The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A Episode 345 Last one in February 2026

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

This is the audio track from Today's YouTube:  https://youtu.be/ETErKI5VHoc     Normally this episode would be a live chat, but Fred is at a conference in West Virginia.

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today's Friday, February the 27th of 2026. This is back here beekeeping questions and answers episode number 345. I'm Frederick Dunn and this is the way to be. So I want to thank you for being here with me. Sorry about last Friday. I missed it. Where was I anyway? I was in middle Wisconsin at a conference. A really nice conference. with a bunch of cool people, fellowship, everything else. If you don't know, that means you missed it. And I'm really sorry about that. So that's why I miss it.

The other thing is what's going on right now. This is the last Friday of February. So normally this will be a live chat, but unfortunately, my schedule won't allow me to do that. So we're going to go ahead and do this as a recorded Friday Q&A. If you want to know how to submit your own question for a question and answer episode in the future, please go to the main website, the way to be.org.

Click on the page, marked contact, fill out the form. Maybe you've just got something you want to talk about. You can remain anonymous. Most people, in fact, everyone puts their name and so on. And if it's an emergency, you have to know something right now. Please go to the Way to Be Fellowship on Facebook. That's where you get your answers right away, day or night, anywhere in the world. Those people are from everywhere.

And I'm really grateful for those people that are keepers of the faith there, so to speak, that are making sure everybody's in line. There's no marketing. There's no politics. It's just people sharing information about back-air beekeeping. So what else can we talk about? The weather outside, which is good news, by the way. We have huge storms come through the United States.

Where am I located in northeastern part of the United States, northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania? People on the eastern seaboard here got heavy snow. I think they didn't even have to go to work. That's how bad it was. But today, right now in the state of Pennsylvania, we have 44 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 6.6 Celsius and sunny on top of that, which means it's even better. Bees can do cleansing flights, finally.

So we have 13-mile-hour winds. That's to be expected because when we get a shift like that, picks up speed. What's that in kilometers per hour? 21 kilometers per hour. 63% relative humidity. What's that in your country also? 63% relative humidity.

And of course, things are going to be different where you are. If you're in the desert southwest right now, you're cooking. You're frying in the sun, and I don't miss it. Let me tell you. So that's the good news. What else is going on? I'll bet you're wondering about outdoors other than the weather. What kind of visitors do we have?

well the deer are still everywhere that's to be expected skunks are out and about which is fine with me because i keep my beehives well off the ground skunks can't reach up to 17 18 inch landing boards and so that's exactly what the height is for my beehive entrances because the skunk goes around they clean up dead bees and that's fine with me they might as well they're omnivorous so they even eat things that are bad What would be an example of something that's bad that a skunk should eat? Yellow jackets, for starters. What's out there right now? Are there any yellow jacket in this yet?

No, there are queens. And where are they in the leaf litter? So what's the skunk do? Diggs for leaf litter. Anyway, well, possums are wandering around out there. We have wild bird populations that are fantastic. We have nut hatches, tit mice. Some people have bluebirds hanging around already,

which is pretty darn interesting. And, of course, the Cardinals are here. black cap chickadees and all of that stuff so wild turkeys go trooping through and the squirrels are still at war with each other you know different species of squirrels the smallest squirrels are the meanest i'll just leave that there okay so uh all the topics we're going to discuss today we're submitted during the past week actually we overlapped into the previous week too because didn't do one last friday so here we go seal wings is the very first question we're going to talk about hope everyone's bees are making it through this cold weather I lost five hives

due to moisture the dead outs had molded bees went in a winter with three deep eight-frame hives they died with two deep boxes of honey on top had double bubble wrapped around the hive and in the top cover and condensation got them okay this is something I think you know there's going to be a lot of discussion these days this time of year about why things died out, starved bees. And this is one of the things that I used to fall for. Yeah, when I started out with bees. I thought more honey's better.

So I had what I called super colonies. And many supers on the super colonies. So for those you don't know what we're talking about, what are supers? Well, first you have your brood box. That's the bottom box directly on top of your bottom board or maybe even on top of a bottom board and then a slatted rag.

That's the brood. That's hopefully where your bees start winter in that box. And then we think, well, if a little bit of honey on top of that, like one medium chaka block box of honey is good. Then maybe a deep box is better. Maybe two deep boxes even better than that. But it doesn't work that way. Here's why. So when you have your bees in the bottom box, they're still, you know, they've got resources all around them. my case, I let them even become almost honey bound, which means they have honey everywhere they're even walking on it when the winter first hits. To me, that's a perfect scenario. But then

if you have two full boxes, deep boxes as described here, full of honey, what's the problem with that? Even in a well-insulated hive, the problem is the cluster, the bees, the basketball, the volleyball, whatever size cluster you have inside your hive is in a fixed position. And because it got cold, they stay snug. And they're warming interior of that and there's secondary warmth that comes off of that. What is secondary warmth? Well, they have passive heat generation and moisture. What's above them?

A lot of capped honey. How much heat is going to reach the two boxes above them? Not much. And so when we have these temperature swings and it's really, really cold, gets cold overnight. What else gets cold overnight? the areas that are not occupied by your bees. So then you end up with a bunch of capped honey,

which becomes a heat battery or a cold battery, depending on the time of year. And so it gets really, really cold overnight. And that's not bad, not bad for the bees at all. But what happens when things warm up the following day? Condensation forms on top of the capped honey that's well away from your bees. Because now the hive is too large for the population of the bees in it.

then condensation happens where does it go straight down onto your bees now while your bees are alive they kind of cope with it they don't like it but they do their best and they can be overwhelmed with moisture which is exactly why we try to keep things dry over the top of the cluster but it's just as important to make sure that the hive is not oversized for the population of the bees so we do some gues estimation work here. If I know where I live that I need in a nice long cold winter about 47 pounds of honey, it does not benefit my bees to have 75, 80 or 100 pounds of honey over them. I'm trying to time it so that when the bees break cluster inside the hive on a semi-warm day, they can access other resources and then as it gets cold again when nightfall comes or a storm front

comes through, they recollect themselves into a tighter cluster and then everything they again, it's not covered by the bees, gets just as cold as the outside temperatures for the most part. So that's what I think happened and why there was so much moisture. First of all, the bees got too much condensation on them. And when they do that, they have to generate more heat. And they're in too large space. So I can't imagine a natural cavity in a tree being the equivalent of three deeps. That's way big.

And so this is what people do. You might be thinking, yeah, but I've seen those hive. columns that are six seven boxes high but that's in the middle of a nectar flow what some people also call a honey flow but the nectar is flowing from which they make their honey and then they store it and then because beekeepers that are doing maybe one or two cycles of honey extraction through the year wait until all these boxes are full of capped honey and then they process everything all at once i don't do that as a backyard beekeeper i harvest as we go and this year we have more tools for doing that but my speculation in this circumstance here for steel wings is that the space was too

large i'm sorry about that moving on to question number two this comes from hunting lady and this is about the health benefits using honey and whether or not the honey degrades over time so i'll just briefly read part of this i'm all about out of honey right now for my personal use Had a big ceramic dish with crystalized honey, warmed it slowly, had some to eat. However, still got allergies. I think they're from black mold. And books from the library were not worth the price. Books from the library, library is free.

So that's a big insult for the authors of those books. So the thing is, this comes out a lot. For those of you who are like me who give a lot of public presentations about bees and beekeeping, this always seems to come up. holistic use of honey. And one of the things that's reported in here is as we have evidence that honey is used an antibiotic ointment during the Civil War even. Is that true?

That is true. There's a lot of evidence and we've done, we, you know, I'm not included in it because I'm really not a big time scientist. It has access to a department of ventimology anywhere. But when I find scientists, PhDs that just happen to be my friends and accessible to me, I ask some questions about things like this. So when it comes to seasonal allergies, they say the evidence is anecdotal. What that means is it's word of mouth.

It's people that just said, hey, work for me, seemed right, feels good, I feel better. And when I ask people often who come to buy honey from us, what's going to be for? Is this raw honey? It is. Did it come from the plants right around here? It did. What are using it for? My allergies.

So there are a lot of questions that need to be asked. So if you're one of these people that does that, Let's say it works. A lot of people say it does. Who's to argue? I don't have these allergies, so I can't attest to this myself. But you know it needs to be regional honey that comes from the plants that are causing your allergies. So for example, if you've got goldenrod allergies or I don't know, maybe you've got ragweed. That's a common one. Allergies. One of our sons has allergies from. grass Timothy grass so the pollen that is the source of the allergy must be present in the honey

for this theory to apply so people are buying honey that was harvested in spring and they're buying it in fall to deal with fall allergies and we're defeating the claim that they're actually building a resistance to the pollen that's in the honey and in the environment they need to match up so that's part of the problem the other thing is I talked to Dr. Ferrut Aztook, who's an expert on medicinal properties of honey in the medicinal ways that it can be used. So I speak with everyone in the science industry, and of course there's an anti-science group too. So what's the middle ground? What can be going on?

Because honey, by the way, while it's fresh, is at its best. It can only deteriorate after that. The question is at what rate would it deteriorate? So if you're trying to keep your honey absolutely as close to point of collection quality, then it would be in the freezer. That's it. That's the best way to arrest any further degradation. Also, the jars that you put it in, glass is better than plastic for preservation of honey.

Dark glass or dark spaces, dark boxes, better than having daylight. When you go to somebody's house and their honey is sitting on the windowsill and the sun is just flying through. it, that looks cool, but it's degrading your honey. So, honey degrades over time. And so for the thumbnail for today, this is a perfect question that segues right into this book, which I think is pretty darn cool. Because let's face the facts, sometimes traditional medicine does not venture into holistic resources of materials that have healing properties that work on people. There must be something to it or it would have died out a long time ago as a practice. So this is called the beekeepers apothecary,

a foundational guide for becoming your own herbalist. And this is by Kaylee Richardson, and the shout-out today will be for the Honeystead, which is her YouTube channel. She needs no help from us because that channel is huge. growing fast and this is her book. Now what's cool about it is I got this book at the North American Honeybee Expo. I know everybody's sick of hearing about the expo, the expo.

It just goes on and on forever. But this is a great book. And, you know, people come out with books all the time. This book has sold more than 20,000 copies. This book is doing really well. So if you want to dabble in remedies that you make from the plants that you find, so foraging for these resource, on your own property depending on where you live you may have a lot or none but you also may have

access to a friend's land and so she calls it being feral living feral going outside and engaging with wildlife and so on but anyway so there are recipes in there that you can apply to whatever ails you see how it works and if it works who's to say that it's not a good idea the feedback that I get from people that have gotten that book this is not a problem promotion. I'm just giving you my opinion. I think it's a really good resource and if you want to dabble in that, I also hope that those who are seeking remedies for seasonal allergies and things like that, it's covered in there. So it could help out. I think it's a good idea. And if you've ever been, you know, someone who's suffered profoundly from seasonal allergies and found that there's a remedy,

write that down in the comment section because I'd like to see personally what it is not for my own use again because my allergies I don't you know I can tear apart poison ivy and it doesn't even get to me so whatever's going on with me I don't have allergies but I will certainly delve into the information so I can pass it on when someone else asks me so there you go herb list Kaylee Richardson the beekeepers apothecary scope it out if you've got the book I want to hear from you too They sold out, by the way, at the Expo. Question number three, let's move on.

This is Alvin from Yonka's New York. Hey, Fred, what do you think about preemptively treating with ape of our strips in the spring before supers come on? And OI dribble in the winter here in the Northeast for Varroa management. What would your preferred method be if you could not use Formic Pro? Acallic acid vapor. What would be my preferred? Well, if I can't use axallic vapor or formate those by the way are the two top performing organic treatments for varodistructer mites. So my hands are tied and I can't use those. What are we going to use? Apobioxal dribble by the way. Where do you get

that? It's RTU by the way, which is ready to use, which means no fuss, no must. You put it in a little tube and you squirt it out plus super safe for people super safe for honey super zon timing's not critical you pour it right on the seams that are full of bees bees love it when you do that to them and mites hate it when you do that to them i'm just kidding bees don't love it anytime you're opening your hive they don't like you they can't stand that you're there so make it brief make it quick not only that be nice about it and warm that stuff up ahead of time don't dribble a bunch of cold stuff it says here formic pro i would definitely use the dribble. They say there's no temperature restriction on that. Who's they?

Who says that? Not just Fred, I can tell you, is Dr. David Peck from Betterby. Who's from Cornell? Who knows things? Deep, profound things. I will see Dr. Pack this coming weekend. So if you have questions for me, ask me. And I'll give answers on behalf of Dr. Pack. so anyway the um if i was if i couldn't use those two things RTU because i bought that stuff i have it's on the shelf it's ready to go i'm going to be using it in spring because i'm going to see what the efficacy is efficacy means percentage of kill how effective it is and taking out those varro destructive mites the more i photograph varroa destructor mites doing what they do which is

parasitizing the bees that we have in the infant stage, the pupa stage, infant's not a good word to apply to that, but while they're pupating in your brood frames, they're feeding on the baby bees, the developing bees, passing on their diseases. So I say we get them. Now, when you use the ready to use dribble, the syringe delivery method, it doesn't work if they're under the cappings. So it does work on. It does work on the dispersal phase mites which used to be called ferretic mites those are the mites that are exposed they're not protected by cappings you can let them have it now even though this says if you were not going to use formic pro let's go back to formic pro just for those who are listening

that might want something that takes care of them completely under the cappings to early spring treatment so while the temperatures are cool because formic pro is temperature restricted you don't want it to be too volatile you don't want it to release too much too soon. So but you wanted to kill the varroa destructor mites under the cappings. And that's what I would use for formic pro for that, particularly in spring. So I hope I answered Alvin's question. They give you one option, R2U, apobioxal, which is exhalic acid in dribble form. And no mixing. No fuss, no must, do it. Question number four comes from Leo, Brockton, Massachusetts. And I think people are

never mind I've had a few deadouts they had a full box of honey two mediums one deep I have moved them into a freezer my question is I ran out of room and had to move some of the frames full of honey into standard boxes can I leave these frames full of honey in the boxes and for how long I need to extract but I don't have time yet thank you okay now here's the thing if you're gonna store your honey in the frames this is important. If you're in an area, by the way, this is Brockton, Massachusetts. I can only think it freezes at night already. So if wherever you're storing your honey frames in boxes, it's fine to leave them in the boxes. In places where it gets warmer, that's where you have issues.

You've got larder beetles, small-heat beetles, wax moths. So if you're in a warm area, then they're at risk. So let me give you an answer that will help you in a variety of different areas. get those industrial trash bags i bought them last year and they are fantastic i get the 55 gallon super thick industrial trash bags are designed to line 55 gallon drums some people line drums and they fill them with honey anyway i don't do that because i'm small scale bagger beekeeper but those bags you can stack your boxes together and put desiccant packs oh look i just happen to have one. This is a wise dry desiccant pack. See these little orange beads in here?

It lets you know when it's taken on its moisture capacity when it's reached its limit. These are the 50 gel, 50 gram silica gels. And you recharge them. So I'm a big fan of things that you use over and over again. Wise dry silica gel, 50 gram packs. You get different sizes. but so the reason I'm bringing it up. You set up your boxes with the frames of honey in them. And you don't want those to get condensation on them. You don't want mold on the boxes, which is byproduct, of course, of the condensation and the sugars and all that that's available there.

And we want to close them up so bugs can't get to them while it's cold. So you set these right on top and you close them up in these heavy plastic bags. Now you can stack them two at a time and put. one bag over two, that kind of thing. And when you do that, line them up. So there's airflow through them. This is different from the 90-degree swap-out that people do when they're stacking and they're open stacking in order to avoid the wax moths from laying eggs.

And you have the wax-moth larvae, which are wax worms, which are 100% edible by you and your chickens. Just wanted to, people eat wax worms on their salad. Close it up. Desicant packs, prevent the condensation, keep it dry. even honey frames capped honey in storage can still take on moisture and ruin your honey that's what we want to avoid we don't want fermentation is also your enemy so that's what I recommend a dark space stays dry away from rodents and I think you'll be okay cycling them through the freezer if you're in an area that does not see freezing

temps at night this year I can't imagine anybody who hasn't had their dead outs frozen outside so mine are for sure so that's it for question four moving on to question number five comes from david cleveland ohio so i've heard you talk about and seeing your deer videos i was wondering what if anything do you do with all the poop that they leave behind we have about eight dough three fawns and two bucks that visit our backyard and leave a lot of waste droppings Scat. So here's the thing. What do I do about it? By the way, this number of deer We're not in a competition here, but that's nothing. My wife stops counting them at 30 plus. We have herds of deer here. Heards, which rhymes with what we're talking about. It's in your

grass right now. So is that a big problem? No, it's not really. Here's why. That's actually a really good fertilizer around your trees and stuff. This is one benefit of the deer. They're herbivores. They're grasses and stuff. So then the stuff that comes out the other end, that rhymes with herd, then that stuff dries out eventually on the grass and just dissipates into it and provides all the nutrients or a lot of nutrients will say that your plants are going to want during the year. So I say leave it there. What you don't want to do like chicken manure. Let's talk about that. What you don't want to do is put it on vegetable gardens and things like that while it's damp, while it's concentrated, it'll cause a nitrogen burn. If it's chicken manure, it's really high

nitrogen content waste product from animals, right? So we wanted to dry out, we leave it on top, we let it just kind of go. So I don't think you have to do anything about it. However, I will say this, I'm on to my deer. I have no deer problem. We have deer out here, but I'm keeping them off of my plants right now. and i just did a video about it didn't just do it maybe it's a week old or so two weeks let's say the wireless deer fence so if you go to my youtube channel frederick done go up in the top right little hourglass there type in wireless deer fence let me tell you i'm going to talk more about that i think later on today because somebody else asked about it but i'll tell you early on i have solved my problem that's right the

deer have been educated. I'll tell you later. Question number six comes from Chris. Weldon Spring, Missouri. Hi Frederick. I asked you about using five-frame nuke boxes when trying to catch swarms and you mentioned using two boxes. Five over five. My question is, I know I should put some drawn comb and wax foundation in the bottom box, but what about the top? Can I use just wax foundation for the upper box? Your help is always appreciated. Well, thank you. Chris, here's the thing. When we're using them for swarm traps, 5 over 5 of 5,

the wooden nucleus boxes are great. I think it's important to have frames in. What kind of frames are in there is not so critical, so long as you're baiting your hives with old-brewed comb. That is the best. It gets the smell out. The foragers and scouts that are cruising by, find that and they move in and look for it since there's going to be a lot of discussion about

swarm collection for all I know the people that down in the deep south have already collected some swarms by now I don't know we are nowhere near swarm collection up here in the northeastern United States but have the frames this is a great thing to do with your old frames old brood frames in particular and some people recommend not having any frames in just having the box out there and the bees will move into it and I caution against that and here's why I don't want the bees to go into a box like a double nucleus I've box body and I wouldn't know about it right away let's say what are they ready to do they're ready to build combs what they're going to do and they're going to do that by attaching it right to the interior of your box right on what is normally a migratory cover or migratory lid which is a single piece of three quarter inch stock that lays over the top and has a front and back piece. sticking down that keeps it kind of centered so it doesn't fall off if you don't have frames in there that's where they're building the comb so when you go to open the box now you've got comb that must be

reattached somewhere uh to frames so you made a mess for yourself so i always suggest have frames in there have as much bees wax on the foundation and frames as you can and uh the bees will move on and start drawing out comb they do it straight away i've seen them build significant amounts of comb overnight in a swarm trap. So have the frames there. What you don't want to have there are things that entice bees to rob it, that inspire pests to move in like your wax moths that we talked about earlier. We don't want a bunch of wax worms in there that will mess it up and your bees won't want to occupy it.

So do not leave proteins in there. So don't leave a bunch of old pollen and bee bread and things like. that in there don't think you're seeding it or making it more appealing by putting or keeping capped honey in there don't spritz them with sugar syrup and things like that they don't need any of that when the bees are on the move and they're looking for a new home they've already loaded up on resources when they're leaving their parent colony they've got those with them which is why they can make combs though quickly so that's what I recommend yep you can use

foundationless if you want now I recommend checkerboarding with foundationless foundationless frame frame with foundation foundation foundationless frame frame with foundation and try to keep your swarm traps as level as possible I've seen some very interesting configurations trapped to the sides of trees and they're tilting way out so it is important to keep things very level if you don't have foundation for them to follow and so just keep it level anyway and you'll fail safe So that's the end of question number six. Question number seven is from John McLean'sboro.

And it says state number 17. What is state 17? Is that the 17th state to join the union? I don't know. Anyway, it says I'm starting my ninth season as a top bar beekeeper. Top bar beekeeping, by the way, is a lot of fun. Thankfully, I've had very good fortune with these hives over the years, but this year I would like to try introducing a queen excluder in a few of them.

Occasionally, some hives can tend to spread the brood area more than 10 or 12 combs, which is true. That's exactly what they did in my bee mindful top bar hives that I have out here. I have another one of those, by the way, I'm adding to my top bar collection this year. So anyway, spreads more than 10 or 12 combs, depends on how the bees have filled up, honey, and pollen. before I try to modify a queen excluder to fit the top bars, I would like your opinion on the habits of a queen. If I would cut a 3 inch inch, 3 eighth inch gap off the bottom of a follower board, do you think the queen would go down to the bottom of the hive

and under the board to search out more empty comb or would it be her tendency to stay in the brood area towards the top of the hive? This is a really good question. And I'm going to tell you also what I'm going to do with my top bar hive that I'm adding this spring because I'm so happy with the way it worked out last year and how much fun they are to work with. And if you're, I'm just going to pause here, if you're looking for a top bar hive, that is very inexpensive and will ship to you. It's under $400 including shipping.

I don't get anything for saying that. Where would you go to get something like that? mindful. B-E-E-mindful. Tell them I sent you pay the same as everyone else. So here's the thing. Would that work? So we're talking about here's your horizontal hive, top bar hive. Top bar just means it's only a top bar. There's no frame. So the bees attach their comb to the interior surface of the top bar and then they draw it down and it suspends just from the top bar. and they've got the angled wall, so it looks like a trough. And then they also maintain bee space on the side walls for the most part.

It can go bad. And then that space is there, so the bees can move around the sides. They can also move underneath and so on. Now when you're first starting it out, as with any horizontal hive configuration, we have the entrance at hopefully one end. And then they start to build out the frames. So we start with maybe four or five frames for them to get going, depending on the size of the swarm you put in there.

And then you keep adding frames. Now, instead of giving them access to the full thing, we use something called a follower board. And for the bees, as far as they know, that follower board, which might be six or seven frames in, is the entire extent of the cavity that they're building into. So the convenience of it, as with all horizontal highs, lands, long length, stroth, and top bars. If you want to expand, all you do is move another place or two and bring the next top bar over. so then your bees can continue to expand down the line. Now at some point, we want to contain where the brood is.

And this doesn't matter which horizontal hive configuration you have. So when we get the bees, let's say we think they need 10 frames of brood and mix with bee bread and stored honey and things like that. That we think that's enough. And then there's, then the accordion begins. And by that I mean they kind of reach maximum numbers. and then by the time the queen is built out here and is laying her eggs everywhere, the center where she began has already finished their pupation on the 21st day for worker bees,

and they're uncapping and coming out, and then the queen kind of goes back there, and then she starts relaying her eggs after the nurse bees have cleaned up after the new emerged workers. So then that means we kind of establish it. So she really only needs that amount of space. It only builds up and then contracts, builds up, up and contracts. What continues to expand is the long-term storage. Bees are hoarders. That's why they make so much more honey than they need. So they need to draw the comb to store honey in and then they cap it. So that's what we're talking about. If we establish a follower board that has a gap at the bottom,

would the queen tend to kind of stay in that first area and then where the workers just pass under that frame, under the follower board, and onto subsequent frames, it would be nothing but honey and no risk of the queen laying eggs in there. So it's actually true that queens don't like to leave frames and comb that is continuous. They like to kind of stay in that area, but there are things that push them out of that area. One is not enough space. She's laid everything up, and your workers may actually be back filling with honey and using up space that the queen needs to lay eggs. So when the queen runs out of cells,

they're all occupied with brood at all stages and honey and resources which are adjacent to the brood, which is very important, bee bread. Then she kind of scouts around and looks for other places to park eggs. So sometimes even burricone, which can be well away from the main part of the brood, they'll make cells that are sized right for drones. So a colony that's getting healthy and fully populated,

they'll start having drones out there. Now, when they have that, that means the queen was over there and laid eggs. So if you want 100% guarantee that the queen is not going to go past the brood area, then now we have to use a queen excluder. So those are the risks. Now let's talk about what I personally would do. I would create the follower board and I do I have them already and cut out the center piece of it and then just staple or screw with vendor washers or whatever you want to do a queen excluder to that so keep the center of it open

and this allows your worker B's full access they just go straight through and with these metal queen excluders they're not all created equal by the way you're looking for about 4.2 millimeter opening, 4.2 to 4.3 millimeter opening. And that's so the workers can get through without unduly damaging themselves or struggling against the opening. We also don't want the queen to get through. So the queen's thorax is what stops her from getting through. And once you have that, you have a very breezy activity level. They're going in and just continuing to build things out. So you can decide then for the queen, you know, how much of an area you want her to have available for laying eggs and that works great.

So you could in theory also use just having a gap at the bottom of your follower board that allows the workers to go through. I did this with my long lank stroth hive and they filled out frame after frame after frame of capped honey in there to the point where it was more than I even wanted to deal with and I know they went into winter with more honey than they needed.

So you have to actively keep track of how much of the brood area is now being used by the queen and the nurse bees and it's being utilized for brood. If that becomes congested and you don't deal with it, not only could the queen ultimately go and lay eggs by passing underneath that follower board, you're risking swarming. So it is one of the triggers, a high population, high density, running out a room in the brood area. They naturally and instinctively want to reproduce as a super organism and that means they start making swarm cells queen cells so it is an active thing that you'll have to keep track of but yeah I'm going to try to keep with my new top bar hive that I just got that's still wrapped up

it was delivered here I bought it was not a giveaway so I'm going to use the single hive for one colony last year I I thought it would be cool to have a little swarm at one end and swarm at the other end, kind of see who outperforms the other. But now I've decided I'm going to go with a colony at one end, use the other side for storage, and go ahead with it. Topper highs, interesting stuff. Very good.

So that's what I'm going to do. And also I hope that John in McLean'sboro keeps us posted on what gets decided and how that works. So it just depends on how much work you want to do. and preventing them from spreading out. It is nice to have honeycomb and honey that's capped and pure and clean and hasn't been used for brood. Remember that when they use the comb for brood, you can, of course, let's say it started happening.

So, all right, let's pause for a second. Let's say that we do that, try it with the gap at the bottom, and then ultimately start laying eggs in the comb that you didn't want them to. So now it's an experiment that is not failed. It's an informational. experiment that lets us not that's possible now we do to correct it well you make sure that the queen is in the other end towards the entrance because that's their instinct to brood out near the entrance then we once we know for sure the queen is over here now we put a follower board in with a queen

excluder and we stop this branching out into the other comb that we want to keep just for honeycomb and then what happens to the worker brood that's on the other side of the queen excluter well they just emerge from their cells and they go about their business and because they're going to be nurse bees when they're young they're going to cruise right through that queen excluder and go and join the retinue of bees that are attending to the queen and taking care of brood so and then it goes back to honey at the other end so it is recoverable later if the experiment fails moving on to question number eight comes from bill from oglethorpe georgia oh fort oglethorpe could you send me the website where you complete put in your zip code, then it would tell you what pesticide loads and foliage density is.

And this is interesting because they made an old switcheroo on us. I can't tell you how many videos and presentations I've been at where I said, find out what kind of pesticide load you have by going to a website called B-Scape, B-E-S-A-P-E-E-R-G. Well, guess what? When you do that now, it does not work. because it's being run by Penn State. That's right, so they changed the website name. They didn't write me and tell me about it.

I don't know why they wouldn't. I should have been on the, you know, tell Fred list. Anyway, B-S-C-A-P-E-A-P-E-E-A-P-S-U-U. Now you'll find it. What use is that to you? Well, if you're in the United States, you get to type in your zip code, and then you can find out let's say you're thinking about having an apiary here

you want to know what kind of challenges will my bees have will there be a dearth when is the likely time of year that there will be a dearth what's a dearth well the dirtth is when your bees will not be getting a bunch of resources from the environment so it's one of the things they inform you about so if you've got high quality forage it'll say that

if you've got a high pesticide load from the industry meaning agricultural practices it will say that. There's a number that goes with it. It'll tell you if it's good, fair, bad, and so on. It also talks about or kind of assesses the wilderness area around you and how easily it could sustain feral colonies of bees.

We're talking about timber, trees that have holes in them and cavities in them that your bees can occupy. So I'll just say it one more time, B-E-S-A-P-E-E-S-A-P-E-S-U-S-U. dot edu B-scape it's really good and say doing great work and I blew it because they didn't get to go to their exhibit Penn State had a whole thing about yellow legged hornets now I don't know if you should say yellow-legged or yellow-legged

but whatever they are the yellow-legged hornets are bad if you want to give kids permission to kill something and by kids I mean usually it's little boys they want to know what they can kill and if you tell them they can kill something they spark up they're all about it they suit up there run out there to do it the yellow-legged hornet is bad news and in all caps with exclamation points very very bad news we don't have them here yet yet University of Georgia Department of Entomology I believe they have the lead on that for the people that see it see that's the thing we don't see it so we're not alarmed you know if you don't see something don't walk around it haven't been

stung by them haven't seen them hawking in front of your beehives you know what that is hawking they hover in front of your hive these big hornets and then as your honeybees are coming in they just snatch them right out of the air and dispatch them and take them home to feed their larvae and they do that significantly right so there are a lot of things that beekeepers need to think about but the number one game that's a foot now and beekeepers are buzzing about it how to kill them how to find them let's get people there yesterday the general public is not informed enough to know to look for different nest sites some of that are proposed that you need to wake up some bounty hunters in other words tell people there's a bounty on yellow-legged hornet nests and the problem is there's a lot of places where they're located

where they're not very accessible. So we need geniuses. We need super smart people figuring out ways to detect the hornets, find their nests, and obliterate them. Because I'm not super excited about some of the things I hear about the yellow-legged hornets and what people are planning to do because they want to do a scorched earth practice, which I guess if they're that bad, I understand the, you know, the response that people are having to it, but they want to kill every Vespit.

I mean every hornet, every wasp, to make sure that it's kind of a drag-net approach where they're just going to kill everything. And I guess it's dangerous enough. They're bad enough for all pollinators, the things that they feed on. And so what people are saying to do seems like we would end up with a huge amount of pests on our hands that are normally controlled by wass of so many different species that exist but I think the responses are going to be ramped up people that have engaged the yellow egg tornets and know how they function and what their biology is I have no

problem suggesting wiping out everything to get them to so it must be bad I don't know your B-suit's not going to help you but if you know an organization that's got a plan that has an action team and you're looking for something to support by sharing information about them or helping with fundraisers and things like that. It's something the United States government should be focused on and getting people out there to deal with them. In concept, you know, in theory, it sounds like, why can't we just get out there and kill them?

Why can't we get them with drones and stuff? Well, we're pretty darn limited. So I think they need an all-points approach. You've heard of that before. where you don't just hit them with one method, you hit them with every method available until the threat is neutralized. So people are upset about it. I understand why. When I saw the nest, I didn't see a bunch of actual hornets, so I missed, as I said, I missed

the Penn State exhibit, but that hornet nest was impressive. And if they're that big, European hornets are kittens compared to those things. Plus, I don't have that big of a problem with the European hornets over, all but these yellow lake tornets are a big deal they're here the question is how fast will they move spread you know will the general public care enough to pay attention to report nests and sighting some things like that we need the public to be like bird watchers only to be watching for these nests and they need to get them under control because the more of a threat they are the more ramped up the response will

be and then there will be more fallout more you know unintended consequences in my book when it comes to how they're going to cope with them. So like I said I don't have them if they were here I would happily mobilize my entire team. The entire student body of the way to be Academy would be fully outfitted in whatever they needed both 10 year olds I might even arm up the six year old and the three year old that's how serious we would take it here we would tie floss on them and we would bait them out and they would find out where they live and they would go and take out their whole family.

I'm sorry to talk so graphically to you, but that's what needs to happen. So they have no natural predators. Nothing is killing them. They kill other things. So, uh, to do this is from Steve. Question number nine. Orangeville, Ontario, Canada.

So you make the high visor with arms that slide past the body could you add legs to sit on the landing board and then snug it up with a length of paracord well you can do a lot of things with the high visors and so having a high visor here's your hive hive visor comes off and then having a leg that comes down that stabilizes it and then just pulling it back to the hive I have a new high visor coming out I know I said that probably two weeks ago now so anyway I have a new high visor coming out is simple. It's going to be cool. And the whole reason that I redesigned my hive visor is because somebody wanted it for the appame hive so you wouldn't have to damage the hive. And I made that.

So for those of you who were with me last weekend and attended my presentation in mid-Wisconsin, they had a huge whiteboard there. So of course, I had to get up there and render a bunch of illustrations about the new modifications of the hive visor. And I hope some of you that were there to picture of it and I hope you're going to make them because I went to the hardware store since I've been home I have the components and it's going to be simple. It's going to involve J bolts. It looks like a candy cane with threads on it. It's going to go down the side of the hive visor and then you have the nut that keeps it on there but it also makes it adjustable so you can snug it up and those hooks will go right on the handles, the side handles of the Apamee hives. And it's a lot of the

going to be made out of a single piece of wood it's so after i had to rethink that i'm also rethinking the hive visors for the wooden hive so there will be a short how-to video it's not going to be a short like one of the shorts it's going to be a video because we're going to talk about how we got there the other ones still work of course but these are going to be streamlined and very easy and for the wooden hives you will have to screw an eyeball on there so they can hook onto that but once they're in place they come off easy they cinch up easy it's going to be lightweight easy to use so you're gonna if you're not a subscriber already you're gonna want to subscribe for that alone it's gonna be worth it your friends and fellow

apiarians are going to be so impressed when you see the genius of its simplicity and design and how practical and application it is and how it improves your life Paracord's fine, but that's another thing that we're adding to it. See, what I'm doing is reducing the material required and of course improving the efficiency of the unit. And it will not fall down even under a full snow load. So watch, see what happens. You're gonna be impressed.

And for those of you who, because it's a how to video, I'm gonna teach you how to make them. I don't sell stuff. My product is information here. So that's why you're watching this for free. That's why there's no membership. see you never have to pay to see what I'm up to here I want you to succeed question number 10 comes from T-A-R-X-5-Tac P-C-5-Tag U Z okay that's a YouTube channeling anyway I had a hive die-out the bees and the frames of honey have

mold on them I cleaned out all the bees will the frames need frozen or will the bees clean the mold off this spring central Ohio Okay, so Central Ohio. I think you're frozen too. So they've been through a freeze cycle just as I mentioned before no need to refreeze them But the mold is annoying I get it and you did the right thing the bees have been cleaned off I like to use low pressure air and I've made a video in the past about that a quick tip on how to clean dead outs with low pressure air and the nozzle has a very focused very narrow concentrated tip on it. And that blowing them out really blew a lot of surface material off too.

So if there's any mold and stuff like that, it would literally blow the, you know, the little bees right out of the cells because they're dead. And so cleaning it off like that, you could also, you don't have to just use bees. You could pull a prank on the Vespitey that are out there if you wanted to. You could set those frames out and sprit them with sugar syrup and let them clean off the mold for you. But let's say you don't want to do that. Yes, you can just clean them off as best you can, put them in a hive, and the bees will clean them up.

And that's it. You'll be on your way. So, that's it. Thanks. Question number 11 comes from Mike. Piny Flats, Tennessee. Says you had a video several years ago where you started using a deterrent for skunks,

raccoons, etc. that were solar-powered and shaped like owls. We have a bad deer problem here. So I wondered what brand you use and if they worked. They're getting into our bird feeders and garden in summer. Thank you for your time and help. This is from Mike. Piney Flats, Tennessee.

Here's the thing. This is what I was alluding to earlier, and I'm real excited about it because I love it when something works. So for the past couple of years, as you know I plant acres for the pollinators and it's a huge there's a lot of stress involved because when you do plantings like that on that scale it's hard to protect it from predators woodchucks rabbits deer what's worse than watching thousands of sunflowers get to about a foot tall and then have a few deer go through overnight and just

top everything right that's super annoying So, you know, I do things to get them under control. And I did discover it in, you know, liquid fence. A lot of people have used liquid fence forever. And liquid fence works. What is that? Liquid fence, you mix it up, super stinky. I can't even give a good description about how bad it smells,

but you won't want to drink any of it. Let me tell you. And it comes in concentrate. You mix it up with water. Put it in a big sprayer. You go around. and spray everything you want your deer to stay away from. It's not effective on everything, but it worked on deer.

But of course you would spritz that out there and stink up the whole landscape, and then it would start raining a couple days later. It says it's good after the rain, like it has real staying power, and it does. If you don't wear nitrile gloves when you use it and you get that on your hand, you stink for a long time. It's not good. You don't be able to sleep. because you put your hands up here.

Now you're, anyway, you get the picture. And the stuff is good. It's effective. It worked. The deer stayed away from it. And I could spray it on specific plants. I could spray around the, as described here, the bird feeders. We could spray it around that. The deer would sniff a little bit. But we get those tough deer. You know, the one that they just don't, either they don't care,

their nose blind, or they are so hungry that they're just going to come and eat stuff. Well, that's a hungry argument. Doesn't work for me because there are thousand acres of French Creek watershed here. The deer have lots of places to be. So it becomes personal. When you plant things, when you pick a plant or a tree, my service-buried tree is absolutely destroyed by deer. After the guy that sold them to me, said, deer won't touch them.

So anyway, that liquid fence worked. Now, liquid fence. Let's put this in focus. A gallon of the concentrate Because I checked it right before I talked to you today $79.38. So $79.38 for the concentrate, one gallon.

You get the bigger quantities or a couple hundred bucks. So it runs into a lot of me. Stink factor. You have to do it all the time. Update. And so my new deer deterrent

is fun. I'm sorry. And the reason I'm apologizing is because some people think it's not fun or funny when a deer gets surprised and does a vertical jump. They don't think that's nice to the deer. I happen to think that what the deer are doing, I need to educate them, and these are educators. It is the wireless deer fence. And I just made a video about it, the wireless deer fence. That's clearly, you know, it's what it's about. So it's what it's called. And I did a review of it. So what these are,

You ever jump on a trampoline and go to get off the trampoline and you get a shock when you grab the edge of it? I have a six-year-old grandson that stays on the trampoline and won't get off because he doesn't want to get shocked and his hair straight up like a dandelion. So the static charge has power as an educational tool. And so when it comes to the deer, these are plastic rods that have a capacitor inside of them. and double A batteries are used to charge the capacitor. And then there's four prods sticking out on the top. And they're rounded. So they don't do any physical injury.

They're not pointy. They're not designed to stab things. But deer are curious. You ever see a deer come along? They sniff different things. I've had my cameras sniffed and licked. I don't know what they're up to. But deer see new things.

They check it out. Well, if they got a snap on the nose from a static charge, they don't like it. surprises them it's unexpected it's a sensation they've never had before so even the hardcore deer that don't care that my audible alarms go off that don't care that a strobe light comes on and some of them this year even bypass liquid fence because they dig holes through the snow and liquid fences work very well on snow and they eat bird's eat so with the wireless deer fence prides It's best I can think of a low-key cattle pride, I guess, is what you would compare it to.

They sit out there for up to six months with one set of AA batteries. And they just wait, you know, wherever you put them. So when a deer shows up, gets a little snap on the nose, they run away. Now, here's the thing. It took quite a while for them to even encounter them. You know, they have bait. There's a scent lure in the middle of it. And I want you to watch the video. I hope you will.

because it'll show you that they walk around it and ignore it and don't touch them don't interact with them these you start thinking man i waste of my money the deer aren't even getting their noses snapped where's my viral video opportunity i mean where's the educational opportunity to teach a deer that this isn't where you need to be that i want you to go out to the other thousand acres of things there are to eat not my holly bush not my feeders for the birds and not my service berry trees. So to make a long story short, too late for that, I guess, these wireless deer fence units that have been out for a long time. I don't know why I didn't find them before.

I think it's because people want something immediate. They want the deer to smell something, run to it, get shocked, and leave forever. That's not how it works. It's a slow burn. It takes a while. And then when they do interact with it, now you educated the deer and they stop. So this is my plan this spring. When I start planting these larger areas, wherever I see any deer activity,

because the other thing is I'm starting plants inside and when I put them out historically, they just get munched, even the plants that are deterrents. I planted 54 giant blue hyss up one year. Every single one of those plants got removed. I put out Irish moss last year around my pond because I thought that would be cool. I was sold by everyone who knows anything. Deer don't eat.

Irish moss. And then right on camera, there's a deer munching the Irish moss. If I had had wireless deer fence units back then last spring, I would still have really good patches of Irish moss out there and now I don't have anything. So these things worked. Better than liquid fence. cheaper than liquid fence. And I always make a joke. I say, tell him, tell him Frederick Dunn sent you and pay the same as everyone else. Well, guess what?

After I launched the video, the company that made them, I sent them a link to the video and I said, I like your product. And they saw that I put in there that joke about, asked for the Fred Dunn discount and pay the same as everyone else. Well, guess what? They offered a discount. So there is one now. So if you go there, if you're listening and you get a wireless deer fence.com ask them for the frederick done discount i think it's 5% you can get it or you can get a year supply of the bait or whatever it comes each unit comes with a year supply of bait when you buy a box it's cheaper than you get three of them

cheaper than one unit of liquid fence concentrate and they're going to last you get six months out of the battery but the unit's still good you just rebate it put double a's in it and off you go for another six months and you can move them around so it's not like a regular fence you're not going to pull them electric fence and reposition it all the time so part of this game is to move them around and put them at different angles so that the deer never know where they're going to show up but when they see them if they've ever interacted with one and they see it they run away they don't walk away they're like very surprised they're flinchy they're jumpy so i guess i've talked about it enough but i want mike to use them they work great

Question number 12. Last question of the day. This is from Brian B. Tourney. Okay, so anyway, always learned something, it says, because this is during my Q&A 34, Friday the 13th of February. Anyway, it says, when bees eat brood, is it only open brood, right? Or have you seen all brood if they run out of resources? Thanks for all the info. Okay, so here's the thing.

There are, of course, diseases called chewed brood. And there's bald brood. There's all kinds of stuff. But for the most part, like we're talking about diet. When the bees run out of food and resources, they'll eat their eggs and young larvae and things like that. So is it, the question is this is there only open brewed? So let's talk about the investment that the bees have. When they're responding to a lack of resources, a lack of pollen, a lack of,

of carbohydrates that they get from the honey. When that stuff dwindles and they run out of it, of course they fall back on just conserving themselves. And so they definitely cannibalize the brood. I've seen that. They eat the eggs, they eat the brood. Chewed brood, bald brood, things like that are caused by other things.

So here's what can happen also. And this is one of my cautionary tales for those of you who pull open beehives in winter. Remember, population of your bees are dwindling all winter long. Even though they are producing some brood, it's survivor stock, survivor numbers. So when we open them up and we have capped brood, they're no longer feeding them so they don't have that demand on your bees. But what are they doing? They're maintaining warmth over those brood. So what you can get out of that sometimes is if you open a hive

and you just want to see, because you're just curious, you just want to know, nice, all day you open it up and you see all this capped brood and you admire it you look at it you think it's great you can actually chill the brood and if you don't see really big numbers of bees it can cover the brood they have to cover it to keep it warm sometimes you'll see holes in the brood and that's where one bee can get in the hole and with its thorax warm six adjacent cells to survival temperatures but we add to that demand that metabolic demand on the part of the bees because they have to keep it warm so if we chill the hive if they run out of resources and they can't keep the brood warm and this can happen we're in a treacherous time kind of right now this is why i always say there's no reason to open the hive to check everything out

and find out what's dying what's dead is still early take your time step back don't do it and for those of you who just can't help yourselves like I don't listen to Fred I'm gonna get out there and check my bees out because I was on another video that said it doesn't matter I can open them up in any weather and they're gonna do great so when you do that and you find your dead out and you see a cluster of bees the size of a baseball or a softball or something you know like it it's like this and it spreads across three or four frames and you're like yep there they are all dead and then you go ahead and you pull them apart you start looking at all the dead bees don't forget Scoop a bunch of those out into a Ziploc baggie, they're dead anyway.

Do it, please. I want you to have the visual. I want you to understand the weight of what you just did when you open up your hive. So you brush all those bees in there. Put them in a Ziploc baggie, take them inside, put them on your kitchen table. And then when you realize that three quarters of those dead bees, that dead cluster, the point of no return bees, when you realize that now they're walking all of them, over. I still have snow bees alive. Right now, the ones that I went and collected and made a

video about them. Dead in the snow. Collected them, dead bees, put them in there still alive. So what I'm saying is, now that's not going to be a robust colony of bees. They're not going to take off and just do super great. But if you've done your job and you've provided them, and it is your job, if you're with me on this, to make sure there's emergency rights. available to those bees we have a warm-up right now you think for one minute they're not up there trying to get into some kind of feed directly above them even the tiniest clusters have some hope of recovering now they don't explode you don't end up with a giant swarm coming out of them but what you get are

these remarkable survivors that have a tiny cluster and manage to still function when the weather warms back up and you provide them with resources so and then they start brooding up and so Because remember, there are other things that happen. Because you have a set way of things in your mind, I suppose. So I want you to learn from things I've done with bees here. So you look at the numbers and you say, look at that. Softball size, they'll never make it.

They'll just never make it. And you just write them off. Do you know what drift is? So when they do start brooding up, Let's say they made it. Let's say you didn't ruin their lives by early exposure to the cold and just tearing things apart because you just feel like it's the time to do it. Let's say that a skeleton crew is alive and swings into action and there's a queen in there.

They need resources. They need numbers. They need to build up. There's kind of a general rule of thumb. You need about 5,000 bees to survive and a use social structure like that. But what if I told you that they get volunteers? What if I told you that once they're alive, other colonies that have surplus foragers that they drift?

Do you know that sometimes they just investigate other colonies and move in and join their numbers? And what are they bringing with them? Resources. And what you can do, these are also the colonies that are so small that on a nice warm day, when every other colony is flying, they're not. They're waiting until it's a good, 65 degrees out that there will be minimum energy expended maximum return when they come back so

that's where the ones they seem dead because my wife does this too she's a dead colony she goes oh there's a dead one you did something and then we get a nice warm day or later the same day all of a sudden they spring to life and those are the ones that we can help we can put a pollen patty in there we can put sugar syrup on once the weather clears up and just resuscitate them. Does this make sense economically? No, not at all. And that's why, because commercial beekeepers have no patience for this.

They see that, underperforming, never going to make grade, all that stuff. I don't care about that on a backyard beekeeper. I'm playing with them. I want to see them make it because that's good emotional medicine for me to see them make it. That's all I'm saying. Give them a chance. Give your bees a chance. Don't decide.

them and remember what it said collect them if you doubt me collect them shake them off clean them out put them on your table let them warm up see what happens then so that was it for question 10 it's the end of the day so that's it clean your entrances plan of the week right now watch the hive visor video on how to make them they benefit you they benefit your beads they're easy to do check your feed check your resources keep it good going keep it on if you are at the west virginia conference right now come over and say hello i would love to talk to you and start your seeds if you haven't done it already indoor seeds starting this is the time to do it you can also do something called frost seeding if you don't know what that is you've had a low temp

overnight but it's going to warm up during the day and the ground is frosty and crispy and crunchy you can go out in things like borage. You can just broadcast them in areas where you want to see the borage grow. And then when the morning warms and the frost melts and these openings in the soil close up as the soil gets moist and warm, they start your seeds for you. It's a lot of fun. It's a hands-off method.

That's all I have for today. I want to thank you for being with me. And I wish you all the best with your bees and at spring arise where you are. Thanks for watching. I'm Frederick Don and this has been The Way to Be.