The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A #294 winter survival updates, alternatives to pollinators and more

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

This is the Audio Track from today's YouTube:  https://youtu.be/PU6S-p_uTHQ

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today is Friday, February the 21st, and this is Backyard Beekeeping Questions and Answers episode number 294. I'm Frederick Dunn and... This is the way to be! So I'm really glad that you're here. What's going on everywhere? Bad stuff, bad weather, rough weather, challenging weather for us and the bees. We're going to talk about that a little bit. If you notice the opening sequences and I hope you did, that's what's going to be good. going on right now. They told us we would get like two or three inches of snow. We get more like 10 to 13 but that's because I live in what's known as a microclimate. And you're probably

wondering outside what that looks like. Well it's 17 degrees Fahrenheit which is minus 8 Celsius. 14.5 mile per hour winds consistent. It's snowy and blowy. That's 23 kilometers per hour. 98% relative humidity. Is that it's going to warm up and maybe we'll melt some snow? I don't know, but you know what? Even to the windows in my living room, the snow is higher than the sills of the windows. So I'm just leaving it up against the house. Why not?

That's insulation. Just like when snow is piled up against your beehives, that's insulation too. So easily we're still in competition for that coveted Snow Globe Award. We've beat out Anchorage, Alaska, and all kinds of other places that should be more snow covered than we are. And by the way, I don't like that that's competition. I would just as soon fail that competition because I want to be able to get out and see the grass. That's why we have problems. So anyway, you also might notice that I've been having problems with deer

because I posted a video about that too. The deer are eating things that otherwise wouldn't. And why wouldn't they? because they're in survival mode. But if you want to see something funny, watch the very end of today's video after the credits. Because I keep moving cameras around out there, I like to see what the deer are doing and how they're doing it.

And people say things like, hey, Frank, get out there and wrap the trunks of those trees. Well, you know what? I wish it were just the trunks of the trees, but first of all, I have way too many trees, and probably that's a good thing. But I can't wrap them. And then people say, well, fence it, fence the property.

Well, I can't do that either, because we're talking many acres, eight and a half acres of land. A lot of it, I just don't want to see fences everywhere. It's bad enough. I have them around my lower field. But the deer are standing on their hind feet, which really extends their reach. And they're eating trees they otherwise wouldn't touch. Let me give you an example.

They're eating my sumac, which is okay, I guess, because I have a lot of it. But I'm looking around at other places. The sumac that's growing down the road along the farm, fields and along the river and things like that, the deer are not chewing it. So for some reason, my sumac is better than other sumac. They're chewing the bark right off. The video of that is in the end of today's thing. They're eating my spruce trees.

They're also chewing cedar trees of all the trees that you would think would be pest-proof. Cedar trees. They're browsing them right down. So everything that's at eye level or below for the deer is just an open game. They're chewing it. And the holly bushes. Thank goodness I had liquid fence, the super stinky stuff. To spray on the holly bushes because it did work.

That saved them. Noise makers, the deer don't care. Flashing lights, the deer don't care. I found out something that they do care about, something that they don't like, and some of you might hate me for this. But I suited up in my super warm suit that's all camouflaged, and I have, because you know I'm hardcore.

I like to go out in the cold weather when it was in the single digits. So I put on my electric heated socks, my electric heated gloves, my electric heated vest, because I like to really experience the outdoors. And then I put on my super thermal redhead company, camouflage, mossy oak, whatever it is,

whatever makes you disappear. And here's the other thing. Put on the big goggles that have the reflective front, you know, like mirrored sunglasses. And with that time, does is it just makes you imitate whatever's around you. So it's really cool and the deer don't know what to think of it. So just so you can be angry at me, I'll tell you what I did. I wanted to keep them out of my sumac, you know, area right next to the pond. So I went out there during a snowstorm and I settled in at the base of

three trees because they don't want anything sneaking up behind me, trues, big foot, whatever. And I let the snow cover me. And guess what? There's no wind, which means no noise at this time. right very different from today which means that they couldn't smell me very well even though i was at ground level and the snow covered me up which meant it added to my blending and then when the deer came along their path because i paid attention to where i sat up i followed deer tracks in the snow and so i found the ground central passageway that they're all going through and i waited for them and then when they get really close and one of them seemed like it felt like something wasn't right And they came single file.

It was really interesting. And they did not expect whatever was at the base of that tree covered in snow, waiting in the cold with my own tracks almost completely covered to where nobody could find me. And then when I moved, they were disturbed. So they didn't expect something to be alive right there. So I got on their heads a little bit. And they all ran away. So now you might be saying that's mean.

But I say you need to give them. a experience that makes them want to go somewhere else. Because don't forget what I said, I don't have the only sumac around here. In my defense, there are thousands of sumac trees well down the way, and I invite these deer to go and launch on those. So if that makes you upset, they didn't come back.

So it's kind of funny. That's how I entertained myself. And I didn't even make a noise. All I did was jump up. Because I think if I make a noise and they would Pause the second and realize, oh, it's just a human. But if you don't make a noise, it could have been a big foot. See?

I'm using another reputation. I think that's called Stolen Valor. If you act like a big foot when you're not one and you get the same reaction, you can drive animals away that would eat your stuff. Okay, so you might want to know, where could you get an answer to a question right now? If one's on your mind and you need to share a picture or something like that, you go to a fellowship, what fellowship? The Way to Be Fellowship on Facebook.

You go there and you talk about. to people anytime seven days a week 24 hours a day people all over the world are members there the moderators are super nice so that's where you go to avoid politics and everything else all bees all the time so the other thing is what are we going to talk about today you look down in the video description if you can get to that and then you'll see all the topics that we're going to cover and some important links that will give you more information or maybe an opportunity to buy something I don't know and you submit your own

own questions by going to my website the way to be.org and you click on the page mark the way to be there's a form you fill it out and you provide as much or as little information as you want to and you send it to me it can just be a topic something you heard about let's maybe other people would be interested that kind of thing or you might have an actual question so I hope that covers it we're going to jump right in with the very first question of the day which is on a lot of people's minds so this comes from Bruce Newport Vermont Bruce wrote me three times with three different arranged questions, right? But it's all at the core of the same things.

So here's Bruce's question. Blue Diamond Ammons has a good crop progress report. So what are we talking about? We're talking about pollination services on the almonds in the state of California because we produce well over 80% of the world's almonds right here in the United States. And if you haven't caught up with the news

And this is surprising you. A lot of beekeepers that pollinate almonds reported tremendous losses. I did an interview with Blake Shook, and that's still on my page. So the page is Frederick Dunn, YouTube. You can check that out. It's also part of the podcast, The Way to Be. So anyway, if any pollination concerns, and it says Blue Diamond responded, said they had the crop progress report, and there's been zero mention of that.

So in other words, they're not reporting it. So this does not compute. says Bruce. So I'm going to zip right on to part two of Bruce's question, and it says here. I see that Zach Lomas is the Beltsville coordinator, and you have a history with Zach. Could you get us an update? So this is something, I mean, you don't have to look very far on YouTube to find out that just about every content creator is talking about colony losses here in the United States going into pollination services and the big litmus test for the nationally is how many of these pollinators show up at the almond groves in California so that's true Zach Lomas if you don't know who that is I did an interview with him there is a page on my website that is nothing but interviews

with experts or innovators and Zachary Lomas you may know is the reason that we're all looking at drones now hopefully we are I can't say all of us but those who have been listening to this podcast and watching this YouTube channel are aware that when drones are being produced in spring that you get varroa destructor mites that are attaching themselves to the drones and feeding on them in preference over the nurse bees. So that's Dr. Zachary Lomas that did that. Well now guess what? He's got another job. So anyway, he is the Belsville coordinator for what? For testing of the bees that are dying and they're dwindling and they're having problems with the commercial beekeepers, gomers,

going into almond pollination. Now the thing is, almond pollination has got all these flags going up. And the reason you're not getting any updates is because it's ongoing. It's unfolding. It's happening now. And so all these big pollinators, all these big companies, including Blake Shook, his own hives are out there, and he's a broker for other beekeepers. And Blue Diamond is just one of the companies. They're kind of like a brokerage. They don't really own, but they contract. right so nobody knows what the impact is yet or how complete pollination services are being satisfied and we're not going to know so what is going on you might be wondering well dr lamis lamis Zach is collecting samples represented in the beltsville lab if you've never heard about

that it's the beltsville laboratory in Maryland Dr. umberto von christiani knows quite a lot about that he's had a history with that lab. And it's where a lot of your samples go. If you're testing for pollen pollution of your pollen, you know, concentrations of pesticides and things like that, you send bees out for testing there. And during, I had a lot of stuff going on and insects I wanted to test it during COVID and the lab was shut down.

Their services were not available. So. But that is where they're compiling all this data. And Dr. Zachary Lamas will be. or Lamas, however you pronounce this last name, Zachary will be responsible for compiling the data and bringing it all into focus. So for those of you who are just, we want to know in this unfolding situation, they're actively pollinating now. So we don't know what the impact is or how effective the pollination services are this year yet. So anyway, what I can't tell you, this is as of

February 6, 2025. So this is a little bit outdated, considering the things are going on. And this was a report before they even started almond pollination. So let's see 234 beekeepers found average recent losses well over 50%. Now that's historically symptoms of loss are reminiscent of colony collapse disorder yet then you talk to people and say yeah but not the same. So similar severe losses we're seeing two years ago. So also people are talking about cycles and This is coming around every 20 years or something like that. But this is two years ago. Beekeepers in Florida lost up to 90% of their colonies,

incurring $4.28 million in lost revenue at that time. And again, they were working alongside the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, and sampled and identified pathogens and parasites involved in these crashes. Chemical exposures were analyzed and recently presented in our awaiting publication. So this stuff doesn't happen fast. That's why you don't know. Could you imagine being one of these investigators, one of these sample collectors, one of these lab analysts? You don't want to rush it.

You don't want to put out some potentially incorrect information requiring, you know, identifying the cause of some of these collapses. They're going to take their time. They're going to get all the samples. And here's what's better about this, as if there could be something better. What's better about it is we have the dead bees. dwindling colonies. We have the brood frames with bees on them. So in other words, if you're an analyst, if you're doing any kind of study, we have bees now. Colony Collapse Disorder when it first came out, Mr. Hackenberg, which is really interesting to me because I got to meet him at the

Pennsylvania State Conference last year. He's the one that called it colony collapse disorder. He's the one that noticed it, that he was the whistleblower, that everything was disappearing, which it also came known to be disappearing B disorder, right? So, you know, what were the results there? They never even figure that out, so we don't know everything. But anyway, they've mobilized a multi-organization working group. So they're actively getting the samples. They're gathering information.

Where could you go? Because you want to go right now. Your fingers are on your keyboard, and you have to go somewhere to get some updated information. Let me disappoint you, but I'm going to also. give you the website. Project APIS M. So if you get a project APIS M, bookmark the page as things unfold, as things get published, as they draw their summaries, then you'll be able to probably get the links there and read about it there. Surveys and interviews quickly determined these losses

are nationwide, that they are severe. The cause has not. not yet been identified. However, the usual causes of loss, including winter management, and high levels of parasitic mites, are not currently indicated causes of these losses. So all I can tell you is hurry up and wait. Wait to see what's going to happen, get the scoop when it unfolds. And the other thing was they're telling people that, you know, If you're a Department of Ag registered commercial beekeeper, sideline, or whatever, you have to submit your ELAP claims right away, E-L-A-P. It says to submit them as quick as possible.

I don't know what that means. These are people, this is how the people that are in the farming industry that are commercial beekeepers that depend on it for their income, operated at a commercial level. This is how they file the claims and get the resources in. I don't have to tell you. There are a lot of cuts of personal. right now even those that are testing for avian influenza have been withdrawn

which is kind of a shocker to me but so these institutions under the Department of Agriculture are being I don't know thinned down so I don't expect things to move any faster if anything they're gonna go slower and we're gonna get fewer samples and we otherwise could have but anyway file your claims try to get your stuff as soon as possible and it's true dr. Zach Lomas is in charge of coordinating all of that gathering of resources and ultimately I assume we'll be the person that coordinates the publication of the findings. They'll get peer reviewed and all that stuff. And then we'll know more.

So what did I do? I did my own survey which doesn't even... This is by the way, low science, low tech. Because all I did is I went to my YouTube channel page and I put up a quick survey. within the limitations of YouTube, by the way. Some people did write and say that, hey, Fred, we can't see the results unless we respond to one of your questions.

And I'm limited. You know, I can only do four questions on that. I know there's SurveyMonkey and all this other stuff out there, but I just posted a thing to see, and I have my own theory about different influencers on YouTube, different beekeepers, providing different results. You want to hear what it is? 342 of my viewers responded to my survey request.

So all I did was, just tell me if your bees died. I broke it down to very simple stuff. The number one response of 342 people that participated. The category is, my colony, mortality is the same as usual. Losses were as expected. That is the number one response that my viewers gave. So 47% of those filling out the survey

had that situation. The next most popular response, my hives are doing better than before. Looking good. 25% of the respondents had that. Now the next category, 19% is my losses are much higher than years past. I don't know why. So 19% of my viewers have higher losses than they expected and they can't understand causation. In other words, it's not obvious that they starve, things like that. And then the smallest responding group was 9%. And that was, my bees are dead, but I know the cause. Starvation, robbing mites, something like that. Maybe the beekeeper was the cause. 9%. So in other words, the good news is colonies died, but you understood why. That's the frustrating part. If your bees are gone, if your bees are dead, if your colony's dead, but you just haven't got

a clue because you feel like you did everything correctly. So the other thing is why is it's not scientific? Because who is responding to the survey? People who watch my YouTube channel. See? So I don't want to point. I'm not going to name any other YouTuber names. So I'm not going to mention, you know, Jeff Horschoff, Randy McCaffrey, none of these people, I won't mention them. But if you're people that are watching you are saying that all my bees are dead, everything's bad, the world is doomed, you know, pollination is terrible. all I have to say is the people that watch me. 47% of them.

Mortality is same as usual. 25% of the people that watch me, that reporter that did this are better than before, looking great. So, I mean, I don't want to make a very loose connection there that it might be whose advice they're following or whose example they're copying. I mean, I don't know. So it's all up in the air.

And again, it's very loose. It's not very scientific, not very comprehensive. So I'm just glad that you took the time to fill that out. I was talking with Jeff Horschoff by phone. Pretty sure his bees don't do as well is mine here. All right, moving on to question number two comes from Francis, Jeffersonville, New York. Is there a site one can go to to find where bee expos are events like the ones you have posted videos on recently? Where are they?

The Western PA would have been. closer to us and I see videos of one in the Midwest. I've looked for closer ones but can't find any most likely because I don't know what to look for. Any help would be nice. So the question is how do you find out where social events are going on for beekeepers? Conferences, banquets, gatherings, picnics, all that great stuff. Well I did find one good piece. Now one good place to go to. Happens to be associated with a publication. So the American Bee Journal So I'll say it again, AmericanBeejournal.com. They have links to all the state associations. So part of that is if you want to know what's going on in your state, go to your state

beekeepers association website and almost all of them, the state of Pennsylvania included because that's where I'm located, Pennsylvania, northwest part of the state, in case I didn't mention that earlier. And you can find out what's going on there in your own state. Now, the other thing that the American Bee Journal does is they provide links to events. Now, I realized that wasn't very comprehensive because I checked it today just before I came on. And so I guess you can contact the American Bee Journal.com if you represent your state, right? So your state beekeeper association. And then, of course, they list all the upcoming banquets and educational programs and things like that. It was pretty decent.

But I know there are a lot of them going on that just aren't registered there. So there is no central database for the United States for everyone to report and then find out if you've got a be event going on near you or lecture or a seminar that you might want to go to. So start with your state and even your local ag extension offices can often point you in a direction to be keeping classes and things like that too, for example. So that's question number two. We're going to jump into question number three. This comes from Peter from Morrisville, Vermont. Highly suspicious because Peter is my cousin up in Morrisville.

So if pursuant to interviews, honeybees under increasing stress and in many cases colony collapse, what, if any, are pollination alternatives? I have seen the Japanese manually pollinating crops, flower by flower, but surely this isn't as effective as what the bees. and other pollinators provide so japan was doing that they were doing it in china also where they have lost because of all the toxins all the pollutants they have ended up without pollinators yet so they've got the feather dusters and they had long poles and they were feather dusting each individual blossom getting those pollen anthers getting pollen and doing that so anyway manual pollination that's one of the

things you can do in fact a lot of uh gardeners perhaps manual pollination inside greenhouses because they want to control the crosses that they're doing. So I have a friend, for example, that propagates daylilies, and he makes cultivars, and he has come up with his own day lilies through manual pollination. So picking the crosses. But anyway, we're talking bigger than that. We're talking about what happens if all the bees died? Well, that would be terrible, for starters. But don't fall for the quotes that people throw around and say like Einstein said if all the bees die, mankind dies in three years, not true, not even remotely true, not even close, and he didn't say it.

That's what I told he never said it. But the other thing is we know that there are cultures that live entirely off of grains, therefore they're not pollinated. So no, you don't all die and disappear if we're without bees for three years. Now I don't want to test it. I don't want to be without bees. because our food choices are enhanced by the presence of pollinators of all kinds. So anyway, one of the other things that are out here, if the bees are absent, is electrostatic pollination. So that's just what it sounds like, cathode anode. They are using a static charge on the flowers, both to collect pollen, and then also to distribute pollen onto targeted blossoms.

So that's new technology that they're doing it, where do it? not outside, not in a field, not in the almond groves, by the way. They would be doing it inside large greenhouses. So, electrostatic pollination. And this is the thing that came out years ago. The next one that I'm going to talk about, drone pollination, which doesn't sound very effective. And by drones, we're not talking about the male honeybee.

We're talking the electronic drones, like the Inspire One. They're really big ones. And they have mechanisms on them. So these are people that are really hoping that the honeybee does not perform well, does not sustain agriculture, and that we will need this technology. So they are betting against the honeybee. And that is look up drop copters if you want to find out about that. And years ago I was talking about that because I'm also a commercial drone pilot.

I have that license and everything. But I do that for cinematography, not for pollination services. but I understand how you could grid an area, and then the advantages of a drop copter. And drop copters have special release systems so that they distribute the pollen that is necessary for the almond groves in particular. And keep in mind they can fly when it's cold.

They can fly at night. They do a grid. They don't miss anything. They're not impeded by the different weather conditions or health in this case that might be impacting the honeybee. So, but the good news, is, well, depending on who you are, if you're into the drop copter, if you invested, it's not good news, but they're not performing very well. So the other side of that was, the other thing is they

needed FAA approval and releases and everything else because they needed to have concessions made so they could fly in the way that they wanted to fly in the places they wanted to go. So drop copter was another one. It's something they continue to work on, but it hasn't proved to be very effective. Then there's automatic pollination systems in greenhouses. Again, sophisticated systems that puff air, deliver pollen that way, and then they go around and just think about how AI, artificial intelligence, is working in programs like this. So, for example, if you had a robotic system,

they traveled on rails, and it detected flowers at the right time. So it's not just that it detects flowers, but what's the condition of the flower? What is its open position? Which is kind of interesting to me, too. I understand how that works. And if you wanted to be in that technology and you wanted to guarantee that pollination could happen, these things pollinate and deliver pollen specifically targeted to the flowers of the species of plant that they're after.

So AI is just taken off super fast because you can't have really a sustained colony of honeybees inside a greenhouse in an environment like that. So again, these are areas that work well where they're actually working on plant genetics and they're trying to get. their flowers in very specific ways to be pollinated at very specific times and you can imagine on it goes so that's again greenhouses and then of course the new genetics they are working with this i spoke with blake shook about it because he's got his fingers on many different organizations in the beekeeping industry at large scale umbrella corp looking at the entire the big picture the self-pollinating almonds there are a lot of self-pollinating ummins there are a lot of self-pollinating plants that have to be developed that way because it's not natural that they would be like that

so the almonds self-pollinating almonds are a backup plan but they're not again very effective the almonds according to blake are undersized they're not as prolific so they don't produce as many almonds when they're self-pollinating and only that they benefit from the presence of honeybees even though they aren't necessary for the self-pollinating almonds so when bees are present they do better just like coffee, by the way. Coffee doesn't need honeybees, but the coffee growers that grow their coffee in areas where honeybees are present have a larger fruit, so larger nuts, larger coffee, right, coffee beans. So there you go. Nothing is working out very well, but they'd be silly not to have a backup plan given the way living organisms can be impacted negatively and profound and

kind of in ways that really impact our agriculture and we don't even know yet because we're at the beginning of the year the almonds are kind of the thing that we look at first to see how well things are doing and then coming out of almonds a lot of those managers and owners of the bees have different plants when they leave there some go on to pollinate other things others go right into what producing package bees for sale that people who've lost their bees will buy. So, anyway, they try to cut their losses. It's a business. So there are a lot of competing interests here. Years ago, a company that I won't name, but that kind of takes over everything, tried to come up because they're the ones that also produce pesticides and herbicides and

things like that and they were trying to come up with their own genetics, their own line of honeybee, that then, I don't know if you've seen like cord and produce that can be sprayed directly with an herbicide that only kills a competing plants, right? So it's kind of like that, that this particular honeybee would then be safe and other honeybee lines would not. And because we can own living organisms in this country, we can patent organisms. in this country. They patented and they own different plants. So why not extend that and move that into living things so that you could patent then insects, specifically insect pollinators. I personally will say I'm not political at all, but I really hope that that's never allowed.

I hope that you cannot code the DNA of a specific insect and own it. The good news is all of their tests so far failed. But what you should know is they're trying to do it. so I don't like that. If I had any foothold at all in a decision-making body of people that were deciding what could go on through agriculture and through DNA coding and ownership, I'm not a fan of genetically modified honeybees. So if that could be stopped, that would make my day.

All right, this question number four comes from Brad. He says, I have a question. I've been asked by a school to help set up and install an observation hive just like yours. So I have a portable observation hive as well. I too want to use queen temp to lure the package of bees into the tube and the question, how long did you leave that queen temp to lure the bees in? How long do the bees and that stuff stay active? Okay, so I think these are different things that we could talk about. Temp queen is what it is. I think he called it queen temp. But anyway, it's a synthetic queen mandibular.

pheromone. So temp queen, and right now it's sold by Better Bee, probably can get it from other places. It's inexpensive. It imitates the presence of a queen because we know when a queen is present, when we look at our bees and we see that they're going about their day, that they're investing in infrastructure, they're building comb, they're doing all the things the colonies should be doing when a queen is present. Then we find out they lose her queen, for whatever reason. The queen could die. The queen could be chewed up during her mating flight, that kind of thing. if there's been a recent swarm. And the bees are now trying to get their new virgin queen made it

because what do they do? They killed off the competing queens and she needs to come back. So let's say you don't want to take that risk and you want to buy a queen from Corey Stevens or somebody. You want to bring in a survivor lion bee that's varroa resistant, has varroa sensitive hygienic traits and things like that.

And so when you bring that in, you don't want your bees in the absence of the queen to activate their ovaries. So worker honeybees are female. They have ovaries. They don't have as many as a queen does. But in the absence of the queen mandibular pheromone, they could activate those and ultimately become laying workers. So the key is to stop that, we give them a synthetic queen presence through temp queen. That's why it's called that. So a synthetic mandibular pheromone that lets them think there's a queen around. Of course, it's not going to take them very long to realize there's no queen around.

there's no new eggs here this noodle is not laying eggs but then we bring in a queen and we're remove so the question is how long does it last you remove the queen manipular pheromone you can even take it out the day before you bring in a queen and then they're very receptive when this mated queen comes in if you're getting them from cori most of those are not mated so they still have to do mating flights and so when you bring them in you have to allow for the time that's going to take them to fly out get mated to come back which means now we have to have mixed genetics also. And that's just one example. But so to get bees to move into a hive, I, when it comes to an observation hive, I pull a nucleus hive, I pull all the frames and I

transform right over. I don't try to get them to move in. So the observation hives, but there are things that I want to mention about this. So this is a five frame observation hive that's built around a nucleus hive. It has another frame up above with a queen, it's exclude her down below. And the whole point is that when you go to teach kids or anybody else, if you're going to any gathering, a picnic or something else where you can keep them in a shaded spot and show people live bees, it adds a lot to it. We do it at the Erie Zoo, for example. And people come by and they get to see it. So if we have the queen up on a single frame of brood and she can't get back down in the four frames that down below, then she is on display.

And then we have blinders. We have little covers that go on that. And a bunch of different companies make them. I think I got mine from Datant. You can also get them from, you know, Midnight Bee Supply makes really good ones. And just go around, you'll see the same design over and over different places. So it comes down to, you know, how well it's constructed, what kind of little closing devices they have on it and whether or not you want to support the company that it comes from. And they're generally plexiglass. So that's the other thing to think about. And here's why I'm leading to this. Safety concerns. So these days, depending on where you are, the public school system that you're going to go into, the preschool, the elementary school, whatever,

most of them have restrictions on bringing live bees into the school, even though you demonstrate that it's in a safe container, that it's an observation hive, that there's really, you can prove that there's no way for them to get out. I even went the extra yard and purchased locks, little tiny padlocks for every single clip and fastener for my observation hive so that little fiddly fingers wouldn't be in there pulling out screws or clips or whatever you use to keep that thing close. You want to make sure that kids and sometimes adults that should know better should not be trying to open up your observation hive. So you have to make it secure so that only you can get in it. You need to be with it all the time. But that's been stopped where I live.

So elementary schools in my area in these districts around here do not allow live bees to come in because the potential risk is that some child gets stung that has an allergy to honeybee venom. And then you've got a child who's a medical emergency who's undergoing anaphylaxis. And it's all because a beekeeper came in to try to show them honeybees. So check it out. Who is responsible for those bees when you bring them in? to give a presentation. You are. So, and the school, because they invited you, so you don't even want to get into that kind of issue. So be very careful and very clear, and make sure that you get a

letter from the school that they are accepting the responsibility for any mishaps with your bees. You do not know what the kids are like that you're about to deal with. You don't know if they understand the potential risk you don't know if a child might act up and you know knock over your beehive or potentially damage it so that's why these things come about because they do risk assessments and they make sure if you're at a picnic or something like that it seems to be different if you're at a zoological part again you know you're outside the chances of even if something happened and it broke and it fell down and that kind of thing if the bees came out they wouldn't of course go after everybody but when you're in a closed space, in a classroom inside a building,

the things can be different. So the other thing is, if you wanted to get your bees to move into a display hive, you want to temporarily set that up, I found out that temp queen, although that works, is not necessary, you can use synthetic Nasanof. So in other words, what is Nazanof pheromone? Nazanoff pheromone is what your bees are doing. Right after a swarm, for example, you'll see a bunch of workers on the landing board, lifting their abdomens, their heads are down, they're fanning their wings as quick as they can,

and that little segment at the tail end of the bee is open, and that is spreading a Nasanoff pheromone from the Nasanoff gland. Nasanoff is an anatomist, a Russian anatomist who identified this feature, so he got to name it after himself. Why wouldn't he? And so when they're fanning that, even bees just passing by, join up. That's why when there's a swarm or something like that. Random foragers that are going by tend to just join up when they fly through that pheromone stream. So that works just as well as an attractant to get the bees to check it out. You can use synthetic nasanoff. What do you think it's called? It's called Swarm Commander. Swarm Commander is nothing but it's not, by the way, lemon grass oil. It smells like that.

How does Nazanov? If you've been around when there's a swarm and they're all trying to collect each other, you'll smell that. Get your face right in there. Sniff that Nazanoff yourself. And if we can smell it, boy, can the bees smell it from quite a distance. So it's not just, it smells like lemongrass oil, but the chemical composition of that stuff is very complex. And a lot of research and development went into it. And it comes from the Blythwood Bee Company. I get nothing for saying that to you. But when you look deeper, and how these things are developed, you begin to understand why they're so effective. So, and the reason I probably want to talk about this a little bit, too, this goes off the rails

from what Brad was asking about. But spring's coming. You know, maybe it has arrived wherever you are, but we've had this weird weather. But I want you to plan for spring. So if you can get Swarm Commander, I know we use it for bait boxes. People are going to put out swarm traps and things like that. We'll talk about that in upcoming episodes because spring, let me tell you, it's far away and most people would forget. But if you put that stuff early on, on some tree branches, on trees that you have had, swarms bivouacking in the past. So if you just do a light little sprits on there, and if you can get bees to collect on these branches, and they end up reinforcing the pherom on there, they also end up dabble. They also end up dabble.

little bits and pieces of beeswax onto that tree. And the beeswax is fantastic at holding scent, holding pheromones. Now I know some people just want to make it themselves. They get slum and they get bits of propolis and all this stuff and they make up their own concoctions. Well let me tell you, if you look around, there's something called the russian cyan, right? So look that up on youtube and see the people that have put these together. First of all, they don't look good. I mean, I'm not putting down the YouTube channels that did it. I'm just saying, what would you rather have a tree branch that looks like a tree branch or some collection of bits of wood with a protective cover and a bunch of stuff on it with slum glum gum glommed onto it,

which is propolis bees wax and all the stuff that makes it smell appealing to bees, which is your hope to get them to glom onto it. And I looked at those and I did not see follow-up videos showing that it worked. So I've done what I'm describing to you now for year after year after year, and I do it because I want to photograph the bees. I want to see their behavior. I want to look at bees that are in a bivouac location, and then if I want them, I can also collect them.

So by spritzing little bits of swarm commander on there, tell them I sent you so that you can pay the same as everybody else. And then you'll see that little scent, and they just keep going and going, and then pretty soon you'll go out there one day and there will be a swarm and you can collect it. And it will be because I helped you not have to get up on a ladder to get that swarm. It's so much easier to just shake them in there. But the same thing works.

Sometimes I've had a swarm of bees. Now I know most beekeepers collect a swarm. They come home, they open the hive, they dump them in the top, they close up the hive, and they're in there. I like to have my bees go in on their own and I can do that. by the lightest touch of that stuff just a little bit those were the snap capsule once that's more than you need the lightest touch they smell it that means that a bee is in there to them that has said hey this place is good i checked it out move in and so bees that were reluctant to move in or maybe you've got a reluctant queen in your swarm that's got her arms crossed she doesn't like it and she doesn't

want to move in if you can put a little pheromone in there a little synthetic nassinoff in there and they all start moving in and the queen thinks oh it's been approved of and she goes in and if she goes in and you've got them all and they moved in on their own which makes them stick around if you force them in there you could just as likely come back the next couple of days and find that they absconded they didn't like what you did they didn't like you making that decision for them they'd rather follow dr thomas seeley's book the honeybee democracy they want to make their own decisions and collectively they decide to occupy the space they don't know that you did that because you started a whisper campaign through a pheromone that didn't come from bees.

So we fooled them. Question number five, moving right along. This comes from SW-TAC-J-O-7V-Y. That's the YouTube channel name. One of your vids, not this one, since you did not suggest using sugar syrup. You mentioned adding spirulina to sugar syrup to supplement feeding with protein, I think. Do you still use this? make sure has it proven better than just straight sugar syrup things so for s w here and this was on a

video Q&A number 161 by the way so that's been a while a lot has changed because back then i didn't know that spirulina was good for your bees so a couple of things i want to clear up about this and i and this is timely because our bees are stressed no question this year if you've got rain snow unseasonable cold, things like that, your bees are not able to do what they're supposed to do. And guess what? The environment is not waiting for them. So what I'm going to recommend, for those of you who follow my methods, of course, everything is a suggestion. You can do it or not do it. I'm giving you the information. You decide what you do with it. So spirulina, have I been using that? Yeah, and I often forget about it.

Why would I forget about it? Because my bees are doing so good. They just don't need it. right so the question is are we adding spirulina now it's proven to work scientific studies so if you watch me the things that i share with you when i say something works it's because it's scientifically supported through published research papers and a lot of you may just yawn and fall out of your chair and go not another research paper well the thing is if you take the time to read those that's why i do it for you read the paper find out first of all who did the test What's their reputation? What, how, what were the parameters of the test?

Was that reasonable? Did I see holes in that, the way they conducted their experiments? Now, I'm no great entomologist. I'm no great scientist. I'm just a cynic that looks at things with above-average intelligence. And I try to find out, it's the way they did that. Does that make sense for where I live? Well, yeah, when it comes to spirulina, it sure did.

It made a lot of sense. So, but I forget to add it. and here's why. When are we feeding sugar syrup? We feed sugar syrup when bees need our help. So they're behind, they're in distress, and we want to feed them to boost them a little bit, right? So when can we feed sugar syrup? Well not now when it's in below freezing outside. You cannot put that stuff. You could, but you shouldn't. Sugar syrup in your hive doesn't work out well this time of year, so we need to wait for things to warm up. And this is why this is important that we share this right now because you might have colonies right now that are hanging by a thread.

And some people will say, let them die. They just weren't going to make it anyway. Well, this is where knowledge comes in. You decide whether you're going to use the knowledge you have about nutrition for bees and keep your bees alive when you have the opportunity to do it, or just let them die and work with the colonies that you have left over. Because, so I'm going to share what my plan is, what I'm going to do for my bees. They're alive.

that's comforting. They're out there. I don't know what their, you know, what their health level is. Like if we could grade their health, the colony of the cluster that's in there, you know, how strong are they? But I can tell you one thing I'm going to do, because last year at this time of year, we did not have this kind of weather. I was not snow plowing just so that my wife could go out first thing in the morning as I did today because I care, because that's the kind of person I am. So anyway, when they start to fly, when they get a chance to do that, here's what I'm recommending. You check the resources on your hives. You look at your fond impacts,

because if you've been watching me and the bees didn't have, you know, 50, 60 pounds of honey directly above them, fond impacts are an insurance policy and they're inexpensive. Inexensive compared to losing your bees. So the other thing is when you have nights. So it's the overnight temps that we look at for restricting whether or not your bees would have sugar syrup on them, right? So I don't recommend putting it on all of them. Which colonies would you put it on?

The ones that are not going to be getting honey supers early. So spring brings a couple of things, really strong colonies that are just ready to burst out and go to work and they're multiplying fast. And now we risk them swarming. So we have to add, we have to add supers. and what kind of supers will be adding honey supers that you're going to take off. So what I'm about to tell you is not for those hives. It's for the colonies like my observation hives that I never take anything out of. Would I feed them sugar syrup with spirulina in it?

Because in this question it also said feeding sugar syrup with protein and spirulina. The spirulina is the protein. So it's a plant protein. Spirulina is just blue-green algae. And it comes up time and time again. a lot of companies have realized that blue-green algae is nutritious to your bees. Why aren't they shouting that from the rooftops? Well, because blue-green algae is everywhere and it's free and you don't have to buy it, really. I mean, it's basically existing in water,

and your bees are going to go to that and get the spirulina and water together if they want it. If you add it to the sugar syrup, you're boosting the sugar syrup, and remember, I offer my bees' choices, just like my chickens. They get free choice. Like if I wanted to, you know, the chickens are cooped, up right now. They're stuck inside. So they're not getting a lot of calcium and stuff that they would get from the environment from eating plants and bugs and proteins from bugs and things like that. So everything they're getting, they're getting inside the hive. So we give them things in the hive, in the coop. We give them things free choice. So they get their complete ration for egg layers. But we also put in their oyster shells, which was genius on the part of whoever started bagging

oyster shells, which is a problem for those who sell oysters. They have all these shells left over that they have to get rid of. What if we could crush them up and sell them to people to feed to their chickens to give them stronger egg shells? Genius move. They need to get rid of it. We need to have it. Why not charge us for it?

So there are eggshells in there. There's also granite grit, little chunks of granite in there. So the bees. So the chickens can choose the granite if they need it. because chickens eat pebbles because chickens need to grind things up in their gizzard and they need little chunks of stone granite grit in their gizzard to grind things up as it goes through so that it can be metabolized so here's the thing we're providing free choice to our bees so if you put out sugar syrup as a forage for your bees when the weather breaks this is when you do not have honey soupers on

So we're talking early in the year. We're talking resuscitating colonies that could be on the brink of total loss. So for those of you say, just let them die. Well, you might enjoy cleaning out a dead out. I don't. I don't want to have something that smells like a dead animal that's all wet. And you have to clean it out, clean the frames and everything else and make it ready for the next occupant. Or we could feed them when the moment arrives that we have the opportunity to do that.

and we can boost their metabolism, we can boost their nutrition level, until, of course, they go after the other things that would bloom in the countryside. But guess what can happen sometimes? You get a warm-up that they desperately need. That warm-up comes along, and what comes with it? Look at the weather report. These guys are accurate 100% of the time. Now, that's pure fiction.

But these weather people predict, let's say, accurately, that you'll have two weeks of rain when the weather warms up. your bees going to be able to forage? Are they going to get the nectar that they need? Are they going to take advantage of what the environment is offering them? No, through no fault of their own. Their ability to for nectar and pollen at that time is dampened. So you can make up for that.

So you can either keep fondant on, which is pretty darn expensive. So I wouldn't put on fondant in spring. What would I do? I would put on a heavy sugar syrup, a light sugar syrup, whatever you decide to do. And here's what happened last year. because it's not the first time I did the spirulina test. So I put out because I also wanted to find out about the Ziploc baggies, you know,

that wanted to make sure they wouldn't leak if I was going to put them inside a hive. So I put out because it's also a chance to do a multi-layered test, first of all, where to put the holes in the Ziploc baggie. How much could we fill the Ziploc baggie before it would start to leak? So we found out gallon size freezer bags by Ziploc. name brand bags. I figure if they're designed for the freezer, then that material could handle the expansion of liquids once it freezes, right? Freezes, expands, put stress on the bag. If that bag doesn't leak for that, it's probably a decent candidate for feeding sugar syrup inside a hive that

needs it. So we also have the easy feed, which comes from hive alive. So that's another thing, pre-bagged, pre-packaged, ready to go. And you can feed sugar syrup in Ziploc bags, feed it to half the capacity. So if it's a gallon Ziploc feeder bag, only fill it with half a gallon of sugar syrup. Offer them two different types, right? So add spirulina. Three heaping teaspoons, no, three heaping tablespoons of dry powder spirulina to four pounds of dry processed sugar. Mix that together ahead of time. Then mix that in with half a gallon of water. hot water, 120 degrees, right? Because I don't want you to cook it. I don't want it to be so hot that it defeats whatever the proteins are that might be in the spirulina. And I adopted that

temperature because that's what hive alive dictates if you're fixing up hive alive syrup. And you want to put that in. You don't want to go over 120 degrees Fahrenheit because that damages the properties and the benefits that are included in that syrup. So I'm assigning the same thing to just arbitrarily because I'm failing safe for you because I don't want it to be wasted. Spirulina, we don't want to destroy that stuff. So we premix it in the dry sugar, 120 degree water, mix it up, half a gallon, put it in a gallon-sized Ziplock bag, and then we poke little tiny holes in the top of it. So this leads us to something else, right?

We have to have a feeder shim for them to go up into that. Now we know that we can use these things called trivits. This is for winter patties. For those of you who, by the way, spent the big bucks, use your hard-earned money and you bought those pollen patties and things like that for spring, you would set those on your trivet or anything else that can create a space on top of that inner cover above that center holes.

When the bees come out, they have access to all sides of your pollen patty. Why do you need that? Some of you are in areas where small high beetles can go after your pollen patties. So this gives bees full access. they can consume it. So another person might be sitting there thinking, yeah, but didn't you just open up a space above that inner cover with your trivet and your fondant or your Ziploc bag or your pollen patty, whatever you put up there that now the bees can build honeycomb in? And would that not make a huge mess for the beekeeper? And to that, I'd say no, because when are we feeding this?

Early spring? What's going on? Kind of an erratic. temperature situation. So bees need warmth to build their honeycomb. So they need to be up into a space where they can get temperatures in the 80s before they can really meaningfully produce honeycomb. And do you think they're going to be doing that in spring? So that's why I say you're pretty safe. You're pretty good to go. So if you've also got, let's say you don't have a trivet, you just get that center hole through your insulated inner cover because you watch me and you follow the things I suggest, which mean put insulation. on your inner cover to make sure that your bees are not getting condensation directly over them.

And you've also closed everything up and your fondent packs sits right on there. But now we're doing feeder bags, zip lock bags, so we can't set that right over that center hole. So instead we offset it to either side. And you poke the little holes in the top, not along the edges right in the center. Because what you're doing is you're providing them with a sustained release of carbohydrate. a sugar syrup with tiny holes that their proboscis, that their tongue can get into, and they can get that and they can transfer those carbohydrates, that energy source down into the cluster where they need it the most

because they're keeping the new brood warm and everything else. So if you add spirulina, is that going to give you the protein necessary to produce brood? No, it's not. It's going to increase vigor for the bees that are in there. And the reason I directed you to the, experiments that I was doing last year I provided the identical sugar syrup batch one-to-one sugar syrup and one had the addition of spirulina on it and the other was straight sugar syrup. Now the bees behave differently than they have with any other sugar syrup I've offered them in the past.

In other words if I offered hive alive, pro-sweet, pro-health, beekeepers choice, all these other additives to sugar syrup if sugar syrup with nothing in it was provided at the same time the bees went for that first, and they took the one that was fortified with something else, second. With the spirulina, the bees were showing a preference for the sugar syrup that had spirulina over sugar syrup with nothing in it, everything else being the same. They had not done that before with any of my backyard basic experiments. Now, the reason I keep these things so basic and share them with you is they're 100%

repeatable. You can do this yourself. You can find out if your own bees demonstrate that preference because even colony to colony, they don't show the same preferences, although consistently they go after sugar syrup with nothing in it. So why add anything? Well, hive alive is proven to be a benefit to your bees. So the syrup added to the hive alive, proven benefit, it also extends the sugar syrup so it doesn't spoil. The spirulina, proven benefit, to the bees. So you can also add honeybee healthy and things like that extends the sugar syrup, but the bees do not demonstrate a preference for that over sugar syrup by itself. But if you don't want it to spoil, then a hive-of-life additive, something like that, pro-health, beekeeper's choice.

Bee-keeper's choice, when I did all of those, Honeybee Healthy, all that stuff together, bee-keeper's choice was the second choice by bees over sugar syrup by itself. So that one-house. if you're looking at different ones. So I'd recommend price shopping for those. Gave you a long answer to that. You're welcome. Question number six. This comes from Thomas.

Let's see. Thank you for sharing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I did was somebody wrote me and showed me pictures. They followed the plans that I published on my website, which is the way to be.org. There's a page called Plans and Prints. They are free to you.

So they're PDF forms. So Ross Miller, he's the man. He took my sketches and drawings, and he turned them into, you know, comprehensible plans that had materialists and everything else. So hats off to Ross, fantastic for doing that. And we collectively have done that for who? For you, of course.

So you get them free. And then what happens is you make your changes, you make your mods, things that you want to do different. And so if you go to that page for plans and prints, it doesn't mean you can resell them you can't publish them and stuff like that they're still ours we're just making them available to you without charge so then when people build their long langstroth hives which is at the top of my list for a hive that i want to use in my future we post their pictures so that's what happened here thomas sent them in there are photos of lisa's long langstroth

built to your specs so if you want to see what other people have done when they follow these plans and brought them to fruition and made an actual beehive that no one can carry because they're so big and so heavy and so outstanding so above average. Those pictures are posted there so you can get some ideas and make your own and if you make your own and follow those prints, send me an email and show me the pictures and if you want them shared, I'll create an album for you and I will also credit you and say look look what a great job Thomas did for Lisa in building this long Langstroth hive. So that's question number six.

That lets you go and look and maybe you'll get some ideas. Maybe you're a craftsman. Maybe you're one of the best termites to ever walk into a carpenter shop and you can make something amazing. Maybe you've got a great idea for a finish. Someone did the electrical zapping of the wood to make it look all cool and modulate. So sky's the limit. You can do whatever you want.

Question number seven now comes from day. Los Altos, California. Backyard beekeeper with one long laying hive from horizontal bees. So horizontal bees makes long langstroth hives. Good people, by the way. Don't mind giving them a shout out at any time. I want to try formic acid strips to treat for varroa mites this season. However, the manufacturers, which is nod, NOD, the instruction state they are not recommended for top. top bar hives says do you know anything about this I read that the vapors are heavier than air so it would seem that the strips would work even though they wouldn't be in the middle of the hive assembly as with a vertical langstroth so we talked about two different things here and so somebody else may be having the same concerns so my long langstroth hives have langstroth frames these are not top bar hives top bar hives are different The top bars in a top bar hive, the hives themselves that support the foundationless comb, by the way, also compose what's the inner cover or what cover boards would be.

And that's why they don't work for Formic Pro, or if they're using strips and things like that, or might-of-way quick strips and things like that. They just don't work because you can't get them down on the frames and in between the frames without spreading apart. opening that space and a top bar hive and violating the space, right, violating the inner cover, which is the cover for your bees. So the long Langstroth hive is different. The long Langstroth hives that I design and use uses a deep Langstroth frame. So when those frames are pushed together, there's an airspace between them.

The bees can come up, go over the top, go down. They can go around the ends, right? So it is different in a top bar hive, they all come together. You don't have that space. So with the long lang, there's B space above, 3 eighths of an inch. Then there are the cover boards, which those are what block off the airflow and things like that. And that's what we want. We want the B is to glue up the cover boards with propolis,

and then we've got the Langstroth frames underneath, and they do not fill those spaces because it's 3.8 inch. If we're smaller than that, just an eighth of an inch, for example, they would glue that all up with propolis. So you do have a space that you can use to do that treatment. So it does work with a long Langstroth, Formic Pro, and things like that. So MAQS is what sometimes you'll see, and new beekeepers look at that and think, what is MacUs, MEQS?

Those are Mitaway quick strips. Now I want to mention that right now because mightaway quick strips are being discontinued. So I think this is the last year that they're going to use them. And if you want to hear more about that, I did speak with a representative of that company, and we did post that interview on my page at the wayto-be.org. There are interviews that you can watch.

That's what the page is titled because I'm not good at coming up with catchy titles for pages. So interviews you can watch, nod. We talked about Formic Pro, things to think about there. and that's when she brought up, Heather did, about the Miterweight Quick strips going away. So look at that if you want to learn more, and we talk about that too. So if you forget them in your hive, it's also not the end of the world, because eventually the Mitoid Quick Strips were Formic Pro end up matching what would be just background levels of formic.

So formic acid, that's the stuff that ants use when they get into combat and they bend their little abdomens and they squirt each other in the face with poison. So that's all that is. And so as it goes down, down, down, it is already existing in the environment. It's already existing in your comb. It's already existing in your honey. And therefore, it's safe to use with honey super zon. And as it diminishes, they don't know of any resistance that would build up in the

Veroa destructor mites also. So it does work. So that is, it doesn't need to be a strip type treatment, but you can still use those. Might awake strips. they're just going to disappear. So if that's your favorite treatment, I had friends at Cornell, the Dice Lab that said that those were their number one treatment for mites.

So I think it's just being phased out in favor of the Formic Pro patties. So there's that. And that's it. We're in the fluff. That is the end of it. That was question number seven. And so I did our recent video last week about the super lifter. So I have to backpedal a little bit on part of that demonstration.

If you don't know what that is, please look at that. That is a back saver. If you've got a long Langstroth style hive, or in this case, like this summer, I'm going to be using the two queen keepers hive situation with that central column, and I'm going to be using. Now, these things are complementary to one another. So the superlifter comes from flow. These are the people that designed the flow hive, which is why some people, as soon as they hear flow hive,

they slam the door and run out screaming with their fingers in their ears. But let me tell you, if you have a Langstroth-style hive and you want to be able to lift your honey supers off so that you can inspect the brood box without actually having to physically lug your super off, move it, set it on something else, set it on the ground. I just, whenever I see somebody pull a honey super off and they tip it on its side, and they leaned it against the hive and set that thing in the grass. What are you doing? Don't do that. It turns into a big sticky mess. But here's the thing. There's a solution for that. So I demonstrated it. It's called a super lifter. It's made by flow. It works on any Langstroth hive.

So if you're a single brood box manager, if you're like Steve Rapasky is, he did a very excellent, you know, presentation about single brood management, and he's in, of course, my state. So it was very interesting to listen to. And then you have your queen excluter on, and then everything is a super above that. If you do that, then you have a way of tilting these boxes back on that axis where, so here's the face of the frame. It goes with the long axis of the frame so it doesn't bother the bees.

Nectar doesn't drip out. It is fantastic, and you're not doing any lifting. So I want you to look at the video, first of all, because with an open mind, please, have an open mind. that is a lifter that will work for a nucleus wooden hive stack which i use as resource hives here they get heavy when you're adding two of them on top so you've got the brood box we want to look at that we want to get the queen whatever you want to do this facilitates that you can now work alone you can clip this hive lifter on super lifter is what it's called if you're going to google it or look for it it connects to lift points so it's got these screws that go in and if you have a standard Langstroth hive you don't have screws in it it'll show you where to put those two so then these lift points go in the upper box the lower box i did all that right so that's not a problem the problem is in the supporting leg that comes out so it's

like a yoke that clips on to your hive and then there's a stabilizing leg that comes down and when i did that the leg angle is supposed to be near a 90 degree vertical because when the box comes down is supported on that. We don't want that leg to be pushed out on soft ground. So I demonstrated it wrong. Hmm, go figure. So instead of the leg being straight up like this, I had my leg angled. It still worked, you know, the way I did it, but it's designed to be vertical, not undercut it, but at 90 degrees or as close to 90 degrees as you can get it in the box rests on that. And it takes a load much better without a risk of it sinking in or pushing out and then of course falling farther down so anyway clips on that way so the other end of that is that i did wrong in my demonstration on the other side

they have extension handles that you can clip on they're very well designed excellent mechanical engineering and material quality but so what i did is because there were screws already in that upper box that i was going to tip and lift because i did two boxes two supers at once and and I just backed out the screws a little bit that are already part of that flow hive construction and I clipped it onto those screws big no-no now it worked fine for me but here's the thing it needs to be stronger so they make these load point screws which are 400 series stainless they're heavy-duty they're self-tapping and someone recently asked the question if those were made by flow because I did the same thing I googled them I looked for them I tried to find them elsewhere so that we

could buy these screws and then you screw them into your hives and leave them there and they're you know they have flange heads on them but they're a very unique design and I found out they were made for them so in other words you can't just find them somewhere so don't use regular stainless steel screws that are part of the flow hives when you get them and if you've got another hive type anyway you wouldn't be using them so let's say you're using endura hives that come from nature's image farm and you wanted these beeswax coated endura hive soupers and you want to have the propolis texture on the inside you wanted to use those so you could find those at nature's image farm and i ordered some specific from premier that have the propola hive so the probola interior

because i didn't like the handholds don't want them and so even before this lifting system came out which by the way doesn't even weigh 10 pounds. It's a fantastic piece of gear that you can use on as many hives as you want. So the thing is, I ordered hives without handholds, no cutouts. Because again, it turned out to be a smart thing to do because I'm looking at colder temperatures, more challenging climates. And whenever I did thermal scans, boy, you know, every little hive, wouldn't hive that had the cutouts for the handholds,

you saw hot spots there. Now, I don't think it's a significant. amount of heat loss. But one thing is for sure, if we're looking at the inside of the hive, and that is a hot spot, that also means from the inside of the hive, it's a cold spot. Which means that that's probably

where a lot of frost would concentrate itself. I don't know if that's good or bad. I've never been a fan of the little cutouts for the handholds. There are options for adding lifting. Some people, and I like this too, take one-by-toes, and they cut them at an angle.

So you've got a one-by-two, two-two, two inches high and it's three quarter of an inch because a one inch thick piece of wood here is not one inch and then you have the angled top and the angled bottom so it sheds rain snow ice stuff like that and then you have something to lift okay so that's pretty cool i like putting that on too but now i'm all set because i'm going to be using the hive lifter so the super lifter is what it's called we want to use the heavy duty load point screws on either side wherever you're going to attach lifting arms and all it does is tip it up and it rests on that hive lifter which is just a custom built tripod and uh that's it it works so i actually did that well ahead of time i'm not going to have handles now let's see you

don't have a lifter and i don't have any of these sandals here but at the north american honeybee Expo, B-Smart designs had new lifters, new handles that you could attach. So if you don't want to, or let's say you're building your own hive equipment, which, you know, depending on how expensive it is, it can run into a lot of money. And if you find that you can get a hold of some old recycled lumber, I am not too proud to pick through a junk pile at a construction site. And you shouldn't be either. So get a friend with a truck or a van or whatever they have.

and go to these, and they've got these big bins out front, that holloway, all the scrap, is unbelievable to me. The scrap that construction sites will be getting rid of. Pick through that stuff and stockpile it. I just bring it in and lean it against the walls inside my garage. So you can find free scrap wood. So there are lots of sources and stuff out there. There are a lot of ways to put handles on. Attach cleats yourself. Use the lifting handles that came from B-Smart Designs. They're white, they screw on, you leave them in place, and you can pick up an 80-pound super if that thing existed, but easily handles the weight. And they're out far enough that if you were wearing B-gloves and working out there, you can get a good grip on it. So that's

another choice. Be-smart Designs handles were really good. They did some early iterations of that, that would clip on, and then the handles would come off, and you left these little buttons on there. This isn't that. These are new. The screws actually go in. And of course the screws are at the perfect depth to go through just the handled material and then into three quarters of an inch of wood. So there aren't screw points sticking out inside your hive. So that's another thing. A lot of that's going good, but I wanted to make sure and correct that because I demonstrated it wrong. And I wanted you to know, load point screws and go up that thing just right.

So please don't forget that. Also, weather breaks my recommendation to you. You can do whatever you want. My recommendation, make food and resources available to your bees at the earliest opportunity when they break cluster. And they start flying and getting around. If you want to keep them alive, you don't want to join the demographic. Now, I know somebody may want to know, Fred, how many hives did you lose? I've lost 12 for sure.

12 colonies out of 43 are definitely dead. but like five of those were dead before we even hit winter. Not saying that that's better or worse. They were just tiny and that's it. But the good news is, so my message for people that have lost a lot of hives because I do look at the comment sections. I see what people are saying.

I went to Castle Hives. So Bryant, so I was looking at the people that were reporting there. There are some people that have been keeping bees for a while that lost 90% of their hives, even 100% of their colonies. So, and a couple of people had things like they lost 16 out of 19, 14 out of 18 colonies, that kind of thing. That's devastating. Nobody wants to be cleaning out all these dead bees, and it's particularly frustrating, if I referenced my survey that did at the beginning.

The toughest responders in that survey are those that lost. are bees without understanding what happened, not knowing why they died. So I also had a message that I didn't include today from Spain. And the reason I didn't include that is because what's going on in Spain is very hard because it simply said, you know, all my bees died, they didn't make it, the colony is dead, what's wrong, why did my bees die? I couldn't even begin to speculate as to why someone's bees in another area might have died and they did provide information about what they fed them and things like that.

But your best resource for trying to figure out what's going on with your bees where you reside is going to be a fellowship of beekeepers in your area. We just recently had a beekeeper breakfast, which we only do once a month at IHOP, which I think is fantastic. Because you get to talk to other beekeepers that are sharing your climate, sharing your zone, and then you can start to get kind of a consensus about what is work, What is not working? It's not at all helpful when somebody says 100% of my hives made it.

They always do. We always have 100% of our bees survive. Well, you know, good for you. If you've ever been sitting in school when the teacher handed out all the papers and you got your grades, and it's always the kid that turns to you and goes, what did you get? Well, the person that asked that question always got an A. They never, nobody gets an F and then goes,

hey, what did you get? I got an F. I got an F. No, they don't. They're dying to let you know that all their bees made it. So that's part of the problem with respondents when we're doing a consensus and finding out, did your bees die? The most vocal people are those who had bees that made it, those that had colonies that had terrific success because it's definitely a great thing. But you don't hear from people that have lost everything because people look at them and they think you're going to think you're a bad beekeeper. Specifically, if it's someone, who has had bees for years, or maybe has a personality type that is unfriendly to other people who don't keep bees the way they do,

and then they're less likely to admit when their bees die. But here's the right side of all of that. If you had 10 colonies going in a winter and you've only got three or four that are alive in spring, there's one thing we know for sure that in our area, although remember, remember when I read earlier on that when they're looking at correlations for why colonies are dying mass scale here in the United States this year, they said weather was not the contributing issue there. So, but what I'm saying for the people that are here where I live, the bees that we have in spring this year handled it. Like these are colonies of bees that are incredibly capable in this environment. And so that's why, as part of my fluff section, I would say the upside is the colonies you have made it through the worst winter. You've got Spartans. These things are going to handle whatever is thrown at them. You have fantastic genetic stock to work from going forward. Okay. You can all go bad, but these are the ones they made it. You've got great stock. Good genetics. So I would suggest if you can hold off, please don't buy them.

in. I know that somebody wants to sell you a package of bees, somebody wants to deliver a nuke to you. If they're regional, if they live where you are, and you want to work that out with them, and of course you're going to cast your financial votes to the people that you are the most impressed with in the way that they keep bees and the genetics that they work with and you you're sympathetico in the way you keep bees and the way you want to work them, then get that. But cycling back local stock is your best bet if you can do it. some of you are out there by yourselves or you've lost everything and you might be thinking well I can't you know wait for a swarm well you could wait for a swarm but if the swarm never comes

you potentially are out of beekeeping so I understand the incentive to get online and place your orders so that's the second tier of people that I want to explain to right now that if you are you know on a thread and you're about to be out of beekeeping and you're back-eaching and you're back and you just can't face a year without bees, then you better pick your stock now and reach out right now and get your orders in right now. If you've got just one colony, two is one and one is none. If you've got one colony and it's barely making it, you're gambling.

So that's an example of where I personally would get online, find the people that keep the kind of stock that I like that I want, and I would go ahead and get my orders in. Here's why. these people are going to run out of bees. There are a lot of people, if even half of this is as bad as people are presenting it to be, you are going to want to get on an early list to get those bees. Because I also just read a thing where Kamen Reynolds is partnering up with Corey Stevens,

and so he's probably going to get all of Corey's bees. Who knows what's going to happen. But you need to get your bees early. Order them early. That's it. You don't want to be out of stock, out of stock. out of stock right on down the line. Now, let's say that you've decided you only want local bees.

How are you going to get them? Nobody will talk to you because wherever you live, people just don't get along. So you get online, you get on a website called, don't forget to write this down, be swarmed.org, B-E-S-W-A-R-M-E-D dot org. Get on there and then list yourself in there. that database for swarm collection. You want to be on that. And here's the thing. It's free. Now you're a beekeeper. So you decide, I'm willing to drive 10 miles for bees. I'm willing to drive 20 miles for bees. Whatever the range is that you want to go out and get bees and respond

to a swarm, that gets logged in there and it's an automated system. Everybody doesn't get all your information. The system has your information, has your cell phone number. And you're driving on the road you get an alert swarm discovered three miles from where you are except reject oh yeah i have the morning off whatever in the afternoon i can go and get that swarm three miles except so when you do that it goes into the database swarm claimed now you get additional information about the swarm and you get the contact information from the person that posted about the swarm this is better than people going on social media saying look what's in my yard does anybody know what to do and people go oh those are bees let's get somebody to go and get them and then they send it out to bob and

Cindy and Tony and Tammy and everybody else that they know and say does anybody know where they could go and get this and there's all this back and forth about where they're located how long have they been there all this other stuff and you finally decide you'll reach out you'll go get them but then the person was so anxious to get them out of their yard off their swing set off their mailbox that they said yes to four other people and you get there just in time you drove a half an hour to see somebody else collect those bees off of that mailbox and you get nothing beesworm.org eliminates that problem. The other thing is then you get on social media because you're so popular and you tell everybody about beesworm.org and you say if you see bees in a cluster like this

put samples up put pictures out there of what a swarm looks like educate the general public. this link. Report your bees at beeswarned.org when you find the swarm. And that way, they won't be hanging out there for two or three days in the rain. They will get notified right away. A beekeeper nearby will come and get them and it's a perfect, well, it's a near perfect system. I'm just telling you. So there will be swarms. Trust me. And you're going to want them. The early ones. Not the late ones. Yeah, not the late ones. Get the early ones. Okay, so then you know for sure you've got a dead out. Put a screen over that.

Make sure that bees cannot rob that when it comes time to fly and that pests and stuff cannot get in. So when I say screen, window screen. Air movement, no pest movement. Until you can get in there to clean them. We don't want our bees robbing out a dead out. You want to assess it and know if it's healthy or not. And in closing, the very last thing I want to say to you,

thank you for watching today, by the way. If you're not a subscriber, I invite you to subscribe right now. because you're obviously interested and you just tuck around. And next Friday, the Q&A, will be live from 4 to 5. Next Friday, live 4 to 5, Eastern Standard Time. And I'll do a little premiere thing that comes up so there's a waiting room so you can talk with one another while I get my cup of coffee and everything ready to go. So live next Friday, bring your questions and comments, fellowship with each other.

It's all welcome. So I want to thank you for being here today. Thanks for watching. and I hope that you're getting good news as the weather clears and you'll find out if your colonies are doing well. And if this is your first year and you're thinking about bees, then you'll be looking at the beekeepers in your area and lock on to those who are having very good results, even though the weather this winter has not been good to the bees. Thanks a lot for watching.