The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Q&A LIVE Chat Episode 291

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

This is the audio track from today's YouTube:  https://youtube.com/live/tCNNs-ZA2xc?feature=share

So hello everyone. Thanks for waiting for me. That was an experiment second time that we've ever done a waiting room So oh look in the comments from the waiting room stay even after we start So I want to thank you all for being there and thank you Keith. He's my bouncer as always He does this for a lot of YouTube channels by the way. So let's get this kicked off For those who are already here if you have a question for me please type it in all caps That's not rude for today's Q&A. It's just so I can figure out the difference between you all saying hello to one another and something that might be for me. But happy Friday. Today is January the 31st. And of course,

it's the last Friday of the month of January. I'm glad I made it. 2025. This is backyard beekeeping questions and answers episode number 291 live chat edition. So I'm Frederick Dunn. This is the way to be. You can call me Fred or anything that's respectful. I answer to anything. I know that you want to know what's going on outside. 39 degrees right now, up from 36. When I started this, that's 2 Celsius for the rest of the world. We have decent winds, 5 miles an hour, which is 8 kilometers per hour, 99% relative humidity.

So we're just getting that all out of the way. And I want to thank you all for being here. I'm not going to say hello to everyone individually. because what happens is I forget somebody and then someone feels bad. So I'm just saying hello to the entire group. And go ahead. If you have a question, throw it out there. I want to let you know, oh, by the way, if you go outside today,

zero percent risk of sunburn. So you're clear. Where I live, things are different where you are. And I'm sure somebody's dying to tell me it's 75 degrees and sunny where they are good for you. I'm in the northeastern part of the United States, the state of Pennsylvania, northwest corner of that state. Also, I want to let you know about the wildlife outside. We have a flock of turkeys walking around.

Wild turkeys, not silver palms in those domestic kinds. Wild turkeys. We have lots of deer. We're in trouble with the deer. We have rabbits. Two feral cats. I don't know how many of you have barn cats and things like that. I'm paying attention one in particular that's a brindle female.

I'm wondering if they have a season for mating. I don't know if we want to have a bunch of kittens around here, and there's a tomcat that showed up. We have gangs of, instead of herds, gangs of white-tailed deer that are eating everything. They were coming right up to our bird feeders and eating those. I outwitted them. I put plastic trash bags over the bird feeders at night. Deer don't like them. They walk away very sad, so that worked.

Yes, there are deer mice. No, I have not seen any short-tailed shrews, but then I'm not out there looking through two and a half feet of snow. trying to found out if they're there, I think they're there. So let's get started. Look, Anita Setter kicks it off with the first all caps here. I've invested in a horizontal hive and wondered if you thought of making it into two. Beersville Beersville Bees makes a summer style where you add supers. A summer style.

That's interesting. By the way, shout out to Beersfield Bees. They make really good hives of all kinds. long langs, and so on, can't wait to run into them again. But I don't split the long hives, no matter which ones they are. Here's why. You run out of space so fast. I have a long Langstroth hive that's five feet long, and I have two lands hives.

They fill up if I had multiple colonies in them with a divider board between them, I end up out of space. If you made something a supposed custom really long, you could probably get away. with it, but what I really hate is just running out of space. I know that they do make them, for example, horizontal bees.com makes also long hives, lands hives, the long lang as well. And they'll sell them divided up for nucleus development. So those are good too because they take advantage of all that shared warmth and stuff. But me personally, I'm not going to be doing that.

So, but those are all great companies, Beersville Bees, horizontal bees, horizontal hive, which is Dr. Leo Sharashkin, and on it goes. Also, be mindful for top bar hives. So here goes, Tommy, says the kittens will be born this spring. Well, let's just hope we don't have any kittens. I hope whichever barn they came from, I have a cattle ranch to the east. I have a horse ranch to the west, and we have a dairy barn series to the south of us. So I really hope those kitties go back wherever they belong to.

I don't want any kitties around here. Michelle Armstrong will EFB, which is European foulbrewd, will it stay in the box if all the frames are gone? What? Michelle Armstrong says, will EFB stay in the box if all the, oh, so in other words, are you safe to use a box that's had European foulbrood if you just pull out all the frames and swap it out, I would not play with it. Personally, I would not play with it. I would scorch those boxes. I would check in with a veterinarian who's been trained.

We have a vet program right now through Penn State that educates veterinarians on how to treat bees that have been exposed to EFB. Those are the people I would reach out for to find out methods for making our woodenware safe once those frames are removed. Randy says, how did your bees do with that below zero weather? I lost two out of 148. Talk about below zero minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit down to minus 24 degrees Fahrenheit. And it hasn't let up. We are not, we can't melt the snow off our driveway.

That's how bad it is here. But so far the thermals are showing that they're alive. So good to go. So far, I was just talking to my wife about that. I think we're in for it. We have too many bees. colonies I thought were just gone. This is sad.

I was counting on them being gone. I know that sounds negative. But I need the space. I need to do different hives. I have over 40 colonies out there right now. And I just did kind of an emergency video recently that showed what to look for on a landing board when they're starving. So in other words, this colony that thought I just wasn't going to make it anyway. I did not put a feeder shim on it.

I did not put, you know, emergency food in there. So fondant packs, no sugar, no nothing. And, but I felt bad because I went out there. I was cleaning out the entrances, the shock factor that they were even alive, and then finding that they're cleaning out stored pollen. So bee bread and everything starts showing up on your landing board. When you see that, it's kind of like you've dug into all the food you don't like, and you're starting to drop it on the bottom board because they're getting every,

bit of carbohydrate they can get. So I opened up the top and I put a fondant pack in there. They did not have one before, so I added a feeder shim, double bubble on top of it, closed it up, and don't you know, when I pulled the little black cap off of that inner cover, it's full of bees. They're alive, they're kicking.

You can't turn my back on them. I put a five-pound pack of fondant on there. So bees overall are just doing very well here, which is pretty interesting because we did a very limited amount of acylic acid vaporization treatment this past year. Our mite counts have been really low. And I thought that would be it. But no, they're super healthy.

The whole hive was humming and it's a single deep 10-frame Langstrop box. So anyway, boy, this is really moving fast. Let me go along and see if anybody else, by the way, if it's for me, all counts. ML Farm, a Fred great expo video. Thank you for that. I had most of it in focus. And what's the one thing at the Expo that you found most interesting? I can't wait to try this season.

That's from Mark. Well, that's kind of unfair to the vendors that were there. Let me just explain something else about that Expo. I know you all are probably sick of hearing about it because every YouTube influencer and speaker and presenter and Kamen Reynolds, Everybody else just won't stop talking about the Expo because it's the biggest jamboree of beekeepers anywhere. There was stuff I didn't get to. I was really mad that I got home and saw other people's videos like. Where was that when I was there?

Oh, I know what I like. Aperture apiary. Now, this doesn't mean it's the absolute best, but let me tell you what. I was impressed, and here's why. I like to teach about bees. Big shock. Aperture apiary, if you look up their Facebook page, their web, website, this guy makes 3D models that are used for educating people about beats.

It was hard even to get a chance to talk to the guy that owned that booth because there was just a steady line of people going there because it has curb appeal. By that I mean, if you were just cruising through an expo and these are bright, shiny things that really get your eye, the idea that there's a bunch of people around is like, hey, what's going on over there, so you go check it out. And he has 3D models that show, for example, from egg through pupa to adult B. So these are things that it's fun to teach a class about, but if you're teaching kids and I really enjoy teaching kids, in fact, early warning, the supervisor might show up if that door is not locked by the end of today.

His 3D models were very accurate. They were, for example, just the first three days of an egg. First day standing up, second day tilted over, third day laying flat, then it turns into a larva. He did all that in such great detail. I was really impressed. He also had queen models for queen development, including the queen cell, chewing open a cap for, you know, hygienic bees and things like that. He had varroa mites in the bottom of different cells. So here's the thing, bottom line. I ordered every single thing that guy makes, and I'm going to be picking it up at the Western Pennsylvania conference coming up. Impressive, off the chart. Great stuff.

Here's something that he's working on that I'm excited about as an educational tool. He had a pretty decent layout of the anatomy of the honeybee, so a bee longitudinally shaved in half so you can see everything in it. He has a plan to do one of those large scale, which I put my vote in for early. because I want one. And then he has all the anatomical parts of the B as magnets, the words, and then the kids, when we play this game, they have to go and stick the appropriate labels on the appropriate parts of the B. So I would say, for me personally, that's a standout feature, Aperture Apiary.

You know, he didn't know who I was. He had no clue. I was just annoying him with my camera. I did video him. I put him in my North American Honeybee Expo video. It's actually a lot of fun for me when I go up to someone because I don't carry a rig. I'm not like Mr. Ed with a tripod in my hand sticking out with a camera in front of me, sticking it, you know when Mr. Ed walks up, this guy's videoing you.

I just pull my phone out of my pocket and say, oh, can we talk about this on video? And they're like, okay, I guess, now, whatever. And it's because they don't even know that we're going to put this out to everyone. That was a really good one. So if I had to pick one, that stands out. I did not get to get to everyone. I was really annoyed at myself. I just ran out of time.

That video is only three hours long. If you haven't seen it, please watch it. Watch it 100 times over and help my view count. Next, what do we have? Naomi Robertson, rescued, fallen feral hive, requeened after the queen died in the hitting the ground, and they're requeaning again within weeks. of starting to lay, is that because she was an emergency queen?

Is this common? Well, that series of events, by the way, if, let's say they did have an emergency queen, and they hit the ground, did all the things that are described here. And so if they had an emergency queen, but then they re-queened again, here's the good news of that. Good news of that, good news about that. If they know they want a queen and they're just superseding an existing queen, so she didn't die, she didn't fly away, she didn't swarm off. They can plan for that.

Their nutrition is generally better when they do that. And you'll see a real queen cell. By that, I mean they're around the fringe of the brute frames, not dead center, which is where we see the emergency cells and we see supersedure cells and things like that. Very generally speaking, when they plan for it ahead, you get a much better nourished larva that develops into a full-blown queen. And then so we're kind of blowing out maybe a week or less than optimum. queen. Just my guess. And then you'll have people that say, well, you know, they've had emergency queens outperform all their other queens, and that's fine. We're talking statistically, you know,

what would be best overall. But if my bees were doing that, I wouldn't worry about it. In fact, I might make an emergency backup nuke with that existing queen since they're planning to replace her. That way we can put her in another hive. And we don't lose her just in case something messes up. Because remember, they're making a new queen. She's going to. to have to mature, she's going to have to fly out. And I don't know what part of the country you're in. Obviously, nothing like that is going on here in the state of Pennsylvania this time of year. But I would worry that, you know, the drones weren't enough and things like that. You might have a problem getting a Maiden Queen back and laying.

And now you've got to have that emergency queen sequestered in the nuke somewhere. So you could restore her to the hive in the event that that requeaning failed. Let's see what else. Great Expa, blah, blah, blah. Did that, did that. Ross Wagner, I'm backing up here. Ross Wagner, would OAVap treatment this late in the winter be more risk than reward? Worried would add a lot of stress.

Okay, let's do statistics. A lot of people did miss there in the Northeast. They miss their late season, single shot kind of. opportunity with the lowest brood of the year right around the end of November, which we know at the end of Thanksgiving here, by the way, huge storm system. Do you remember that? There's no way that we were going to access our hives. There's no way that we're going to do an effective exhalic acid vaporization treatment at that time of year because it was so cold. The storms were out there. And the bees would be cluster tight. All of these things reduce the effectiveness, right? And who's going to do it?

So now you might have passed that. You'll also hear statistically from a whole bunch of different beekeepers, and that's kind of what we look for, consensus among beekeepers, is that if we are now going into February and your colony is alive and strong, they're also probably, if you have the ability to do thermals, you look at the size and build up of that cluster, if they've got a bunch of brood kicking in there, and it doesn't go.

Here's the other confusing part for new beekeepers. I always tell people we want 60 degrees or better. Someone else will say, yeah, but if it's a polystyrene hive, they'll be spread up because they're warm in there and the cluster's loose and you could do an OA treatment. So now hive configuration, hive material insulation value also comes into play regarding how much they'll be clustered. Let me just give you my personal take. at this point in the game. If the colony is strong and number wise and they're brooding it up and things like that,

I'm personally going to wait until the weather's better. If you've got an odd day and you've missed those treatments and it's on your mind and you're worried about it, let's say you do get a day in the high 50s, let's say, and it's sunny, which all compounds the benefit of that warmth on the hive. Let's say it's a standard Langstroth, wooden hive with an insulated intercover, insulated top. Under those conditions, the cluster would loosen up, and to make yourself feel better, it would not hurt them to deliver an exhalic acid vaporization dose. Now, because they're brooding up, any of the varroa destructor mites that are under the caps on those brood frames will not be accessed by your treatment. However, any dispersal phase mite, which is the new term, by the way, for ferretic mites, they're exposed.

Any exposed mites, die. You'll hear some people say, well, that'll do nothing for it. Well, it does some that you tell that to the hive that has a bunch of dead mites on the bottom board or the removable tray after that treatment. In my book, you know, if you kill 100 mites, you kill 100 mites, even though there may be still some underneath those cappings. you've done something. So is it a risk? It's not so much a risk. It's a matter of whether or not it's going to be effective

and how effective it's going to be. The other thing, and I should probably mention this, the exhalic acid vaporization systems, the new ones, the Lorabi versions with the copper tubes, the instant vape with the brass tubes that deliver the exhalic acid vapor. These things have a big advantage because I like to deliver them from the back of the hive off in a corner and you only need a quarter inch hole drilled into the back of your hive to do it. The advantage of that is in cold weather, let's say you had a polyhive like a lot of people are describing.

They say their clusters are open and moving around. Then if you had an insulator for that that would prevent it from melting that polystyrene, you could deliver that acylac acid. You don't expose them to any cold. You don't defeat the warmth that they've accumulated in the upper portions of that hive. And you'll get some efficacy. So I say it doesn't hurt. You just may be wasting your time as far as overall effectiveness. So I hope that's a satisfactory answer for Ross Wagner.

Ross also says, oh, this is for anyone in the chat. Okay, I'm ignoring that. I'm going to come down. One thing of the Expo already did that. Queen died. I already did that. Okay, so I see no more caps for me. If you have a question for me, all caps.

I'm going to move on. My very first question comes from Kelly. I wonder if you can do a video about changing out the hive alive packets in the dead of winter. I'm at the point of needing to refresh packs, and it's difficult to do with near empty font. pundant packs that are also full of bees. The wormest day I could muster is 44 degrees Fahrenheit. So I ran into this recently. Here's the thing.

Here's my take on it. I don't like that open hives when it's really cold outside. However, if the colony is starving to death, your options are pull the top off, pull the inner cover off, put a new fondant pack on to save their lives. If we sit back and just, oh, it's too cold, and we can't do it. Okay, I say do it.

You're really resuscitating a potentially dying colony of bees. So, okay. Fawn in fact. Kelly has the insulated intercovers. Let me get one. This is an insulated inner cover, regardless of whichever one you have. And you can also just use your standard inner cover

with the hole in the middle. This one has a cork in it. If you have the hole in the middle, then you're using double bubble insulation over the top to create a thermal barrier so that you have a warm area on top of your packet that you're going to put on here to feed fondant. If it's dry sugar and a rapid round or something like that, again, the insulation goes on the top of it. We want the warmth to go up through here into the space where that food resource is and then be trapped there and not just bleed off into the atmosphere. fear. So the font it packs, most people have seen them. If you're a beekeeper today, every beekeeper I know talks about them. You cut all in the bottom of this, they have these new, what I call the pizza box, things that spacers that keep pizza boxes from being jammed down, although

this one is particularly made and designed for hive life. It has little teeth in it. You cut a little circle, flip it over, stick this in, and it keeps your packet puffed up. Now you open it up, and this packet has bees in it, and you need to pull it off and put the new one on. There again, you're potentially sacrificing the bees that are in that packet for the rest of the colony that's down below, so you're going to put your new packet on. This is the five-pound packet, which I just recently put on, and then that goes over the top. Save your plug, in this case, this is a cork. There's a hole for it right here to keep that.

And then you put your double bubble sheets that are of course the size of this whole thing. Overlay this, there should be a shim around it, which is normally a medium or a shallow wooden box, and then on top of that, your outer cover. So I also use double bubble on the top of that and put the outer cover over that. It acts as a gasket. Now, let's say you're really upset. by what I just said because I wouldn't save the bees that are in your packet of faunit that you took out. It's winter time. Okay, I'm going to show a gadget because I want you to spend money. This is a battery powered shark vac. I've been using the larger version of this, but this is a super tiny one that you can carry around with you.

And you suck the, flip the pack over, suck the bees out of it. They don't go all the way in. There's a little screen. here and because these suck as vacuums, they're good for bees. And so then what you do is you release this, dump the bees out where on the landing board at the entrance so they can get inside. So now you've replaced your packet, the old packet you suck the bees out of it, you flip this open, dumped them out of the landing board in front of the entrance, in they go, and you've saved the day. You've fed the colony, you collected the bees that otherwise would have just been dumped outside and would have frozen and died, although

what was the temperature? In 44 degrees for a minute, if that's sunny, they have a lot of times still make it in. Forty-one degrees, a single honeybee can live a very long time. So get a little shark back or whatever your preferred back is, battery powered, and now you've got the ability to collect them off the top and put them on the landing board, save their lives, feel good. So that was question number one, question number two, unless somebody else in the chat has a question. Okay, here's Jeremy Lindsay Homestead Farm. My flow hive brood box is spinning after six years of use. Why is it spinning? I think it's splitting. Okay, so it's splitting after six years of use. Fred, how are your flow hive brood boxes holding up all of my flow hive brood boxes

are holding up. I'm trying to think of any of them split. So that would be annoying, depending on where the split is. It might have originated from one of the box joints on there, or the finger joints, depending on who you talk to. I have the cedar boxes, and I haven't had one actually split. But if it did, here's a fix, I'm thinking, just on the fly, is thinking. Let's say that split happened through the side of the box somewhere coming out from that.

I would make a cleat, what we call, if we were looking at the hull of a ship, bear with me, it's a maritime thing. If you had the whole of a ship, and let's say one of the welds started to split was corroding away, you know what we would put on that, a doubler plate. And that would be a 10-pound plate that would make a coffer dam around, and then you go down in the water, in the copper dam, in the air envelope, and you weld it up, temporary fix. So what you can do with a split box side, this is ugly, but this is a repair, maybe a temporary repair. Get another piece of wood, put Typebond 3, or the new ultra gorilla glue. You talk about people at the North American Honeybee Expo, Gorilla Glue was there.

And you just scab the area by putting that doubler piece of wood on there and put a couple screws to help. but hold it in place. And that's what I would do just to reinforce it. And why not put that on there? In fact, depending on where that crack is, put the wood on, put one on both sides, and then it will look intentional like you wanted to make handles.

Screwed and glued. I think that would work. That's just me. That's what I think I would do. So let me know if that sounds like good stuff for Jeremy Lindsay Homestead Farm. Let's see, do to do, do. Norman says, I would say that if your bees are starving,

then they would be eating any fresh larvae or eggs. That's true. That's true. So it wouldn't really matter if you opened it up to add feed. The older bees can reheat themselves. Yes, but listen, Norman McBilly. When they rewarm, and by the way, it's an emergency, so I agree. Let's put them through it.

But the more that they have to do that, they actually wear themselves out. We're trying to prevent that and extend their lives, particularly if they don't have any new brood to replace them at the time. We need those winter bees to survive. In this case, we need another six or seven weeks out of them. Okay, moving on. This is Wizard in Iowa got the 55.

Oh, Iowa got two 55 yesterday. Their fast inspection, found the queen. Boy, this is moving. Found the queen, a little brood. they still got three quarters of the honey they started with and 30 to 40,000 bees. Am I in the clear with no need to worry? Let me just explain. If you're a beekeeper, you're never in the clear, you always have to worry. If you have a colony with 30 to 40,000 bees right now, their consumption rate is high. They're able to keep themselves warm and do a lot with brood.

So I would just keep an eye on them, but it sounds like you've got a lot of resources still on. Sounds like they have a lot to still go through. And the fact that we're going into February, this is all weather related. Like any agricultural venture, we don't control the weather. I would just monitor them. Keep an eye on them. I expect good things from that colony. That's a lot of ease this time of year.

For me, that would annoy me because I don't want early swarms and things like that. It sounds like they're ready to go. Jeremy Lindsay Homestead Farm, the front is split from the finger joint across the front of the hive. above the front entrance. Perfect position for a handle. I would put it on there. I would do, you know, just save the box because in spring you can swap it out. You've got cold weather.

That's the other thing. Look at the set temperature range for the glue that you plan to use, which is also partly why you need to use the screws as well. I would scab it. Same advice. I would do that. You've mentioned using spirulina. in the past, dosage, what would you think about mixing in auger bricks?

What I think about mixing in auger bricks? This is from Glenn, from Glenn's natural honey. Okay, that spirulina stuff. Just the claims for what it can do continue to go off the charts. Strong microbials, by the way, also sells serulina in like a big clay, it looks like a big clay block. Like if you're doing clay work in art school, that's what it feels like. That's what it looks like. It's dark green, though.

So how much do I use? That comes up a lot. Three tablespoons of powdered spirulina. And I get the organic spirulina from Amazon, really easy to find. Look at the one that's got the highest ratings. It's for human consumption. And I mix three tablespoons to four pounds of dry sugar. So a standard bag of processed white sugar.

you have to mix it dry really well before you add the water if you try to add spirulina to sugar syrup once it's mixed you just get clumps it's a big mess it doesn't work so mix it up dry so then you would double that six tablespoons of powdered spirulina to eight pounds of sugar so and you mix that and this is the this is the interesting part that we need to know a lot more about this but here's what's my observations that were fun to me. When I put out sugar syrup in the past, everything I've ever mixed with sugar syrup,

whether it's honeybee healthy, pro-health, beekeeper's choice, all these different liquids that you mix that are supposed to help your bees. The bees go after sugar syrup that is just water and sugar with nothing else. And exponentially, they show a preference for sugar syrup

that has nothing in it, with one exception now. And listen carefully to how I explain this, though. If I put out sugar syrup, that's composed with spirulina in it. And the bees start on that. Okay. Then, once they've started on that, because the bees are going back to the hive and saying this stuff's great, go get some, they all come back and they're getting it. The forages are out there.

then I add sugar syrup the same constitution of sugar syrup. In other words, if it's one to one, they're both one to one. Okay. The bees go after the spirulina loaded sugar syrup more than the regular sugar syrup with nothing in it. I have nothing else that I've ever mixed with sugar syrup that had that impact from the bees. But listen carefully, at first I put out the spirulina loaded. sugar syrup in. These are Ziploc bags because I was testing Ziploc bags. I just thought, I'll do the spirulina mix. So that's the only mix that they've shown that preference for,

which is really interesting. The other thing is when you look up the studies, and there are compilation studies now where they've brought in everyone's input and created these kind of top features of what are going to benefit your bees. They're kind of vague about what the spirulina content percentage is. So what I got out of that was, some say as much as 10%. That's a lot. Your stuff is going to look black, by the way.

But spirulina, what is it? It's algae. Bees go after water that's in algae ponds and things like that, or where the algae is the heaviest. And this is why, have kicked into moss and everything else and I'm just kind of going overboard on that because I'm growing moss on rocks and I'm growing moss on my bee waterer, which is something you should all be thinking about. Where are you going to set up your bee water? If it's got

moss and things like that on the rocks, where you're cascading water is, where you're misting water is, it's going to provide a constant source for your bees. They go after that spirulina stuff. So it's really interesting. I'm just super. excited about it. And so three tablespoons to four pounds of sugar. So moving on. Front of split, did that. You've mentioned did that. Dosage. That's it. What are your winter configurations for the Keepers Hive, eight or 13 frames? Okay, so first of all, the Keepers Hive. Might as well talk about that. I only have one out there, and it's the single queen keeper's hive.

It has eight frames in the deep, and then we just have nucleus hives going up. So it has the nucleus boxes that are going up from that are five deep frames each, and I have two of those, so I have 10 deep frames. And I did put a feeder shim on that as well, and that colony is really strong right now. But I only have one of them. This spring, and we can talk about it later, I'm doing the two. two queen system, which is going to be very interesting. So that right now is sitting in the garage in the box.

I haven't even opened it. It's not painted. Nothing. It's not ready. But let's go here again. Somebody says in Iowa. Okay. What else are we doing?

Don't want to get lost here. What do you want to configure is? For the Keepers hive, eight or 13 frames. So that would be eight. Oh, 18 frames. 18 deep frames. Total. Kyle Atkinson, hope you're well. Thanks, Kyle. By the way, for those of you don't know, Kyle is the inventor of the Hivegate entrance right here. The same thing I've got right there on the back. That's a landing board with the Hivegate in it. If you have questions for Kyle, that would be great. He's right there with you. Great innovator. Let's keep going here.

where, Fred, where and when is the conference in Pennsylvania? Beaver Valley, I believe. It's the Western Pennsylvania. You can look it up, Google it, the Western Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association Conference, Western Beekeepers Association Conference. It's the only one, it's big. There's a lot of people going to be there. I'm going to be there because I'm teaching in a breakout session. So I'm not going to be one of the main speakers, so I don't have to worry about being in a giant hall full of academics.

It can all tease me and pick on me about the things I don't know. I'm teaching honeybee anatomy, the easy stuff. And that's coming up at under the exact date. That's why you're going to have to Google it. After this is over with, I will put the Western Pennsylvania conference in the description of this video. So that will take a while before it launches and I'll be able to put the information in there. Moving on. Christine Hackle, should you feed pollen along with a sugar syrup to a new package of bees?

Okay, I never do. Here's the thing. You have a new package of bees. You're installing this package. The only thing I ever feed them. For wintertime, your feeding considerations are different than when you're trying to kick off a package of honeybee. If you kick up a package, you've got a new queen. I don't feed any pollen inside the hive ever.

I don't mix pollen into any of my feed supplements ever. What I do do, is if there is a warm day outside, I open feed dry pollen substitute. That's because I want the foragers to go out. I want the foragers to find it. I want them to bring it in. you put inside your hive, you are force feeding to your bees. And by that I mean you're putting it in their way if they need to get sugar. Let's say they only wanted sucrose. And you've put in a mix

of sugar and a whole bunch of other stuff. You took away the choice for the bees. Bees will eat anything that's got sugar on it. So I offer them nothing but sucrose inside the hive. Now, one of the reasons that sometimes if you're feeding them sugar syrup to keep them going, although if the environment's decent, they should be zipping out and going straight to work. They're great comb builders. It's another reason to keep sugar syrup and nothing else going because that's the resource that they need for the energy that they need to get going, and also for the comb building that they're going to do. When you have the protein out there, and by the way, the top ranked researched protein dry pollen sub,

And remember, it's a substitute. It's not actual pollen, but there's evidence that it works well. AP 23. Then there is number two, megabee. Then there is number three, which is from Manlake, which is UltraB, dry pollen substitute. So, and I would just price shop. So in other words, if you've got three of them that you're looking at, they're all 20 pound bags, I would go whichever one of those three was the least expensive and put it out for your bees. take it in at night. Do not let dew fall on it. Don't let it rain. Don't let rain get on it. Enclose it and only put it out

during peak foraging periods for your bees. So that would be starting at 10 or 11 in the morning. When you see the bees flying out to that spot, the scouts are there looking around, doing their little figure eight, scouring the landscape for that pollen stuff that you had out there before, that's when you put it out.

Don't leave it overnight for other pests to get into and always put it away and store it. So for me personally, again, you're only asking the opinion of the individual. So I never feed any pollen or dry pollen subs to my bees inside the hive in any way. Okay. So, but it's fun also to watch them. And by the way, keep these feeding stations constant. So in other words, the scouts have great memories when they fly out.

The first thing, oh, here's another thing. See, it just hits me while I'm thinking about it. people will say that beasts won't forage unless it's over 60 degrees Fahrenheit and I will tell you this they will fly out in the cold if they know there's a resource and they know its location and it never lets them down so they will fly much colder I've done these tests I've shown it I have the videos that show time lapses temperatures and everything else if there's a known resource that's consistent and dependable now they don't fly out and look for new resources and scour new areas unless it's much warmer because now they use less of their, you know,

their metabolism doesn't use up as much of their resources to find something new. So that's a gamble. It's a guarantee if they fly out to something that is a known resource. That's the other thing I keep my dry pollen subs and my syrups separate always. Okay, let's see what else here. Remember, if it's for me, it's in all caps. Denny Ray B says,

fantastic interview with Dr. Underwood. Thanks. Okay. That's Dr. Robin Underwood from Penn State. Terrific talking with her in that interview,

by the way. There is a page on my website that I'll mention. The website is called the way to be.org. Don't think you've been shell-gamed. If you show up

and it says, Fred's finefowl.com, they're all the same website. She collaborated with a researcher. I'm not going to try to air hot or something, I'm going to mess up the name. University of Texas. I have an interview coming up with him because they're talking about the medicinal value

of honey. This is impressive stuff. And so I have that interview already set up and we're scheduled. So that's going to happen in two weeks. And we're going to be talking to them and get the latest and greatest research there on very interesting findings about in the case we're talking to Robin Underwood. If you would look at that, it's about spotted land. lanternfly honey do and the medicinal benefits of that.

So it outperforms manuka honey. Now, if you're a seller of manuka honey, that is not good news. Because what's happening is we're getting something good out of something bad. So the spotted lanternfly is, of course, attacking trees and great pines and things like that that. That we want them to leave alone. However, beekeepers in the areas, including friends of mine here in the state of Pennsylvania, are getting a boost at a time when their bees would normally be suffering through a dearth. And a dearth is when the environment is not providing the floral resources that generate nectar

that let your bees capitalize on the environment. And instead, the bees are quickly finding the spotted lantern flies and getting the honeydew that's being secreted from their abdomens just like little aphids and getting honey from it. Honey to honey, strong medicine. That's coming up. So anyway. Let's keep going here.

Castle Hives, Fred, we haven't had any lanternflies in my area of Ohio. I almost wish we had them. Okay, that's Brian at Castle Hives. So there's a shout out. That's because you live in Ohio, Brian. And the spotted lanternfly ground zero for its invasion into the United States happened in the eastern part of the state of Pennsylvania, which is known as the Keystone State

that everyone has to pass through in order to go to the northeastern parts of the United States. We have it. You don't. All kidding aside, don't be anxious to get because people actually were inspired by the study and are thinking, how can I get lantern flies here? Your goal is not to get more spotted lantern flies. Even if this turns out to, you know,

we're making lemonade with lemons kind of. It is a serious pest agriculturally. It just happens that beekeepers are going to benefit from it. The other thing is there's a lot of research yet to be done. We have to analyze and quantify the amount of honey-dew honey. So the amount of honey-dew that's composing this honey. So there was a study last year, everyone that engaged in the study, sent off honey samples on a weekly basis.

And then when they tested in the labs, they could find out which areas. had honey-dew in their honey, and then therefore we knew where the spotted lantern fly was spreading to. They're not rapid spreaders, but trust me, Brian, and anyone else that's thinking like this, you don't want them. So, for Castle Hives. Have you seen Dr. Paul Seferts-Vid, and if so, what do you think? I have not, and I don't know what the topic of that was. This is from Kathy. How far away from the hives do you place the feed stations?

Okay, that's a great question. As far away as you can from your hives. So some people are living on, you know, in a residential area, something like that. Never put your food resources right next to your hives or right next to your bee apiary. On the flip side, if it's water, yes, put water as close to your bee hives as you want it to be. So if you've got a water feature, cascading water, stuff like that. there's a perfect zen location for you to sit and meditate through the day and draw bees, that's perfect. But if you put sugar syrup and things like that out, don't do that right next to you.

I've seen people do it on top of a hive. Please don't. What you've done is potentially drawn in bees from other areas, from other colonies that might even be stronger than yours, and they end up robbing your colonies. So we want to keep our sugar syrup stations constant, predictable location for the bees, but as far away on your property as you can. And remember not to be doing that when you have honey supers on your hives that you're going to harvest for people or you're going to sell. Also be respectful and mindful of neighbors that might keep bees. We don't want to have open source sugar syrup that there bees would be coming to also.

So but as far away as you can in a convenient place where you can keep an eye on it. And there again, I never leave sugar syrup if I'm feeding. like that I never leave it out overnight and it's only during prime honeybee foraging time. Here's why if you put it out earlier and it's colder the wass and hornets will have access to it before your bees have even flown out. So once again just be aware of you know what's in your area and what else might be feeding on that sugar syrup if you're putting it out. So yeah see Patrick Woods those spotted land and flines are attacking the grapes in North Carolina. We don't want them. They are detrimental to grape vines. They suck the sap out of the grapevine. And we need that for the grapes because we need good grapes. So grapes are one of the biggest things, by the way. It's a big deal. I have

friends that own vineyards, not happy at all. And of course, they count on their ability to truck their resources from the eastern part of the state here to the Lake Erie. There's a whole bunch of vineyards along Lake Erie. And so they truck in from the east and they've had spotted lantern flies in their trucks and they wop them with sticks and stuff, which I thought was kind of primitive, but I don't think it's going to work out very well as a control measure. All right. So now I can get on to question number two. And go ahead, remember, type it in all caps if it's for me, and I'll get to that. This is from HB-E-N-D-I-K. That's the YouTube channel name. It says, hi, Fred, such an interesting discussion. Thanks for doing this. Can you possibly describe or demonstrate what Stephen was talking about?

So Stephen, we're talking about the innovator that I interviewed at the North American Honeybee Expo that created a hive heater, solar powered. So it's just harnessing solar power and then warming up a plenum and letting that airflow into a hive. But there was a question about he was talking about doing requeaning and using press in cages. And can I describe it? Not heard of it. Pressing cages are just using hardware cloth. And usually it's number eight because you don't want to. queen to get through it and you don't want workers to get through it it's a way of introducing a new queen

to a hive and you press this screen so you bend the edges around this is not it but let's say if i was turning this into one i hate to ruin this is perfect 300 series stainless steel durable wire but you had bend this so it goes all the way around like this and then you would take a frame and you would put the queen on the surface of this and you would push this in until it bites into the honeycomb and then you leave it there the bees can feed the queen through it the thinking is of course you can start laying eggs in there keep in mind as soon as those eggs hatch they need to be attended to by nurse bees so that is not what i personally recommend see he has a great guy he has a great innovation if you didn't see that interview please watch it

if you're introducing a queen and you want that queen not to be killed by the other bees in it and this has only been around for a couple of years I would put her on one of these brood frames here and you can actually put a new queen on capped brood but the likelihood that you've got capped brood you really had to be on that right away to find out that you needed a replacement queen But if you have cat breed that you can pull from another hive, get all the bees off of it. Put your queen on it. Put the queen in here carefully. See, don't smash your queen because guess what people have done?

The queen scoots up on top of the back bar of this. And some people have been so excited about getting lit on that they smash their queen. They go like this. And then they see no queen and they pull us up and they have a B flat. for those of you who play the trumpet so flattened bee don't do it get her down in there close it up this is a queen introduction which is different from queen isolation queen introduction means now the nurse bees will start to emerge out of their cells right they'll be fed through these screens which are tighter than queen excluder openings so they can feed her but they can't kill her

and then the newbies come out and she goes to work right in here this takes up the space of two frames. You can get these from Better B. And I like them and I don't like pushing cages personally, even though I bent this up just for you today. You can make that, you can try it, you can do it. But if you've already got capped brood in the area where you're putting your queen, you have to stick those things into the brood cells. You have to damage the frame a little bit this way, no damage. You can put it in any hive you want. You can even move queens around. So queen isolation is different from introduction. Queen isolation cages, the workers get through and can attend to the brood. Your queen just can't leave. So there are lots of things to do with that

that I personally like. Push in. The other thing is I have this little round push in thing. just for illustration purposes, this, when you find your queen on the surface of a frame, you can push us on. This allows you to mark your queen through it. So it's another form of push-in holder for marking your queen, which this year, of course, is what color? Blue. So I described that question number two. Let me see if anybody else has questions for me. Tell us about your shirt.

This is from MLO. Oh, this shirt is from... 20,000 leagues under the sea. So if you've ever read that book, that's one of the original illustrations. It ties in with deep sea diving. And so if you ever saw the Disney version of 20,000 leagues under the sea, as I did as a kid,

I thought Captain Nemo was the coolest dude that ever lived. It was a nuclear submarine. It's called the Nautilus. And then when I got into the Navy, there was the Nautilus. Hyman Rikover was the father of nuclear engineering for the Navy. And so that inspired me to, want to get not just on the water and travel the world but down in and under the water so this is just a good

i know that's very exciting for people that are looking at this right now so susan is it quitter what are the top three perennial wildflowers you would recommend i'm in zone 5a and want to improve my pollinator okay i'm going to recommend a book first of all i'm still going to tell you my own my favorites but i'm to recommend a book. It's called the Top 100 Pollinator Plants. It's by the Xerxes Society. And X-E-R-C-E-S. So the X-E-R-C-E-S. So the Zerxes Society is, you know, they protect pollinators and they're big about native plants and things like that. So please get that book because it's a way to support that company, not company. Support their cause, the Zerxes Society. And at the same time, you'll benefit for the knowledge

and have a reference that's ready to go because they tell you the value of all these different things. So perennials, remember, that comes up on its owner every year. I wish Cosmos were perennials or not. I plant those every year by the acre because they are fantastic nectar and pollen source for your bees. Also, not perennials, but I'm mentioning them anyway because they're so powerful for your bees. Sunflowers. If you're looking at sunflowers, and I hope a lot of you are, look for the sunflowers that are guaranteed to have pollen, because some of these genetically modified sunflowers are designed not to have pollen because people use them as cut flowers.

They don't want the pollen to fall on their tablecloths and things like that. So get the pollen loaded sunflowers. I have posted in the past sunflower mixes that I use. Now let's jump to perennials. Maximilions are at kind of the top of my list. You plant max of millions. I use them along fence rows. So they come up every year.

They can create a privacy screen. green starting about midsummer. They blossom all the way into the frost at the end of the year. So Maximilian Sunflowers, fantastic perennial, they're not spreading that bad. I thought that would almost be invasive, but they're not. And pollinators of all kinds go after those, including like goldfinches and birds. So you're being friendly across the spectrum if you plant those. So the other thing is, by the way, very few of these things are perennials.

If we look at Boxwood, that's also good. Let's jump to trees. So if we talk about linden trees, the little leaf linden, the American linden, these generate enormous amounts of nectar. So they're not great for pollen for your bees, but the nectar load is huge. Now, it's a game of patience because I wish I could show a picture of what my land looked like 25 years ago. This was a hayfield. So today, I have planted more than 250 trees.

I have trees that are well into the 50 feet of height. And so you can impact in the long term the landscape that you're on. So even if you've got a smaller plot, look at trees that are flowering. So we have service berries, hawthorns. We have, of course, the linen trees. Service berries I started last year. I have high hopes for those. But there again, we want a cascade of plants.

In other words, we want there to be nectar and pollen in spring. So I have Salix Discollar, which are the pussy willow trees. We have wetlands here. We have skunk cabbage. Those are perennial. So a lot of these things already exist in the environment. And then it changes to different things through the year. but for your zone, which is very similar to mine,

there are a lot of things I planted borage. Now, borage is considered an annual, but it is so good at self-seeding that it reseeds itself and comes up on its own again. And borage, by the way, one flower restores its nectar load every two minutes. So when bees visit it, two minutes later, the bees are going to come back and get another nectar load. you need a lot of it for that to work.

The next thing that's at the really high on my list, hyssup, giant blue hyssop. Be careful about hyssop. It's not all great for honeybees because the flowers are sometimes too deep. So anus hyssup, blue giant hyssup, agostachi, these things, and depending, you know, if you talk to people that really know their plants, they'll say agostaki or things like that. So pronunciation, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The other thing is go to a nursery in the zone where you live in spring and different times of the year. Look at their native perennial areas and see what pollinators are on them. There are always honeybees showing you at that nursery what they want at different times of the year. And then you can talk to the people at the nursery and find out what that is and where it works well, moist soil, compact soils, things like that. Hissop, by the way. It makes a kind of a licoricey honey, which is a really strong honey, which I personally like. Some people don't like it. So that's the other thing you kind of have to think about. But I love that stuff. All of it. It's just great. Here comes Mark Bidwell. Fred De Nersbees feed pollen bee bread. Wait, do nurse bees feed pollen

bee bread or is it all converted into royal jelly and then feed okay they actually do feed on it too and the way we know that i'm going to use randy oliver because he likes to smash bee guts because he's mean so they feed on they finds pollen in the bee guts right so they're not converting it all to royal jelly they are still ingesting some too because it's a protein source that bees can metabolize but remember that bees are creating bee bread, which ferments it, which helps them also break it down to something that then they get more out of it. And we found out that they, 48 hours after they start to mix it up in the cells, that's when it's during these high pollen yield periods, you can smell it. Like we have this bee building with the observation hives in it. It smells when it's full of

bee bread that's 48 hours and beyond because it's actually fermenting. And then, of course, they consume it again. And they do produce that royal jelly. with it. But it's a mix. So the royal jelly, they're also ingesting the proteins, the pollens themselves. Very interesting stuff. Very complicated, not a simple one-off thing to say. So here comes Patrick Woods. Let's see, I think introduction of borage. It was wonderful last year. I like borage. By the way, let me talk to you about a myth about porridge that some bee keepers. I don't know why they say it. Is it don't plant borage, it tears up the wings of your bees. I hope you're like me and that you'll go outside and you'll sit for as long as possible

until somebody discovers you and finds out you need to be doing other things, but you can hide among the porridge. See the bees come and go. I see no wing contact with the plant at all. I don't know why people are thinking it's damaging the wings of the foraging honeybee. When they fly right, the flower of the borage plant is facing down. They come up, they go straight to it. They get the nectar and they fly away. there's no opportunity for wing damage there. So I want to get that out of there. And Lambert Farms says bone set from the asters.

Those are all bone set, asters, those are all great things. I just wouldn't plant them because they're so plentiful already in the environment. That was another kind of lesson learned for me. Why am I keeping all of these golden rod and asters? By the way, asters, look at the spectrum of all the different astro varieties there are. They are not all the same. But since they exist everywhere in the environment, why would I be planting those on my property

or even preserving them on my property when I can replace them with something that does more with that space? So, and it took me decades, man, to do that. So I am pushing out some of the golden rod and stuff in favor of other plants like this year. Again, my big thing is milkweed. So it's another thing I left out of my explanation of what I like. Milkweed, showy milkweed, swamp milkweed,

what they call standard milkweed, milkweed, or whatever. I have a grow room right now that I have showy milkweed growing in, and I cannot wait to get that established out there. So once again, it's an area that is a perennial. They develop from tubers. The key is you have to get it established and get it started. Once you can really get it going, I have an acre of milkweed now. And there are variations in the milkweed, but I like it.

Plus, it is a huge nectar source for your bees. Zero pollen benefit for your bees. But we need nectar. And so honeybees, as part of my talk that I'm giving tomorrow morning at a library, it's going to be about milkweed and which insects actually are benefiting the milkweed. And it's the honeybee that is the number. one pollinator of the milkweed. Monarch butterflies can't pollinate a milkweed, and I won't even talk about the rest of that, but I've got a lot to say about milkweed. Great

stuff. Grow that too. Of course, if you've got livestock, grazing cattle, things like that, you don't want milkweed because it produces latex and can make stuff sick. So I don't have any cattle. I have a fenced area, and we're good to go. Let's see. Let's see what's going on here. I see no more questions in all caps. If you have something for me. Yeah, borage. There's so many things that are good.

Get that book, 100 pollinator, top 100 pollinator plants by the Xerxes Society. This comes from Timothy Mitchell. It'd be really funny if Timothy's in here right now. So question number three, Timothy Mitchell, top bar hives. Are you building your own? And if so, how many will you? you have or build and will that include top bar nukes. Okay, I have one.

It's sitting in the garage. I think it's already together. It came from Be Mindful, B-E-E-M-N-D-F-U-L. And it's Topper Hive. It's really cool, configured really well, and taking a lazy man's way out on that. Topper Hives are probably the least expensive, horizontal hive configuration you can put together. And I don't have any plans to create a top bar nuke. And here's why I'm going to modify it.

So we have Langstroth frames. We know what those are like. This is a standard Langstroth frame. Top bar hives, you only have the top bar. There is not a solid standard for top bar hives. So I'm going with who I think kind of figured it out. And it has good success with their design. So I'm going to be implementing that Be Mindful Hive top bar in my apiary this spring.

Now, let's say I have a colony of bees in a nucleus hive because I don't buy any bees. I just make my own. I have to get them off of this frame into that top bar hive. What do you think I'm going to do? That's right. I'm going to make a door in the end of the top bar hive. I'm going to put a nucleus hive right on the end of that with a hole in the end of the nucleus hive.

And I'm going to have those bees migrate through the hole into the top bar hive and start working it. And of course, I'm going to have a follower board. So there will only be two or three top bars. at the beginning and we'll get the bees to leave here and go into there as they expand out of the nuke and then once they're settled in there i will move my queen in there and take this all the way and let these re-queen themselves and i'll have my laying queen in there and then i'll start to progress through my top bar hive what do you think about that i think that's an above-average solution to the top bar transfer from standard longstroth standard langstroth to the top bar hive the reason i'm doing that is

Many people have been on me about Topar Hives. Why don't you do Topar? Why don't you do Topar? I'm going to do it. I'm doing it. I have one. It's ready. I'm going to, it's going to be the best.

You're going to see. The supervisor is going to help me. It's 506. He could walk in here any minute. Okay. This is from Glenn. Have you ever had bad wax moth infestation if stored wax foundation? I learned my lesson hard last year.

What type of treatment would you use? Okay, for Glenn Perkins, I do not have problems with wax moths. When you store your gear, I know there are treatments, there are crystals, there are all kinds of things to keep wax moths out of your stored frames of valuable comb. First things first, clean up your comb before you store it as much as possible. Whoa, somebody is Claire Bryant. Okay, I'm going to have to. Claire Bryant, please stop putting that constant repeat.

Thanks for being here. It says Marcus and I really enjoyed NextGen at the BeExpo. I like your Q&A sessions. Thanks. The next gen thing is fantastic. And for those of you don't know, there's a next gen program at the North American Honey Bee Expo for our youth. And it's a worthy cause.

It's something really great to support. And I appreciate that. Okay. So the top bar questions, we're testing it. That's what we're doing. And the wax math, wax maws, we want to have air movement. We want to have clean comb that's going into storage. We want to have light if you've got it. So even if you have like a garage light, storage facility light, things like that, what we're doing is producing an environment that wax moths do not like. What wax moths do not like. What wax moths do, like is a close-up hive with a bunch of comb in it with pollen and some residue from the honey still in it and old comb in particular keep in mind wax moths are a benefit now that's going to make some people mad but if we were talking about a feral colony in a tree in a box some old beekeeper passed away left their apiary unattended for years and then people come to

through and say, this box has been continually occupied by bees for 37 years without the beekeeper meddling with it. What really happens is they cycle through. The brood gets the brood frames, the brood comb gets really old, very fibrous, and then bees will ultimately even abscond from a hive that's no longer habitable. What comes in are the cleanup crew, which would be your wax moths going to come in there, lay eggs, the wax moth larvae are going to come out. Those are the wax worms, the wax worms are going to chew up everything. Wax worms can chew wood. Wax worms can chew through plastic.

Now they don't chew through plastic foundations very well, but people that were studying them put wax worms in plastic bags. I mean, the thin ones like the Walmart bags. They found that the wax worms found their way out of the bags, and they found that they had chewed holes in them. Then they wanted to know if they just, chewed the holes through these Walmart bags. I hate to say Walmart, it might get in trouble. Plastic bags that people throw everywhere that stick on everything. The wax worms were

digesting and reconstituting. I'm sure there's a better biochemical explanation for that. But what they were doing is taking a harmful plastic material that could end up as microplastics in the environment. Wax worms were metabolizing it and producing something that was not harmful to the environment. So I'm not saying give waxworms a pass and grow a bunch of them and try to get rid of your plastic with them. But what I'm saying is it's very easy to keep them out of your stuff just by having airflow through it, having it cleaned up properly before you go into storage, and then you don't need the chemicals. Now keep in mind, too, where I'm located. Look at the weather outside. Look what's going on. My storage areas are just unheeded. And so

you can bet when it went, you know, to 14 or 20 below zero that any eggs or anything that was out there was arrested on the spot. They just don't make it. So I've not had a big, I've never, you know, had a box full of, you know, wax moth messes, right? And then I was at a conference and a guy came up to me with a frame that was covered in the webbing from wax moths. And here's where my cynicism needs to be put in my pocket sometimes. I should not say things. Because he said, look at that. What do you think? And I said, I think you could just, because I'm being funny, see, because I'm funny. I said, I think you should just put that in the beehive and let the bees clean that up. And before I could kind of make sure that they

understood that that was funny, he got it. The guy with the frame understood I was kidding, but somebody off to my left said, yeah, that's how I do it. I just put them all in the beehives and let them clean it up and I drag it right out through the entrance of the hive. So now I was on the spot and I could not say that's a bad idea. So I'm telling you, clean up the comb, keep it in a ventilated place and with light if you can and you won't have to use the chemicals. So I hope that works. Yeah, that was a lot of texting from Tony there. Let's see. What else we have? Moving on. So we're doing it up now. We're at question number four.

This is the last question for today, unless somebody types in something else in all caps and has a question for me. This is from Marta. It says, great interview. So thank you for supporting innovation. So we're talking again about the ventilation of the hive heater. If you want to know more about that, please go to the interview that I did with Steve,

who developed it. and it's a passive way of heating just the top box of a hive without heating the brood box down in the bottom. So very interesting stuff. But the questions here, it says I'm skeptical. The interview left me with some concerns. I found myself on the cautious side and would like to see more research addressing all questions.

So as with any new innovation, one of the things I do is I interview the inventor, the person who came up with the concept. We do our very best to explain why they implemented that, why they made this new piece of equipment that should benefit beekeepers. And then we're left to find out through practical assessments, how well that's going to work for your bees, and then maybe changes will happen,

and maybe it will not work as well as he wanted it to. And then again, maybe it will and we'll learn more. But anyway, I'm going to go into this. The main concerns revolve around the natural winter brood break. does it still occur with the use of a heater? So here's the thing. The brood break occurs whenever resources are not coming into the hive that would keep them brooding up.

Remember that your nurse bees and the queen is simulated because she's fed by what? The nurse bees. The nurse bees demonstrate to the queen by the quality of the resource they're feeding her constantly. And so if that declines, if it leans out, If the resources that are coming into the hive lean out, then the brood slows down, the queen slows down. So it's this big collective cycle.

It's not necessarily related to the warmth inside the hive. It is the combination of warmth, but resources that are coming from outside. This is another reason why I don't like to force bees with pollen patties and things like that. even though, you know, companies that I'm friends with, people that are like, produce pollen patties, they do a lot of research on it. They infuse it with pollen. That's great. But see, remember, I'm a backyard beekeeper.

I want to see which of my colonies do the best with the natural rhythm that happens throughout the year. So boosting resources inside the hive has kind of a questionable return, where if the bees are actually bringing things in, that will simulate them to produce more brood. as things lean out, because you can have a summer dearth where your bees stop producing brood. So it's the same thing. It's not so much whether it's cold or warm. It's whether or not resources can be found and are brought in that are conducive to reproduction inside the hive. So it does still occur. Winter bees begin to feed new brew.

Their biological clock accelerates if more brews produce in winter or pollen resources insufficient. So again, they're going to regulate themselves. production or not. Because keep in mind, there's some warm weather people that keep easier around. They still have dearths and they still have times of the year where brood falls off. It's not because of the climate temperature. It's because of the resources that come along with that season. So additionally, brood break provides an opportunity for varroa mite reduction. There's also no mention of disease. So there's no claim that the bees, that that heating system, and I'm not defending it, I'm just explaining it based on what I understand about the

system. We don't know for sure what the impact is on diseases, but healthier bees can hold up to these different diseases and pathogens that they otherwise might be exposed to. So if we've got weaker bees in a weaker environment, this is why the propola hives have come out from Premier. So propola hives were designed to have a healthier hive climate. So part of that is if the hive itself is medicinal, which propolis is. So if that coats the interior surfaces of the hive, then the bees are in a healthier position to deal with any potential pathogens that they get exposed to. So I think by reducing the challenges, the climate challenges for your bees inside the hive, then your bees would be more robust in dealing with those. So again, I'm just, you know, shooting from the hip here

because Steve's not here to explain his thinking, but I think a lot will be learned and more will be shared when people test that out and see what they observe. But I think those triggers are not related to warmth. So here's Glenn Perkins. Is there a top plastic foundation, or does it matter? Seem to remember you talking about

better comb being put in upside down. Does the angle of the cell only apply to drawn outcome. Okay, drawn outcome. So here's the thing. Yes. Is there a top of plastic foundation? Plastic foundation, I see the question.

Okay, plastic foundation does not have a top. Other than plastic foundation inserts, right? So if you were inserting this in here, would it matter if it were like this or like that? As a foundation? No, it doesn't matter. This happens to be an acorn full frame, but the foundation,

if this were put into a wooden frame, does not have a top or bottom. If you look at it closely, you can see that it's kind of like a Y at the bottom. That would be the same if it was this way. Now, as they draw out the comb, there is an angle to the comb. So let's talk since Better comb is mentioned in this question.

This is Better comb. Better comb is a synthetic. In other words, by synthetic, I mean it's not made by bees. It is in every other way like beeswax. It is at an angle, roughly a 13 degree angle. Some people bought these better comb units. I install these myself, so I buy the frame separate. I buy the comb separate.

I put them in myself. If these angles, if this is put in like this with the top bar and you flip this upside down, let's say the cone was put it upside down, and now the angles are up like this. piece don't use it and then people think well that comb is garbage piece didn't use it that's why i say get a cue tip sticking in here find out what that angle is that is really unfortunate i don't know who at better be was putting their outside down but i guess they had some problems with that uh better comb is a

great way to quick start a colony that does not have a lot of time like late in the year i never fill a whole hive with this stuff i put two or three frames in it and uh so a late season swarm, for example, can go straight to work without using all their resources to draw out comb, desperately trying to get their resources in before winter hits. And that's why that colony that I was surprised that I thought would be dead is doing really well in a single 10-frame deep box with no super on it had better comb in it so they could store their resources early. They're making it with a shot in the dark.

Okay. Let's see. is there a top here's the question this is for Kyle how do you recommend clearing the hive gate if dead bees since the center support include the Shepherd's hook method I don't know if Kyle is still in here to answer that but I can answer it we're talking about there's a post here that when you put your hive gate in that people put a screw in I don't do that I don't I don't secure it with that screw here's a hive gate metal front you can have two of them or one.

This goes through like this, right? So you can pull it through. So I pull it out, shake it out if there's any dead bees in there, and then I just push it right back in and put it back to work, right? Because you can't push it all the way in, but you can certainly pull it out. So see the post in there? I hook that and pull it out that way. So I never used that little pivot screw in there.

So Kyle may have something different to say, but for me personally, that's, I don't put the screw in there. And it holds fine because you know what the bees do? They propolize the edges of it and it really holds its position really well. And I highly recommend that you routinely kind of pull that out because otherwise you'll find it really glued down. And if you're trying to use the B-smart hook, which is what I use for these, because I pull it out with that, right? This is plastic. I don't know how much that can take, but I also have to stick my hive tool underneath of it to pull that out. All right, moving on. Okay, so this is from, let me see if I'm missing anybody.

So I know that question was for Kyle. I answered for him because I don't know if Kyle's still here. He's a very high energy individual. So Jack says regarding a shook swarm technique. Can you think of a way to use the brood that? That would be a sacrifice without introducing any of the mites back into the apiary. Well, because if you're doing a shook swarm and you're taking them out and you've got brood, any capped brood potentially shields the mites. So until they emerge from the capped brood, you really don't have access to them unless you go on to some other organic treatment like Formic Pro packets.

Because the other thing is you can create a brood break by keeping those capped brood away from the queen so she doesn't lay an egg as soon as one gets uncapped right away. And then you can do exhalic acid vaporization once they're all exposed. You can confine a queen into a queen isolation cage again. There are a lot of ways to achieve a brood break so that you can do that. But there are going to be a lot of different ways to achieve that. but without sacrificing any of the mites back to the apiary. So I don't know. I would like to say something, though,

for people that are buying in packages or collecting swarms because that's going to come up. And I know we're way ahead of that right now, but depending on where you're in the country, you might be dealing with that right now. You collect a swarm, you bring them home, you stick them into a hive. You have eight days where every month,

that's with that swarm is exposed and you can treat it with exhalic acid vaporization and get 96% efficacy it always puzzles me that people won't do that people that say i'm going to wait and do my counts and see how they do later you have an opportunity to knock them all out right now you install a package you have an opportunity again i don't recommend doing it right away when you get them because we don't want them to leave right we want them to lay eggs so that's why I say wait until the eighth day. Why would I say eight days? Because that's when they're going to cap their brood,

and then those mites have a chance to hide away. So if you bring in a swarm, you have a chance to kill all of the dispersal phase mites that are in there with a single dose, single treatment of exhalic acid vaporization. Please do that for swarms and packages. It doesn't hurt the bees. By the way, if you just bought a package, your queen is separate.

you can pull the queen out while you do the treatment if you're really worried about that i've never seen a queen show any detriment to being exposed to an exhalic acid vapor treatment so moving along oh kyle might have answered the question okay mr done i use hive alive fondant and super dm fondant have you used the super dm is it dm or d ffm because we have Dfm, which is direct fed microbials. Now we're calling it a fondet. It does, those are hot. It's gonna look like it was planned.

These are B-bytes and this is superfood. This comes from strong microbials. I think this is what we're talking about. This is a, it's like, this is obviously a small version. but this is like a little fondant. This is all, it's got probiotics in it, but it says powered by algae, which we know is spirulina.

That's what these are. Spirulina packets with fondant. So have I used them? Yes, I put one of these in every one of my observation hives. Just to see how they go, because these come in boxes like this, these are great for handing out at your B meetings and stuff. And it's like a single dose treatment for a small,

colony, good boost. I've used them, and I have to confess, I have no way of proving that it benefited them other than that they ate it. So I don't know, because I don't have the science, the ability to study, you know, the microbiome of the bee. I know that it really boosted everything. We need real counters, you know, people that can really understand like this bee lived three days longer because I fed it that strong microbials partnered with the spirulina. It's not hurting them. The studies are very strong in support of that. But there again, they were healthy colonies to begin with.

So it's just fun to use, I guess. So Patrick says, Mr. Dunn, I use, oh, so that's it. Okay. Superdifm with algae yet. So I've used them. I can't tell if they, because I didn't follow my own advice. which would be put them in this colony over here and leave this colony, which is in every other regard, same population,

roughly the same stages of growth in development, give one the super DFM, you know, B bytes in this case, and the other one not, and then see if one of them conspicuously performs better than the other. Remember that direct fed microbials are designed to deal with bees that have been exposed to industrial agricultural chemical treatments. And this helps your bees. So it's pretty targeted.

It helps your bees metabolize and break down those toxins that are produced, whether it's fungicides, you know, they need to know which ones they are. These are more targeted than I think a lot of people understand. So if you're adjacent to a field where this treatment is going on and you know that's going to happen and you reach out to strong microbials and say, I need some D-F-M, super D-F-M, which is direct-fed microbials that are designed specifically to counter the pesticides that are in use over there, then that's what they're good for. I happen to be in an area where pesticide loading is extremely low.

The way you can find out, if you're in the United States, what your pesticide load is. go to B-Scape, B-E-E-S-A-P-E-E-S-A-P-E dot-org, put in your location, and then just like you pick your spot on the map and you poke it there, and then it does a radius around your location and shows you a lot of great information. But the most concerning one for me is, what is the pesticide load where I live? Because all agricultural practices, all the farmers have to register the pesticides,

size that they use with the Department of Bag, and that's where these numbers come from. And in some areas, it's pretty darn alarming. Where our son lives, he's at a 240 pesticide load. Where we live, it's a 32. Huge difference. So that's a stressor. He's in an area where, for example, SuperDFM would be a benefit to him. Down here, not so much.

So what else? And the hive-in-fondent, what's the strong suit of the hive-alive fondant is, again, it's a microbiome thing, but specifically targeted at nozema, right? So, and that did work. I was able to do that. That's one thing that I can do with a microscope and a slide and the hemocytometer, which is used for counting blood cells. And so you can smash your guts, draw the water out, put on the hemocetometer, and see the difference in nosema spores. which when do they start to concentrate the most when your bees are confined inside the hive, that time of year is coming up. And so there we can see differences. And so that was a real

strong selling point for me with the hive alive fondant because it did have that impact. And that actually came from before the fondant was the hive life syrup. That's when I really did these four accounts. Nozima sport counting was part of the curriculum in a course that I took. So very interesting it was conspicuous how well that worked so the question is though would my bees have died you know if i didn't do that not necessarily it's a sublethal impact which means your bees are just not foraging as well or as active or do their jobs as well they still function they may lose a few days of life at the other end but when you multiply that impact by thousands of bees then it is a noticeable impact and you have the ability with a syrup or a fondant not only to sustain and

keep your bees alive but to benefit their metabolism so let's see oh here comes i don't know how to say that name sh9d ow w n oh shine down on me i get it minimum overnight temps for one to one syrup So that's a spring thing to kick things off. I don't recommend any sugar syrups unless you have warm enough days ahead so that your bees can do cleansing flights. If they can actively get out and do cleansing flights and forage and do things like that, you can shift to the sugar syrup. And again, I would offer that outside of the hive unless you had a colony that you're really trying to resuscitate. So this comes into play too. In spring, sometimes you will see bees that look like.

like they have been poisoned. And they'll come out of the landing board and just try to fly but fall off onto the ground. Now this is absent other markers regarding what might be wrong. They're not trembling. They're not showing neurological damage as if they were exposed to a insecticide. They just don't seem to have enough energy.

I have resuscitated colonies like that with just one-to-one sugar syrup offered inside the hive. You can give it to them in a rapid round or something like that. And once they get it, the recovery is remarkably fast. And we did this in an observation hive, which was really interesting because you saw them passing the resource to one another

and moving it through the hive. And it was like waking up bees that were just on their last leg. They had consumed all of their stored honey. There was nothing left for them. They can't metabolize. If there's pollen there, they can't use it. Because remember, if there's any, they need first, it's carbohydrates, it's sugar syrup. And people complained about it. You should have

just let them die because that's how we figure out which colonies can handle it, which colonies can save enough. But these are managed livestock. They're in my care. And if a quart of sugar syrup is going to save and revitalize that whole thing within an hour, they were flying off the landing board and able to then forage for themselves. So we hit a tipping point in the spring sometimes where they don't even have the energy to access resources that are starting to come out there. And this is where we as beekeepers need to be alert to landing board activity. What are they doing? And look at cause and effect.

So let's say even let's say we're wrong. Let's say instead of lacking resources, which it almost 99% of the time is, let's say it was some kind of toxin they were exposed to. The sugar syrup isn't going to help, isn't going to hurt them. So it might help them sustain themselves long enough to recover. from whatever that was because it could be an acute hit on them. So moving on. So the night temps for one-to-one sugar syrup. If it's not freezing and keeping them inside the hive, you're good to go if they need it.

It's a colony that needs it. Here comes from Michael. If you had any thoughts or words on the new bee species found. What new bee species? I don't know. I need more information. So that means that I don't have a comment because I don't know about the new species. bee species. I do know that there are new species being identified. I think that's really

interesting because we're losing. I don't think the general public understands how many species of insects are going extinct every single year. I don't know if you remember being a kid and when your dad drove your car into the driveway, you go outside and look at the grill on the car and see all the bugs on it, all the bugs stock all over it. You know, a bug remover, bug cleaner and stuff like that on the front of your car. Windshield splat of bugs. You remember trying to clear your windshield and there were bugs like stuck to it. It was like bad news, especially midsummer, July, August. You don't see that anymore. That is that windshield splat test is a real thing. Now we could say, well, cars today are more aerodynamic and less of it. Remember

the bug shields? People used to put on the front of their trucks and cars to deflect the air over. Maybe cars are a little more streamlined now, and it doesn't happen, but we are losing an alarming number of insects because we're messing with our environment. I'm not a total tree hugger. I'm a partial tree hugger, but let me tell you what, I am worried about what we're killing off. So the new bee species found, that's great news. It's not going to offset the losses we have until people care about the environment under their control. Man, if you wanted to know, like how many grasshoppers, I'm not saying we need more grasshoppers,

but you used to see a bunch of grasshoppers on the front of your car. Anyway, moving on. I think that's it. It's a new blue bee. So that's interesting. I would like to know more just because I'm one of those people that likes to know things for the sake of knowing things. But I do want to tell you,

we've been at this for an hour and 36 minutes and I think it's time to wrap things up. So if there's no one with a pressing last minute question, I think we're going to say goodbye for the weekend. And I think I will see you next Friday. Lambrick Farm says, I've been driving the same truck for years, less bugs. Okay, so thanks a lot to everyone for being here today. I hope you. Bohemia Bees shows up and gives me and I feel bad because Bohemia bees, that's one of the vendors at the North American Honeybee Expo that I did not make it to include in my video. So it's great running into them. They have the Queen dial, look that up, very interesting stuff. And thanks for that

donation. I really appreciate it. Thanks to everyone for being here. You've all been a great group. Keith Spillman is my bouncer. Shout out to him. Thanks for that. He's unemployed. Quinn wants to come in and say goodbye. So this is the supervisor if you don't know him. He's Quinn. He's nine. And he's come over. I'm sure he's dying to get out in the snow and clean all the entrances for me.

Thank you. That's Bohemia bees. Thank you. Okay. So Quinn says thank you, even though he gets none of that money. So thank you all for being here. Have a fantastic weekend. Check your landing boards.

Please don't let your bees starve.