The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Questions and Answers Episode 251 recorded during a LIVE-Stream

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

This is the audio from Friday's Q&A, this week we also have some chicken questions! https://youtube.com/live/A6x5U-ggy1s?feature=share

Okay, that does it. I'm going live anyway because you guys are in the chat over there saying that you can see me and stuff. I thought opening up early and whatever. So, hello and welcome, happy Friday. Today is Friday. Good Friday, by the way. March the 29th. And this is Backyard Bekeeping Questions and Answers episode number 251. I'm Frederick Dunn. And this is the way to be live stream because it's the last Friday of the month. So if anybody is showing up on time, which by the way is 4 o'clock, it's still 359. So I'm coming on early. Everybody's here. The bouncer is in the house. So Keith is there. Don't cause any trouble. I'll bet you're wondering what the weather's doing outside because that's what everybody wants to talk about is the weather.

36 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 2 degrees Celsius for those of you who don't do Fahrenheit. Mostly cloudy. 64% relative humidity. Six mile an hour winds. but gusts up to 20 miles per hour if you're not happy with the low blows there. Rain's coming. We have a miserable week ahead, but no freezing nights.

That's good news. And the highs will be in the 40s, the lows to low 50s and overnights, high 30s. So no freezing. So we don't have to worry about your bees freezing this time of year. So I want to thank everybody for showing up. This is early. You guys are right on time. This is kind of surprising me a little bit.

And I will start out the way I do every Friday by answering questions that were already submitted during the past week. So we're going to talk about that. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves there on the side and say hello. Just be good to each other. And we'll get started. And I will look for your questions as we go on and I'll repeat this. And if somebody else chimes in later and they're trying to post a question, I suggest posting your question in all caps. That we all know it's a question for me.

You're not just saying hello to all your friends who have shown up on the side there. So hello everyone. Thank you for being here. Let's go with the very first question, which comes from a meal, Yardley, Pennsylvania. Says I can't attend a live session on Friday, so I hope you can answer this question. Yes, I can. I did my first hive inspections yesterday. One of my hives that was very strong going in the winter appears to have a virgin queen.

There were no eggs. larvae or brood in the hive. There were still two small patches of drone brood, bad sign, drone brood and that's all. And how likely is it that this queen can get mated? Well, I have bad news for a meal. Highland likely. I don't see drones yet. Now I'm in the northeastern United States, northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania. And I just want to let you know that we're not seeing drones yet. So this would not be a great time. Plus, based on what you've told me, If that queen went through winter and all you're seeing are drones, I think you've got a drone laying queen,

which means she never got mated or was inadequately mated. And now you're going to have to re-queen that colony. Now, the good news is, let's see, do you have other hives? If you have other hives, it would also be a waste to put eggs into this queenless colony or the colony where the queen is, but she's only laying drones. because until you see drones, they're not going to raise a new queen and she can't get mated.

So, Flying Ham says few drones showing up in Georgia, good for Georgia, where it's nice and warm and south. It's still cold here. There's still patches of snow on the ground. I meant, you know, I meant that to come out.

Good for Georgia. So very great. Georgia peaches. I hope everything is great down there. Number two comes from Daryl Hammer 4608. That's the U.S. channel name. I bought the swarm reacher, but I have not used it yet. However, I have tried attracting a low-hanging swarm and a queen onto a frame of old brood, and all I got on board was about a

quarter of the frame. The queen was not on the frame. Later, part of the bees, blah, blah, blah. Swarm Reacher. So I'm going to be testing that this year, but here's the thing. I just want to talk about the swarm reacher, or this method, by the way. Let's get a hold of their social influencers. So we're going to be facing swarms soon. All of us will be no matter where you are in the United States, I'm sure, down in Georgia and all the places where everything is perfect and life is great, you may be seeing swarms already. I like to play with swarms and I like to mess with their influencers.

So what are the influencers? Those are the scouts that are looking for a new place to live. And so if we use a swarm reacher and you put a frame of brood for those of you who don't know, it's drawn comb that's been used for a brood in the past. You're supposed to clamp it on this, put it on a pole, put it up there. And the guy that invented it said, the queen clambers out onto that first. Well, I haven't tested it. I haven't seen it. We have Daryl Hamner here who says that he tried it, but he got a bunch of bees onto the frame. It did not include the queen who still stayed clustered up against a tree, who knows, wherever. But here's the thing. This is why the social

influencers are important to us when we're trying to manipulate a colony of bees that are on the wing that are bivouacked. That's not their final destination. So we can get those bees on that frame and put them in a hive box. And then you know what I say, do you get another frame. Put that up there and get even more bees onto it. And pretty soon, mark my words,

because bees are 100% predictable 100% of the time. And if you believe that, my nose will grow. What happens is they'll start going between the box that you put them in and the cluster that's still on the tree. And then when you see them starting to get agitated and you see some little waggle dances going on there, it's a great opportunity to interpret the waggle dance. Which bees do you want to nab and put in your box, the ones that are waggle dancing? You get those bees, you put those in your box, and pretty soon you'll see this traffic between the box and the cluster on the tree.

And before you know it, they'll all move into that box like clockwork. Or they won't. But it's worked for me most of the time. So even though I'm not giving up on the swarm reacher, I like these stories. And so maybe the queen doesn't walk out on there. Or maybe the brood comb didn't smell good enough. If you've got a question for me, by the way, and you're not just talking to one another, friendly reminder, type your question in all caps so I can still see it. Question number three, we're moving along here.

First name is B, the letter B. That's it. From Kernersville, North Carolina. I had to kill a hot hive. It says I used soapy water on the frames and inside the boxes. Will I be able to wash the soap off of the comb and have the bees reuse it? Okay, now some of you might be facing that. If you're a brand new beekeeper, here's my advice to you. You need to be prepared to protect your livestock, your neighbors and friends,

the delivery man, the UPS driver, the FedEx driver, and anybody else is going to come on your property from hot hives. Now, let's see at a hot hive, like the one described here, by B. And you need it to hit him with soapy water. So I want to be clear about this, by the way, no pun intended, dawn free and clear. I don't sell it. I'm just showing it to you so you know what I'm talking about. You can buy this stuff anywhere, but it's from pure essentials.

Now, this doesn't have a scent in it. It doesn't have coloration in it. And the best of all is it's biodegradable. So in answer to this question, because B from North Carolina did not say what kind of soap was used. So I hope it was dawn free and clear. If it is, you mix that in with your water. Well, how much do you put in the water? Two tablespoons of don't free and clear to one gallon of fresh water.

You mix it up, you put it in a garden spray that has never been used for any kind of insecticide, by the way. It needs to be a clean garden sprayer just for this purpose. I highly recommend you buy one. You mark it with a black magic marker for bee defense only or something like that. Anyway, you can spray them with the dawn free and clear with water mixed together at two tablespoons per gallon and it will kill those bees. Now, the follow-up part, which is addressing the question that we have right now, what do you do with the frames afterwards?

Copious amounts of fresh water. So you're going to take the whole hive apart. You have to get the dead bees out of there anyway. and you just hose it out and keep hosing it out until you don't see suds anymore. Then you can just air dry it, put everything all back together, and it will be good to go for your bees to reuse. So I hope that works. Also, another thing that I used to say,

and I'm going to change my mind on you right now. So thank you for being here today, and you're going to catch up on the update. I used to say, go ahead and mix that up ahead of time and have that part of your, you know, emergency defense kit. And I did some research. And apparently even if you mix up your Don Ultra free and clear with the water ahead of time, it does degrade. Like somehow it won't work as well as if you adjust, mix it fresh.

So the way that it works anyway is you defeat the cuticle on the bees. So honeybees have a cuticle. It's a waxy coating that keeps your bees from losing blood pressure and from drying out. from desiccating, it also protects them from water on the outside. So with the surfactants and everything that come along with soap, it breaks that down. And then what happens? Water gets a higher wetting ability, a higher penetrating ability. And it goes right through the tiny spiracles, which is how they breathe. And those are on the sides of the thorax. They're also on the sides of the abdomen. And once it gets in there, they're done. So now we need to rinse it all off. So there we have it.

Let's see what happens here. Patrick Woods says, Use my reacher this week and put Q&P on the corner of the frame to pull off so many bees. Their fanning brought the rest of the swarm to the box. See, Patrick Woods, it does work. Find the swarm reacher. Buy it right now. $14, including shipping.

Tell them I sent you so that you can pay the same as everybody else. Oh, here's in all caps from Happy. Meges. Okay, looking for options to make it easier for me to do hive inspections since I can't lift the heavy boxes without my husband's help. Long term, I would want a long-lengthroth hive, but can't this year. Okay, well, first of all, get your husband a gym membership and tell them you want strength training so that you can drink coffee and send them out there to lift your stuff. But seriously, sounds like you already have hives. Horizontal hive is my first suggestion for young beekeepers as well as old beekeepers or beekeepers that just don't want to lift entire boxes

and want something completely easy to manage. The long Langstroth hive is number one on my list for that. Next is a hive that I've just looked at over the past year, which is the keepers hive. Look it up. It goes on the standard 10 frame bottom box. They have nukes above that. So nukes, five-frame deep nukes are easy for anybody to lift.

So if you can't go horizontal, reduce the size of your supers to nukes, for example. And that would make it easier. The only other suggestion I can say is get a friend to help you lift them. I don't even own one of those box lifters, but there are lifters that are two-man lifts. So you might need a friend to lift some of that stuff. But number one on my list for people, and it's the future for me, The reason I keep so many different hive configurations is because I don't want to give an opinion about a hive

that I haven't worked, managed, used, and figured out. So I don't want to do it in theory. That's why I have so many different hive configurations right here at the way to be. So I can say, yeah, here's that hive over here and this is what I like about it, that's what I don't like about it. And but if I had to go with one hive type,

well, okay, let's narrow it to two because my wife will hate me if I say, that flow hives are not at the top of my list. My wife loves flow hives because it is the best way to get honey out without any fuss and muss. I like the horizontal hives. I'm not saying maybe that we couldn't put flow frames in one of those. That's a very common question that I get. It is the easiest way to harvest your honey without extracting equipment. So horizontal hives, easy to manage. Now, the layens hive, I'm going to have to mention that because people love the layens hive. If you haven't started with any equipment at all.

Land's hives are working out really well. The frame size is pretty much perfect to match the size of the brute that builds up in there. And I only have two of the land's hives. I got them both from Dr. Leo Shirashkin. I bought his most expensive land hives. They're doing fantastic. The bees do very well in them. And the only drawback that I have with those is compatibility of equipment.

So long lang number one, lands number two for horizontal hives plus those frames are heavy too once or full of honey much heavier than the langstroth deep frames that i would like to get a hybrid together i think that's in the future too and ross by the way is in here today we're working on he did the prints for my long langstroth hive so for those of you who want to download a pdf and get some ideas on how to build a horizontal hive uh please look at uh the way to be dot org and look at the prince page and they're free they're free for you to use you just can't claim that they're yours but they're free to download use and modify as you wish but that's it i think those are my those are my options for happy majesties okay i know there's a better way to pronounce that

so killing the hot hive rinsing it fresh water air drying putting them right back in service and let's move on to question number four which comes from a from Jacksonville, Florida. Says here, Justin's installed a five-frame nuke and a 10-frame deep. And one of the frames had a queen cell with a larvae and royal jelly in it.

I remove the loaded cell, hoping that the change of location and their move into a big box cut their swarm instinct. Will it work? Any suggestions to prevent them from swarming will be welcomed, thanks. Okay, so here's the thing.

Will it work? Okay, can't guarantee that it's going to work, but here's the thing. You find a swarm this time of year, and the difference between a swarm, you know, a queen cup, which looks like the top of an acorn, right? Empty, nothing's in it. If you have a queen cell, that's a cell that starts to be developed that has an egg in it or it has larvae in it, as described here, and there's probably royal jelly in there and everything else. Those bees are on their way out. So I'm talking about emergency procedures.

You can cut those cells out and wish all they, long that your queen is going to stay. I'm going to give you a much more effective method. Take the frame with the queen on it that's currently in there because that colony is going to sworn no matter what you put them in now. And you can put them in a new hive, nucleus box, nice and small, leave the rest of them with the queen's cell. Now you said you cut it out. I think they might build another one again just because they sound like they're ready to go. I would create my insurance policy with a small nuke that's got the queen with a frame of brood because one frame of brood with another frame of, you know, empty comb or if you

want to put a feeder on it, something like that to make sure that she's okay, they will recover. And that frame, she can produce a 6,000 B colony out of that. So here's what you do. Keep her in there until you make sure that they can no longer turn an egg into a queen cell and monitor them. Once you're past that period where they have the opportunity to take eggs or freshly hatched larvae and turn them into queen cells, once that's passed, then you can restore that queen with the frames right back into the same colony. Use placeholders like frame feeders and things like that. So you have a space to put them back. And then when you put them back, hopefully they've missed then their instinct to swarm. So we've cut down on some brood.

We've given them some space. and now you brought their same queen back, which means they accept her right away, and I think you're going to be good to go. So, and you can also put her in the queen isolation cage if you want to. Let me look here and see what Doc 94 says. The stilled water would extend the shelf life of that solution. I believe soaked reacts with different minerals and stuff.

That's possible. Could happen, but it doesn't hurt you to mix it up fresh, and we're talking about the mix that's going to. kill insects by the way that works on wasps too so anybody else with a capital typed question i don't see any so i did question number four the queen cell thing you are going to face that everybody that's got bees that survived winter we're going to run into that that's that alarm moment when you're inspecting your brood box and you're trying to see if everything's okay and you come across a frame that's got three or four queen cells on it don't even fight it if you still got the queen there

because if they're capped, you're too late. If the queen cells are still open and in production, then you still have time. So find your queen, find the frame that she's already on, put that in a queen isolation cage in an insurance, a resource nuke hive. And if you don't have one of those available, stop watching this right now.

Get online and go get yourself a nucleus hive. That's it. You'll be ready to go. Question number five. We're already on that. 17 minutes in. This comes from Bill, from Big Sandy, Tennessee.

New beekeeper, coming through my first winner, three of four hives survived, and one in particular is booming. So we're pretty sure it's going to be early for swarms. This hive has a clipped beeweber queen, so she can't fly. But just found a huge cluster of bees

hanging under the hive visor, approximately 6 by 14 by 10, cluster of bees. Is this a swarm? Question mark. Okay, got a quiz for you guys. You have a big cluster of bees on the outside. Is that a swarm or are they just bearding?

Consider the time of year. Consider the fact that we've got a queen that can't fly because what often happens is they'll move out of the hive as if to go to a bivouac location when the swarm emits from a colony of bees. You'll be looking at prime swarms at the beginning of the year. Those are the biggest and the most costly to your hive. So they're clustered under the hive.

advisor. Let's just stare at the cluster for a while. Get whatever it is you're drinking, go outside, get a chair, let's look at them. What are they doing while they're clustered? What are they doing more specifically while they're clustered between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., more specifically on a sunny afternoon. Are they just clustered? Are they just overlaying one another, hang in there, sitting tight, nice and quiet. Another thing, at nighttime, do they abandon their cluster position and move into the hive? Or do they stay out there, clustered underneath the hive visor? Hmm, they stayed out under the hive visor. Now let's go to the 10 to 2 thing. What do you see on the surface? Are there bees coming and going from the surface of it? And if there are, what's their behavior like? Are they just joining up?

Are they stopping and starting to communicate with one another? And here's the tell. Do you see waggle? dances on the beard on the front of your hive. If you see waggle dances, you see more than one waggle dance, what you've got is a bivouac. In other words, instead of flying out of the hive and collecting onto a tree or a bush or a, you know, a gate or something like that, they've bivouacked on the front of the hive, but they're going. They're not going to go back in. The only thing you can do that could get those bees to go back in that hive is to find the queen, remove her from that cluster, and then you'll see them get all frantic because they search for her pheromone and they can't find it, they'll rejoin the original colony.

So what do you think I'm going to suggest? I'm going to suggest that if you see the scouts and if you see the waggle dancing going on on the surface, you can collect them just as you would any other swarm. Now, the very best case scenario, sometimes they open up a little vents and you'll see the queen actually come out and body surf across the top of them and then go back inside. have your queen clip ready, collect that queen, and move her into a queen isolation cage onto a frame. If you don't have a queen isolation cage, keep her in the clip, put her in the clip in a nuke box, and then see the bees that are clustered underneath of that hive visor on the front of the hive

or under the landing board, wherever they happen to be, see them go in and start fanning their nasonoff clans, and then you're going to see the others will follow her in there. The goal is to confine them there long enough for them to make a commitment to the foundation that you have inside that hive, and I really hope you have drawn comb. If not, a swarm is prepared to build comb. So what would you do to stimulate that? One-to-one sugar syrup on top of that nuke will give them what they need resource-wise to continue comb building if you put in heavy waxed foundation. So that's what you want to do. And then, of course, once they're in there, you know, you'll lose a bunch of them there.

Some of them may go back to the original colony. We don't care anymore. We're going to set her up there. And then once you see eggs, she's committed. Release her from your, well, let me see. I'm just messing myself up here. You have to release her. She can't lay eggs if she's in a queen clip.

So you're going to have to spring for one of those queen isolation cages. So you can turn your queen loose. Let me just tell you, I promote these all the time. That's a queen isolation cage. It's got a medium frame in it. You would put it deep in it. Your queen goes in here. If you do not have one of these, you can make one.

If you're super special and you're skilled and you can bend around a metal queen excluder, or you can just go to better be.com, look up queen isolation cage. Buy one. It's going to pay for itself over and over because you're not going to be losing those swarms to change their minds and leave the hive that you put them in. Because that lets her start laying on the frame and then the bees commit and then you can take the whole frame out and then you take your isolation cage out, put it on your shelf, a ready resource for the next time you have something similar where you need to isolate your queen

and keeper. That's what I think is going on. So, and if you buy them from Betterby, tell them I sent you again so you'll pay exactly the same price as everyone else. In fact, the same price that better be charged me at the North American Honeybee Expo. Didn't even give me a discount. I mean, I love Betterbee. Some good people. Good stuff. Everything they sell, they've tested.

So that's good news. Ooh, there's a capital here. Jimmy's Neighborhood Bees. I have to leave my hives from April 8th until May 5th, Central Virginia. What should I do to prep the bees? Okay, so that's a really good question. And the same holds true for people that have apiaries, or beehives out of way where they can't get to them,

you want to go ahead and super your hives. So entrance reducer, what size entrance reducer? What I recommend? You can do anything you want, but I'm just going to recommend a 3 eighths inch high by three inch wide entrance. Super it before you go away. And then that's pretty much it.

Be ready. And because we want to help in every way we can reduce that. simulation to swarm, which they're all going to want to do in spring. And by giving them extra space, you relieve some congestion and everything else. Now, wait a second. Hmm. Now, I don't want to add any more mud to that. So I hope that works to prep the bees.

That's it. No extra feed and stuff. Let them feed off the environment. We don't want to simulate them to build too much when you're not there. Galloway Light says Fred, how then have you reduced one-to-one sugar water and still get wax building. How thin have I reduced it? I don't even want to talk about it

because I'm a complete tight wad on that. Let me tell you. And the easiest way to see it is, I'm going to say it again, observation hives. They have multiple observation hives. One to one, even thinner. So one to one is four pounds of sugar,

half a gallon of water. This is how bad I've been. I have gone. And this is because the nectar that they're getting from flowers is a very light sugar content. Now, sure, there's some flowers out there. produce nectar, depending on the time of day, the season of the year, and the species of the

flower, up to 50% sugar, right? So more likely, it's like 10%. So sometimes I have taken four pounds of sugar, the four pound bag of white granulated sugar, and I've made a whole gallon of syrup with it, and I've put it out there. And I've watched bees use it to draw outcome. But they're also using it for energy. They're also consuming it. Sure, they have to dry it down more to metabolize it. Or if they're going to store it, they don't. But I've thinned it. way down. And the bees go after it and the comb building continues right through multiple rainy days like the week we've got coming up ahead of us. However, I think they perform a little better if it's one to one or very close to one to one. And I haven't got the specifics like

right down to the gram or the ounce or how much more water you can give. But I have extended the sugar quite a bit way past, way thinner than one to one. And the bees use it and do. And very well with it. So I don't know if people are trying to sell a sugar or what's going on. Now here's the thing. Of course I did backyard tests with my handy backyard containers. And I did different levels of sugar because I thought that would be like a genius thing to do for backyard testing. So these like kids in a candy store, I put different levels of sugar in each container. starting as low as 10%. So it was no great surprise that the bees went after the highest sugar content syrup first.

So if they have the option and there's a higher sugar content resource available, they're going for it. If it's all there is, they have no chance but to use it. So you can give them thin syrup, but they want thicker syrup. But one-to-one is the happy medium. If it's a little thinner, you're still going to have good stuff. Now, O'Brien says, in caps, Fred, you still use spirulina for your bees. Oh, man, where's my pack of spirulina? This is what we're talking about.

Spirulina mixed in. Now, here's the thing. I've got a lot of testing with that, and Spirulina was backed up with scientific studies, so it does have some backing there. And here's the thing. We're going to talk about water, I think, a little bit later, because somebody else had a question about that. When the bees find, Spirulina is, you know, little green organisms, right?

So it's basically moss, free-floating moss, and it has a lot of vitamins and nutrients that the bees need. So here's what I noticed. Look at where your bees get their water around ponds and stuff. I happen to have a pond that had made here about 23 years ago. And so it has moss around the banks, around the edges. So we get to see how the bees behave around moss, because I was thinking about this just this morning. morning, I was almost thinking that I'd like to take a concrete bird bath and introduce moss into it. And we could put spirulina in there too and just free flow it. By the way, spirulina, let's stop there for a second.

If you take that stuff and you put a tablespoon of it into your sugar syrup, you're going to have a heck of a time mixing it up. It's just going to make a mess. It doesn't work out very well. So if you want to use spirulina, get the tablespoon of spirulina per quart, right? So when you put that in your dry sugar, mix it well into the dry sugar until that dry sugar turns Army Green before you ever add the water to it. Then you'll get a nice even mix, right? Okay, Keith Spelman, you are my person bouncer. So Mr. Floss wants to know about Star Wars. Wrong group all together. You dress up for nothing.

So thank you for that. Anyway, so the spirulina mixing it into the dry sugar first and then adding hot water to it will mix it up. You get this nice, dark green. Now, as far as measuring a significant benefit to that, I've kind of stopped using it. I mean, it was kind of interesting for a while, but I can't prove that it was any significant benefit to the bees. However, it did lead me to think that I like the idea of mossy water, mossy drinkers and things like that, which is different from molds. So don't confuse those to you.

But the moss also gives the bees a place to walk on, those mossy mats that they walk on and they like to drink. And they prefer that over other parts of the pond. So I have to think they must be getting something else there too. So that's something I'm thinking about. If anybody knows, by the way, after this is done and you have access to the comment section below the video, If there's a link to a way to grow moss, like in a shallow, you know, watering bird bath or something like that, I think I'd like to start that.

I'd like to put that in there and just see if the bees demonstrated preference for it. Always give them options. See what happens. So Ross Millard says, my bees went nuts for a neighborhood concrete bird bath with moss. Once again, validating what I just said. So that's cool too. And moss, there's a lot of different moss varieties too, so I'm wondering what that would be. So there's a question here from Bill Robinson.

Hey, Bill. Says, hi, Fred. When planning an apiary or hive location, how critical is the prevalence of occasional standing surface water at the times on the impact to the hives, partially wooded areas. Okay, so here's the thing for Bill and anybody else. do not put your bees where the ground doesn't dry out very well. We have high clay content after rain. There's puddles that stick around for several days afterwards. You definitely want to put your hives on higher ground

because it's been demonstrated over and over that they don't do well in high humidity settings like that. So if you could avoid that location, that would be really good. The other thing is you have a damp location, high clay content and stuff like that. like that, it's time to bring in some sand to help get rid of that too. So work that swell, but definitely not put your bees onto damp ground or adjacent to it. The other thing is shaded areas, combination of shade and damp, that's an area that small high beetles like to get into,

and I think you face other problems with your bees. Keep in mind that for most of the year in the northeastern United States, because we're not a desert climate where people are trying to, they wouldn't have this problem anyway, but the bees are trying to, dehumidify the environment inside the hive. They're trying to hang out at about a 62, 63% relative humidity inside the hive. So if we put them in a high humidity environment combined with shade or standing water and things like that, we create more challenges for the bees. So I would really suggest trying to avoid something like that. So there's another Lambrick farm, Fred, dry, and fragment your collected moss, mix with dry peat moss, and spread.

Okay. I'm going to trust Lambbrook Farm. I'm going to do it. All right. So next one. This comes from Sally. Lakewood, Colorado. Question number six. In your 250 Q&A, you mentioned pulling off all feed sources next week. I'm assuming any emergency feeds, etc. Is this because you'll have enough incoming natural resources of food and you don't want artificial feed? tainting your honey crop or is it to get your bees to use up the resources they have already in prep for new incoming pollen and nectar okay the supers aren't on yet so i'm not worried about that so i'm going to pause there i do want them to use up last year's stored honey my indicator is the physical weight of the hives and then the observation hives once again uh we have three

observation hives, myself and my supervisor, were just out there looking at them to see what honey stores are. And if you don't know who the supervisor is, that's Quinn. He's eight. And he likes to do jobs like that. And they were bringing in lots of nectar. There was wet nectar in the cells. And there were also plenty of capped honey in there, too. So I think we're at a transitional point here in the northeastern United States where we can start to take off, even though we've got some rainy weather ahead. If you notice, we don't have freezing weather. So we've got good flying. weather. Now it's a judgment call, time or frame. The other thing is the reason I was telling people to take off their emergency feed, specifically hive alive phonet, because it's in these packs,

the bees are cleaning out every corner of the hive live fontnet. So here's my concern. As the weather starts to warm, the bees get up into that packet, but eventually the packet just starts to get moved out of the way because the bees now are frantically looking for something else up there. So what I was suggesting is people pull their fondant packs off and replace the plug or the cover on their inner cover to get the bees out of there before they start building a bunch of burcombe. And so we're at a transitional period here. We're not yet ready to really super the hives, but that's coming up pretty soon when you start to see the dandelions. And I don't mean fields of them. I mean starting to see little speckled dandelions around.

That's a key for us to super the hives. And sometimes as it works with beekeepers, the weather can turn bad. And then you're stuck not supering your hives. But that's okay, see? Because you don't have to super if you have a bunch of rain because now the bees are locked in the hive. They're going to consume resources that they've already stored. And so they're making space again. This is a transitional period.

So as a judgment call for your own bees, if they feel heavy, if they've got resources, get rid of your emergency feed. And that includes dry sugar and stuff like that, too. the environment is producing resources for them where I am. You're going to have to look at your hives to see what they're doing. So anyway, it says here, I think maybe both, but was wondering if I understood correctly as we have four colonies, double leaps, full of bees,

and are checking them every Thursday for swarm cells. Until we can start the Demerie method, we are at 5,200 foot elevation. So that's probably ASL above sea level. And still have nights in the 30s. Now that's too cold. See nights in the 30s, too cold, leave the emergency resources on. When you look at your long-term weather report and you don't have freezing temps

or even the opportunity for freezing temps, that's when you're probably going to be better. And it says day temps for 50s, bumping to low 60s. Those are great day temps, but it's the night temps that are of a concern because your bees that are brooding up. use a lot of resources to keep the brood at 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit when they're building. So they might need more carbs than they have available. So for you, I would keep the emergency resources on for now. And if you don't have freezing times and plenty of cleansing flight capabilities, you can shift to a heavy syrup or a light syrup if you want to if it doesn't freeze.

I really want to stop feeding. If you're pulling all resources, I would like to also. Don't do everything I'm doing right here unless you're also right here. So I don't know what the resources are in your environment, but if your bees are bringing in lots of pollen and nectar and there's plenty of weight on the hive, I would pull it. Keep in mind, not all of my hives are fed at all. Some are not fed, period, any time of year.

Some of them have no emergency resources on them. Guess what? They're doing fine. So it's, here we go. So here we go. Oh, there is a question here from, oh, it's from Keith Spillman. It says, what do you think about hive alive faunent for quick food for a swarm instead of syrup? I say no to that. And here's why. It's a great question. So when you're putting together a swarm, swarms are, once you've hive them, they're trying to build fast. So they're doing a lot of resource

construction. They're doing a lot of comb drawing and things like that, unless you fortified them with everything. Sugar syrup is a ready resource that they metabolize immediately. They can burn carbohydrates from it immediately and their activity is high. They still have to do a lot of work if they're going to get fondant. The other thing is, high-alive-live fondant specifically is expensive. So I hold that in reserve for wintertime when a syrup wouldn't work. So if we're warm enough for syrup, syrup over fondant any day because it's just a straight carbohydrate. You're just going to use it. The other thing is I want to tell you, please don't add anything to the syrup.

Sugar and water, period. It's all they need. And then they will go ahead and use it. So sugar's cheap or than a lot of other stuff. I don't know because I don't buy the sugar. My wife does, but it's all I know. But definitely sugar's here. If it's the time of year and you have the weather that you can do that, absolutely.

What did I get here? Next is question number seven. So I've answered all the questions so far. Have I missed anything? Lambrook Farm, 80% Pete Moss. Other people are saying 20% Moss, Pete Moss. Oh, we're having discussions about that. Good.

I want to see some stuff about Moss. Let's see what's going on. But anyway, question number seven comes from Nasser, from Cairo, Egypt. What a cool part of the world. I've been there. I liked it. I went to Alexandria. Anyway, I live in Egypt.

I watch your videos. about the different water sources and which ones do bees prefer? Got a question to you about that subject. In the area where I live, residential area, the water is used in agriculture is sewage-treated water. The plants are not edible as they contain heavy metals. That doesn't sound good. The water is only for front yard roses and grass.

My question is, is it harmful for honey bees or the honey produced by them? Okay, so here's the good news. Honey produced by the bees. Now, we have to trust the bees to find water resources that they benefit from. The best that we can do for our bees is to put out water resources that are constant, predictable, and available all the time, 24-7, especially in Egypt. So when the bees are getting to those known resources, they have choices to make. But the other part of this is heavy metals and things like that.

getting into the honey. So the good news is that your bees are going to get the nectar from flowers. So first of all, the plants have to process and metabolize those resources too. So we have to find out would those heavy metals also be represented in the nectar, in the nectar rees of the flowers. And then the bees are going to take that. They're going to metabolize what they get from the flowers. So the only way to know 100% for sure, of course, is to have the honey analyze. But I would be checking in with a botanist. I would be trying to find out if these flowers are also showing heavy metals. The other thing is, I don't know what the food and drug testing industry is like there,

but if plants in that area agriculturally are being produced, and then the plants, also, they're developed from flowers, if they are also when the fruit-bearing plants yield the fruit are heavy metals present in the fruit or vegetables. If it's not, then your bees are also probably clear when it comes to collecting that nectar and working that down until it's honey. So if somebody knows something about that, if we have a botanist that's watching right now that can talk about how that happens, I think that's pretty good. So I think you're going to be okay. But the other thing is provide the best water that you can for your bees.

And depending on where you're located, I do find that the bees go after water that has sun, particularly early in the. the day and then they tend to avoid water that's in the shade and i don't know why that is but when i've set out both they go for the sunlit honey but of course different part of the world entirely but thanks for watching all the way from cairo by the way question number eight let's see what's going on here this is from guy and it says uh in three weeks i'm getting six pounds of local bees and a beeweaver queen will show up a few days later. Before the queen gets here, I want to give the bees an OAV treatment. So if you don't know what that is, it's like salic acid vaporization,

considered an organic treatment. What's the best way to make sure they stick around before the queen shows up? I have some QMP. I was thinking about putting some in the hive. So for those you don't know, QMP, queen mandibular pheromone. It is sold as temp queen. It's a synthetic pheromone that imitated. the pheromone that a queen would produce. Therefore, we use it to fake out our bees and make them

think they have a queen, even if they don't. And it does apply in this case because what guy here is doing is buying in a package of bees. And why would you do that when he's buying a queen? Why not just buy a package with the queen? Because bee weaver only sells the queens in the mail. You have to go there physically if you want to pick up a nuke or a package or something like that. They don't ship them. They only ship the queen, therefore you're on your own to get a package of bees. So let's keep going here. I was thinking about putting some in the hive, then removing it a day before the queen gets here. So that would actually work. So if you've got a package of bees, you've got a fake swarm, basically, and now we're going to lie to them with a synthetic pheromone that lets them think

there's a queen there, and then they will start to work that hive as if the queen were present. and that's very important because we want them to stay in the mode of having queen mandibular pheromone present so they feel like the colony's queen right right which means they invest in the infrastructure they'll start building comb out if there isn't enough present they'll also start bringing in resources and they won't necessarily bring in pollen but they'll bring in a lot of nectar the stimulus for them to bring in pollen is when they start to smell and sense that eggs are present so the queen mandibular pheromone on its own won't do that but it will make them stay, thinking the queen is there and probably ready to late.

Now here's the other part. I would not remove the queen mandibular pheromone noodle, the temp queen, until after the queen has shown up in the mail and is alive and is good to go. Leave it in there because you can remove that queen mandibular pheromone noodle within a couple hours of introducing the actual queen. Now, here's another thing. You spent the money for a weaver queen, and we don't want the bees to kill her because they're not from the same area. So what do you think we can do?

We can actually put the queen inside a queen introduction cage, which keeps the workers away from her. And if you have other colonies, I don't know if it said you have that here, but we can protect the queen on a frame while she gets fed through the bars and they can't kill her, but they can lick and touch her, which is very important. That's how they will spread her pheromone through. You can read their body language. If they're not trying to sting her, if they're not trying to bite her, then it would be okay to let workers in with her.

We don't want the queen to get skittish and abscond either, because sometimes a new queen that's being attacked and assaulted by resident bees will just rush out of the hive on her own and just zip right off the landing board. So keeping her at some kind of confinement is going to be very important. They do give you a queen cage with a candy plug and you can hang that in there. And they can't kill her through that. But you also want to read their language and stuff.

But generally, you're just going to put your queen in within hours of removing the QMP. So don't do that yet until you got her and you know she's good. She's healthy and she's alive. So do I think the OAV will make them leave? Also, I don't do exhalic acid vaporization on a package or any new. installed swarm of bees, right? I wait seven days because I want them to get settled. Once they're settled, then let them have it. Why would I say seven days? Because we don't want them. If she started laying eggs by some miracle, the very minute you put her in that nuke or whatever the new hive is,

if she started laying eggs right away, we want to do the exhalic acid vaporization treatment before they cap over any new brood. So before they hit the pupa state. Therefore, if we wait seven days after they're installed, it means they're calm and they won't associate the exhalic acid vaporization with the introduction of the queen, which could cause them to reject her. So, but we do want to get any varroa destructor mites that are handy

because you get a 96% efficacy. So 96% of those mites will be dead on your bottom board from the OAV. during that time. That's why I do that. So that's why also you don't treat right away. You've got a package without a queen right now. You could treat them with OAV before the queen even arrives. That way you don't put the queen through it. Just thought of that too. You've already got the package. You're using a QMP noodle and you're going to put them in there. I would go ahead if you think that they have varodistur mites and treat them with the package. Treat the package before the queen arrives. and that way they don't associate it with her.

And of course, feed sugar syrup, full on. Give them all they want, all they can handle, one to one, as much as I'll drink. Give it to them. The next one, question number nine comes from YouTube channel name Kelly Moore, 4517. Hey, Fred, could you speak about better calm? How to wear spacing, i.e., placement arrangements, deeps, supers, tricks, tips that have worked for you.

Thanks. Okay, so Bettercombe, once again, comes from BetterB. And I use it. I don't use it on every frame, but this is what it looks like. It's a synthetic beeswax. This looks an axe just like drawn beeswax. So, and it also is very important. See how the back bar is marked, Bettercombe.

You want to make sure every frame that has better comb in it is marked because once the B start working it, you will not know the difference. How to use it? Where do you use it? When do you use it? I use it at times when I think the bees are not going to be able to draw out their own foundation. I use it for late season swarms. I also, you'll find that Bettercom comes with a lot of instructions. You can find it at BetterB.com. Tell them I sent you and do what? Pay the same as everybody else.

So they'll sell it already mounted in the frames for you now. I bought the kit that would let you do 100 of them. so the wires, everything. And it worked really well. So if you want to cut some of the expense, I recommend buying the kit. If you know you're going to use it, there's some pushback on that.

Ross Conrad from Vermont wrote an entire article about how he didn't want any fake beeswax in the hive. The thing is, the biochemist that developed the Bettercombe formula, copied beeswax. Basically, the only thing that's different is the bees did not make it. Now, what would I do to prepare it before I put it in? You can spritz it with sugar syrup ahead of time. I find that the bees seal it up all the way around the whole frame, and as I mentioned before, indistinguishable from actual comb that they draw other than it's very uniform.

So the tilted angle of it is the same and everything. So that saves your bees a lot of work and a lot of time, and we'll get your queen that's just been installed in a new high, This happens with people when they have a brand new hive that's never been used before. I checkerboard them. So I put a frame with foundation or foundation less if that's what you want, but that's going to take a lot of resources for your bees. But I put, you know, better comb and then I put a frame that has drawn heavy wax foundation, acorn, for example, and then another frame of better comb and then so on. But I don't fill the box with nothing but better comb.

The stuff is expensive. I think it's about seven bucks a frame. So if you had a 10 frame box, it's $70 just for the comb. So put two or three of them in there just to get them started. And it comes in deep, too. So here's a deep one. And they're wire reinforced. Some of the early ones came without wires.

We put toothpicks in them. That did not hold up. So when it comes to brood areas, it's fantastic. And so, like I said, and there again, make sure if you didn't get one of the airframes and you're doing it yourself, make sure that you identify that. so later that you know that's what's in there. So you can sprit some with sugar water. I like to center them up, and that's it. They're good to go, and your bees can use them right away.

They're great for swarm installs. Here's a question from Papa Z's bees. Last week you showed the smaller yellow round feeder and mentioned the sock method. My yellow feeders are rough on the outside of the riser where the bees crawl down. Do we still need the sock? Yes.

We're talking about this right here. And the reason is the sock fills the space more so that the bees don't fall off. There is a rough surface. There's also a rough surface on the inside. Socks are dirt cheap. I mean, it's not like I would have a bag of toddler socks sitting around. But these are Haynes. Cursecks.

Look at this one. Okay. So this one's got the anchor. cut off of it. Here's what I also found out that you can do. So I'm glad that Papad de's bees asked this question because here's what I did. The other thing is you have to wash these ahead of time because there are chemicals in the sock that come from the factory and it keeps the water from soaking into it. But here's what you end up with. You put that sock on there, guess what I don't have to do now. I just turned the sock into a wick. So I don't even have to put

this on anymore because the bees can't get out because you have the sock up here. This gets filled with syrup. This acts like a wick. The bees access it from the inside and their little tongues. You can see them poking into the sock and they will drink this dry with a cotton sock on it. So it works. But yes, because what it does is you can see that this would close over it. We want to limit the space. We don't want them to get down into the bottom. And it cut way down on the number of bees that drown in your sugar syrup. Now, the other thing is, we mentioned earlier. Somebody wanted to know what the thinnest syrup I would use would be.

The thinner syrups don't drown your bees. So something else to think about. If you get in there, you get down to two to one sugar syrup in there, and your bees actually dip into it for a microsecond. They get it all over them and they can't get out. And the other bees are just clambering all over them. You'll see bees standing on bees licking syrup around. a drowning bee.

So that whole thing on TikTok or wherever it is where the bees care so much that they're saving the lives of all the other bees that are laying around with honey on them and they save them because they care and everything. They don't, they want the sugar syrup and they don't care who's in their way. They don't care who dies in the process. So that's it. I mean, the socks are easy. And then if it starts to, you know, the sugar builds up in the socks, hot water, rinse it,

next time you clean that, wrap it around. That's the other thing. always have a bunch of rapid rounds. Because when you go out there, in fact, I'm going to hit on a couple of things now that we're talking about it. The bees glue these down to the inner cover. So here's the yellow one, but here's compared to the standard.

So we can see the size differences here. Also notice this one has an extension that comes out through the bottom. So that means it won't go down inside your inner cover, right? So that means you have to have another piece of wood. This particular one has a two inch hole drilled in it. This sits on the inner cover directly over the hole. This hits on that and you just eliminated that space.

These hold a gallon, right? So that's a lot and it's going to be in a 10 frame super. By the way, you're only putting these on the hives that you are not going to take your honey from later once they're supered. So if you're just trying to get them to build comb and resources and you're trying to boost the colony that you know is not going to produce honey for you later, or maybe after this is done, you start putting honey supers on once you remove it and you're just using it to get them going. That's okay too. But the sock trick works on all of them, all the same. Different sizes. And so is that the only question? Minnesota beekeeper, Fred, winter broodless hives, do queens' pheromone levels or odors drop during the deep winter broodless period. Okay, so here's the thing. What we really care about is not so much to brood pheromone because that stimulates a whole different behavior, right?

Because there are periods of the year or even dearth periods in summertime when the queens back off on their production of eggs. So the pheromones inside the hide change. So the triggers for your foragers will change. The queen's pheromone is present. That binds the bees there. The queen's productive and laying. That makes her even stronger and more appealing. You can actually lose workforce bees to other hives that have laying queens if yours is not laying yet.

Because they follow the strongest pheromones. They don't have any loyalty. And they will just join another colony. It's called drift. So here's the thing. once they start to produce eggs, and once those eggs emerge, that egg puts off a pheromone that stimulates the nurse bee that it needs to be fed. That means nurse bees are also going to be getting resources in the form of bee bread. And so the other bees inside the hive smell that. They know they have

to get bee bread. They have to go out and get, of course, pollen from plants in the area, and they have to bring it in. So all of these pheromones are exchanged back and forth, and they get all the way up to the queen, which it impacts her nutrition too. Because remember, nurse bees are not just feeding the brood inside the hive. They also are responsible for providing nutrition to the queen, and that nutrition can lean out. And when that happens, it affects the queen's production of eggs, and it's just this big web that's all connected together.

So now let's move on to question number 10, which comes from Emil. and the YouTube channel is Emil Andrusco 8597. Hey Fred, started some hyss up inside under a plant light for 12 hours a day and natural light for 12 hours. The seeds have all sprouted and are about 1.5 inches high. How long do you keep them under the plant light and how long would you keep the top on the plants?

I am using a two-part seed started with a top that can be very, vented or not vented. Okay, this is a great time to be talking about this. Last week, I said it. Please, if you haven't started them already, do not. Don't start porridge inside. I made the mistake of telling people to do that. This plant grows too fast and you'll end up with really big plants, really fast so you can't transplant direct sewed those. Hissup. Yes, start that inside. So the Hissup, I've started mine. And this is a common question. Once that seed, by the way, and hyssop seeds are not pushed into the soil.

They're laid on top. And then in my case, I just put clear cellophane over the top of that. I water from the trays underneath that they're sitting on, so I also don't direct water the top of it. And condensation builds up on the inside of the plastic. So the two parts started that's being described here is probably one of those big plastic bases. It also has a clear plastic top.

And then they're sliding vents on the top of that that you can control the humidity with. right but once you see the green leaves started there's secondary leaves that begins that's the second set the first little round ones come up and then the next ones are 90 degrees out from that and once those start that's when you take the cover off so no more clear cover no more cellophane which is what i use cling wrap pull it all off get rid of it because here's the other part of that and i'm going to share this with you and it works really well i use fans so i want to want the fans to blow on these plants all the time.

Day and night. I don't turn off the fans. They're low flow fans. They're very cheap. I think they're like five watts a piece or something, and they have little clamp. So they clip onto your, I have a steel platform that they sit on, which is just like, you know, food storage, those heavy steel shelves, right? So all my plants are on there.

We clip the fans and the fans blow across it. That makes tough little plants. the wind blowing across them makes their stocks thicker, stronger, your plants are hardier, because eventually you're going to take them outside. So we took the cover off, and the 12-hour light cycle is really good, and the LED grow lights that are on timers are fantastic. We were just talking about that this morning. Mine are on a 12-on and 12-off light cycle. The other thing is you keep your lights down low and close to the plant because we don't want them getting leggy, these long, skinny stems because they're reaching for light or they don't have enough light.

So we keep the lights down low and you just observe the progress of the plants. You don't want to burn them. If you see the little edges start to turn tan or brown, too much light, they're too hot, you're too close. So back it up a little bit. And that's why the lights that I use also, I have the one on top that's big and it's suspended. Sancy is the light company S-A-N-S-I. And then the other clip lights that I have, which have long rods, which have articulated arms on them, I can raise or lower those also.

And LED lights do generate heat also. But you have to get the moisture off of them because they can dampen off. They can also get, you know, soft from too much moisture. So I also stick with just watering on the tray whenever the tray is completely dry and the plants look like they're drying out a little bit. I just add more moisture from the bottom and let them wake up because that causes their roots to go down through your plants and so on. So uncover them now based on this description. Don't forget to add fans.

I used to think that the fans were like to keep CO2 over them or something like that, but it's not. It's to keep some movement to make them stronger. And what else we have any questions here? Let's see. Patrick Woods. Too late. My porridge was started indoors in dollar tree pots. So Patrick Woods, listen to me.

Huge mistake. The good news is there's not. no way you used all your porridge. This is really, it's a really good plant, by the way. It is considered an annual, but do you know what it does? It seeds so well that it seeds itself and will come up here after year once you get it started. Good stuff for bees, nectar, pollen, fantastic plant. So let's see. I think we're actually at the end today. So we will do the fluff section. What's the best way to slow a hive down? or hold them back, thanks in advance.

That's JK photography. Slow them down. Let them just get everything they need from the environment. I try that and it backfires on me. It's amazing to me what good foragers your bees are. But you can slow things down just by not over-stimulating the bees. You can also slow them down by if you're really in a desperate situation and your colony is getting too big and you really want to hold them back,

you can put the queen on a frame in a queen isolation cage and then you're confining her to about a production of 6,000 bees. And then after you want to open them back up again, give her free access to the rest of the hive, I think that's kind of unnecessary. But slowing them down is just not overstimulating your bees. Give them the space they need to expand when they need it. And then just don't artificially stimulate or feed them. just let them get what they need in the environment. And you may be wondering, the environment that I live in, is there a way to know if it's going to provide the resources that my bees need?

Well, funny, you should ask, there's a website. So get ready. It's beescape.org. B-E-E-S-C-A-P-E.org. This is only good for the United States, but it will let you know what your strongest seasons are for honey production. So when the nectar flows on, how much value there is, put on bees as pollinators where you live.

So cash crops that are under the Department of Agriculture. It also lets you know if there's a lot of insecticide or pesticide use in the environment where you are and what the loads are. So it's great to check out before you consider where you're going to raise your bees. So there's a lot of stuff there. Anyway, here comes Christopher. for round toasts? Does Ross rounds make a feeder for nucleus colonies?

Does Ross rounds? Oh, you mean rapid rounds? These are Ross rounds are comb honey. These are rapid rounds. Anyway, do they make one for nucleus hives? No, they don't. But I'll tell you who does make feeders for nucleus hives?

Appameh. And they said they're compatible with wooden nucleus hive boxes. I don't know. I haven't used them for that. But so they make those. There is a feeder. Now you're kind of stuck with a jar feeder. So here's another thing that I do.

For a nucleus hive, if I needed to put feed on it, and I need to match because they do make intercovers for the wooden nucleus highs, five frame, deep nukes, intercovers. The inner cover has an oval in it. I've shown this before. This is the B. B. B. Faye. That oval that's in the inner cover matches this whole perfectly. So what you do is you take another nuke box, which is a deep,

and you stack it on top of the inner cover. This sits on the intercover, which is on top of your nuke. You're going to cover this. Then Biva Faye makes this cap just for mason jars. That sits on here. By the way, I've seen it. I've seen people try to put these in and dump syrup everywhere. Put your finger over the hole, get it lined up, then take your finger out and put it in here.

Now you have a jar feeder inside your nuke box on top of the nuke inner cover. And the deep nuke box is more than enough space around this. Your bees do not have access to this space. And you can very clearly see you pull the outer cover off. You look at the jar. You know exactly how low it is. And you can just replace it. And when you take this out when it's empty, the bees cannot get out.

out and get in the way of the work that you're doing. So win-win. The other thing I did want to mention about the feeders, because I did say that sometimes the rapid rounds get really glued down with burcombe and brace comb and the bees are building honeycomb around the bottom of it. You can leave it in place and you can even sanitize the socks by putting a bleach solution. So one teaspoon of bleach in a gallon of water, and then it'll smell like swimming pool water, and it doesn't bother your bees. And you can actually pour that. You can add it to sugar syrup, too. So you can put a teaspoon of bleach into a gallon of sugar syrup and pour that to fill your feeder and it will sanitize the feeder while it feeds your bees. And that came from Randy Oliver, from scientific beekeeping.

And it does not negatively impact the microbiome of your bees. So that's a good thing to do, sanitized in place if you wanted to. But these are working really well for nukes and any other size hive. So I'm glad I thought of that and had it handy. Any other questions? Galloway lights. How come only the small wrap it around has a clear lid makes dry feeding dangerous? I don't know. We have to talk to these people that make these feeders. They don't talk to me. I did have someone talk to me about a new updated rapid round that might be in the works that does have a clear lid. Whenever these companies make a clear lid like that, this clear plastic is much more expensive than the semi-opaque ones. So probably one of the things you could do, you could take the big white plastic lid and you could cut a hole in it and it would look like crap, but you could cut a hole in it and then just glue.

a clear piece of Lusite on it or something like that. So you have your own viewing port. I did notice that with the white ones, which I've had for years, you can look around the edges and you can see if you've got sugar, dry sugar is still in it before opening the top. So you're not just opening it up and facing a bunch of bees if you don't have to. It is semi-translucent. So you could bring a flashlight with you and shine it in from the side

and see a shadow cast from the sand that still remains inside sand. from the sugar that still remains inside without pulling off the lid. But it hasn't been a big problem for me. So Todd Ashliner, honey that gets a white foam on it, as far as I know, it's hydrogen peroxide. Is this true? Yes, it's true. And that's a very interesting thing, by the way. Sometimes people will even put honey in jars.

And then at the top of that jar, you'll see at the top, of the honey in the jar, you'll see a white foam building up on that. That is your honey defending itself. And yes, honey can make hydrogen peroxide. It's protecting itself, particularly when it comes in contact with a water interface. So that's why it also happens when you have honey that is too wet. You'll sometimes even see it on frames, and sometimes you'll see honey in cells with little bubbles in it. And you'll see little edges of foam there too. The honey's too wet, so it's fermenting. And that's also why, by the way, many, many years ago before they even knew it was being called hydrogen peroxide, they were using honey as a wound dressing. So if somebody had a cut on their arm or something, even with dirt in it, if they just slathered cloth with raw honey and put that right on their arm, think about it.

The oozing, sorry to be so graphic, the oozing, the moisture that accumulates there, stimulated the honey to produce hydrogen peroxide. So check it out. They were putting peroxide on wounds before they understood that they were putting peroxide on wounds because they were using the honey as the dressing. Very interesting. But yeah, that's true. Honey does get hydrogen peroxide. It produces it. So what else?

I think we're good. The flood section now. Okay. So happy Easter weekend to all of you, by the way, Sunday. It's going to be a rainy day here. The second part is super up when you're in the 60s and it's no longer freezing. Do not wait until the dandelion fields are in full bloom. You may have honeybound hives by then, and you will have casting swarms everywhere.

Keep your frame inspections brief when you're getting into your hives. By the way, somebody mentioned earlier on in one of the questions, they do weekly checks. I do inspections on hives within every 21 days because that so gives me time to react if I'm queenless before they start to have laying workers. So 14 to 21 days sweet spot. If you go past the 21 days and you've lost a queen, then laying workers can kick in, and now you're in a pickle. So that's kind of my sweet spot there. Find the information that you need to know. Are there eggs? Is there pollen? Are there resources? Get out. And don't stick around unless you're teaching a class. If you're teaching a class, you have to stop and people want to see the

frames and things like that. If you know what I do and you need a video or photograph conditions that you find, I stand them a little longer, which means I do my inspections on the hottest days, the best days when the bees are outflying foraging, and they're really content. When they're bringing in a lot of spring nectar resources, it's very easy to inspect hives because your bees are so occupied. It's even rare to encounter guard bees on the landing board. Bring your smoker with you just in case you need it. Speaking of smokers, I'm going to talk about switch grass smoker pellets. I'm going to put a link down in the video description. It's a fundraiser for my Northwestern Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association to help us further

honeybee education. We're selling switch grass smoker pellets. And they are for me the most dense white smoke, the coolest smoke, the most reactive smoke for my bees. And it lasts a really long time. So if I filled the container of my smoker halfway full or two-thirds full, I'm good for the entire afternoon and end of the evening. But I don't do a lot of smoking, light puffs, but it smokes constantly. So a nice smolder going. And it is the best smoker fuel I've ever used. So if you'll look down in the video description, there'll be a link there. It's a fundraiser. You're supporting a nonprofit, and therefore you're supporting education about honeybees, beekeeping, the and things like that.

So don't forget to look at that. Double check beescape.org. A lot of you will be looking into your hives in spring and you may be finding conditions that you don't know about because you don't understand. What am I looking at? So I always bring this up. This is a pocket-sized book that's called

Honey Bees and Their Malities. This is useful. I don't care how long you've been keeping bees. the scale of American foul brood and things like that. This is full of illustrations, explanations, and will help you understand what you're looking at, particularly, I mean, here's an easy one. Bears tore that apart.

So that leads me to another thing. Are you ready for bears? Where you live? Maybe you don't have any? We have them. So the nature, the nature, nature is waking up, and so bears are coming out of hibernation, and they're hungry.

And so if you don't have some protection out there for your backyard at apiary, you might want to look into what some of the other beekeepers who have been dealing with bears. You can also check in with fishing game. And they'll be good. You want to always make friends with the fishing game officers because they'll let you know when bears are in the area. They'll also let you know if it's a bear that's been hitting people's apiaries.

And then for the first time, depending on the state where you live, if your apiary gets raided by a black bear and it tears everything apart, there's actually a fund to compensate you for the damage that you sustain. So of course, you're going to need before and after evidence of what they damaged or took away. These bears rip frames out of your hives and haul them out in the middle of fields and stuff to finish eating them away from your apiary. I've got my bears away with now my noisemakers. So it's amazing how powerful a bear is. Don't get me started. They are, they're just casually pull apart heavy. What we think is really stout, well made, woodenware.

And they'll eat your stuff. So anyway, after that freebie, once you get compensated for your losses, I never did. I never filed a claim. But then they're going to give you instruction on how to get you. keep bees, bears away from your bees, and then you'll be responsible for losses after that. Unless you're a registered business, now you're in the Department of Agriculture, and you can even file for your losses and things like that. I don't have that advantage either. So bears, ha ha, they also eat more honey. The bears eat your brood and stuff, but they do

take away your valuable comb and they mess everything up. It's not enough. They can't just click it clean, they have to tear it apart. So I make noises that bears don't like and it doesn't bother me at all, but it's a little creepy when you see a several hundred pound bear how fast they can run. They act like they're going to walk away all quiet and then all of a sudden they sprint. And you don't want that coming after you. The good news is I don't know of anyone who's ever been attacked by a bear around here, but they come after your stuff. That's enough to talk about the bears you ready for that, smoker pellets, buy lots of them. It's really good smoke and it's for a good cause. And the other thing is, this is a podcast. So if you don't know that already, and here we are

at the end of it. So what does it matter? But it's the way to be a podcast. So if you just Google that, you'll find out. Somebody asked, it is on IHeart Radio and a bunch of other carriers. I don't think it's on Apple Podcast. So I'm sorry about that. For those of you who have wanted that, you can just listen to it. You can also find the podcast on my website, which is the way to be.org. Some people panic because they type that in and it says freds findfowl.com. It is that. It is also free range chickens.org. So before we close it up today, any other questions? And then we have ML Farm. If a colony went into winter and lost their queen, how long in the spring will winter bees survive? If you lost,

a queen going into winter, if you lived anywhere out here, you would be looking at a dead out by spring or what looks like they absconded. Because without a queen present, those bees are looking for other homes. There's nothing to bind them there. You end up with some laying workers, so much like what was described earlier on, where you find just little pockets kind of of drones because you ended up with laying workers that were desperate after the queen was gone. and what happens is you see a lot of partially emerged drones in there, and that's because they chilled. They just died from the cold because there weren't enough bees there

to sustain them to keep them going. So it's a combination. They're drifting out, and they're trying to produce drones if you get laying workers, but you won't have anything left in spring from a colony that went in a winter without a queen. So is your on-site training yard still on hold? This is from Galloway Lights.

Yes, we do not teach classes here. And sadly, that is just because I can't afford the insurance to do it. So I'm teaching now through YouTube. So there's that. Do do-do-do-do-do. Do you ever slaughter? This is from Illuminate. And do you ever slaughter your chickens?

No. My chickens get a free ride forever. And I'm glad to get a chicken question. the way. And the current flock that we have right now are Minorca chickens. So they're from the Mediterranean, and they are the best artful dodgers of any free-range chickens I have ever owned. And I have free-range chickens here for 24 years and had more than 70 at a time of all different breeds. And the Minorca chickens can fly. They lay white eggs. They're the best foraging chickens are out there in the middle of winter and right now they're in the woods in the woods

digging through the leaves and stuff to find bugs so they take care of themselves better than any other chicken breed i've ever owned and i've just about owned every chicken breed that was worth keeping i don't keep those polish chickens the ones with the fancy hair the feathers that come down over their eyes because they couldn't see and they always ended out in the yard waiting for somebody to come and get them. Here's another capital question here from riots 1970. Any tricks to get bees to draw out waxed foundation in medium honey super. So start with a heavy wax foundation, which was just described here.

The heavier wax on the foundation, the better. And the other thing I'm going to say to get them started, if all you've got is foundation. and you really need to get them started. I would recommend some better comb, just a couple frames of it, just to get it going. That is like it's golden. It's what you need. Since you're trying to get them started too,

don't be afraid to feed them sugar syrup. I know some people will say, never feed your peas sugar syrup. If they need it and they're growing, because once they stop producing comb, it seems to be hard to get them started again, and I don't know why. So the other thing is,

keep the space size right for the number of bees that are in the colony. So you might get faster production out of a nucleus-sized hive, and then later as they fill it out, you can transfer them into a larger 8-frame or 10-frame deep, for example. Uh-oh. Robin Perry says, I asked a chicken question, and you didn't answer. Where is it? I need a timestamp for Robin Perry's question.

So I'm looking for a purple R. Let me go back up. And while I'm looking for that, if you want to type your question again, I'm sorry about that. I would be glad to try to answer that. I do not see. What was the timestamp on that question? Oh, my gosh, this read, there's a lot of conversations going on over here, you guys. Robin, if you would, I apologize.

If you just type it again, I will be glad to respond to your chicken question. So Mark Bidwell, Fred, what says you? on circles or hex as wax is drawn, any study link. So Mark Bidwell is saying, what says you on circles or hex as wax is drawn? Circles or hex? Well, they're hexagons throughout the entire development of their cells. They never start with circles. So one of the ways you can prove that out is if you look at the edges of your comb. So for example, and I know where this theory comes from, people say that it started as a circle and it's the pressure from the adjacent cells that shape it into a hexagon, but that is not true. And here's why. If you look at the edges of the

comb as it's being built, they're building hexagons right to the edge that doesn't have any other cells adjacent to it to cause that pressure. So they build hexagons from the very beginning. I don't know who started the circle thing, but that doesn't hold up to science. at all. And there's evidence everywhere that the bees build hexagons. The only circular or cylindrical cell that they're going to make in your hive is going to be for a queen cell. She's vertical. And that is not hexagonal. But as far as the rest of them go, they're all hexagonal from the very beginning, whether there's a foundation or not. So I don't know where that comes from. Anyway, here's Robin. Should I remove? Should I remove?

the spurs from my roosters. Do you ever remove them from yours? So Robin Perry's asking, this is for chickens. Roosters can be really rough. Now here's the thing. So if you're going to trim up your roosters, and this is because they can be a little aggressive on your hands, I don't cut their spurs off. Now, if you don't mind humiliating your rooster a little bit, there are these wooden beads that people make big necklaces out of. You can glue those on the ends of their spurs. I don't ever remove them. And I know there's a method for that.

You can actually twist them off with pliers. I would never do that. So you can put beads on them if they really are using their spurs, but they use those on people more or if they're fighting with another rooster. What they do to the hens is they use their beaks and of course they tread with their claws. Now I don't want to get too graphic about that.

You can clip off their toenails or file them down. You can also take that upper beak And where it has a little hawk bill, we call it, just pick up your rooster and file that smooth. Just round it off there. I'm not advocating for clipping or truncating the top of the beak of any of your chickens. That's something that's done in industry. But there's nothing wrong with dressing them up a little bit,

especially when you see how sharp it is. That's because they're biting at the neck feathers and they're treading on your hands. Tonel clipping. And then here's the other thing. I always go out, whichever chicken, whichever rooster is the most aggressive, I pick them up. So you hold your fingers like this, their legs go here, and you hold them with their head right here. And I pick up that rooster and I make all the other chickens see him get carried around like a football while I go about my chores.

And if the rooster is squawking and carrying on and they're stressed out, you never turn loose a rooster that is protesting being held. You wait till they're calm until they give up. Once they're calm and they give up, then you go to put them down and you release them and all the other chickens have to see how nice you were to the rooster. If you go out there and you spar with a rooster or you kick at it, and I've seen people do that, that is exactly what that rooster wants

and he's coming back after you. So you can breed for genetics. You can breed for behavior. You can breed for a lot of things when it comes to chickens. So pick up, interact with your roosters so that you can get them. The other thing is people want to catch a rooster or any of their chickens because they want to tag it or do something with it. And it's running all over the yard. I don't know why people are doing that either.

Wait until your chickens are in the coop. Wait until nighttime. Go out there with a red light. Find your rooster, whichever one you want that's on the perch, and you just collect them in the dart. It's easy. Don't chase them everywhere. You just stress them all out. It's very easy to do.

trim their toenails, trim their beaks, and turn loose again. So very easy to do. So that's a good question. And it says, do I let my chickens have babies? Do I breed them? So if I need more chicks, I do. But the rest of the time, we just collect their eggs every day. All of the eggs in our backyard, you know, all of our flock,

members are having fertile eggs. So the 10 to one, 10 hens to one rooster is the ratio that's ideal. And anytime I need more eggs, I'll set aside the rooster and hens that I want to breed from. I keep them separate from the rest of the flock for two weeks because any eggs that have already been fertilized in their hen will be produced by then. And then they'll be breeding true. So now I get the rooster I want, the trio, the hens that I want. And then I'll call. collect their eggs for one week. After that, the eggs go in the incubator, that hen, that rooster, they all go back out with the rest of the flock.

And then we just incubate those eggs and hatch them out. So we just do that for flock maintenance just to make sure that we have enough chickens. We have never been without chickens for all this time. Okay, for Keith, that, you know what, that was worth staying on for an extra 27 minutes today. Thank you, Keith, for that donation and for that support. So Todd Ashliner says foam in the bee buffet will stop bees from dying in the sugar water. Yes, you can put what he's talking about is if you have a heavy syrup in there and this little trough around, the bees can push each other into it. You can stick foam in there.

I also found that you can stick, it's not a candle wick, but it's a wick for kerosene lanterns. You can put that in there too. then your bees will not get stuck if they all dive bomb each other and push each other into the syrup. So that's a good pointer too. And you can put sponge pieces in there, which we have. There are a lot of things you can do. If you start to find that any bees are drowning in your trough from your bee buffet, you can stuff things in there.

So that's a very good pointer. So Christopher says, can you do a chicken-only Q&A soon too? We can't talk about chickens if you want. We can do a Q&A like that. In fact, if you have any chicken questions, you can still go to the way to be.org and you can go to the page, mark the way to be,

and there's a form there. So go ahead and send me your chicken questions there as well. And if I get a bunch of them, I'll do a separate Q&A. It won't be a live Q&A. I'll go ahead and we'll talk chickens if you want to. I have for many years kind of turned my back on my chicken. Most of my

subscriptions have come from people that are chicken based and that's what I used to do primarily and I realize that now it's been about bees for such a long time that some of the chicken people are feeling left out and they have let me know but there are so many chicken channels out

there that I've just stopped doing it but I'm happy to jump back in and talk about chickens. I'm a certified poultry technician so I know a lot about chickens and I've done a lot of presenting about chickens and inspected a lot of poultry operations and drawn blood and tagged birds

and been at the fairs and all of that stuff. So if you want to know about chickens, we can certainly talk about them. Lindsay Holmesid Farm, I have Delaware rooster that is very large and tall, but a very calm rooster, is it common for that breed of rooster to be very large?

If you want to know what the standards are for your birds, size, weight, configuration, color, disposition, everything else, something called the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection. A lot of people don't know this, but the oldest judged livestock in the United States was poultry. It wasn't cattle. It wasn't horses.

It was poultry. So chicken, the poultry fancy and breeding birds and having strictly American birds has been around in this country longer than any other livestock. So it's very interesting, but the American poultry, Association's standard of perfection also defines what different breeds will the maximum weight, the maximum physical shape. We have a saying that you build the barn, then you paint it. So you look at a physical structure, size, stance, and everything else, feathers of the bird, and then you work on the coloration of those feathers. So it can really become a big thing. You can get very involved in chickens

to the point where you have too many of them. If you want to see something funny, go to my channel, which is Frederick Dunn, the YouTube channel, and just up in the little right search bar, type in free-range chickens, and you're going to see the types of birds that we had running around here. So it's very Andalusians, everything, just every kind. So Galloway Light says the refrigerator stops

the fertilized egg from growing further. I'm afraid of, yeah, no, if any of the eggs that you get from your birds, that you're collecting every day, unless there's a hen setting on them and they are warmed up to incubation temperatures, the egg is not developing, even though it's fertile. I want to know a funny story. We were talking about eggs that the Whole Foods co-op, and I sent a bunch of kids. I used to be a teacher, and I said, just buy eggs from the cooler there, and we'll just put them in the incubator, and you don't even want to know. A bunch of those eggs hatched. So,

They must have been sourcing their birds from grow at houses or free-range flocks that had roosters around because those were fertile eggs being sold in the store right along with all the others. Now, you won't get that from the supermarket because those come from battery operations. 100,000 chickens or more in buildings and they're producing eggs 24-7 and there are no roosters. They're caged and they don't ever get to demonstrate any of their normal natural. behaviors. So, Luminate says, I wonder if Menorcas get along with wild turkeys. There are huge flocks of wild turkeys on my land. They avoid one another. So chickens and turkeys don't get along while we're on the topic. You should not keep chickens and turkeys on the same ground in your backyard. They get blackhead disease. Chickens are carriers. Turkeys are susceptible to that.

So these are the domestic varieties of turkeys. But chickens and turkeys other than possibly crossing over droppings from the turkeys there's no interaction they get along so we've had a lot we've had ducks we've had african guinea fowl all here we have wild turkey flocks 50 or more in in a single flock and they don't interact at all so these chickens and rabbits it was never good at math okay grammy's beekeeping and homesteading i think that's it for today everyone if no one has another last minute question, I think we're going to wrap up the live stream. And I want to tell you that I appreciate you all being here.

And I hope that this weekend you have a very good family celebration. And Jared, what are your thoughts on figwort plant in the 100 plants, Pollinator Book and a top honey plant produces more nectar than any cease hyssup? I've never, I have no experience with it. at all. So thanks a lot everybody. Go ahead and post your questions later on and please visit the website and I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Thanks for being here.