carbon-based biped sensor, is when the beekeeper walks out and lifts the hymn and tilts it and sees how much weight there is and if they're getting light on resources. You can do a thermal scan. I like that too. Let you know where your cluster is.

in the middle of winter. Are they halfway up right where they should be? Yeah, everything's great. That means they have food above them. If you're halfway through winter and they're already at the top, that means they've consumed everything above them. And now whatever's on top,

which for me is a fondant pack, we need to make sure that that's not running out because that is just going to barely keep them alive until the environment starts to provide what they need. So I think we're going a little bit overboard on the sensors and I understand how they're marketing it and why that's kind of the future of beekeeping if we're looking at the industry but the cost right now is way outliving or surpassing the benefit I think personally I don't know what everyone else thinks here but I think the tech

is interesting I love pheromones I love using pheromones to manipulate the bees and I'm very excited about some of the new things that are coming along with pheromone use. Sounds, hearing the sounds, I really like that in AI too, because the sound of a colony shifts based on its disposition. So, for example, old-time beekeepers, well, not the AI ones that have old-time beekeepers channels on YouTube, but real old-time beekeepers, real people that have actually been there, lift a lid and hear this little word that happens.

and when you've lifted the lid on so many different colonies, you know, oh, something's wrong with these bees. They're probably queenless. They're a little agitated. So that's how they then do a deeper dive. So we want the beekeeper to be the sensor, really, to figure out what's going on with the hive when they're queenless and things like that.

Because they're not just queenless, they're unsettled. So that also means you may have lost the ability to replace their queen. And if it's a time of year, but you can do that, we could have combined that colony with another one. one, something like that. But there are a lot of things that we can do. I don't know what the general consensus is about high tech and beehives. I'd like to zen out a little bit and kind of go the other way, go more basic, more in touch with the bees, and understand more about what they're doing and then try to provision them before it's a big issue. So anyway, I know that's probably too much.

uh bees nuts honey chris wanted to sing your praises yes had trouble with small high beetles last year but made a couple of changes this year with one i think making a huge difference and that's keeping the entrance reduced all season thank you but i can't take full credit for that i want to think they don't like it by the way randy mcalfrey and mr ed Mr. Ed in particular doesn't like to keep notes, doesn't want to keep records, doesn't want to create a really valuable resource document about what size entrance these huge colonies had when they're doing all these cutouts and ripouts. And he told me one time, I mean, I'm not going to call him out. This is just between the two of us. He told me if I just sent him a checkoff sheet. He would do it at his cutouts.

And it was stuff like, what time of year is it? What's the date? How long have they been there? What's the building like? Is it insulated? Was it on the northeast, south, or west side? Was there more than one entrance? If there was one entrance, how big is the entrance?

Get your measurements. I sent it to them, but I would never bring it up again because, you know, I wouldn't want to try to pretend that he wasn't doing the valuable thing, which is develop statistical data on exactly what bees do when people are not at all involved. So, it's just not doing it. And you know what a gold mine that is?

Between the two of them, they've done more than a thousand ripouts. I would never do a thousand ripouts. Cutouts. If you don't know what I'm talking about, when people get a call that there's bees in someone's home or in a shed or in a building or something like that, they go and they cut it out and they remove the bees from the building. And this happens a lot in the south. This doesn't happen a lot up here in the Northeast.

And I think because up here, the weather is so challenging that a lot of the structures are really tight and there's not a lot of openings to get in and stuff like that. And so in the southern areas, Louisiana, Mississippi and areas like that, there are a lot of feral colonies of bees. But what a great opportunity. Because if they're handling the heat down there, because that's when people that are talking about, you better open up that entrance all the way and you better vent through the top

and all this other great advice. But when you find these colonies on their own, you have to scratch your head and wonder, it's where two clapboards come together, and it's this tiny gap, and they've got an eight-foot line of comb up in there, and they've propolized the entire interior, and the only entrance is that little gap.

In high humidity, high heat, and I understand from Randy, McAfrey, Dirtrester, that they like to build on the north side of these sheds down there, because, of course, it's already really hot, so there would be cooler. so here they benefit from the southern side. So interesting. Very interesting stuff.

Those Gulf Coast guys just do what they do. That's from Tommy Chu. See the poetry? Do what they do from Tommy Chu. All right. So be amazing hives. This is Dave. Fred, not a big question,

but I noticed you had milkweed in your preview. Have you ever taken video of the monarch caterpillar while it goes through Chrysalis? Okay. I haven't. I spent a lot of time fooling with milkweed this year, boosting my videos for the North American

Honeybee Expo that's coming up in February. I'm not going to promote that or talk about it, but I'm going to be talking there and I have really, really cool, ultra-close stuff. But now, so as far as the milkweed butterflies, I've been focusing more on the bees and the milkweed and what goes on there.

And, of course, those tusic moths, Those caterpillars are on milkweed also, so there are other things on milkweed. But in my opening, too, what I was really excited about, of course, was the swamp milkweed. But no, and I did, so let me backtrack, not the monarch butterfly, but the succropium off. So I was really trying to get male and female comparisons of the scropiumoth, which are on, you find their cocoons on. wild cherry trees, black cherry trees and stuff like that. And so we hatched several of those this year. And I have videos of that.

But I only got males. I didn't get a female. So here I stalled so long that I've never launched it. So there are already so many videos of monarchs emerging from their chrysalis that I don't know if I would be bringing anything new. I can't shoot it any better than it's already been videoed. I can't, you know, light it better. There would be nothing extraordinary about the way I captured it. So I felt like with a synchropium moths,

I could get something better because I always check it out to see what's been done. And if I'm not going to do something in a way that hasn't already been done many times very well, then why would I spend my time? So for now, there's lots of monarch people, but there are very few succropium moth people. So that's what I did.

What else do we have? C goes wood. Can I get your address to send you something? You can message me afterwards if you'd like or however you prefer to do it. Send me something. Oh, how would you contact me? This is for everybody.

Go to the wayto be.org. Pick the page marked, contact, fill out the form, and send it to me. Your email comes with that. if you want to include your email if you don't. And that's where I would respond to questions like that. So you have to go to the form on the way to be.org. Okay.

Dang, late arrival for live with Fred, BTVPTZ. You're not late though. See, we're in the middle of it. We're only halfway through. But here's today, I want to give a shout out. I hope you're still here, by the way. For those of you know, Wildwoods, Wildwoods, beekeeping. His name is Grayson.

Today is his birthday. He was in the chat at the very beginning. If he's still here, I think we should go to his channel and click on his most recent video at Wildwood's beekeeping and wish Grayson a happy birthday. I can keep him bees for a while. He has a really nice channel and I've run into him at conventions. Really good guy. Happy birthday. And if it's your birthday too, this is also for you.

So, rate his channel, that's right. Just show up and hey, Grayson, happy birthday. And don't tell him where you heard about it. Just like, just make somebody feel good. Okay. Let's go. Same as asking questions. Okay, so here we go.

I did all that. So now I'm going, if you have a question for me, remember, do it in all caps. And I'll respond to you. Okay, so a question I got today was from Joshua Langdon, 3070. That's a YouTube channel name. And it says, when a bee colony evacuates a beehive due to dripping honey, can that and will it cause the hive to swarm if the queen bee evacuates as well? So this often happens. Sometimes even when they're bearding heavy, it's very rare for the queen to leave the hive.

but sometimes when people are getting into honey or they cut into it or they scrape frames across each other because they didn't pull it apart first and then lift it out. That's why you pull the number one or the number two frame first, create a space, pull your frames over, then lift them because sometimes there are contours to the surface of the honey. And if it scrapes on a hot day, you're going to be putting honey where straight down into the hive down below.

And the bees do move out. They consume it as quick as they can. but they often pile out of the hive and collect on the front of it. And that won't really cause them to swarm away. Here's why. They're not prepared to swarm away. So something like that can push them out, but they're going to come back in after whatever disrupted them is settled.

And here's why. Because when they're going to swarm, they already go ahead and prepare replacement queen cells. And replacement queens, of course, the developing larvae inside those cells. and usually they don't swarm until that's been capped. So that generally doesn't happen in response. Now, if you do this a lot, you don't get a swarm, but you could get an abscond. They could just depart because conditions are so bad inside the hive,

but they're not going to leave because honey's all over. But you can actually do a lot of damage to brood by dripping honey down on the surface of your brood frames. That can be a real challenge for the bees. but as far as I know, it's never caused a swarm to have it. And your queen's not ready to go either. So there again, a queen that's in full production that is producing eggs. And if it's at a time, of course, when she's in peak production, she's too heavy. So she would end up in the grass right in front of your hive somewhere with a bunch of bees around her.

So they really can't go anywhere and they don't go anywhere without the queen. So that's why that is not a high risk venture. And so again, later rivals, if you have a question for me, type it in all caps, and we'll go from there. So the next one comes from Peggy. It says, four hives in an outbuilding. What if you use the two queen keepers hive with a flow top so you don't even have to lift the flow to do inspections? I'm getting a lot of this question recently and these recommendations. Bekeepers like convenience.

In fact, somebody recently made a reference to the APAVIR Hive System 2, API-V-E-R-T-E, if you want to check that out. So it's an A-Z-Hive setup inside a building, and then, of course, it uses Langstroth frames instead of the A-Z frames, which are different. So by putting them inside a building, of course, we save ourselves a lot of headache. We don't have predators getting into hives that are in a building. We've also taken a lot of the climate issues out of the equation.

Heavy rain. We don't have to paint the hives anymore. Inside a building, they just have the entrance going out, and that's all that's exposed. I have to say personally, I really enjoy being inside a building that has a bunch of beehives in it and doing all the work from inside the building. And then people want to take that a step further. How about extracting honey? So if we had flow frames

And if we had flow hive supers on these hives inside these buildings Then you eliminate having to lift that off To access the brood where you would normally So you would have to take your honey super off get into the brood to do your inspections But if you don't know about the keeper's hive system that's being talked about here The keeper's hive system is a multiple colony system when they have the two queen system and a lot of people will chime in right away and say that's been around forever that's not even new well it is actually it's true that's been around forever

as far as back our beekeepers go and beekeepers in general where they have combined colonies to get a benefit from both so they can maximize honey yields inside a hive but what's different about this hive is they slightly bump out to the sides which is also not new but when you flip it up you have a groove that the frame slide into, which prevents propolizing of the frame ears, the ends of the frame. And this now you can pull them out to the side, lift them out,

and what did you not have to do to access a brood under the box? Because of that, you could slide them out, you didn't have to lift the box off, you can expect the brood, understand the status, there's a queen excluder above it, and so that's right.

You would then be able to do all of that and not pull it all apart inside a building. So there's so many different building options, but I'm thinking about it all the time. But yeah, what would be more convenient than sitting inside a building and opening up and putting a tube on the end of a frame and filling some quart jars with honey

without even having to have the extraction system? It is pretty sweet. Okay. So, and if you don't understand what we're talking about, you've never heard of flow hives or flow frames or things like that, if you go to the way to be.org, click on the page mark, the flow hive experience. I know people get mad, but why not be informed? So I show the whole process, exactly how it works. I've had those since 2015. So when they work, they work, and why do I say that? When they work, they work. That is a huge honey super. The flow frames are

deep. They don't have shallow flow frames, which some people have asked for. They don't make medium flow frames either. They're deeps. So every frame yields a half a gallon of honey. Now, that sounds good, but they have to fill it so it only works on your strongest colonies. If I put that on some of the hives that I have right now, they would only partially fill some of the frames. and then the bees, when things cool off, as they did last night, would be consuming it back out of it. And what we talked about last week in the Friday Q&A is how quickly bees progress when the space is sized right for the colony that's occupying it. So when we add a big, full, deep super on top of a colony of bees, it needs to be a robust colony in expansion mode with a lot of workers. and a lot of foragers to fill that out in the time you have available for your nectar flow.

And so this happens where I am on only a handful of hives. And I've got flow supers ready to go. I've got them racked up. Once they've been used and sealed up with propolis and beeswax and everything else, the bees take to them and fill them pretty fast. But they still only go on your strongest colonies. So there are hybrid versions where people just have three flow frames instead of a whole seven frame. So when they do that, it can also help the bees progress a little quicker.

But one of the ways that you make up with it, one of the ways that they're really shining is when we have more insulation or more protection from the weather. And so a building would provide that. So I'm kind of talking myself into agreeing with Peggy here that they would be good. Because some people have even suggested putting them in observation hives. And again, those are inside buildings that are protected. they're insulated, and I just re-insulated my new, really large observation hive, and what an improvement in the mornings, just to give you an example. And so these give me information about what I think is going on in the rest of the apiary.

And so when we go in and look at the observation hives in the building, and right now we have four, when we look at them, I know if there's a lot of surplus in the environment, because I see them back filling all of their frames with honey. And when I see them consuming and getting light, even in that protected environment, then I can make an assumption that similar things are happening out in my apiary. So one of the things that I noticed with the 12 deep frame observation hive that I have is I had double bubble around it. So when I demonstrated how I put it all together and populated it with bees,

with double bubble on it, which is pretty darn good insulation, it's better than having a two and a half inch block of wood around it, for example. So when I pulled that off early in the mornings, they would be clustered tight on the brood frames and not spread out doing any other work. So they weren't drawing comb. They weren't attending to moving their nectar around. And the consumption of nectar can be pretty high. So what did change is when I put the two inch rigid foam board installation panels

directly up against the glass when I go out in the mornings and pull just one side off, even early in the morning, they were spread out. So now they weren't tightly clustered against those cold, large surfaces. And I understand these are observation hives. This is an unheated building. And so this is really interesting to see how they manage that. But the insulation really made up for it. Now, when you get flow hives, if those are what you're using,

and that's what they come with if you buy a flow super, for example, that's standard three quarter inch stock, just like we have with their standard length. straw hives. And if you could boost the insulation on that, you would also in turn boost honey production. Is it necessary for them to survive? No, but do you want a honey yield? Honey is the energy. It's like a tank that fuels your furnace. If you let your house cool down, the furnace is going to come on and that tank is going to get depleted. So if you can insulate and hold that temperature in there, then they're not going to deplete so much. And when things warm back up and they start

foraging, they're going to save more of what they've brought in. That's all I'm going to say about that. So Derek Campbell says, this year, I put my flow frames on top of a medium box where the bees had put honey. They have been slow to fill the flow frames. I wonder if it might be better to take off the medium super box, then put it on. So what Derek is saying, and have met Derek in person. It's nice to see you here. What happens is that's what I was always doing. The deep-rood bogs, medium super, let them fill that.

That's their winter stores, 40-some pounds of honey to get them through winter. And then I was adding the flow super on. Some people suggest pulling the medium off, putting it on top of the flow super, setting that down, and then they would be quicker to fill that out. But I agree with marking it for the hive, get the bees out of it, remove it, put only the flow super on. And then at the end of the year, when you remove your flow super, because you're in a cold winter area, not New South Wales,

where the innovation occurred, where they get honey all year round, here where I am, by pulling that off and putting the super down directly over a queen excluter on that bottom box, does produce higher yield. And at the end of the year, you have to pull it off anyway because the bees can't go up in there and do brood in winter. So that's when your medium super goes on. It's when that flow super gets pulled off at the end of the year. And now you already know you have the resources for that.

So I do think that's a really good idea. So Ross Wagner says, going to switch out solid wooden bottom board for a B-smart screened with a sealed rack for OAV. As long as I keep it in the same spot, I should be good to go. Solid wreck. Yeah, I do.

I'm a big fan. and we were just out looking at all of those. Right now we're at 50-50. We have 44 hives outside right now. And so the ones that have the removable trays, very convenient, very effective, they're completely enclosed. I like that. We still have some solid bottom boards.

We don't have any open screen bottom boards, which means open to the outside where they fall down. So if you're taking the B-smart Designs bottom board, I wish I had one handy. So anyway, we didn't work this out ahead of time. She's having to have it. This is screen bottom board. This is the B-Smart Designs version,

and underneath of it is this full-off panel. Okay. What I highly recommend, and mine's very advanced, by the way, Veroa might counting chart right there. So anyway, they improved this. This used to be,

screen. Now this is the same plastic of the bottom board, really durable stuff. Set this thing on a solid piece of wood that can be completely closed in. This is going to last the rest of my time, Keevan B's. This is the one that you're going to use. Now, I'm going to have to admit that I don't use the core fluid. and the reason is, and that's that thing that's all marked up to look super scientific and be impressive to people that are learning. But I like to have a cafeteria tray in this space, and there's room for it. See how deep this is?

There's room for a tray under here. And then have your solid bottom board so you don't even need the Corflut thing. Put your cafeteria tray up against the screen here and put your solid bottom board underneath. And then, of course, it's raised at the back so we can pull the tray out, but you'll need to block this in also. and that becomes an enclosed space and you still get the benefit of passive for road distractor mic control. So, yes, good idea.

The wind doesn't blow up into it when the core flute is there, but for me, it kind of gets stuck and binds up so I like just getting it out all together, set that bottom board right on a solid piece of wood and add to the durability and everything else. let's see throw off the bees that are out foraging I understand the question throw out the bees the bottom board newsreference on rack as long as it give us pot oh does it throw off the bees yeah let me tell you

if you change any entrance even a couple of inches the bees are out foraging the bees are out foraging we'll come back and go to where the entrance should be they seem all confused, even though you just close an entrance over here, open an entrance over here. They are very specific about exactly where they enter, but they eventually will work it out. So, yeah, if they're out forging, we don't care if it throws them off a little bit. Lambrick Farm says, how much would primal bee brood frame full of honey way? Primal bee? Oh, primal bee. That's that really big thing from Italy. I don't have one. So I don't I don't know. Giant polycyrene hive. Maybe somebody else that does primal. In fact, their website

is probably full of information about that. But how much would a frame full of brood way from primal be? Those frames are deep. They're deeper than a lay-ins frame. So I can't even speculate. I just don't know. So I have Flower Street Farm B's. I manage a flow hive for a client and bringing the flow super home to extract how do I keep it from leaking on my table as I extract you have to put it on a tray so they need to be tipped back two degrees roughly so when you tip it back it should be warm enough too by the way and when you open the frame I wish I had a frame handy one of the flow hive frames because then I could explain better so let's say this is a flow frame from flow hive and you're going to extract it and it's on your table you're going to pull this thing out

up here is where your key is going to go and when the key goes in you only go about 20 percent and then you open that so then what happens is these cells that are here they every other one moves and then so they would be open and then the honey would drain right down through and start to come out now when you have the tube on the end here and it's more than halfway up the tube as it comes out i don't open any more of the frames yet so the other thing is the only ones that leak are the ones that are not completely capped yet so if this thing we're completely capped as they start to come out and then when it gets down below half of that then you put your key in a little farther and you open the rest of them and on you go but tipping it makes a big difference especially since it's

already off the hive, you might as well tip it plenty. And I just have a big tray underneath of it. In fact, the tray that I'm using is from the Pierce uncapping tank system that has a really large cover. But you could even just put down, you want to recover the honey that drips. So trays are super handy. But anyway, that's for those of you don't know, have never seen one. That's the flow frame. This is actually what makes the whole thing so expensive, the manufacturer of that. But the other thing is, if you're cleaning it up, I might as well address that while I'm sitting here and we're talking about it. Some people are thinking about it. We're taking care of it for other people. You can dip this whole thing when they are sealed up with propolis and bees wax and you need to

clean it up because some of the spaces, some of the little nooks and crannies are not accessible to the bees. don't set these out in sunshine UV is not you know the sun will really make these brittle so they have to be covered all the time and you can put them in up to 160 degree Fahrenheit water soak them in that agitate them a little bit I don't mean column names I mean like move them around and then you'll get all that loose material out and you can while it's still warm power wash it a little bit it and these things are good to go right back in service. So they work really well when you have a strong colony to put them on. Okay, it leaks out the bottom of the hive catch tray. Yeah, so use that catch tray and let me do you want it all because that stuff, that is the best honey. I don't want to

bring it up. Some people hate it, but here's the thing. At the North American Honeybee Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, they had one of the largest competitions for honey products. The black jar honey got first place. Now, when I say the black jar honey got first place, it's the black jar honey first place winner was from a flow frame. Okay, so there we go. Let's see, have the original B-smart screen bottom boards had to use a slattered rack to keep the vaporized. are from melting. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing. If you're using, now here's the thing, exalic acid vaporization, any plastic. So Apamehives, BMAX, Lysin, you know, hive IQ, all of them have plastics and polystyrene. If you're going to put exhalic acid vapor in there,

I recommend, this is not the one, this is just for a visual, get a cork, the smaller ones, three quarter inch of diameter, drill, hole through this quarter inch diameter hole put your exhalic acid vaporizer tube which is if it's if it's the speedy one or whatever put that copper or that brass right through this and then bump that right up against the hole and then feed it that way this prevents your hot exhalic acid vapor tube for making contact with the plastic and stuff. Now, there's a very specific one, and I forget which one it is, the turbo or something like that, that L-R-R-R-R-O-B-E-E-E-S, who sells the Easy Vib. They have an aluminum piece that goes around that's designed specifically for plastic hives, but I think it's specifically for the APA.

but you could put it on a piece of court. Protect it. And like even the Apameehives, they've got those upper dials that just turned. You can just run it and they're off to the side, which I think is really good. You don't want to introduce it right into the brood area. And you don't have to worry about where you're introducing

the exhalic acid vapor. We just don't want to blast brood directly with it because the bees are going to fan it through every part of the hive, every part. You're going to see exactly where every little crack and crevice is just by where the OAA. comes out of it. So that's it. All we do is keep it out of correct. Here's one click really easy stainless steel to glass jars. Okay I would now this is not a

question for me but this is from bee collector Rick it says no plastic beekeeper from stainless steel to glass jars. So this is a concern that comes up a lot because when it comes to the plastic so I get asked question and I asked the question too. Does the plastic from those flow frames liberate itself or get found in honey even as a microplastic? You can send your honey off, you can get it tested. To date, it does not. There's no wear surfaces. It doesn't rub on it. So the quality of the plastic that any of your honey is exposed to is critical. It's one of the reasons that I would never buy a knock-off product of a company that won't even admit who they are, where they're from,

China, and what the material is that they made that fake flow frame from. If you're going to put your honey in contact with plastic, you better be getting the plastic from a company that can validate the integrity of the material that is coming in contact with. It better be food grade. I don't know about you. I grew up with Tupperware. So as far as I know, I don't know if Tupperware was liberating plastics and to us, but it is a thing you want to make sure because this all comes into play with plastic

frames, for example. So there are a lot of companies making, and I understand that people want to steer away from it 100%, and that's fine. That's the only way to 100% guarantee that there's never going to be any plastic finding its way in anything that you're using to process your honey is just to avoid it completely. But my eye is on it, and it's, if it does show up with microplastics from flow frames, that'll be the last day I use them. So I do want to make that clear. And I know this was an internal comment here in the side, but the material that's coming into it, one of the things people have to look at when you're processing honey, and this is why that honey is winning awards is because when it gets inspected,

the particulates in it are so few, when you look at the entire path that honey, takes. This is one of the things I interviewed a honey Somalié that knew all about this stuff. And in Melbourne, Australia, they went to tasting and testing different honeies from different sources. And so what is the number one contaminant in your honey? Usually it comes from your smoker. So that's one part. The other thing is, once the honey is getting processed, Every surface that comes in contact potentially becomes part of the honey as the final product. So this includes, how clean are the people that are working with all the, they're touching everything. What's in the air in the space that they're working in?

And you're going to find out if you do particulate samples of the air in a lot of these processing places. They're not cleaning the air. It's not a requirement. What about all the surfaces? How were they prepared before honey was running across? them. So it can be bad. You want to make sure that the contaminants, it's almost unavoidable, kuma fos shows up in beeswax and people aren't even using it. So there's a lot going around. So I 100% understand if somebody wants to absolutely fail safe, but please look at the entire process.

And so when it gets right back to this particular hive that we're talking about here, it's going from that frame through a food grade tube into your glass jar. That's 100% of the processing. That's all I'm saying. So I don't know. We would just have to test it all to find out. Then we're going to find out testing is incredibly difficult. But I will say this.

and 21st B is here, there's somebody that knows plastics too. They are not all made the same. And any company that can't answer your questions, because I chase them down and ask them questions, when they don't respond, and you find out she's just a middle person and some kind of shell company, that's not somebody I would ever promote.

I don't care if what they're putting out is free. If you don't know what it is, honey is food for your bees also, not just you. so just depends and wear a wrist devices over I'm not wearing my wrist device over my sleeves

see I can call that here this is Timothy no Timmy Michelle Timmy Mitchell 310 Hey Fred just woke up zero 600 hours here Tell me why you wear your wrist devices

Over your sleeves Under direct contact Okay So there we go That's it. And somebody says buffering. No.

All right. Buffering issues. Oh, am I having buffering issues? Is this lagging? Should I get off? Are we done? What's happening? Let me know if you're seeing buffering issues with this video.

If you have a question for me, let's see. Yeah, look at the comment from 21st B, unverified, any company. You're buying yourself from this unverified. You're just watch yourself. Okay. I'm hippie, so that makes my honey far out. It's right. Hippy honey beekeepers.

Okay. So the other thing is too, what happens is, let's go with what's the purest form of honey removal from a beehive. Okay. Let's go to top bar hives. Now that I have them, I can be a hippie. too. So we get the top of our hive. What's the foundation? None. How does it get spilt? Well, the bees build out the comb and most of the time it doesn't even connect to the sidewalls.

So what we're doing is we cut off the comb once it's capped and you have comb honey all the time, which by the way, if you're harvesting the honey from that, you have to crush and strain. So crushing and straining just feels bad because the bees had so much work. But so let's go, because I consider all configurations, all hives considered. So if you're a purist, let's see you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs, I just want to be wholesome, I want everything to be so good, and just from the bees, the closest thing to that really is the top our hive. It just feels like that.

It just feels like you're just one with nature or whatever. But it is also the highest challenge for your bees, because whenever you harvest sunny, they have to build new comb and everything else to go with it. And I understand that somebody did build a cage for those, and there's experiments so that you could spin it out. And it looks a little bit like a bird feeder. What are they feeding?

Sueet. It looks like a suet cage around it, which allows you then to spin it out, uncap it, spin it out, and put it back. So if you can do that and you get the best of both worlds. So I would say that's kind of, it's all wood, Everything is, yeah, it's very basic. So if you want to look into Be Mindful out of Texas, you can get the whole philosophy there.

So less crowder, less is more kind of thing. So that's kind of at the extreme natural end of things today. So. Oh, now, Be Amazing Hive says good for another hour. So, well, I'm not. I'm actually on, I'm on borrow the time already. surplus. I'm on overtime here. So I'm getting extra credit. So here we go. Timothy Mitchell eight. It says in a recent video you wear your device on your leave. I was thinking it was a Navy

divers thing. Now and don't throw what one person does not everybody does and yeah I've worn it over my sleeve. I admit that. So yeah whatever. do to do stay on i'll watch replay okay let's just see what's going on it says uh why don't this is from brad wamsley says why don't uh makers of top feeders you were discussing uh just use an internal bladder to hold the sugar syrup with an a vented outer shell to prevent the syrup from being forced down on top of the brood area during temperature fluctuations okay so for bradwamsley You know, I actually did that. I thought it was ahead of things.

I decided because what we're talking about is talking about divers, Charles Law, charging Charlie, if you're learning about compressed air. Anyway, if we have a jar, we turn it upside down, it's full of syrup, it's got tiny holes in it, there's air up in the space. When it's cold at night, it draws so the air shrinks, draws more bubbles in. Then when the air expands again when things warm up, we have expansion and expression of the up underneath. So Brad Wamsley says, why not have a bladder in there? So that in other words, the bladder just sits there. See, I was thinking of like, I think they're even flow or something.

I was thinking about like baby bottles back of the day that little kids wouldn't burp and stuff. They had these little bags in them. I don't know if I'm even remembering it right. But anyway, I was thinking the same thing. So then I put little baggies in there, sealed it up. but then there was nothing to hold a vacuum to keep it from just continually running out, and that's exactly what they did. They just ran out. So we do have options for feeding syrup that doesn't go down in, but the closest thing to a bag that I was thinking about,

I don't know what you think this looks like. I know. I know what's up. This is sugar syrup. This is high of alive, easy feed, and it goes on just like this. So I was thinking, long Langstroth hive, for example, or something, you don't have a frame feeder in there. But we have a hole through the cover boards, and we usually put, wrap it around on the hole. And then that lets us put solid or liquid in there.

Even when you put the sock around that inner thing, you can sometimes get a drowned bee. You do not get any drowned bees with these bags. Okay. This will not fit in that. So then this is what I'm working on right now. So I'm sharing it with you, hot off the press. I don't think it's innovative. I don't really think it's that cool.

But so here's the hole in your coverboard or your inner cover. Here's your shim around it and we need insulation over the top of it. The insulation can't set straight against us because we're going to poke holes in the top of it. If you're wondering what this one is, that's the label. It's pre-mix syrup for lazy people. All right, but it has everything in it. Okay, we poke these little holes in the top. The bees come up through the hole.

They go up here and they feed on it. I need a two-inch shim around this. Like this is my long length or as high we're thinking about. So they can come up and my two-inch shim, if only I had like a, I don't know, a plexiglass cover or something. But here's a shim. It would go this way. because if it was this way it would be the same length of the frame so we're going to run here's the long length drop these would sit up in here you'd have a piece of plexiglass over the top of this that lets us look inside even though the bees are moving around here they don't fly out on you and you can see the progress now i know what you're doing you're sitting there going i don't care about my lower back i want my wallet to stay thick i don't want to spend a lot of money i care about your lower back i'm trying to help you spend money

but if you don't want to do that, thick wallets are unhealthy for your lower back. Look, zip-like baggy. This is one gallon. It works like this. So now you can mix up your own sugar syrup. And I've done these tests. So I really like this. Not one bee will drown this method ever.

You can also feed straight honey back to your bees this way. If you've got this leftover honey and you're trying to cycle that back to your bees because maybe you're not sure, doesn't have something that you treated your, you know, varomites with or something like that that we talked about earlier. This is a one-gallon freezer Ziploc baggie. I get the freezer ones because they're tougher.

I found out that if I fill it beyond half its capacity, so this will only hold half a gallon. If I put a full one-gallon in a one-gallon zip-lock baggie and I poke holes in it, it just starts oozing out all over the place. So what was the limit? Half its capacity. So half a gallon of sugar syrup in here, and it'll take the light stuff because I figured,

let's go with the highest wetting ability, that which would permeate the holes quickest. One-to-one sugar syrup. So I put one-to-one sugar syrup in here and fill it with half a gallon, poked a little holes in it, the bees discover the holes, and now they can feed,

and then they deflate this whole thing down like a bladder. But you do have to have a shim around it. That doesn't, of course, go completely to the outer walls. So if you're trying to keep this really warm, and controlled because remember as the temperatures are cooler your bees are not going to make a bunch of burr comb up in there so when you have the space why would you be feeding anyway except that there's a dear or that's at a time a year when they can't do anything so when you put that up there you'll be able to see them on it they can come it won't spread out all over the place and they won't

get their feet sticky sometimes even when you take fondant packs and you put those up where you bees can get on them and some people just go the extra yard and pull the fondant plastic right off you just created a potential death trap for your bees because as they walk on the fondant if it gets moist and sticky they can be stuck in it and if bees which heaven forbid they should disrespect each other and rush the food or push each other around when their wings get stuck on it they don't seem to be able to get free so this provides a very clean way for your bees to feed and and putting it inside. Wrap it around still works.

If you haven't seen what the inside of this looks like, that's it. So in the wintertime, you would pull this off and they have access to the whole thing. Let me just see if, oh man, I should have checked this before. No, this doesn't work. Here I was thinking, wow, that actually works,

but it doesn't because they have to get up on top. So this is not a good, wrap it around doesn't work for that. But if you just put syrup in here, of course, the bees, need this on top because we don't want them to free flow out onto the syrup but the dual purpose thing of this is that you can put solids in here too bonded but we don't want them to get stuck anyway you can feed 100% honey that way and nobody gets stuck if you have open surface and you're feeding honey to your bees they'll get stuck in that so quick honey is a really

big killer just because of the high viscosity let's see if it's Anybody else? Bad news. Yellow-legged hornet found in North Carolina now, Union County. Okay, so that's from steel wings, the yellow-leg tornit. If this were a group of people, I'd say, how many of you have by show of hands know what the yellow-legged hornet even is? You need to pay attention to that. And Randy Oliver is on the warpath, scientific beekeeping. He's very upset that, as everyone should be, by the way, that the response to the yellow-legged hornet is not more formidable, that they're not treating it like the potential devastating force that it is. So if it's already spread to North Carolina, that is not good news.

It's not good news that it's anywhere. You know what they're even talking about? And by the, I mean, entomologists, people with lots of credentials and academia, they're talking about killing all Vespite. In other words, every boss porn in an area, just, just. just to collateral damage for getting at this yellow-lake torrent. I don't know if you've ever met one. They're formidable.

If you look at their nests, they are creepy. Their nests are big, they're heavy-duty. And if they're in areas where they don't die out in winter, they progress really fast. That's why the southern areas, Georgia, are having problems with them. And now North Carolina, not good news. So here's the thing. Let's take a moment, if you can, anybody that you know.

If your organization has secretaries and people that send out letters on behalf of your B club, your association, and if you could get some traction through your Department of Agriculture and extension offices and things like that, it's kind of time to make some noise about that. So I hope that something will be done. I mean, I know that there are people working on it, so I don't want to step on them. Dr. Jamie Ellis has left, University of Florida. He is now at University of Georgia. So I'm sure he's going to be involved.

All the heavy hitters are thinking about ways to solve that problem. But I don't know if you've ever chased down Hornets before. They're not easy. Think of all the wetland areas and stuff where they can go, where they can exist in big trees and everything. It's not just a matter of flying a thermal drone. over and being able to spot them. So anyway, I won't talk about that a lot, but probably Google to find out how you can support support the cause against the yellow-legged hornet. So there will be that.

Now let's see, but haven't really seen any recent videos on it. So I know when they get, you know, I hope they never get to my neck of the woods, but I'm going to be killing them. I don't want him to get here. I'd rather fight to fight over there, so to speak. So anyway, I did that. Steel wings, wait. It's here today? Yeah, right there, I have your question. Don't my chairs. Give it another. Those are different. Okay, so seal wings snuck in a written one and is here live. So here we go. Trading a double hive is different. I don't have a keeper's hive, but I want to set up my double four frame hive with intruses off the side. So here's the thing. If you've got a multi-colony hive and you're going to treat with exhalic acid and the label is king always, you treat them as individual colonies even though they have a common honey super above.

Because the treatments are based on brood, not honey supers. So always just follow the instructions there and you'll be good to go. So you would have completely just treat them like separate colonies, especially with a double colony. keepers hide. So I want to thank everybody for being here today. If you have a question for me, you can type it in all caps. Otherwise, we're going to do a quick wrap up. We need to be prepared here in the northeastern United States. Things are different where you are, I'm sure. You need to be prepared for the nectar flow that's about to come on. Goldenrod has started to bloom. That's a trigger. It's just like in spring when we start to see a lot of dandelions blooming. It's not that that's the

only thing out there, but it triggers the time of year when things are really going to build up. So we need to be prepared to expand your hives or they'll get congested. They could get honeybound too early. By too early, I mean, I don't mind when a colony gets honeybound when they're past the swarm zone. So at the end of September, I don't care that they backfill their rude bogs and walk on food because they're going to be consuming that in the cold nights. So, but think ahead. Do not Don't get too excited and open up your entrances to wide for additional venting. They're going to handle that on their own. Timothy Mitchell says recently posted a video link about new mite treatments using spider venom.

What? My treatments using spider venom. I have not heard about that. Where are these spiders? And how are we getting their venom? What species of spider? And so, Les says. Hi Fred, how is your Keepers Hive doing?

The Keepers Hive is doing great. I had some challenges with keeping Propolis off my frame so I could slide them out. And then I found out I'm supposed to get into them more than three times a year. So I need to keep inspecting them. But they're doing great. Propolis would build up too much. See, there is a probe. And so the Propolis thing, so for those you don't know what we're talking about,

the Keepers Hive, which I described earlier today in this conversation, you have to be able to slide them out. And what happens is I have two colonies, which behaved differently. So the one with the north-facing entrance, that particular colony was all propolized up. So I really had to work. I get into those strains out, but I don't get into my hives every week or two. I look at landing boards when I see that everything seems copacetic,

I don't pull the things apart. So that propolis eye, that was a lot of work. They did get propolis in there. So now on the other side of it, though, light propolis, I was able to pull it apart. And of course, inspect on a nice hot day when the proboscis is a little gummy. And then so you also have to be prepared to scrape your frames, keep everything clean as you put it all back in.

So what really happens is you need to be getting into that and looking at your frames more than I normally personally do. So if I had to get into every one of my hides every week, I would be doing nothing else. And that's hard work. But yeah, and then the other standalone keeper's eye that I have also had no problems. So there weren't any. And that was the older one. That was the original one. And they've actually improved the little covers that go over your frame.

And so, yeah, one of them was loaded. And it took a lot of work. And so now I open it up and I always give them a little pull out. I don't inspect everything. I just slide them over like an inch. Pull the first one out. Slide them over like an inch. Slide them all back.

And that keeps things freed up. If you're going to leave it alone and look at them a couple of times a year, you have a potential mess on your hands. So, yeah, you've got to get into one. So Florida peas love to make propolis. Mine do too. Propolis, by the way, is great. great. Don't knock propolis. We want lots of it. It is medication that comes free from the trees.

And if your bees are bringing it in, that is something that back in the day, beekeepers were breeding out of their bees to the point where they didn't want probolis all over their frames. So colonies that did that, they didn't breed from those queens, which kind of seems flipped. Dr. Marles Spivak, the University of Minnesota, would be very upset with some of those early propolis haters because it does good stuff. And of course, now look at us today. We have the propola hive, which is textured on the inside just to encourage more propolis surface and making that. And it's called propola, by the way, because it's propolis and Marla Spivak from what they called Spivak Lab. It's from the B Lab University of Minnesota. So Australia is where the

Spider-Venum study is from. This is Jimmy's neighborhood bees. Jimmy, once the spider species i need to know by the way who's excited about the goro spider coming the joro spider you want to see a spider web six feet in diameter that when you're running it throws you back okay it doesn't really i think it would be funny if we did that like with grandkids think anyway the joro spider look that up if you don't want to sleep um let's see my hives are doing well this year from three to fifteen will they ever attack my neighbor cookout. I'm just worried that I get out of control. Neighborhoods. Okay, so here's the thing. I can say this about neighborhood beekeeping. When you have hives and they're facing a sidewalk

or the street or your driveway where UPS and FedEx and the mail people come up your driveway and make deliveries. All you need to do is Tommy Chu wants to stick without, I'll stick with our guns right. Anyway, beehives. This worked for me here, by the way, to the point where, just to give you the example of why I think this way,

bees on landing boards are guarding the hive. You see the guard bees. Their little front legs are out there, mandibles are open. They're ready to grapple. They're all up about, you know, close quarters battle and all that stuff, they're ready to go. But they have to see their target.

So if you can create a visible barrier between your bees and the walkway or your neighbors, this is why stockade fences work and things like that. If the guards on the landing board cannot see what they want to go after, some kid chasing a ball or something, riding a bicycle pass, fast movement gets their attention. they won't go after it. They can't see it. They don't know what's going on. It's not the foragers that are fighting the fight. It's the defenders of the hive at the entrance on the landing board and the front of the hive. So all you have to do is create a visible barrier. And so by putting up the way to be academy building. So how they recommend you put up some kind of big building,

just kidding. But that worked because in the past, if I even took off honey, the bees were on the war path for a couple of days. Anybody that showed up, we had to put a sign out, stay in your car, honk your horn, I'll come and get my package. The bees are mad. So then you have people sitting at the end of the driveway, which for me is 300 feet away, and, you know, Amazon can text you and say you have a text from your driver who is afraid to come up your driveway. So visible barriers, they don't see it. Guard bees don't come after you. And there you go. Helps a lot. It helps a So neighborhoods, boy, you have to talk to people on your immediate, you know, sides of your property and make sure that nobody is allergic to bees.

You do not want to be responsible for something going into antifalaxes. Definitely. So the neighbors cook out that it will get out of control. Okay, posted it on the way to be, new treatment methods in Australia. Okay, thanks, Timothy. It just doesn't sound like scalable, you know, know something that they could do with a venom. But everything, by the way, Australia is the only place where venomous snakes outnumber the non-venomous snakes. Just food for thought, if you're

thinking about going there. Steve Rowley's Honeybee solution to Verroa, I have not. I haven't finished the reading list they already have in front of me and books that people want me to look at so I can write a paragraph about it. I'm way behind. But sounds interesting. By the way, every book that comes out, I wish they had an audible version for it so I could listen while I work. If I have to sit down and read the book and take notes and all that stuff, very difficult. So when we get off of this, because we're going to close things down, it's 530, write these book titles that you've read that you find really beneficial down in the comments section. I'd like to look at them if their books I already know about.

Great. The more scientifically founded they are, but I don't want a science journal. I want a story that happens to be written by somebody who really does know about bees. I think those are really entertaining. I like interviewing authors. So I like talking about their books, the idea of their books. And I'm very interested. Now, of course, they have to look up this spider thing and how they're getting the venom and using it.

So I want to thank you again for being here. And hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead. And for those who are watching this late, you're going to see that there's going to be advertisements on this at first because they don't give me a choice until this finishes rendering and processing. And then I can stop mid-real advertisements because they don't like it myself. And I don't want you to have to watch them. But I hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead. And I want to thank those of you showed up for this live stream. And I wish you all the best, you and your bees. I'm Frederick Dunn. And this has been The Way to Be.