The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A Episode 346 your bees may be starving, let's fix that.

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

This is the audio track from todays YouTube:  https://youtu.be/-jmFYN-QW34

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today is Friday, March the 6th of 2026. This is back here at beekeeping questions and answers episode number 346. I'm Frederick Dunn and... So I'm really glad that you're here. By the way, that was the West Virginia Beekeepers Association. I was at their conference last weekend. What a great group of people. Somebody said they wouldn't do that if I asked them to and yet they still did. So I'm thankful for that. If you want to know what we're going to talk about today, please go down in the video description.

You'll see all the topics listed in order. You'll also see timestamps later that will allow you to skip along through this what's probably going to be a very long Q&A because I'm unsupervised tonight. My wife is off supervising and babysitting the grand monkeys, so I hope that she's surviving. Hope everything's okay. So maybe you want to know how you submit a topic for a Friday Q&A. Well, you go to my website, which is the way to be.org.

You click on the page mark contact. There's a form there. You fill it out, and you just might end up on one of the Friday Q&A. So I'm grateful for those who do that. And what else? Maybe you've got something on your mind right now. You can't wait. You have to talk to somebody.

Maybe you've got a picture, and you don't know how to show it on YouTube. You know why you can't show it on YouTube. All you can do is make comments. So if you go to the Way to Be Fellowship, which is on Facebook, you'll find a bunch of people there day and night, willing to give their opinions. Most of their opinions are good. And that's, you know, a peer group.

So you're going to love it. It's going to be great. And so I know what you want to know. What's going on outside? Well, let me tell you, it's too late because it's the end of the day. But Friday, today, is the very best day over the next seven. And where am I located? Northeastern part of the United States.

states northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania know what's known as the snow belt but the snow's gone good riddance it got all the way up to 67 degrees Fahrenheit today but the warmest days tomorrow so you might think wow Saturday that's going to be great I'm going to get out there and take care of my bees well the joke's on you because it's going to rain so let's just do the rundown at the time of my making this recording of course it is 54 degrees Fahrenheit which is 12.2 degrees Celsius 7.2 mile per hour of winds, not bad at all, 11.5 kilometers per hour, if you're wondering.

I bet you want to know what the humidity is. The relative humidity is 99% relative humidity because it's been sprinkling on and off. And as I mentioned, it's going to hit 67 degrees Fahrenheit. They're never wrong. It's absolutely going to hit that, which is 19.4 degrees Celsius. You can go outside without your coat on, but listen to me. If you're going in your B yard, don't you go out there without a veil. I know you think that you're going to do something quick. You're just going to check stuff out. Next thing you know, you're stung in the face, in the eye, in the nose, in the ear.

All the places you don't want to be stung. So please wear a veil. The bees are flying. And before we even get in today's questions, I want to alert you that if you have an opportunity, if you're in the northeast and you have this warm up right now, pollen is coming in, but it's not great. and when the pollen comes in, they need carbohydrates to take care of it.

So what does that mean? Why should you care? Well, if they're running out of honey and you don't put sugar syrup on there or a hive life fondant patty or something like that, they can run out of carbs. What happens when they run out of carbs? They're going to eat their eggs. I know it's a sad story, but they're going to go back in there and they're going to eat the eggs and they're going to eat their open larvae and they're going to have a setback because they can't forage when it's raining and it's going to be raining this weekend.

So I told you. If you fail to do it, it's on you. And I also showed some troubling close-ups in the opening scenario there. You'll see some bees that were stuck on the edges of the landing board with their tongues out. They're starving. So I don't believe in this Darwinian let them just die or fly. They take care of them. Sugar, it's all it takes. Super easy.

Put hive alive in the sugar syrup. have hive alive syrup to put in your sugar syrup don't hold off use sugar syrup on its own how much should you use let's just go ahead and start off with that don't fill it up we're just trying to bridge them through the rainy days ahead because pollen is coming in nectar soon to follow so we're just trying to bridge it so they don't turn on themselves so they don't cannibalize things inside the hive when they have low resources you can do it it's going to be easy and i took care of the supervisors hive of course i know he's going to ask you might be watching right now so i want to to know that I did my duty.

So anyway, the pollen levels are low. So a lot of things could be sources of pollen. And I'll do a quick run down here. Again, this is related to my area. Your area might be different, but juniper, cedar, and elm. Those are producing pollen. Juniper and maple trace elements of pollen. So it could be low, mixed trees.

And then when we get into Monday and Tuesday in this neck of the woods, dormant. That means no pollen. You know why? It's going to get cold again. And we're going to get a cold snap. And, of course, it's going to rain, and there's going to be fog, and it's going to work against the bees. That's why you as the beekeeper can boost her carbohydrates.

Please do it. So by the time we get to Wednesday and Thursday, March the 12th, by the way, let's tie in the calendar dates. We'll have willow and poplar trace elements to trace bits of protein coming in in the form of pollen. It's going to be great. They're going to do super. And I can't get into all the different colors and stuff. But that's it.

I want you to know that now. So it's too late tonight because I'm late today. In fact, very late. And I just wanted to address those who are pinging me with questions about should I put a pollen sub on? Should I put pollen on for the bees? Should I put pollen patties on for the bees? And I want to point out to you that there's a priority.

water first your bees need water well it's clear that they have that it's everywhere so the next thing that they need that they're not getting yet carbohydrates what are the carbohydrates in the environment it's going to be the nectar that comes from the nectaries of the flowers so that's not coming in in the same amounts that the pollen is so that's why they're at high risk they're only at high risk if the resources inside the hive have diminished the good news is with the warm up they'll be spreading out inside the hive and getting to those capped honey frames that they haven't been using while they were tightly clustered during wintertime. So if it's in there, if you tip your hive and it's still heavy, they have access to stuff. That's good news. I also want you to watch out for robbing.

How do you know if all that activity at the entrance is robbing or if it's resident bees? Well, it's going to be because if they're bringing in pollen, once the pollen flow starts and it has, apparently, pollen going in, those aren't robbers. Robbers don't bring groceries, they take them. So you'll know that's going on. If they're cleaning house, if they're dragging out, bits and pieces of propolis and stuff and wasted comb, that's good too. That shows that they're housekeeping, that they live there,

their residence. So I hope it's all going well. Let's jump right in with question number one, which comes from, this is a cool name, by the way, Palooza party. Random question, when the bees eat pollen patties inside the hive, they're swallowing versus packing baskets, right?

Well, that's a good question. And it's something that I think about a lot. And so when do the bees derive the proteins from the pollen? Now, we know that when your bees fly out and they visit flowers that have pollen, and they get on the pollen anthers, and they come back with the pollen, they come in, and those foragers scratch off the pollen directly into the cells in the hive, usually somewhere near the brood, right? And so this time of year, in particular, open cells near and in the brood get pollen.

And then the nurse bees go right to work on it. And this is the beginnings of what we call bee bread. So what happens there is it goes through a fermentation process, which is why if you go into an observation hive building, such as the one we have here, it smells like something's fermenting. It's bee bread. And they're bringing a lot of it in.

That observation hive, one in particular, is bringing in a steady stream of pollen. So in about three days, we're going to smell that. Now, so the question comes up and I've had this question myself, so it's a great one. So when we put in pollen patties, let's just say, for example, it's the hive alive, 15% pollen paddy. That means there's real pollen in it. Now, do the bees consume that directly? They do, because they can't separate it from the patty and then pack it on their corbicular, their hind legs, and take it over and act as if they're foraging for pollen.

It's a very different process. So then, when do they get the proteins out of the pollen? This was fun because I just happened to be having breakfast a couple of weeks back with Randy Oliver. I hope you've heard of them. Scientific beekeeping. And so I posed the question to Randy because why not? You have a great resource right there. At what point does the pollen actually release its contents to the bees for digestion?

And it was pretty quick about that as if you'd had the question before. So the bee bread, let's backtrack the bee bread in the cells that the nurse bees take care of. consume it and then they're going to produce nourishment from their own bodies for the brood. And then other bees also consume and use pollen and proteins. So they consume it directly. What happens is the pollen grains that go in and they're very tough by the way. And you may have heard lots of discussion, which is why I have curious questions about that for the experts. You know, if the pollen grains go through the humans, mostly untouched, in other words, they come out the way they went in if you know what I'm saying we don't really get anything out of

them so eating pollen on your salad what did that do basically nothing but people will still buy it and they'll sprinkle it all over their salads and they'll eat it however the bee it's mid gut so when a bee eat something it's got a crop that's the first chamber and in that crop that's where they transport water if it's a water bee that's where they transport nectar if it's a nectar gatherer and there's a little valve there it's called the pro ventricular and that opens and closes to allow stuff that's in that crop to progress into the digestive system so pro ventricular what's next the ventricular i'm not going to load you up with a bunch of terms however it's the mid gut where the pollen actually releases its proteins and becomes digestible to the honeybee

so they do not have to take it through the fermentation process and that was great Do you imagine just sitting down and having somebody like that just right across the table from me? You just ping them with a whole bunch of questions and then get away clean without saying something wrong. So that worked. It was great. And that's exactly what happens. So I found that very interesting. So they consumed the pollen patty. Now here's the thing. Does a pollen patty take the place of, let's say, stored honey? Would they get carbohydrates from it? Not in a meaningful way. So they don't get enough of it to actually warm the bird. which is critical. Diet's one thing, the energy to perform the functions inside the hive and keep it at 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit while they're at it is a carbohydrate hit.

That's why I was out there today putting sugar syrup on one-to-one sugar, by the way, for those who want to know, that's one part sugar, one part water. And then I did do the two teaspoons of hive-alive liquid. And I put that on there. Now I can feel good. When it starts It rains all day tomorrow. I'll know that the bees are making it because there was a quick turnaround in a couple of those hives. They were on a thread. So I want to thank Paloosa party for asking that question because the bees do handle things different. And remember when Randy Oliver smashed the guts of a lot of bees to find out which bees in wintertime had consumed proteins and had pollen in their mid-gut, guess what? Every sample that he smashed. So they're all getting that in wintertime. Question number two comes from Den B-7181 as a YouTube channel name. Good video. All your snow is gone and your highs look good. Our winter is not over. We still have over two feet of snow on the ground.

But it was 50 degrees yesterday and my bees were out doing cleansing flights. I noticed you had an upper entrance on your B-smart insulated inner cover and some didn't try something different. Okay, so here's the thing. And this is interesting and that's why I intentionally, because of this question, went out today and focused on that entrance on the one hive that has a B-smart insulated inner cover on it with the upper entrance which I never use. Now the problem was I didn't close it off well. I didn't cover those holes with a luminized tape like I wanted to, the HVAC tape. You know what I'm talking about. This is it right here. Always have a roll of that handy with your kit. So I've fallen behind in that area, but here's the thing.

What I wanted to do because some people noticed that in another video and said, whoa, that's robbing. That's why they're going through the upper entrance. Nope. Remember what I said earlier. If they're bringing in pollen, they're not robbers and they were bringing in pollen. So don't just rely on my word. Look at the video sequence that shows it. They're bringing in pollen.

So what did they do? They chew through the polycyrene insulated insert in the B-smart inner cover. I don't like them to use that, but once they get started, that's it. And that's that a problem? Just let them go. I mean, they'll just have their brood up there, and then they'll work their way backwards from the brood into storing honey and everything else. It'll just be inverted. Is that good? No, it's not good.

In fact, before sunrise tomorrow, I'm going to mess with their plants. I'm going to go out there and stick a dowel in there, a wooden towel. Before the sun comes up, before they start flying. And guess what they're going to have to do there? I can have to go downstairs and use that entrance on the landing board. There's a method to my madness. If I leave an entrance open in the top of a hive this time of a year, they'll be brooding right there.

So if I close it off now while it's early, then they will eventually migrate down to where the ventilation is, which is on the landing board, which is where the entrance reducer is, and then they will all start using that as their only entrance, which is what I want. This is what beam management is. Convincing the bees to do what you want to do until they themselves also want to do it. It's a battle of wits and we can win. You can win it. So I'm closing it up. I don't want them to use that top one and because that one is damaged,

it was an early version by the way of the beast mark insulated inner cover. And so I'm going to take it apart and I just haven't ever replacement. So I'm going to swap out the entire cover. once they're once they move down not right now not right away i'm going to do it later you'll see i'm going to win this and so but that's the logic behind it wherever the entrance is they're comfortable of course having their brood near the entrance because that's where they have the best control over the air exchange and that's what we want to do multiple entrances are a risk if you have multiple entrances which that hive currently does and it's a big hive um multiple

Instable entrances mean that if you've got predators of your bees, they can get in there. And so you can, you know what? I don't want to go off on a tangent, but I found a pygmy shrew. And I was very interested in that thing. It was in one of our buildings and super tiny. And it was a little concerned that maybe the pygmy shrew can get through a three-eighths-inch opening. But rest assured it can't. They're cool to see, though.

and that is not a rodent, by the way, that's a venomous mammal that goes around and kills other things. It's a little nightmare on four feet. So, anyway, we don't want small high beetles to be able to get in through your hives. You want a single entrance that your bees are going to defend well, because I don't know where you are, but small high beetles might be trying to get into your hives already. The other thing is wax moths. Wax moths come through. They deposit their little eggs in different places, crevices and things,

and then, of course, the eggs hatch, and the little wax marts. wax worms work their way and your hive limit the number of entrances hopefully to one you'll be helping your bees so i uh think that's about it so that upper entrance it was not robbing uh they're actually just using it and they have a negligent beekeeper taking care of it they didn't fix it because that was a problem last fall why didn't i fix it last fall because i knew the colony wasn't going to make it see i didn't care i knew they were not going to survive winter and here they are and that story is playing out over and over in my apiary the target is 10 colonies we're out of control here at over 40 not happy okay moving on question number three comes from

uncle john junior 67 says what's the advantage of those big entrance plastic dials that you have they look to be about six to eight inches in diameter compared to the smaller 3.75 or 2.7 plastic discs. So where you see these, I wish I had one so I could show it to you. And here it is. So these are on my small nucleus hives. And the reason is because the nucleus hives, most of them do not have a standard landing board with an entrance reducer. In fact, the bottom of that nucleus hive is permanently mounted to the box. It doesn't even come off of that. So then there's a hole in the front of the nucleus hive. And then we've got this control wheel on the front of the hive so we can do all these different things

first of all i want to tell you where the control wheel comes from because they know that's going to be the next question they come from better be these are actually made by better be and i have no discount for you although if you go shopping for one pester them ask them for the fred done discount and make them explain why they don't have one of those okay moving on this wheel is fantastic for any front-facing no landing board style entrance. Now if you go to the way to be.org and you look at the page that has the prints and drawings that you can get for free, by the way,

cost you absolutely nothing. You're gonna find that we've arrived at a preferred entrance shape and size. And for long length roth hides in particular, we have a three eighth inch by three inch wide entrance. entrance three eighth inch high three inch wide so if i had a drawing it would look like this and then what you see there is where the entrance will be so we're going to look at the face of a long length roth hive this would be the entrance on one side and that little entrance would be

three eighth inch high three inches long it would not change throughout the year and then it shows how this could go over the front of that long length draw hive and when it's wide open that full three-eighths by three-inch entrance would be available. So the question two is what are these other configurations for? Well let's start with the smallest one. The smallest one is just a screen for ventilation. So that's what that is. It's a screen for ventilation that also doesn't permit what pest. It does not permit the small high beetle to get in. So there you have that. The next one would be only workers get through this one here. So only the worker bees, which would be, which means what can't get through it the queen can't get out so if you hive to swarm let's say

you didn't want them to get away but you wanted the foragers to be able to get out and start doing their work this is the one you would set and with a nice three inch wide opening on the face so you could use a dial like this you have plenty of room for them to work to come and go through so then there's a slightly larger one so let's go here this is a um drone excluder but it lets the queen through. So it would be blocking your drones, but it also doesn't just block drones. It would block bumblebees from getting in also. So again, workers can get through and you're set. And then you're wide open again. So that's what that's for. You have a lot of control with it. You know what it doesn't have that I don't like that I want to have if anybody's listening? There's no

complete closed version on this there's no section here so since i personally am not going to use the drone part over here the bumblebee blocker i think i could put something on that and close it right up and then if i ever wanted to close it completely i would be able to do that if you had multiple entrances on the hive you want to close some up that would be that so i hope that explains it better be seldom i think a buy them in packs of five or something like that super handy highly recommend you get them tell them i sent you question number four moving on this comes from michelle from troy michigan is it possible for a queen to cause a disease transmitted to her eggs or larvae i know she can be old and run out of sperm or be poorly mated

initially but cause sickness in the hive followed by two question marks yes your queen honey bee can pass on diseases inside the hide what's one of the biggest concerns what is a disease that she's most likely to be able to transmit to the brute deform wing virus sometimes you just see it as dw v disease deformed wing virus it doesn't just spread to your own bees and they can't fly when they have it because their wings are deformed they can't fly so you find these little bees workers and drones in some cases you even see them they'll have little thready, twisted, mutated wings.

And so they don't go anywhere. So everything happens inside the hive. So these are things that you look for. So you see a foreign wing virus. Black queen cell virus. But you think, well, it kills the queen. Why would it be a virus that the queen would have? Because sometimes it's sublethal.

So they can have it, just not enough to where it kills them. See what I'm saying? So if it doesn't kill them, it's still there, which means they can transmit it. and sack brood, which I have had, by the way, at my long Langstroth hive. And if you want to see what that stuff looks like, it's pretty disgusting. You can go to my YouTube page, which is Frederick Dunn, look at the little search bar and type in sackbrood. It is a long Langstroth hive inspection.

I also show you how to do the rope test, and I also show you how to do a field test for American foul brood and European foul brood. Those tests are no longer available, super annoying. But one of the things that you can look for, for example, is, spotty brood. So if there's a lot of spotty brood, if things aren't looking good in there, or if you've got stunted larvae, larvae that aren't developing right, there's just something wrong with them. High might loads. Now high might loads indicate a colony that's not doing a very good job of taking care of itself in spite of all of your perfect efforts. So if you've got any of those things, that is a colony that's worth requeaning. Now of course you don't want to just requeen

eye that might have American foul brood or something like that be aware but if it's just spotty brood low brood poor pattern uh if there's generally just something off some people even requeen over chalk brood for example so swapping out your queen this is the time of year to do that by the way hey how would you swap out your queen would you go to the queen store and buy one jump online order one through the mail no because you have other colonies i hope two is one and one is none. So what you would do is when you're super robust

top performing colony with perfect brood and everything else starts to produce queen cells, you pay attention to them. And when they have produced their queen cells, that means they're going to swarm. They're on their way out.

They're driving out the current queen. So you take the current queen because she's obviously a top performer. You take her in a frame of brood, capped brood, and you put her in this hive at the same time that you remove, you serp, whatever you want to call it, you displace the current queen. And you put them in there.

How long should you wait? You can give it an hour or two. They will be happy to jump ship and go with a stronger, better, healthier queen right away. And you're bringing in brood with her. So that means you're going to pull a frame out of the brood area that is the poorest condition. So swap it out, bring that in. and then you've got your other colony that was going to replace her anyway and it's in springtime chances of mating are really high and everything's just going to go perfect it's going to work out do what to say it's going to work great

question number five comes from mark from chillicothe ohio that's a funny name i have to think it's a native american name anyway i have a hive that i want to move into different equipment good move by the way I'm only moving it less than three feet, but into a completely different set of boxes. Any advice in the process or gotchas I should look out for? Actually, this makes it very easy because I'm going to be doing this myself this year. I'm going to move some old equipment. I'm going to take the frames, the colony that's occupying it. I'm going to pull them out.

I'm going to put them in brand new equipment. And this is easy. You don't have to move it very far. Here's why. When your bees are moved, so let's talk time of day. do it in the middle of the day okay so and you'll keep it in the same spot just for starters so you'll take all of your let's say it's a stack of two boxes three boxes top box move it over set it on another hive stand that's right next to you that's what i use uh be smart designs uh has these lightweight

black plastic hive stands that lasts forever and ever and ever and you can put a wooden platform on it and then you bring it with you when you're doing an inspection you set your stuff on it don't put your stuff on the ground please because right now anyway the ground's all wet you just don't want to plus you don't have been all the way down to the ground take the top box take the cover invert it put it on that high stand take your top box as is set it right on the hide stand take your next box down take it off sit on top of that box and then the bottom box becomes the top box and you see where I'm headed now you take your new equipment so you put the bottom board in and then you put

the new brood box in now you transfer the frames keeping them in the same order that they're in in the hive that you're taking apart check that box go to the next box put your new box on so now we're two boxes assuming that's what the hide that you're taken apart has and transfer again all those frames over and match them up again and then you put the inner cover on hopefully it's insulated and you put your outer cover on and then they're set now nightfall comes close them up then you take them to your new spot the follow day first of all they're getting used to a new configuration a new hive and they can have a new entrance hopefully when they do that they naturally reorient they start to do their orientation flights like whoa

what's changed why is the front porch different and they zigzag back and forth they check it all out and then they'll be coming back to that so it's the easiest way to move things because it makes you be suspicious and they're they're in learning mode again this is why sometimes when people move a hive they stick a bunch of grass or twigs or something that changes their route to the entrance of the hive which makes them re-register where the hive entrance is and this is for of course the foragers that are headed out to go and get the resources but it's very easy to do and uh i've not i used to practice the you know hauling them away and bringing them back thing stop doing it because it's really easy i never found orphaned bees. Question number six, Diane from Warren, New Jersey. So it says, so far, all two of my colonies

are still alive, but the weather's challenging. I'm considering providing free choice pollen sub like you do in cardboard egg cartons. That's right, I do. How far away from the apiary do you place them? Is it like honey and you want it some ways away or can I put it nearby? This is a great question, and I'm glad we're asking these questions early in the year. Wherever you set up your feeding or robbing station, it should be a consistent location because bees have a pretty decent memory when it comes to once they've found a resource, they'll fly through inclement weather to locate it again. So if they know, for example, you put out sugar syrup or something like that. And of course sugar syrup, we just want to caution you.

It should only be out before you start to put your honey soupers on. We don't want sugar syrup. in our honey later. So, but remember what I said at the beginning of today's Q&A. You want to make sure that they're fully loaded with carbohydrate resources before we push any kind of pollen booster on that. And I'll just go right to the top of the scientific chart when it comes to pollen substitutes. AB 23 is outperforming all others. Number two is Megaby. Number three is Ultrabee. So what do I have that I'm doing experiments with right now, AB 23? I'm not going to tell you my experiments because I want to keep you in suspension. But so when it comes to pollen, see, that's why the pollen by itself doesn't really matter so much, you know,

proximity to your apiary because it's a feeding station, regardless of what you put out there. Pollensub is generally not something that, for example, kicks off a big robbing frenzy, like sugar syrup can. But because it's a predictable resource location that we want our scouts to check in on when they're zinging back and forth, that's where you put your pollen sub. Now I want to tell you also my favorite practices when it comes to pollen sub. It should be in the sun. I find that the bees go to sunny pollen substitute quicker, earlier, more frequently than they do pollen substitute that's in the shade.

And so I also don't bring it out until they're in high pollen hunting mode, which happens when? Somewhere afternoon. So prime pollen hunting would happen just before noon to about 3 p.m. And that's right. We're moving our clocks forward this weekend. You're going to lose an hour. So anyway, when the sun is shining, you see the foragers, checking out your feeding station, take the pollen sub out there.

Now, when it gets stark, or it's going to rain or something like that, take it inside put it away put in a big Ziploc baggie and hold it over until the next sunny day when they're out actively foraging for pollen and so don't leave it overnight don't attract pests and things like that that's just my suggestion for you and the cardboard egg cartons are fantastic i have never found a single dead bee in that if you're one of these people that likes to put out bottles and segments of PVC pipe the four inch drain lines gutter things like that, you always find dead beads in them. That's on you.

It means you don't care about them. If you don't want to use something recyclable like egg cartons, and if bees die in that, all covered with pollen, you can't even see, that's on you. It's your fault. You did it to them because she didn't listen. All right, question number seven comes from Julius, from Ravana or Ravina, oh, Ravina, Ohio.

Is that how you say it? It says, second year beekeeper I lost one out of six I'm positive was due to moisture buildup on the inner cover you have mentioned a material used for moisture boards I would like to know what it is or the episode in which it's mentioned thanks julius so here's the thing I've never mentioned moisture boards so I don't know who I'm being confused with better not be you know who so anyway I don't have moisture boards because I don't use quilt boxes and things like that.

What I do now? Because this is my 20th year of keeping bees, just want to say. So I've done trial and error all this time. And so the insulated intercovers are solid, nothing goes through. There isn't even ventilation that passes through. So I've never had since I started doing insulation and no ever entrances. I've not had any condensation form over the center of the cluster of the bees. none since I started doing that because the dew point does not get achieved there it gets achieved or about the lower third of the cluster of the bees and these are things that we can even see inside

the observation hives for example but I've not had this problem so also the suggestion that there's moisture boards and things like that I might be getting confused with another YouTuber so because I don't know quilt boards no absorbent material at all above the hive and so I will say that insulation single entrance down below no venting no insulation no gaps or openings up above and you have to have at a very minimum if you're trying to keep condensation from forming directly above your cluster you must have an insulated inner cover and I also highly recommend an insulated outer cover and if you have insulated sidewalls make sure that the

hive top insulation exceeds the our value of all of your side walls. So what would you use? Double bubble, reflect takes, be smart, insulated in your covers. That's about it. Some people make their own. And that's good too. You can get Pink Panther foam board or whatever

and cut a hole in the middle of it. So you have an opportunity to feed your bees. And that's why the insulation is there for the barrier. But your feed is there. So you need more insulation over that. And then the bees can get up there while sheltered and protected. and access winter carbs and resources. So question number eight is next.

This comes from Jen from Charlotte, Mississippi. My husband and I are going through the Heroes to Hives program. It's very rigid in regards to how to test and treat for Veroa. You said you have a friend that doesn't treat. And I see in your new video about rapid hive, the grid on the bottom.

So rapid hive, the rapid, that's a license. hive and I did that interview with Dr. David Peck also at West Virginia and we talked about their new polystyrene hive system now the licein hive is not new it's been around you had a bunch of screws that you had to put in they were carbon steel screws kind of like the ones used for sheet rock they weren't even like rust proof or anything and it's a different animal right now so the new lison polyhive has a really outstanding bottom of board that I like a lot did not care at all for the previous one they also have a fantastic hive top feeder I did not care at all about the previous licensed

hive top feeder which was always in my way and this one allows you to feed solids or liquids and it's good to go so I bought one but anyway we're talking about these alternatives for treatment do I have a friend that's treatment for I have a bunch of friends that are treatment free and I know that this is a fantastic goal for lot of people but I don't know if people understand how much activity is involved in that and what treatment free really means for these people because they're breeding queens for the most part and they have an enormous resource of colonies of bees to select out those that are

managing verroa destructor mites on their own and is a very tiny percentage of the bees that they have from those that are doing that successfully biting the legs Purdue might ankle biters there are a lot of lines of bees that are designed for treatment-free practices the thing is that war is never over it goes on and on and on and on and so as I mentioned before those people that are breeding those bee weaver so Daniel Weaver down in Texas they do not treat. So they practice Darwinian beekeeping. They get rid of the colonies

that do not do well, the queens that do not do well, and they breed exclusively from those that are managing of road destructor mites. And that is something they work on every single year season after season. It never ends. So you would have

to do things like, for example, and they do have treatment-free friends who, just to be balanced on this, lost everything, last winter, not this winter now, but the winter before were trying their hand, backyard beekeepers. Usually around the third year, they were losing all of their colonies. So what they probably needed to do is constantly actively replace colonies, swarms, splits, and constantly select for hygienic stock that's also Varroa resistant. And it became for me, I just want to

explaining this. Much easier to keep my stock, not lose the colonies every winter, which is exactly what I was doing when I was treatment free for 10 years. Lost the stock, felt good about it because now I had survivor stock and I used survivor bees to replace my stock. Every year the same thing, lose a bunch of bees, replace them through summer. Lose a bunch of bees, replace them through summer. And there's a treatment-free beekeeper that I'm sure you all know. If you're watching me, you may watch Mr. Ed, Jeff Horschoff, who does not treat, and he says he has losses, but that his losses are no different than the losses that come from those who treat their bees, therefore he doesn't treat at all.

You would also, if you're paying attention, note that he collects lots of swarms and also restores his colonies that way as well. So there's a lot of ways to replace and restore your losses when you are treatment-free. So for me, it's been exhalic acid vaporization. This year we're going to use dribble when the extended relief sponges come out from Mike's bees, which is EasyOx. Then we'll be trying those out because that is an easy treatment that is very safe and it's organic. Resistance is not being demonstrated in the Verodistructer mites. So I choose personally to do the treatments as well as constantly monitoring for the stock that's doing well.

I just don't breed from and reproduce from colonies that require a lot of help. And not all of my colonies require help. But I'm not at the point where I could be treatment-free across the board, although it would be great if we could do that. So the lison hive is a good hive. it's insulated i you know so i'm bringing a polycyrene hive back into my apiary i did not have them before other than the lison in the past that i as i mentioned before i didn't really care for the configuration but i was impressed by the new one so there's two poly hives that will be in my apiary this year and they're

going to share a stand side by side and it's the hive IQ and the license of course hive IQ i'm not super excited about their hive top feeder system and their bottom board is an open bottom board where the liceon hive has a bottom board and that's what really as soon as he showed me the bottom board i thought yes an enclosed screened bottom board the removable tray as described here with the grid on the bottom for counting for o destructor mites so it is set up for even if you've done a treatment you want to do mite drops so you want to count the mites that drop after you've done your treatment to prove that you've got some efficacy there and I'm not a big fan of treating without verifying that you have a mite drop or that you have effective treatment

or that the colony even needed treatment to begin with so that's a really good hive so the things you can do let's say you're sitting there you want to be treatment free I might send you to someone like Natalie Natali B Natalie B be be mindful less Crowder top bar hives they are a treatment-free organization so if you want to talk to people that are walking the talk they would be some people to check in with so that's what you want to look for people that are doing it have done it for a long time large scale see how they're managing when people who are treatment free won't let you look at their bees that's troubling for me. So if you're a natural, holistic treatment-free beekeeper, but nobody's allowed to look at

your colonies or no. See, this time of year is the time you want to see their bee arts. Because this is unbelievable but true. Some people claim 100% survivor chip of their bees and their treatment free because they've put their reputation out there so strongly that the ego is in the way and they can't bring themselves to admit they have profound losses when they do. And unless you're part of a monitoring program, it's just their word, if they won't show you the apiary. So this is the time of year when you have people that have treatment-free apiaries in the Northeast, can we look at your peace now? Can we see how they're behaving coming out of winter before they get a chance to, let's say they restocked them somehow or bought in packages and things like that?

to maintain, to keep, to save face with their organization. So we need people that are wide open, that are transparent about what they're doing and how it is or is not succeeding. And I've had people that told me they lost everything. The study that Penn State did, and I know that people get upset about it, but they evaluated organic, Royal Destructor Mike treatments, treatment-free, stock and then of course those that were using synthetics and the organics outperformed the synthetics and at the end of the study the treatment-free colonies were not existent so

because you know it's science and they were completely transparent about it and documented everything but then the argument could be made that they needed better stock they needed better genetics when they set up their treatment-free category for this field testing and it wasn't one apiary it wasn't a one-off it was spread out so um when it's under the microscope i'm just saying it it has not been a great path forward and there is something to be said that when you get a colony that is not treated not monitored not evaluated it has the potential to become a mite farm and then the bees as i've demonstrated over and over as a backyard beekeeper the amount of drift that happens in your backyard apiary is immense.

So a colony that's collapsing, a colony that is suffering under varro-destructor mites and the diseases that they carry will spread out through the other colonies and make colonies that are doing well on their own often hit critical health challenges and they will ultimately die out themselves and become vero-mite farms. So you have to actively monitor and be willing to remove colonies that have high varro-destructor mites. So people are effective at pulling drones out, whether they're in their caps, because that's when varroa destructor mites are in their reproducing.

Dr. Zachary Llamas has done fantastic work on evaluating that the drones, when they emerge out of their cells at the second day or third day of life they're very attractive to varroa destruct your mites in spring so they can actually attract mites away from your nurse bees and then they become mite magnets and you can remove those so there are non-treatment ways and then somebody else will chime in and say but that's a treatment you're treating them differently therefore you've treated them okay so i don't know what to say for those people maybe we can change it to minimal intervention or something. But when someone's brand new and they just want to go treatment-free,

I just want to know that it's not just about getting genetics. As soon as they swarm, as soon as your queen flies away, and you have a new queen and she gets made and your genetics are altered profoundly right away. So it's not solid. So the people that continually do it, that create these breeder queens,

which they charge so much money for, is because they've gone through a thousand colonies and gotten maybe three or four that become their breeder colonies. Most backyard beekeepers don't have that kind of resource to do that. So anyway, I just want to make it clear because I know a lot of people want that. I understand. I wanted it myself. Just when I pull frames and I see two or three founder of smites in a single cell, I have to do something about it.

I don't want to see them get munched on by these mites. Question number nine comes from Susan. cartersville georgia no carpentry skills in the comment section it says here could you recommend a company for eight frame observation hive thanks so as soon as someone says eight frame observation hive this is what i no longer use but let's say i used to have one the first observation hive i got which was super expensive by the way bonteira bees uh was eight frames so four high in pairs two frames two frames two frames two frames two frames two frames and it was great I learned a lot every winter it died so I'm not a fan I'm just going to say that right off the bat I'm not a fan of observation hives that have just a single frame stacked over one another

and the argument is we want to see the bees we want to see what they're doing well you'll eventually see them anyway I like them in threes when I went to triples so that means if you had all deeps it would be nine deep frames, three, three, glass on each side. When you have that, indoors or out, here's my thinking. If you have it out in a shed somewhere, which is sheltered from the wind,

and you insulate those glass panels, they can get through winter once you're in triples. They're out there right now. So we're walking that talk. I never got hives that were in Paris, even with two inches of verily. rigid foam board insulation all around the hive. I never got them to survive in that configuration. So we need at least three frames. That's my rule. So the reason I

preface with that is I'm not going to endorse or recommend an observation hive that's only in pairs. So we would look at the most inexpensive ones that are out there from a company called Little LaRue. And they have nine frames. So they've got the triple deeps, three, three and three. And then they've got the 12 frame, which are all mediums, but they're in four tiers. That, by the way, does very well. But they're in triples. And I realize when you have triples, you've got four surfaces you cannot see.

And I say, okay, because now you just have to wait until they finish drawing out the comb. So then you can see what they're doing on the face frames, on the outside. and they eventually do get there and you're going to see the queen laying you're going to see brooding you're going to see bee bread you're going to see all the things you just have to wait for it but it's healthier for the bees it's more manageable to the bees to have that so little laroo dirt cheap um i did send the bontara bees uh plans to somebody else because it's well designed they have those swivel hives tabletop swing view they have really good stuff and they will sell you plans too because I noticed a lot of stuff is out of stock.

They're just not selling it, but $800. And you have to buy the glazing for that too. So what I recommended when I sent those prints to someone else was that they shim it, shim the face of it. So instead of just in pairs, they can bump it out to add another frame and have it in triples. Now we've got a very durable setup for the bees that has a much better chance of surviving. and you still get to see what's going out of the bees it's fantastic and of course beersvillebees.com

I gave him a sketch of an observation hive I don't know how many observation hives he's built they do the ones that you carry to schools and show to people but a static hive setup I would go to him because he's a craftsman he's open to suggestion and of course can build to spec So once you decide that there's something that you want. But little to Rue, they ship them with glazing and everything ready to go right out of the box. And because it's inside a building, you don't have to paint it or anything. You could get that thing on Friday afternoon and have bees in it on Sunday. So easy.

Plus they don't pre-cut the hole. I like that. The entrance hole that goes through the observation hive, it's up to you to cut that and where you're going to put it. So when you're mounted on the wall, if you're mounting it on a tabletop or something like that, I also like that every single one of their hives has a screened bottom board with a removable insert. They get rid of the insert, build an enclosed space underneath, and we put sandwich trays underneath of it. So now you can pull out your varodisturitur mites and detritus, you know, propolis, bits of wax, whatever's falling in the bottom. And it's a great way to teach kids about what falls through the bottom of the hive and play a little game of what's that.

So magnifying glasses, everything. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, no carbonate skills, that's what I recommend. Question number 10 comes from Bill from Charlotte, Mississippi. I've been reading articles about how micro and nanoplastics are possibly affecting the health and wellness of honeybees. These plastics have been discovered in water, soil, air, and plants, and are honeybees and honey as well. What are your thoughts on this?

Okay, so it is a concern. You know what bothers me too? Is all the plastic water bottles that people drink out of? It's been proven that microplastics are in those water bottles too, so people are actually drinking microplastics? No way. That's why I have those reusable aluminum or stainless steel drinkers, which, by the way, are way overpriced.

But what I want to say about this is I pay attention to it. Here's why. Always look for the science. Always question everything. Whoever made something that's going in a beehive, ask about what it is what's it made out of if it's a foundation and your piece are going to be drawing out comb on that we better know that that's really good stuff we also better know that things like the flow hive this comes up a lot the flow super the flow frames are made out

of food grade plastic it doesn't mean we want those tiny micron bits and pieces of plastic in our honey so I'm very aware and very interested in any studies that show that microplastics are showing up in honey, the bee, the beeswax, the everything. We don't want it. So so far, those have been clear. Now, there's something that comes up frequently, and I see it, because I go to a lot of conferences, and I see this in presentations, and I'm never going to be the person that sits in the crowd and raises my hand and says,

yeah, you know this is putting microplasies to your bees, but I want to tell you so you can help get the word out. I don't have small high beetles, so I guess I don't have the challenges that a lot of people have. But one of the things that I see, which concerns me the most when it comes to microplastics and beehives, and this is proven. So the science has discovered this is a fact. And I can't apparently name the company that makes these things, but here's what I want you to imagine in your mind. A tiny pad that's designed to catch dust and wipe things up.

and it has little nano or microfilaments in it and then you'll see someone given a lecture and they'll be puffing them up and go on and you put these in your hive and the small high beetles get their feet con in they get stuck and they die and then but you understand what your bees are trying to do because it's in the hive your bees are working it they're trying to get it out trying to get rid of it it doesn't belong in the hive and it is plastic it is a synthetic gas where those tiny fibers have ultimately shown up. In the bee digestive system, yes. In the honey in the hive where those are placed. Yes. In the comb in the hive where the bees are, where those little pads are put in there to trap small hay beetles. Yes, the microplastics are going throughout the hive. Please don't. put these little pads with the little tiny fibers in them as a method for trapping small hive beetles. Please don't. All I can guess is that the people that recommend it are just unaware.

They just don't know that forcing your bees to contend with that material that it is ultimately finding its way into every aspect of the beehive. and the bees themselves and the honey that you're going to eat including the honey the bees eat so it's just an endless loop of it so for bill in charlotte mississippi it is very important to pay attention to these plastics and i realized that it did just mention a polycyrene hive so my concerns with those are um the bees don't really chew them the bees propolize them when i see the bees propylizing because i asked dr back about this when i was looking it over do they propolize them those surfaces? Do they get them sealed up well? And they do. So here's the thing. If they're propolizing it and sealing it up, then that's encapsulating it and keeping the bees

from working it and therefore preventing the microplastics from beginning as microplastics in the first place. Now, because the push is for more insulation. So if you can keep your bees off those surfaces, that I think would be good. I don't see evidence or haven't been able to find evidence that the plastic frames like premier foundations or acorn frames and foundations. I don't have evidence that those are liberating their plastic components into the bees themselves or into the honey or into the comb. So the bees aren't working them and scraping them. Now it did get concerned sometimes when we're uncapping honey frames that sometimes you can lightly shave, the plastic, the top bar of those frames if you're not paying attention. But there again, that's in the

honey processing. So that gets caught in your screen in your filter system for your honey, hopefully before it goes on. But so any place where you're wearing or scraping away at the surfaces of the plastics, I would definitely pay very close attention to that and try to make sure that's not happening. One of the ways that people are avoiding that from happening is using wooden frames. for your hives and then just using the premier or acorn inserts that are heavy wax plastic inserts that way we're not scraping away when we're uncapping on plastic surfaces instead we're scraping away at the wood so it is something to pay attention to it is something to be aware of and of course i think about things like american foul brood which i've never had when i was going around to the

different apiaries and photographing honeybees and their maladies and their maladies and things like that, we went to an apiary that did have American foul brewed. All the equipment there was wooden. But I did wonder, since they burn it, since they dig a pit and they burn the stuff, what will we be doing with the polyhives? And I did hear an inspector give a presentation who said that they would bag those up and they would go to the landfill instead of in the ground or burning them. Because when we burn them, you know, they release a lot of toxins into the air.

I didn't hear anyone discuss gamma radiation or anything like that that would be effective in killing American fowlbrew. So we need something because to deal with the plastics, of course, in the end, these things don't decompose. They go for a long time. Now, something that can make it feel good if we're into polyhives and thinking about what to do with it at the end of useful life, there are companies that want these polycyrene.

remnants they repurpose them and make other things out of them the problem generally is that the plants and areas that use and recycle those are not local to the big cities in the northeast where a lot of this is being generated so think of the polystyrene solo cups you know the little the little polystyrene coffee cups that are solo um so we have a lot of plastic i agree we probably should be looking at ways to reduce that and then we get hit with but it's lightweight and it's inexpensive to use and it can take on any form and it can keep her bees warm in winter so that's I think that's the big selling feature for it when you pick up a polyhive it weighs nothing and it is pretty rugged so I don't know what to say but pay attention to the science see where it is getting

into it and we know for sure for a fact that those little those little pads are getting into everything so always look for studies look to see where it's showing up keep it out of your body for sure question number 11 comes from lucky crown honey back here'd be keeping episode 345 why can't we call it ferretic phase now so we don't know what we're talking about and this goes back to Cornell. I was very interested. Cornell was good at updating us on shifts in terms. So if I say ferretic phase, what are we even talking about?

We're talking about the varro destructor mite that lives in the hive that feeds on your bees that spreads pathogens. So we want to kill it. So they used to say it's in the dispersal phase. That means it's not protected by a cap, which normally happens when you have a bee that's in a pupa state. So that's where they reproduce under those cappings, which protects them from treatments like exhalic acid vaporization. So we don't say ferretic anymore. We say dispersal phase. And so the difference is because they misunderstood what they were doing.

Ferretic just means they're not reproducing and they're out riding around on other things. So they're like travelers, right? so just hitching a ride but when they understood that they weren't just hitching a ride on the bees when they were out and about they were actually up in the segments of their abdomen and they were feeding on the fat stores they used to think they were feeding on the hemolymph now it's the fat stores thanks to dr sammy Samuel ramsie who did those studies anyway so they're actually feeding they're still parasitizing the host so that's the difference That's the dispersal phase now because it's actively parasitizing even when it's out of the pupa cell,

where before they thought it was just ferretic, just exposed, scooting around, waiting for another opportunity to get into a cell where, of course, another B would be entering its pupa state. So that's why. That's the difference. It's not that you can't say it. Many people still say they're in the ferretic mites, but that's so 10 minutes ago. because people in the know it's dispersal phase no entomologists they know that stuff this question comes from Michael Moore I wish this were the documentarian documentary guy it's not what is the safest way to buy foundation online

very worried about AFP and other diseases is there a way I can test a foundation before putting it in or on my hives no there really is And here's the thing. If American foulbrewed were being spread that way through commercially available wax coating, let's say, on foundation or wax foundation that you buy and stuff like that, people are able to capitalize on this a lot because I fell for that. I bought Spanish beeswax because it was coming from areas that were treatment free.

Paid a lot for that foundation. But then we have to, let's just think about it. when we're getting wax foundation from known sources good sources good names by the way i think it's very important to go with reputable sellers or local beekeepers that you trust that are telling you the truth about what they're doing and so the big thing is not so much american foul brood or european foul brood being transmitted in your beeswax that you're using to maybe prime and coat the surfaces of your foundation and things like that they're coming with pesticides already in them one of the pesticides that's prevalent it seems in all bees wax whether you treat or don't

is kumafas so it's out there and i ask veterinarians about it because someone said they think that they're treating other farm animals or farms with it and so somehow it's showing up where your bees are foraging and they're bringing it back because the complaint has always been this is from bee keepers who treat with that and but they haven't treated with it for a long time and it still persists in your beeswax so this is one of the reasons we don't let beeswax stay in the hive for beyond five years for me personally just based on what i know research that i do um so afb has not been that big a deal but it is exactly why when they find American foul brood that everything gets destroyed there's no chance or they're trying to

profoundly reduce the chance that it would spread of course I mean it can be on hive tools it can be on the hive equipment frames this is why we burn everything so if you're in an area this is so I'm trying to bring this into a practical non- fretting situation if you're in an area where you haven't had American foul brood for hundreds of miles in every direction of you get the local beeswax and use that there's a very good chance that there's no afp in your beeswax so the other part is you just have to know you just have to know so you send a chunk of the wax that you just bought at a big conference you bought big blocks of wax and now you want to find out if it's got anything in it it's expensive to test for so you can look it up

if it's worth the money to you and i'm not going to recommend a specific lab for that and your inspectors can't be played. So if you get your B inspectors out, say, hey, I think I have questions about the swacks over here. Maybe you send that off to the lab, find out what's going on with it. And would you check for AFB while you're at it? Yeah, you know, months later, you get those results, by the way. And by then, what, are you going to wait months for that?

It doesn't work. They don't do it. They don't fall for it. You can't use the government tax dollar to do it. but if you want to you can of course go to sources that swear that they are 100% free but I think they also know you're not going to spend the money to go and have that tested and if I had fat stacks if I had unlimited resource I would buy foundation from a bunch of different prominent suppliers I would tag it submit it get it tested and see what's going on but I don't have the money

can't do it so I'm just going to be trusting for now that's all I can say and rest assured if those around you aren't getting American foul brewed from the foundation that they have I think we're pretty safe the next question comes from Tom's tumblebees hi Fred do the yellow leg hornets when wintering over is it only the queen that winters over and when our hornets winter over is that only the queen would show up on warm house sides and are easily targeted in late fall and early spring kill the queen kill them all first of all was with all this killing what's going on so this question is highly contingent upon where you live so i live in the state of

pennsylvania it gets cold here and i like to involve the grand monkeys my supervisor in particular he loves killing things a little troubling anyway uh bald-faced hornets nobody feels bad about those not a true hornet just called that they're also called bull hornets bullet hornets hornets hornets with attitudes, whatever you want to call them. They're distinctive. Black and pale yellow to white markings. So last fall, because we did exactly that, Hey, Quinn, get out here.

We have a chance to tag them, track them, find their nest, get the nest, relocate the nest. And we did all of that. You would think I'd make a video about it, and I did. Hardly anybody watches it. But it's cool.

because the practices there apply to this. We get the European Hornets. I almost feel bad for them because we don't have a lot of them. They show up. Sometimes they're worried. There aren't very many around. I've never been, you know, like walking through the woods or the edge of the woods and all of a sudden been attacked by a European Hornet.

It has never happened. Our son had a colony of European Hornets in the tree in their yard right next to their patio all summer long. and we watch them come and go 20 feet away from us nothing ever happened you wouldn't get away with that with a bald face hornets they would build up and when they get to a decent size they just start attacking everything so the question is wintertime comes yes they die out because we're in an area where it freezes and gets really cold if you're in an area where it never freezes they have the potential to continue their nests throughout the year and that's why in southern states you end up with monster-sized nests, right? Because they can continue to build. And so for us here, where it gets cold, what is wintering over is in fact the queen. So what they do is at the end of the year, they make a bunch of queens. They make a bunch of drones. And the drones mate with the queens. So right in the same colony. And then these queens go off on their own and they survive through winter

solitary. Then in spring, every queen. So we're talking about the yellow leg tornet, which is a monster by the way every spring they come out in each of those yellow leg hornets will be starting its own nest and they will lay eggs and they'll feed their larvae and the larvae will become adults so go through a pupa state and they'll emerge and they'll take over the duties of managing the nest and the queen will no longer have to hunt once she gets her own little hunters and then she'll stay home and do nothing but lay eggs and the rest of them will bring food and resources back and it's the larvary that feed the adults. So the larvae eat meat and then these adults get big. I wish you had seen if you haven't already.

Penn State had a really good exhibit at the North American Honey Bee Expo and they had a yellow-legged hornet nest there. You need to see a yellow-legged hornet nest to see the size of the cells and the size of a yellow-legged hornet and appreciate what they're like. So of course my grandson, he's very focused and somewhat narrow in his sinking. He's hoping to get here because he wants me to take him out hunting and killing them. He has suits that he promises to layer up. And when you're a kid, I think you just want to be a hero. You want to do something. But we did get the bald-faced hornets, by the way.

Dental floss, marked him with dental floss. You could have dental floss six inches long, and they would trail off with it and go to their nest. and get rejected at the entrance because they have dental floss on them and they don't want them there and then you could climb a ladder and take them down and relocate them and set them up for observation or to use them to keep deer out of a certain area i heard some people could do something like that hanging at about high level to a deer and then the deer avoid bald-faced hornets then that short-lived because you find out quickly that raccoons attack them head on tear apart the nest eat the larvae eat the adults eat everything i didn't know that about

raccoons it was a sad moment but anyway the yellow egg tornets uh that's they're the same as the others they overwinner the same way unless again like i said you're in a warm area big trouble big trouble people need to kill them they're recommending violence so kill the queen you're right every queen that you kill in spring or fall if you can get them and fall all the better So the way I was pulling in the bald face hornets was they were showing up at my feeding station, which was frames of beeswax hanging out. And so I could go there and collect all the specimens and see all the different Vespa Day that there were. And if you want to see what's going on in your area, what kind of species are around,

that is the best way to do it. Have an open feeding station like that. Frames of honey that you don't want, capped beeswax. and see what comes there. They spend a lot of time there day after day. You can really see what's going on. Great educational opportunity. Question number 14 comes from Rainy Acres, 6.523. If you see this, Fred, I'm in your area. When would be the earliest we might see a drone flying? I would like to try to time some Queen Rearing Whispering Drone Population. Thanks in advance. Okay, the drones are going to show up at the end of this month. Probably on a two-send.

day. So here we are in March, end of March 1st of April historically. This is why we keep records. That is when we start to see the drones. Now the bees are sharp. That means that long before that, they were producing drone larvae because when we're seeing them hitting landing boards, you're probably 29, 30, they're a month out. So that means your drones are pupating, you know, now they're in development right now so anyway then when you see them that's when it's a really good time to go ahead and start if you're gonna send out queens to get made and stuff it's a good time for that so here in this neck of the wood specifically we're talking about end of this month another reason by the way uh to feed them if you if you've got colonies you're

trying to build from make splits from uh colonies that you know are outstanding you want to get a lot of stock out of them uh you want to fly the area with those drones you've got low varolmites with those top performers feed them up and so what will we do a hive life on it's coming to the end right now so and the weather's warm so we can put sugar syrup on one-to-one sugar syrup and hive alive pollen patties that will keep them going and building even through the rain and everything else because when we rely on them to get their own pollen and there's nothing wrong with that If you're not trying to do something fantastic with your apiary, you can just let nature take its course other than, as I said in the beginning, to keep the sugar syrup on so they don't die out and starve.

They can fill an entire frame with pollen. So you can, it takes a full face frame of pollen to produce a full face frame of brood. So that's a good way, kind of a test to show. And you'll find that they use it up really fast. And then once they're out, if there's nothing new coming in, do extended rain and things like that. now they start to drop back and reduce their production. So if you're trying to get great things out of your bees and grow big and fast, that's the combination, the one-to-one sugar syrup and also drop in your pollen patties.

And AP23 can work. MegaB can work also pollen patties. 15% are superior performing patties for building brood in spring, specifically building brood in spring. But make sure your carbs are there to do that. And I have a couple hives that I really want to build on. Hive 44, which has a following. I'm a fan.

I checked on them today. I really want a great colony out of them. And that's going to be top contender for splitting and advancing my APRI this year. Question number 15. Last question. I know you're just dying for this to go on and on forever. But we're at the last question. This comes from David Dillow.

That's the YouTube channel name. You have a multitude of hive stands. Have you found any of them that have individually adjustable feet to help leveling in hilly, lumpy, pasture land under $100 per stand? That's the part that I can't stick with, under $100 per stand. So you can build your own.

You can use iron tea posts. Hammer those right into the ground. And then I use, a metal electrical conduit and I wire that or use U bolts to bolt that right onto the T-posts and then I set a plank of wood across that and the hive sit on that. So that's something that's permanent. You hammered it into the ground. It stays there.

I've got my original hive stands that were built that way are still out there doing their thing. Now, the $100 mark, what if we went just a smidge over that? because the Lison Hive Stand is my absolute favorite for uneven ground, for picking the height I wanted at, for supporting over 1,100 pounds, and each individual leg is adjustable. Consider the Lison stand. Now, I order them because I just got two of them, two more. They're all over my airy area.

I just got two more because I'm putting my new, top bar hive is going to be on it and the other one's going to have the hive IQ and the new license hive for my evaluation so those are going to both be out there I think they're like 110 for the set so we're over the $100 mark but they're going to last forever these stands will never wear out you can weed whack around them that's wide open underneath they every individual foot adjust it's just a slide and a pin so if it's too short it needs adjustment later you can bump them up easy peasy they are in my opinion the best and the only ones right now that can handle a long there is there as long as the lumber that you use because you use your own lumber to run the length of them so their end braces so to speak and the two by four passes right through them so it extends beyond it you can build a platform that you can do hive inspections and stage your stuff and it's endless they can feel configuration potential for that. So that's it. All I'm going to say for the flood section,

because I've said enough today, feed early, back off. If you're doing liquid, so if you're using sugar syrup right now, I highly recommend getting that out there tomorrow, even if it's in the rain. Because your hive top feeder shouldn't expose your hive anyway, you just have reservoirs up there that you can fill up. And then because we're going to have the rain, then we're going to return to cold. So we want them to use up that sugar syrup. before it gets to the end of next week. So you don't want to continually feed. You want to beef it up.

So they have that resource so they can really get going. And then by the end of the week, we want it to taper off when the cold weather returns. And they may be moving some of that inside the hive and into the cells. And when they do that, these open cells are what they consume first. So it becomes a ready carb for the bees.

That's what I recommend. And if you need to put on pollen patties or something like that, please make sure they have the carbohydrate first proteins last so that's it for today I want to thank you for watching if you have questions please write them down the comment section below I want to thank you for being here I'm Frederick Donne and this has been the way to be