The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A Episode 299, when to inspect in spring, what to look for and more...

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

This is the audio track from today's YouTube Video:  https://youtu.be/Mx8L04MtiLE

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today is Friday, March the 28th of 2025. This is backyard beekeeping questions and answers episode number 299. I'm Frederick Dunn and... This is the way to be. So I'm really glad that you're here. I'm trying this again for the second time today. Had a cough, you don't care. Let's move on. Okay, so if you want to know what we're going to talk about today, please look down in the video description below and all of the topics will be listed in order.

If you want to know how to submit your own topic or question for future consideration, please go to the way to be.org, click on the page marked The Way to Be. And submit your topic there. So I know what you want to know. You want to know what's going on outside because things are dynamic around here in the northeastern part of the United States and northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania. So look at this. It was 14 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, by the way, and we got snow.

That's right, this late in the year. So, but today is 44 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 7 degrees Celsius, 6 mile per hour winds, which is 10 kilometers per hour, and 73% relative humidity. So it's not bad, but guess what's coming up? It's going to have a warm up, so you're going to see some bees flying here in our neck of the woods. Things are going to be different where you live, but the bees are going to fly, and they're going to check things out, and you get to check out your bees, inspect the landing boards. it's going to also, of course, rain. So that affects our ability to get pollen and nectar

and everything else that they need. That's why you're going to have to be vigilant as a beekeeper. So maybe you have a question right now and you just have to talk to somebody about it. Please Google the way to be fellowship and go to the way to be fellowship on Facebook. Post your pictures, get your questions asked, share information. No politics, no drama.

Nothing but fun there. Okay, moving on. The very first question today comes from Illuminate. So that's the YouTube channel name, frequent commenter, and viewer. Thanks a lot. So anyway, I'm using 10 frame deeps for swarm traps this year, adding one old brood comb frame and one partially drawn frame. Would you recommend the other eight frames? Just be empty. No foundation. I'm trying to decide to just do empty frames or do them with foundation. So this really comes into play with what you have at hand.

If you've already got foundation and it's got beeswax on it, that's great. I would go ahead and put it in there. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not the space should be empty or full or frames in it or no frames. And here's what I say to you. The most valuable frame that you're going to put in there is that drawn comb that had been used previously for brood production. That's where all the cool smells are. That's where the scouts are going to be encouraged. First of all, to check out the box.

Find out that's been lived in before. something that's been lived in before is very appealing to honeybees. So the other part is a partially drawn frame. Sure, put that in there. Now here's the thing. So bear with me. We've got foundation and it should be waxed. If you've got plastic foundation that is not waxed, don't even bother putting it in there. So wax foundation, your bees, when they swarm, are ready to draw comb. They are comb building machines because they're ready to establish a new colony somewhere and fill a space with what they need resource-wise.

And they can't put resources anywhere until they've got comb and cells to put it in, which includes eggs, food, resources, you name it. So that's my recommendation for that. Empty frames are more work for the bees. So if you have the comb, the foundation, and waxed, that's the best way to go. If your foundation is just plastic, not waxed,

go ahead and use the wooden frames and just rub a little bit of beeswax on the underside of the top bar. and that'll get them going. So. I can move right on. That was question number one. Moving to question number two. I'm doing better than when I tried earlier today. So this one comes from Trish Westberg,

and that's the YouTube channel name. Do you put your pollen paddy above or below the insulated inner cover? Okay. So for those of you don't know, when we did the standard Langstroth Hives, all of my Langstroth Hives now have insulation on their inner covers, covers but there's also an insulated intercover that comes from B-smart designs and it's sold by a lot of different companies so it depends this time of year though we've got our brood up near the top right underneath usually that inner cover so if you opened the inner cover if you pulled it up you would

find that the bees are right up against it there's probably even burcombe and some honey and stuff up against there so my personal choice is not to disrupt that at all you likely have a fondant or a rapid round with sugar in it or something like that on top of your insulated intercover as an emergency resource for your bees. So we're going to pull that off. So I'm recommending above the intercover. Of course, I'm going to talk about the trivet, which, by the way, is being sold by a lot of different companies,

including Better Bee. And it's made by Be Smart Designs. But this goes over your insulated intercover right here. Wouldn't it be better if I got one and demonstrated it? So we have your insulated intercover. Bees are underneath. This is the hole they go through. Trivet goes on top of the hole.

Fondent is off now. Dry sugar is off because we're transitioning, by the way. And your pollen paddy goes right on top of this and then we put loose leaf double bubble on top of that as an insulation. And that way your bees will come up through here. They'll also have access all the way around and the trivet creates that bee space so they can access this area. Now this is a transitional time. If you leave that alone when things really warm up, because remember we're just brood building now,

so when you get into supering time when the dandelions are in full bloom and everything is going well, you want to get this off of here and you want to close the space up including closing this hole because otherwise the bees will start to build comb up in here. So just for now, on top of the insulated inner cover is what I personally would do. Chervits are cheap, they sell them 10 at a time or something like that. Okay, so, and that's for pollen patties. I'm using the 15% protein pollen patties. So 15% pollen or 15% protein, I forget which.

But they come in, I think, 5 or 15. So I'm using the 15s, 15% pollen. And that will boost the brew the best. It also happens to be the most expensive, however. So moving on. Question number three. Hill Kid for Mountains. That's interesting. So that's the YouTube channel name. It says I've used diluted apple cider vinegar spray on cleaned up dead frames and things like that.

Stack my box is 90 degrees to air dry. You could probably use it in light sugar syrup too. And that's true. So this is something that we really need to talk about. And the reason is all vinegar is not the same. So there's a misunderstanding out there and I hope to clear it up and I hope you clear it up with your friends. All vinegar is not suitable for consumption. So the white vinegar is a cleanser. So be careful. That doesn't belong in your bees' stomachs, in their syrup, and anything. Apple cider vinegar is designed for consumption. So anyway, the comparison that I make is between apple cider vinegar and the bleach. So bleach is the

and a septic bleach that's used in hospitals for cleansing and sanitizing and should not have anything else in it but the ratio is the same one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar per gallon of syrup or one teaspoon of bleach to one gallon of sugar syrup so i'm going to be doing tests coming up this year with that because we still haven't published that research that was done on the bleach added to the sugar syrup which boosted brood production very interesting I'm waiting to hear more from Adam on that and we'll talk about that in the future so yeah interchangeable don't use white bleach that's all I'm saying so next is question number four this comes from Lynn from Russell PA when do you normally perform a complete inspection of your hives including the brew box for the first time after winter so remember that we always have to have a reason to get into our beehive and specifically the brood box

have a plan so what's coming up look at your records and i know you kept very good records last year so yeah even if you have one or two hives write down everything that happens so what's happening when are the bees going to swarm so the second week of april is when i start getting into the hives now what do we need to know? What do I need to look for? There's a reason for doing an inspection, which could be just to find out the status. Do you have eggs? Do you have full production going on? Are the right number of frames occupied? How's their food? How are their resources? That's an inspection. You get in, get that information, get out of there. Now, an evaluation of the hive is every single frame. Why would we do that? Well, we need to get ahead of them swarming. So I picked the second

week of April, and that's for my part of the country. So northeastern United States, northwest from part of Pennsylvania. You can see what the weather is doing for us out here. We're just now getting rid of the snow. So we're looking for queen cells. If they've started to develop queen cells in your hive, you need to start thinking about making a split, expanding the hive. And that's why we do a complete inspection. See the condition of the brood in the frames everywhere and see what kind of resources we have. Whether or not this hive needs any help at all, they might already be loading up with nectar and they might already be well suited with fallen and you don't need to build them up so this is where

keeping notes and your notes should indicate how many frames of bees did you notice when you checked it out three out of ten four out of ten covered in bees how many frames of brood did you have document that in your inspection also notice if there are any conditions that are questionable frames that you've identified that might be really dark that could be cycled out then the next question would be how often do you cycle those out well we take 20 percent out of each high starting on the fifth year. So once a brood frame, brood comb has been in there for five years or more, we like to swap it out.

And why would you do that? Because the bees have to build brand new comb then. Well, we swap it out because it also serves as the liver of the hive, which means all the toxins that your bees are bringing into the hive get concentrated into that honeycomb. So then it builds up toxins and it can get to the point where, even though you've got really good looking comb, down the road, your bees start not

using it. The queen won't lay her eggs in it. The nurse bees don't prep it. What is going on? We have to make an assumption that toxins from agricultural practices from pesticides has been concentrated to the point that your bees are rejecting it or using it only as a last resort. So five years and older, start cycling it out, a couple of frames, which everyone's looked the worst. So there's a lot of reasons to do that. And keep your brood cluster together. Please don't checkerboard inside the brood because if you get that cold snap, that takes away or reduces their ability to really be efficient in maintaining warmth for the developing brood. So I hope that helps.

Second week of April. So a little more than two weeks from right now. Because that is two weeks out from when we expect to see the first swarm. So that's when the alarm bells start going off and beekeepers are caught off guard every single year. So I want to help you with that. Question number five. This comes from Rodney. Freeport, Illinois.

Rodney lost 75% of his bees. He ordered a couple of packages, and we'll do some splits also. We'd also like to do a swarm trap. Any recommendations? This will be my first try at it. Thanks. Swarm traps. I've done a lot of talking about swarm traps through the years.

In fact, I have swarm troopers. Those are boxes designed just for catching swarms. I've abandoned them. Here's why. We have a lot of bees in my area and empty boxes that you've cleaned out your dead. So you've done your dead outs. This is really important. We're only of every bit of detritus from your dead out hives as soon as possible.

So get the dead bees out, clean the cells. Now I do this with low pressure air, blast them out. It works really well. It'll even blast the cappings off of old dead brood and will blow the brood right out of it. So it's really cool. I do have a video where I demonstrated that. It's in my Quick Tips, which is a playlist that you should really check out because that is really handy.

I've also gone to those battery powered dusters that blows off dust. I have really powerful ones that I'm going to haven't made a video yet because we haven't been outside because it's cold. But I'm going to demonstrate how to clean out a dead out with that and show a touch-free method of clearing out all this to try this. But anyway, clean it up as much as you can, put it all back together, make a very small entrance. So a lot of people, when they're clearing a dead out, they think, well, I want to get this thing all aired out and everything. So they just pull out their entrance reducer and everything else. I say no. Here's why we're trying to attract the scouts.

The scouts are going to want to check it out because it smells right. It's been occupied before, and there are no dead bees in there. Because dead bees in a clump smells like a dead animal. They are a dead animal. a dead super organism. The other thing is, let's do a plug for Blythwood B Company, who makes and sells Swarm Commander. This seems like an advertisement.

I am not sponsored. I get nothing for telling you that. In fact, when you go to Blythwood B Company and order Swarm Commander, tell them I sent you so you can pay the same as everyone else. Now, I like these little capsules, but anyway, you just touch a little bit. don't overdo Swarm Commander. The tiniest bit in the back, you don't have to touch the landing board. Don't do it. In the back, your bees are incredibly sensitive. They have a fantastic ability to smell that. It smells like Nassanoff pheromone from the Nassanoff gland, from the worker bees that are

trying to call other worker bees to something that's interesting, which includes a recall. So that's what we're trying to do. We get them to check it out. So then when they look at that, and the reason I'm bringing this up is my grandson, the supervisor, We cleaned out dead outs. I went, you know, because I'm teaching them. So we put brackets on a tree and we put beehives up in the tree. The right size 10 gallons is optimum. And to attract swarms. And we left it there. Of course, all spring. And then we have another swarm season that happens late summer around here. You may have one swarm season where you live. But we have swarms all year long because we don't have a dearth. What's a dearth? At earth is when the environment is not providing nectar and pollen so that your bees can brood. Our bees get that all year long here.

So anyway, we would put those up and we had a self-hiving swarm from somewhere else fly right past my house while we were having lunch one day because swarms happen between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. like clockward. That's prime swarm time. And then what they do is they flew to a hive that was unoccupied and they moved themselves in. That is an absolute perfect swarm installation. Empty hive, no bees, go have lunch, come back, make a video, watch the bees, move into your hive, and you've got a colony. Now I'm not saying that's going to happen for you. I'm saying that it happens so often. Talk to the people that have had gears stored in a shed.

Talk to people that have put their beehives after they were done with them in their garage and left the garage shore open. And then a week later there's a swarm in their garage. and they weren't ready for it. It's stuff is a mess. That is what should lead you to believe that if bees are in the area, scouts are in the area, and they will occupy spaces that are suited to them

and what's more suited than a hive that's been previously occupied by bees. That's fantastic. So that's why I'm not doing that anymore. So your old previously occupied deep, single, don't put a whole hive that's got three boxes together and everything else. Just your brood box, just the brood frames.

inner cover outer cover closed up single entrance that's it and it would probably help you out to have it where you want them to ultimately be and if not you'll catch us warm and move them in so that's the other thing i like to do which i like to talk about is uh i pick a tree branch on a tree that frequently gets visited by bees that are on their way to their final destination but they present themselves for you at eye level every single time i'm kidding but you can influence your bees with pheromones. What pheromones would you use? Swarm commander, take one of these little capsules, snap it, dab it on a tree branch,

and you'll get bees interested in that, and they'll scope it out, because bees don't go to their final destination right away. They go to what's called a bivouac, and the bivouac is something that I make fun of, that I tease the bees about, that I take pictures of them while they're bivouacking, I don't care about their privacy. I go and scope them out. Here's what I want them to do. I want them to land on that branch because they also leave their own pheromones there.

And when they do that and have left their own pheromones on that branch, then other bees want to land there too. So when your bees depart a hive and they're swarming out, they land somewhere intermediate to the final destination. So it's your job to redirect that early on because swarms will use that branch over and over again or in close proximity to it. sometimes there'll be two swarms in the same tree because there's multiple queens and they gather around their favorite queen. So the reason I like to bring that up is you can double the attraction value of that branch. There's something called QMP, Queen Mandibular Pharmon. You can get a synthetic version of that from Better Bee. It's called Temp Queen.

This stuff is cheap. $5. Goes in your freezer. Then when you need it, you take one of the little needles. $5 by the way gets you two QMP noodles so you take one of those out and you zip tie it to a little tree branch where you want it to be now that tree branch should support a good five pounds swarm that's what you want to do pick it out it's not an eyesore it still looks like a tree okay so you zip tie that and you'll get bees on it sometimes and it'll look like you know because grandson shows up grandfather there's a swarm in the bee yard my wife comes into the kitchen there's a swarm in the bee yard now I fake them out with pheromones and they're just gathering on this branch without the benefit of a queen. Now if it's big, see, they get these little clusters. That's how you know. They've just been fooled. Those are foragers. Don't feel bad. They're not faithful to their colony because what do they do? They picked up on another pheromone that they don't even know and they just joined it. So don't feel bad for them.

And they will stay there and then when a swarm does happen, the likelihood is increased. that's going to collect on that branch that you've chosen at eye level and what am i going to try this year too we're going to try that trash bin that wire expanded wire trash can collection so i'm just throwing all this in there because swarm season is upon us everyone within two weeks be ready two weeks of prep that's when you're getting your stuff out getting ready in other words i wouldn't go out there right now in my neck of the woods and start to prime a branch yet But in two weeks at the same time, second week of April that we're talking about making preparations or inspecting a colony to determine whether or not they're making preparations of their own to get rid of their queen. The way we know that is queen's cells are being built.

That's also when you start priming these branches and things where you want your bees to land. Question number six. Chris and Rachel from Bolivar, Pennsylvania. I don't know how to say that. so our apiary consists of mainly lands hives but like you we like to experiment with a variety of hive styles this past winter we lost both of our langstroth hives man it's a lot of bee losses one long and one resource hive so a long langstroth dead resource hive dead what's a resource hive usually it's a nucleus hive if you're watching this channel is probably a five frame

deep frame nucleus box. And then it becomes a resource later, but we're going to solve this. Okay. Well, we always hope to collect spring swarms, they are never a guarantee. That's true. And being the experimenter that you are, if you only had Lanshives, and I do have Lanshives, and wanted to split into a Langstroth, how would you do it? Well, I have ideas, let me tell you. So land size, by the way, once again, for those who are all lands all the time, super happy about it, good for you. Yes, they made it through winter. All in their own. They're fantastic.

They're insulated. They are deep frames, and these frames are not compatible with these standard Langstroth frame size, right? But here's what I'm going to suggest. Stroke of borderline genius. I like to talk about these. These are handy tools. So what are we looking at? This is a queen isolation cage. This is different from a queen introduction cage. Queen introduction cage, even workers can't get to her.

Queen isolation cage, the queen and work, the queen gets trapped in here on frames, and then the worker bees, the nurse bees, can come and go through these bars, willy-nilly, all they want, and they can attend to everything. Here's what I'm suggesting. You get one of these inside your lane. So you're gonna have to make room for it. This says two, don't get upset. I know some people do not like pre-drawn synthetic beeswax,

but that's what this is. This is better come, pre-drawn, ready to go. And it works, regardless of your opinion of it, this stuff works really well. You can put your queen, and there's two full frames here. See how big this is? You have to get this into your lands open space. Okay.

And if you find another way to do this, another way to just get drawn comb from Langstroth frame in there. But we need to get the queen to lay on it and we need to get the workers to join the queen. And we also need to find out, just like the earlier question in that evaluation, are they making preparations for swarming? Because I guarantee you my layens hives are going to swarm because they're too populated already too early. So we need to get them to join the queen on here. And we need to get the queen to lay eggs. So we need a queen and a bunch of nurse bees in here.

And this is how we're going to make a split. It only has to be in there long enough for nurse bees to join, for the queen to lay some eggs, and for the nurse bees that start to commit to those eggs. And then you get a couple frames of nurse bees on here, and you move this whole thing into what? Your resource hive, your nucleus, your five-frame nuke. This will take up three of the five frames.

So you put that right in there, and then you can put in two more frames. you won't be able to put three frames for the full five because this takes up some room. So then what happens is we've controlled the queen. She's on here. And this gives us a chance, right? If we want to catch the queen, it's easier because she's in this with two frames. They make these with a single, but I'm recommending two.

And here's why. We're going to leave them in here for two weeks. And then we're going to be able to check back on the Layans hive. And we're going to see if, in fact, they started making new queen cells, which they should. Once their queen leaves, they are realizing almost immediately the queen is gone. If they weren't making queen cells already, then they will be now. Now here's another way to make that transition less damaging to the population of the land side that you're going to pull these from. Wait until they start making their own queen cells.

Now, this is a game that you're going to have to really be tight about. Once they're making queen cells, now a queen cup and queen cells are different. You'll see this little looks like the cap of an acorn just on the edge hanging down. It's built out bigger than a normal cell, but it's empty. So it's just a queen cup. You may see those around. Don't even bother smashing them. They keep them as an insurance policy.

If we have queen cells, that is a cell going vertical that has developing larvae in it. That's when you want to collect your queen anyway. She's going to leave. They're kicking her out. They don't want her. So you get that queen. You put her in here. You get a bunch of nurse bees in here and you put them in your nucleus hive.

Now what else you're going to put on that resource nuke? They need protein. They need pollen. And they can't forage because these are all brand new nurse bees in here. So we need to put those 15% pollen patties on or something like that to keep them fortified. Or if you have other hives and it sounds like you don't though. So this is for other people that might be listening. If you've got a frame that has protein, in it. What's protein? That would be bee bread. What's bee bread? That's the pollen that the nurse bees have

fermented and turn into a resource that you can feed them. Now I'm going to tell you about something that I've not done myself. Okay? I read about it. It seems viable. I don't know. Maybe you can try it. We're going to go back to better comb. So this better comb has all the cells in it. So we put our queen in here and we have nurse bees. The nurse bees can't forge and bring in resource. We know that we can put on sugar syrup. That's easy. So that's a carbohydrate so they're going to need. But this queen's going to lay and she's not going to lay eggs

and they're not going to attend to those eggs unless they have food, right? So one of these two frames that are in here, you can actually take this. Now remember, somebody told me they did it. I haven't done it. You can take it something like UltraB Dry Pollen Sub or AP23 Dry Pollin Sub

sub or mega bee dry pollen sub you can sprinkle it into these cells on one side then you can take sugar syrup one to one or lighter and you can spritz those cells that have the dry pollen substitute in them so remember your cells are at a slight angle so you would tip it like this you would sift onto these you don't need to fill the cells just half full is probably good spritz them with one to one sugar syrup which which binds them in there and now the nurse bees can work that and get the fermentation going. So that light syrup is really important because remember that light sugar syrup ferments quicker. So they might turn that into bee bread. Now is that optimum? Is that the best? No, but it's better than nothing and you're starting with nothing in a configuration like this

unless you are able to pull a frame of pollen that's ready to be consumed by your bees. So then you put the lid on it, put it in your new Clays Hive and your queen is there. Insurance policy. What happens three weeks down the road? Okay, we want those queens to emerge. The top queen's going to chew a hole in the side of the queen cells of the others and they're going to sting each other to death. One of them's going to live. The colony is going to really care about the queen that survives. She's going to mature. She's going to fly out. She's going to do a mating flight. She's going to come back from the drone congregation area. and she's going to start laying eggs or she won't if she doesn't and you did that inspection three weeks out

and there's no evidence of a queen being there and there's no more open larvae at all what do we have an insurance policy thus the term resource hive we solve the queen queen's in production we take these frames and uh well again we've got this pickle because we have a layans hive so you're just going to take the queen and put her back in with her previous nurse bees and whoever's left that hasn't dwindled and then what do we have in here eggs larvae brood and what they'll do is then you need to get them out of this cage we need to leave them all in the resource hive and then they will start to produce a replacement queen so there you go queen cells hope that wasn't too confusing by the way where do you get those cages you get them from

better be. Tell them I sent you, pay the same as everyone else. So I hope that's helpful. Let's make sure. Let's make sure. That's my number one complaint about lands hives, by the way, is their incompatibility with all my other hives. And the answer to that is, well, Fred, get all lands hives and have no more problems. I just like the smaller Langstroth frames. And I'm sorry that the long Langstroth, we should have done really well, did not carry your bees through the year. Question number seven comes from Ed from Winona, Minnesota. Hey Fred, what are the possibilities that VSH bees who groom and bite varroa mites are exposing themselves to greater virus risk. Some of you are sitting there going, what's an acronym? What are VSH? Well, Varroa sensitive,

hygienic. Okay, this is very interesting. These are bees that go after varroa mites wherever they find them they uncap brood cells they go after them they expose them to air and they kill the varomites in their cradle stage while they're babies and so the percentage of grooming increases exposure to mite virus transmission direct contact mandible contact increases blah blah blah okay so these grooming bees and I like them because they're obsessive obsessive compulsive groomers there's a grooming station grooming area inside your hive these groomers are there so they are exposed to more, and here's why. Because they bite the mites and they groom them off and they're really mad about it. And some of them, if you have Purdue ankle biters or something like that, they chew their feet.

So they are interacting with mites, which means that their exposure to the pathogens that the mites, that the mites carry, they have more exposure than, let's say, a storekeeper bee, that all that one does is through trophlaxes, collects nectar from bees coming in, takes it, stores it in the hive. So the groomers are in direct contact with bees that need what, to be groomed. Why do they need to be groomed? They have problems. How do they let the other bees know that they have a problem? They vibrate. They do a grooming dance. They let the other bees know. Hey, man, something's on me. Excuse me. It's not hey man. It's, hey, ma'am, something's on me. And I waggle at four cycles per second. That lets you know that I need to be groomed, that I'm not just

vibrating because I'm trying to say something else. I'm vibrating because something's on me. I can't get off myself, please help. So then they groom it. So yeah, the exposure is higher, but I don't think the exposure is that bad because here's what I'm thinking. We're talking about the varro-destructor might. What does the varro-destructor might do? It's a vector of pathogens. How many pathogens? 10 or more? How does it get the pathogens into the bees? Well, it feeds on the bee. Well, the bee is developing. Where does it do that? During the pupa state of the bee. So, right at about the eighth day, when the bee is being capped over and it's going into its pupa state, the foundress mite, the female, zips in there and gets capped in with them.

And then while she's in there, she feeds on the developing pupa. Then what does she do? She produces her offspring. What do they do? They feed on the developing pupa also. So it goes both ways. First of all, the mite is passing on the pathogens that she's carrying because she bites into the soft body tissue and feeds on the fat bodies of that developing pupa. Then what happens? Her offspring also feed on the fat bodies of the developing pupa and then so they're extracting out now and becoming carriers of or vectors of the pathogens that are passed on from varroa to varroa with the bee as the host. That carries me on to the next part of this question. Also, do you know if the virus mutations

Antigenic drift occurs in the parasite or the host. So in other words, when the viruses mutate and they do that in the host, that's the whole point of the host. The varroa destructor mite is the carrier. The host becomes where the virus mutates and modifies itself and guarantees it's going to survive. So, and I just made it just make it. I just made a quick note here.

It changes the virus surface proteins, and this replicates within the honey bee. And then, of course, the next mite that feeds on that bee gets a better pathogen, something that's going to survive. That's the problem. These mutations are constantly happening. Not only that, all mites are not created equal.

They don't all carry the same. They don't vector the same pathogens. So, there you go. Question number eight, last question of the day. This comes from Colette, Chico, California. It says, I'm curious about guard bees. Aren't we all? What is up with those guard bees?

I have noticed that after an inspection, one or two bees follow me to the shed, where my equipment is. It's about 50 feet. Once there, they buzz around for a minute or so, and then they leave. Two or three minutes later, a more substantial group of, I assume, guard bees.

half a dozen come back with a little more defensive behavior. And if I leave the area, they stop following me. However, when I return several hours later, the same pattern, one B, then a larger group comes back. The last one or two days, my question is, do guard bees recruit other guard bees in the same way that foragers recruit other foragers or scout bees? Communicate housing locations. All right, so here's the thing. Bees are funny and interesting. guard bees are funny too not every bee becomes a guard bee by the way guard bees are transitioning

into the foraging job so it's kind it's an outdoor job it's a landing board job and they have to be ready to defend right that's why they have their little arms up and their little mandibles out and it's kind of funny looking and when they get really mad their little wing spreads out it's like they're ready to go their wings are ready to take off and they want to let you have it but here's another funny thing that they do so look for it because i want you to to see it and want you to notice it. Sometimes they'll have their little stinger sticking part way out. It's like, what's wrong with that bee? Why is the stinger sticking out? It's not stinging anything, but it's flagging. It's putting its little stinger out and it's coated the stinger on

its way out with what? An alarm pheromone. Why is it doing that? To get the attention of other guard bees saying, hey, something's up. I see something moving over there. We need to go and engage with that. and what happens is just as described here and it is very annoying one or two come out there's thousands of bees you've got hives all over the place two bees one or two comes out and they're in your face and they really want to get you now this is a lot of fun all you have to do is this lower your profile if you're with other people because they're going to go after the taller person they're going to go after high contrast people too. So you can duck down, you can get out of the way of them, but you haven't solved your problem because that bee is going to make a pest of herself. And just as described, they can sometimes

build in numbers. So they've got the alarm for a mom, they want others to be mad. It's like social media. One person gets mad, they want everybody to be mad about the same thing. Let's get that person. They parked in the parking lot. They're delivering a box. It's probably from some place that's not a B supply store. Let's get them. What can you do about it? This is my favorite part. So yeah, they recognize you, by the way. That's the other part. Bees that have been out about recognize people, individuals. So they can come after you. Maybe you're the one that was in the hive.

And they didn't like the timing of that. They didn't like that you didn't use smoke or they didn't like that you dropped a frame or smashed some of their friends, which released a bunch of pheromones. So keep that in mind too. Every time you smash your bees, you're smashing the alarm pheromone gland. and they're mad about it. So what can you do? We have butterfly nets everywhere, the little ones.

And so what we do is we catch that one bee out of the air and just park around the ground in the butterfly net while we're in the bee yard. Now there's something else you can do too, which is kind of fun because after all, she's mean. She's not your friend. She really wants to sting you because sometimes they do that. My son will show up and he just gets out of his car. They zip past everybody else, go right to him and sting him right next to the eye. where it's his favorite place to be stung.

Why'd they do that? He's the tallest. He's like 6'4 or something. And he has dark eyebrows, dark hair, and light skin, and they, bam, they get him every time. Now what can we do? How can we head that off? We get him in your net. You take him over to any hive. You spritz them because you have your sugar syrup spritzer

that you carry in your holster. Sprits that guard bee with sugar syrup and drop her on any landing board and she will be their best friend for as long as she has sugar syrup all over her. It just makes you feel good. It's like getting that really mean rooster and putting it upside down on the ground and then trailing your finger away from its head and it gets hypnotized and you take your hands away really slow and it just lays there with his feet in the air.

It's pretty humiliating for the rooster. And what happens? He comes around later. He's fine. So the same thing with the guard bee. Teach them. They're trying to teach you a lesson about messing with their hive. You teach them a lesson about messing with your hive.

you teach them a lesson about messing with you you sprits them with sugar syrup and you make them the most popular treat on that landing board and they will just lick that be crazy and it won't be stinging you that's all i can say but as far as they get other foragers other guard bees involved by releasing alarm for a moment and getting them on alert and getting them to leave the landing board it takes a lot because they're really leaving their guard station they should stay at the landing board unless something really interacts that requires a defense So that's it. One or two. It's always like that. Just sprits them with sugar syrup and make them interesting to all the other bees around. It'll fix their wagon. Also, all the licking that happens from all the other bees messes up their pheromone. So now we're in the fluff section. So this is fun. One of the things that comes to mind this time of year, Verodistarcher mites. Now, you might be treatment-free, you might be treating, but here's what I want to talk about. Because I listen to other people when they talk. I listen to people at bee meetings at bee breakfast. and things like that. And it always centers around this time of your, what are you doing to control your varomites? Here's what I want you not to do. Some people are mixing their treatments. There was a very interesting article in the American Bee Journal about APA tablets. I don't know if you've seen those before. These are APA tablets. Okay. Finally, somebody studied them.

Randy Oliver published in the American Bee Journal an entire article. He did a very thorough evaluation of APA tablets, and it's in the April edition of the American Bee Journal. So if you don't have it, get it. If you don't subscribe, get a friend to loan it to you. Read the article, really worth it. But the thing of it is, I noticed somebody was putting APA tablets in their hives. They also did oxalic acid dribble.

and then while they were waiting for the dribble to work, they vaped it. And then their follow-on was what, Formic Pro patties to get the Varodistractor mites that are under the caps. Here's what I want to warn you about. And Varoxan is on the scene too, which is that extended release, cardboard pre-soaked, goes in there, 40 days, 50 days, whatever it is, Veraxan, extended release. And so people do the same thing. They're putting varoxane in their hive, and then they're adding,

they're layering other varroa or miticides on the hive, even though they're organic. See, that's a problem. It's organic. It's a soft treatment. It's blah, blah, blah, whatever. Please pick a treatment. Stick to that treatment's regimen.

Whatever the label says is the rule. And don't, on your own, create a potential. synergistic effect. In other words, we don't know how the other treatments react with one another. Pick a treatment that works well for the time of year, the condition of the hive, and the population of hive, and the indication of the varroa mites that are there and see it through. See how effective that is. You have no idea. If you're piggybacking all these different treatments, first of all, you can be overwhelming your bees. And there's more than just, you can't just say,

well, I just, you can say, but my bees didn't die, right, but there's a lot of sub-leethers. aspects to that. Your bees don't have to die. They can be impacted negatively. So pick a treatment, see how that treatment works. If you're anxious to try other treatments, do it on some of your other hives and keep records over an extended period of time. So, and I'm a fan of getting your mites under control, you know, in every integrated pest management way that you know of doing. Please do that because this time of year, When you get in there, my counts are important. Now maybe you don't want to kill a bunch of bees in your swisher, right? Which by the way, this is a really good one. This comes from Ciracell. It's the Varroa test bottle. It does not leak. It has a really good system to it.

For those of you who want to learn, if you're teaching people how to keep bees, you're a mentor. And I am a mentor. You want to teach them how things are done and how to count. I even mark it like I mark these things that's 300 bees right so if you're doing mite washes and things like that this is the time of year to do it but here's the problem this is the time of year when your varroa are building up really fast and where are they they're undercover they're inside you're developing your pupa right so I like to do bottom board counts I just look for if I see a high and get a bunch of dead vera on the bottom of it, I assume they've got a problem.

I need to check it out. And you need to clean those trays. And my ideal tray, which Ross is working on, by the way, for those of you who look at the prints, they're on my website, the way to be.org, prints and plants, the bottom board. Screen bottom board, enclosed, removable tray. Valuable for letting you know which colonies have a lot of mites.

Because there'll be some dead. Mites have a life expectancy like everything else, and eventually they die and fall through the screen and end up on the bottom. So you can definitely make comparisons that way. But please don't combine treatment. Second week of April, move queens down. So this is my thing this year. I'm going to insert queen excluders underneath the,

so if you've got the deep brood box, then we've got your medium super, which is my most common configuration here for the Langstroth Hives. The brood is up. there but chances are they're also kind of between both boxes so I'm going to lift up the upper box going to put a queen excluder there going to find my queen so part of the full evaluation inspection find the queen put her down below so that they will occupy the bottom box now if I open it up and the bees are already back filling and they've already moved fully into that bottom box I don't need to do this

I don't need to get the queen down there because she's already down there they're on their way How do we get them to do that on their own? Small entrance, 3 eighths of an inch, two to three inches wide. Don't open it up. And no upper venting, no upper entrance. And they just naturally backfill and move as the weather warms, they move the brood closer to the entrance. Now to hurry that process along,

keeping your medium on top and you're deep below. Put the queen excluter in, catch your queen, put her underneath, close it back up, and you're set. And then for the rest of year, you're going to know exactly where your queen's located. I think it's going to work great. Next thing, remove your fondant packs if they're still on. You can mix those with sugar syrup two weeks from now. Then also putting in 15% protein patties, that's what I'm going to do.

If I make a split, the split is going to get the protein patties, just as I described before. If you've done that thing where you put dry pollen sub into cells and dampened it with sugar syrup, and it worked really well. Please write down in the comment section that worked for you or that it didn't, that it just made a mess or the bees just cleaned it out or something. Let us know what your experience was. I'm not going to name the person that published the article

because it was not a study. It was an article. And then super your colonies, if the brood box is already full or near full. If you've got six out of eight in an eight-frame box or seven out of ten already full, it's time to super. So again, that's two weeks.

second week of April. I'm just giving you preparation time so that everything is ready to go. And that wraps up today. So I want to thank you for watching. Thank you for being here. And I got to tell you that there's a tiny miracle going on here because I've had a problem with a cough recently. And you might notice that there's some haze going past here. This room that I'm in is also where I dry honey down. So what is a humidity in this room? 30 percent, 30, 35 percent relative humidity. That is very dry. Do you know what that does to you? It makes you cough. If you have any irritant in your throat at all and the environment is really dry, you will start coughing, which I did last night while I was trying to give a B presentation.

Can you imagine that? Giving a B presentation, having a coughing fit in the middle of it and having to shut that down, and I was in this space. So, what is going on now? This is humidity, people. This is the fog. Because what I did today, so we're not talking bees anymore. We're talking about soothing your throat. I have a room that I call the oxygen room because it's full of houseplants. It's also warm and it's high humidity. We're talking 75, 80% humidity. Let's talk about the humidity inside a beehive, 60 to 65% relative of humidity inside the beehive. So then I thought what is making me cough when I'm trying to give a presentation to a club and I apologize to the Mount Diablo beekeepers association because I had to

cancel, I had to close my presentation because I started coughing and I was trying to figure out what is going on. It's the room I'm in. It's the dry air because I have to give another presentation tomorrow and I was trying to back out of it because I'm going to have a coughing fit I'm not going to be able to talk so I have a humidifier in here that's all I changed that's what this mist is going around and I have not coughed once I did this in a straight shot it's tiny miracle and now I have my confidence back that come tomorrow I'm going to be able to give my presentation to the same place where Mr. Ed is and I'm going to give my presentation after lunch tomorrow So humidity makes all the difference.

So I set up a room, multi-purpose, super dry it so I can dry out my honey and what I do? Dried out my own voice and irritated my throat. Thanks a lot for being here. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead with the warm up and that your bees are all doing great. Thanks for listening.