The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Backyard Beekeeping Questions And Answers Episode 273 Last Friday in August

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

This is the Audio Track from Today's YouTube:  https://youtu.be/mHn0v-paAUs  

So hello and welcome, happy Friday. This is Friday, August the 30th, and this is Backyard Bekeeping Questions and Answers episode number 273. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this is The Way to Be. So I'm really glad that you're here. If you want to know what we're going to talk about, please look down in the video description, and you'll see all the topics listed in an order, and a bunch of very important links and more information related to the questions that are posted.

If you want to know how to submit your own question, go to the way to be.org and click on the page, Mark, the way to be. There's a form. You can fill it out, and everything will go perfectly. Now, if you've got a question right now that just won't wait, then please go to the fellowship on Facebook, the way to be fellowship. If you're not a member already, requests to get in. There's always someone there. The moderators are from all over the world, friendliest people ever. No advertising, no politics at all. So, what else? Normally the last Friday of the month would be a live stream. It's not. Sorry about that. I was unable to do that, but I am launching this one early so that you won't be sitting there waiting for the live stream to start. Normally, last Friday

of the month, four to five, we're live. That is not the case. Things are out of my control. I don't have charge of my own schedule. So here we go. What's going on outside? 83 degrees Fahrenheit. That's right. It's hot. That's 28 Celsius. Five mile per hour winds. That's pretty moderate. And now we have a rainy weekend ahead. Surf you in the northeastern part of the United States. In my case, the state of Pennsylvania, it's going to be wet Saturday and Sunday. That's what they say. I don't know. They said it was going to rain today. We got dittily. We got nothing. So high humidity, that's for sure. How high is the humidity? Eighty-four percent relative humidity. And combine that with a really strong nectar flow, which is what we have going on right now. You're going to see a lot of bearding.

That's right. 84% relative humidity. So you also may wonder, what's blooming out? in my neck of the woods. So, golden rod. Several species of golden rod. I see a lot of comments where people often say, golden rod doesn't do that much for my bees and I don't see too much golden rod honey. Okay, there are a lot of different varieties of golden rod. There's early golden rod. I don't want to run down the list, but your golden rod may not be my golden rod because the bees run it all the time. How do you know if they're getting good resources or a good amount of resources from your pollen and nectar sources, how much time they're spending on each blossom. So if they're just skidding and scooting along, blossom to blossom really fast, they're probably not getting much out of it, but if they're parked there for a while,

working every little florette, and they're getting a lot of nectar out of it because their proboscis is extended, that's going to be a good nectar source. So Goldenrod is great for me here. Aster's are just now starting, so we don't have Aster honey yet. A lot of people don't like Aster honey. It smells like old socks. Well, I don't know what your old socks smell like, but it must be pretty darn good if you're considering that honey is going to smell the same,

because Aster, those are good for us right here. Ironweed is pretty decent. We have a lot of that. We have wetlands here. Joe pie weed, also pretty decent. We don't have real dense groupings of Joe Pie weed, but we see bees constantly on them, so that's interesting. White clover, consistent.

You can't go wrong with white clover. If you have a chance to make fields of clover, please do it. Because you're probably wrapping things up and thinking about next year. Can't go wrong, planting white clover instead of a regular deadbeat lawn. Okay, so the thing, borage, plenty still to go. I'm looking at the boarge. I only planted it this year for the first time, and they're kind of tight with their blossoms. I see a big boarge plant with only two or three blossoms open.

A lot of them yet to open, so you need a lot of. of borage plants to make up any kind of nectar flow for your bees. I'm assuming they're getting pollen but I don't see a lot of pollen coming off of the borage. Milkweed over with. There are a few stragglers but we're done. I need different varieties of milkweeds so that it will continue on through September because I understand there are milkweed varieties that do that. I just don't have them here. I just have the standard wild milkweed, whatever that is, and it's a great nectar flow, terrible for pollen because it just gets stuck all over your bee feet. But that's decent. Cosmos, I planted those myself. Those are annuals. They suck at reseeding.

So you're going to be planting cosmos every year yourself. You can collect the seeds. That's the good news and replant them in the spring or plant in the fall. What's your preference where you live? Do you prep your plant beds in the fall and then seed them and let them just come up and the soil's warm enough? Or do you wait till spring and then Memorial Day weekend, plant a whole bunch of them, which is kind of the kick off around here. So with the cosmos, fantastic for nectar, fantastic for pollen. They're loaded. The bees are working them constantly. Sunflowers, wide variety of sunflowers this year. Thank goodness the deer did not eat them up. Bees are all over them.

And about 10% of those have gone by. So we've got a lot still ahead with the sunflowers. And then sunflower varieties, we've got the maximilions kicking in. So they smell like vanilla. Have you ever smelled maximilian blossoms? I tell the kids they have cat tongue leaves because they're so sandpour. paper like. And it's fun to take your kids around talking about the grandkids now and see if they can figure out what the different plants are and I offer them 50 cents if they can identify each plant when I call it out to them.

So it's kind of fun to do, but maximilian so is going to go right into the frost. Hissup is still going, still flowering. That's going to go right into the frost too. I only wish I had more of it. It's really hard to get hyssup. Agostaki. I have black adder. I have blue. giant hyssop, all these are working fantastic and the bees are all over them. So those are so great, that's it, I guess. That's all I can say. So if you have a question, you can write your question underneath the videos, but again, please submit through my website, the way to be.org. First question today comes from John Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

You mentioned in 272, so Q&A, 272, that the bees from a VE VsH hive. So if you don't know what VSH is Veroa sensitive, hygienic. It is the goal of most beekeepers to get bees that perform well and have hygienic practices which help them deal with mites. So anyway, in a non-VSH hive, you said will not work long term just by adding the bees to the different hives. In other words, we have a queen and she has VSH workers that demonstrate all the proper traits, which by the way are very delicate and don't. You know, they water. down really fast if you just let your bees reproduce on their own. But the question was, can we just pull frames of brood, stick them in other hives, and of course have bees in those hives that have these traits. So I suggested that it's a very short-term fix because you're only going to get six weeks out of those bees and they do not pass on those genetics. However, here's the question. I'm wondering whether the non-VSH bees could learn from the VSH ones and whether that trait would then become intergenerational or just passed down from year to year. What do you think?

Can bees learn from one another? The dance suggests that they can. And I know what this is in reference to. And I'm going to say it's not something right now that we can depend on. Bees to observe other bees learn this behavior. For example, a varroa sensitive, hygienic bee. What would they do? So if they know that there's varroa mites, for example, underneath a capping and pupating bee, right? They sense that it's in there, they uncap, and sometimes just uncapping, desicates the varomite. So it dries it out, it dies, and then the bee continues. Sometimes they recap them, sometimes they don't. It just depends on what stage of development they're in. So the other thing is, they bite the ankles of others. So the

question is, could other bees observe that, take on this behavior, and then pass it on to all the other bees for generations, and they all just start behaving the same way? waggle dance thing. The point was, and this was brought up in our bee club for discussion too, last year sometime, and I was asked about it then. And I think here's the thing. When it comes to waggle dancing and communicating where resources are, the bees will do that, whether they've ever seen it before or not. It's genetic. It's part of what honeybees do. The waggle dance was reserved by Von Frisch a long time ago. And so the whole thing. is if we had a queen and started a colony and they had never been outside and so all you have is

a queen and a bunch of brood and you put them in a brand new location and they've never seen any other foragers and never interacted with any other foragers where they still go out discover resources come back communicate about those resources with the waggle dance and then those are in the hive observe and touch and feel and smell because they're checking the movements of the bee that's been foraging, how many waggles they do, they move right, then they move left, and they waggle so much, and it's in reference to the position of the sun. And we know the bees are smart, they even forecast where the position of the sun will be in an hour or two. So if the waggle dancing is going on but they don't fly out to forage for another hour, the sun is in

a new position and therefore the reference point being the sun becomes also a new position. So the bees are smart, we know that. And it was, demonstrated that there was some improvement in the quality of the waggle dance if they had observed a waggle dance before. So in other words, they would still do waggle dances if they'd never seen one before and never interacted with a waggle dancer before. But it did improve the quality of the information if they had done it before and seen it before and interacted with other bees that did waggle dances. So I hope that makes sense. There is a published study about it. So in other words, it just improved quality. It didn't add that.

So now, if a honeybee worker inside a hive, and keep in mind, I'm not an entomologist, I don't have a lab where I can make these studies, but I just don't know of any study that demonstrates that a bee can learn or pass on a trait like Veroa sensitive hygienic behavior. Those are tied strongly to genetics. Maybe an entomologist will kick in and give us more information. Or if you know of a study about this, please feel free to put the link down in the comment section of this video. Whenever you put a link or something like that attached to a comment or response that you have,

it always automatically gets held. I will release it later, so it's not that it just disappears or you get dumped into limbo. The links are just held until I verify that it's not just something unrelated to what we're trying to know about. So just off the top of my head,

they're focused on the genetics because it's a genetics that dictate those behaviors and I'm not saying that there wouldn't be improved by being around a Roa-sensitive hygienic bee that is uncapping things. They pay attention to a lot, they smell a lot, they interact with each other. But as far as observing and learning, I think bumblebees have demonstrated that ability. And bumblebees are problem solvers and things like that, very different. But we're dealing with apismalifera. So it's, you know, keep your mind open on that stuff.

I'm not saying impossible, but I'm saying for those who want those traits, spreading out your bees from a VSH colony into other hives is not going to, I don't think it's going to pass on those behaviors after those bees that are in those hives run the cycle of their life out. What do you thoughts on that? If you think it's possible or you've observed some learning on the part of the bees, you could get traits beyond genetics, but rather maybe we have smarter bees. You would think that generationally we would get smarter bees or more adapted bees. just because they're the ones that live longer. So let's see what happens. Question number two comes from Bryce.

Says, hi, Fred. I have a European Hornet colony in a tree cavity on the side of the road near my mailbox. The entrance is about six feet above the road. My apiary is less than 100 yards away. How aggressive are European hornets and is there any danger to me, the mailman, someone walking down the road? and are they a threat to my bees? Thanks for your time. Okay, so here's the thing. What do you think I'm going to say, by the way?

What are the risks if I tell you, by the way, European Hornet is the only true Hornet in the United States right now because the Asian murder hornet Vespa Mandarinia is no longer in Washington State. They haven't found any specimens. They didn't get any last year. So that's looking good. So we're left with the largest Hornet. And other people may chime in and say, yeah, well, I've seen bigger. Well, there are wasps, right? All hornets are wasps. All wasps are not hornets.

So we have a European hornet, Vespa Crabro, if you want to look it up. Now, when they're out and about, they are gentle giants. I kid you not. I've had videos where I pick them up. I pick them up until one of them stings me, because I wanted to see how articulated stinger is. And, yeah, they'll sting you're right under the thumb. if you give them the chance, if you grab them and interact with them.

The other thing is, my son, daughter-in-law, two grandkids live in a town 15 minutes to the north of me, and they had Vespa Cribbro in their tree right next to their patio, right where the kids play, not 20 feet away. So what did I do? Of course I set up video equipment. Of course I go over there, and I want to see them go through a year. and I wanted to do endoscope and everything else to see what goes on. And I was really amazed.

Now, keep in mind, we're not right up against the tree, you know, with the kids playing and everything. But I was amazed at how non-defensive the European Hornets were in that environment, regular urban setting, kids playing outside. No one was attacked all year long, winter came along, and of course they died out. So they don't survive winter. much like other was species that you know they create queens at the end of the year the queens fly out and the queens individually winter over and then each one of those queens starts a new colony

the following year but as always i have to fail safe okay i'm not really worried about the apiary though because when it comes to the european hornet they can dispatch a bee like that they really they just grab them and it's like no effort off goes the head off goes the abdomen they chew up and bundle the thoris into a little ball and they fly back and they feed their larvae with it. So they do that very easily? Now do they show up and wipe out an entire colony of bees? I have never seen that and let me just explain. I pay attention to all the predator insect species that I can get my eyes on in my area. So like right now, yellow check at was. I'm paying attention to them. Now those are little jerks. I wouldn't let them be

for five minutes near where I thought people would be because they're just going to come out and sting you. They're just, they have an unfortunate disposition and don't get me started on bald face hornets. Now the other thing is bald face hornets are called that. That's a common name. They're not a true hornet. They're just a wasp. Okay, so then the yellow jacket family. So bald face hornets are just wasps, but they have a bad disposition. They're black and white, and they have a distinctive white spot on the front of their head, and they have black and white on their abdomen. So really prominent, really striking. high contrast. Very easy to identify. If it's a black and white,

wasp when it's coming after you, it is the bald-faced hornet. They're also called bullet hornets and everything else for a good reason. Get close to them. See what happens. I do that. I go close to these things and I see what's their defensive level. I walk right up to them. I get as close as I am to this camera right now. I get within inches just so I can get pictures and video and the people go, ooh, and why do you do that? And why aren't you killing them? because I want to learn from them and dead animals don't teach us anything. So my personal opinion about a European hornet nest, they are going to die out when the cold weather comes.

Now, we do have to think about the UPS truck, the FedEx truck, the male person. Right? So when they show up to make deliveries, if there's something that puts them potentially in harm's way, I would say we kind of have to deal with it. Now you do have options if you want to get up there and modify them because usually they're in a cavity and a tree, just like feral colonies of honeybees are.

And there have been honeybees in areas where they might interact with the public and they didn't think that was safe. And it was one of those colonial reenactment parks that they had one in a tree. And they didn't want to hurt the bees. They didn't want to get rid of the bees. So what they ended up doing was creating, an alternate entrance so they put this cover over the existing entrance into the knot hole into the tree where the bees were occupied in the cavity and they just ran it up like a snorkel way up and above

the walking area of people so the flight path of the bees was a good eight feet above ground so now the bees were coming and going and not interacting with people so if you want to try something out maybe you would get out there all suit it up and fully protected and see if you can't create an alternate entrance for your hornet sometimes I don't know. But I would say it is not safe. They're only six feet off the ground. They're right next to the road, right next to the mailbox. What do you get to do if a truck pulls up and idles there for a long time? And because here's the thing. We see these things through the year. If you're paying attention, as I often do, and you'll see a tiny little nest like I started to follow Vespa Crabro in the spring. I had a queen. She started to build underneath a pavilion. So she was in a great position. I got up there with time-lapse cameras. I invested three weeks of my time-lapse documenting the construction hover nest.

She laid eggs, the eggs hatched. She had larvae, and she was feeding the larvae. And, of course, I had all these great plans. She flew out one day and didn't come back. So she was captured and eaten by something else. Who knows what that was? But so I pay attention to them. I'm tracking yellow jackets right now.

But if they were out by the mailbox, I'm sorry to say I would get rid of them. How would you get rid of them now? So let's say we're going to do that. So they're in a tree. Do you own a super soaker? Super soakers or a garden sprayer. You can use two tablespoons of Don Ultra Free and Clear.

Just happen to have a bottle right here just for reference. Don Ultra Free and Clear, not as it is to the environment. Two tablespoons per gallon. Mix it up. go out there when you sure they're all home and I'll pump it up and needs to have a forcible spray and you can spray them with Don Ultra Free and Clear and not kill a bunch of other insects in the area just because they happen to be in the area. You also don't create a toxic cavity.

So you'll be killing off those hornets and then you'll make the area safe again and so on. So just food for thought for people that are thinking about hornets that they might have in a building for example and they see them coming and going through the sighting look it up and do a lot of research before you engage those hornets because if you think you're just going to close up their entrance and keep them from coming out eventually you just think in your mind that well if I close them up they'll just starve out and they'll die and it will have taken care of it but it's going to be like a dead animal in there the other thing is they've been known to eat through gypsom board that's sheet rock that's drywall that's drywall

In other words, if you close them up from the outside, they have a tendency to chew through your interior wall and get into the structure into the house. You don't want that. If you're going to kill them, kill them. Don't just seal them up. My opinion, that's it. Failing safe. So for Bryce, people come first. Don't let them be right by your mailbox because as their numbers increase, their attitude can change.

Yellow Jackets do the same. Super passive. All of a sudden, now there's fire. or 600 yellow jackets in the nest, now they're all tough, and they come after you from quite a distance. Bald-faced hornets have been the worst by far. I've had bald-faced hornets come after me 20 yards away from their nest before I even saw the nest. So, and when did that happen? At the end of the year, when the nest is the biggest it's going to be. Question number three comes up. This is Jose from Hampstead, Maryland. I keep hearing to talk about packing the hive down.

the process of packing the hive down for first your beekeepers if you don't take honey i run all mediums thank you for all you do you're welcome and thanks for watching so here's the thing packing your hives down if you're running all mediums and some people do that i know there's a lot of reasons for why they want to do that compatible equipment all your hives are mediums all your frames are mediums and uh three mediums are the equivalent of two deep boxes so what i do my configuration I'm just going to say that off the bat here if it's we're talking about the langstroth vertical hive configuration because I also have horizontal hives super easy to pack those down the langstroth when it comes to the end of the year and that's what's going to be happening

here mid-september I'm going to pull the last of the honey off and then we're going to configure the hives for wintertime and that gives them the last two weeks of September and the first couple of weeks of October because we still have resources then here where I live so you're going to have to pay attention to your environment and once we pull that last honey off I keep the boxes off so in other words we've used them out of the honey supers and we take the honey supers off harvest the honey we just don't put them back so that is the pack down a single deep whether it's an eight frame langstroth or a 10 frame langstroth single deep medium super on top And the medium super should be full of honey.

Now here's the key. Some people, if you're in a lean area, for example, they did not possibly backfill the hive with enough honey. So this is where packing down becomes important, especially for new beekeepers. Highly recommend you talk to other beekeepers in your area, check in with your mentor, see what they're doing. You're going to find out that there are a lot of people

that continually feed their bees right along through the year. There is some thinking that if you put sugar syrup on your hive, they'll only take it when there's no nectar outside. It's been my experience that bees will take nectar, whether it's being offered in the environment or not. So if you do not want tainted honey or sugar syrup honey, don't put on back feeding syrup until you're finished with your honey harvest.

So the deep and the medium, and that's it. for winter. So here where I live, in the past, my bees used to consume 70 pounds on average of honey all winter long. And that's because, first of all, you have to size it to the colony or population of the bees inside the hive. Because I used to have double deeps full of bees and then I'd have three medium boxes above that full of honey. And I thought, wow, I'm all set. I'm going to have a super colony and then in the spring I'm going to be dividing those and making them into another super mini colony and let those build up too that always backfired on me leaving too much honey on the hive going into our winters here I'm in the snow belt I'm in agriculture zone four so we get plenty of snow here so we get

plenty of cold days so what happened was then the clusters were down low where they should have been lots of honey up above where it should be because our bees will move up through the honey as they go horizontal hives they migrate sideways through the frames as winter goes right so I thought lots of room above but what happened was the cluster was too far down I had too many boxes above and then the warmth coming off of that cluster hit those cold capped frames of honey up above and then what would we do we'd had cold nights so take a thermal shot if you have that capability of your hive and you'll see that with these oversized hives with a lot of honey up above

you see all depending on the color gradients that you use you know minor from dark blue light blue those are the cooler areas and then it gets to red to orange to yellow yellow and almost white the hot areas where the cluster is if the dew point is obtained inside your hive above your bees condensation forms so now we know through the years that we changed our configurations bit by bit and realized that having an insulated inner cover with no top vent meant that we did not obtain a dew point directly over the bees. This is important to pay attention to because if we just have a cluster down here in a deep box and then we've got a medium super right here this is the space we have above the bees then we have

that insulated inner cover. If you move that insulated intercover, two more boxes up and your clusters down here guess what happens even though it's insulated you get condensation on the frames themselves on the capped honey itself and then that when the weather warms up the following day so it cools that overnight warms the following day condensation forms drips right down on your bees and it's more than they can manage that's why when my bees were consuming 74 pounds of honey in the winter time it was because i had an upper vent So it was like front door open, attic window open, air flows all the time, but you have a giant furnace so you can keep up with that heat, but you have to keep feeding the furnace. Now we've learned,

I've learned at least, that bees don't do that in the wild. Feral colonies do not occupy spaces that have multiple entrances, top venting, lower entrance and all of that, right? They have a single entrance cavity. And because it puts it all in control of your bees, bees. So the other thing is the cavities that we provide for our bees are often much larger than they would ever occupy as a feral colony of bees. So we're changing things on them. So 10 frame Langstroth boxes are huge and two boxes going into winter more than enough. Now if you've got a small cluster, you may have to put spacers in the hive to make that space even smaller to reduce that opportunity to have condensation form in the corners of the box, for example,

when it's too large for the cluster of bees that you've got in there. So now you see mold and mildew and evidence of condensation in the corners. Now, that's not a threat to your bees. That just doesn't look good in the hive. And it creates an unsanitary situation for your bees because they don't like mold and mildew. They like things to be clean and tidy. And when you get those warmups, they do expand out and they spread all over. What's a warm up?

You know, a winter day when it hits 35 or 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but the sun is also shining, there's a lot of activity that kicks off inside the hive. You let it hit 60 degrees and they move around. That's also when they access a lot of those far-reaching resources that they otherwise can't. So you're actually in trouble more so if you're in an area that has a dramatic change in temperature. If you're in an area where it gets cold, stays cold, and there's not a bunch of fluctuation of temperature, it's actually not that. bad. Even if they drop to 33 degrees Fahrenheit, it stays that way all winter long, bees tend to winter better under those circumstances than they do when they engage with what happens here, where I live, where it's 24 degrees overnight, and then the following day,

you find yourself at 60 degrees Fahrenheit by the following afternoon. Look at the rapid change. And think of it this way. When you walk out of your house into your garage, assuming you have one, And it gets really warm outside on one of those weird days when it's really cold at night, the concrete floor gets damp because the dew point gets achieved. Because it's really warm outside of the garage stays cold. And now we have this transitional area where condensation forms. This is what happens above your bees. So I'm taking the time to explain this because it's not a one-size-fits-all.

Size it to your colony. So if I had, so we're talking all mediums now. So I would have two mediums full of. brood and resources because I've never seen bees occupy just one medium they would be super cramped So I'm going to make an assumption that two mediums are engaged with Brood and a mixture of pollen and other resources and then your third one has your honey super on it So that's where I would stop above that everything would go and then if you find out later that you're in a little bit of trouble Maybe some feeding resources wouldn't hurt, but if you have insulated intercovers and no a

entrance, no multiple entrance situations. I found that my bees are getting through with less than 47 pounds of honey. So you're going to find out for where you live. This is Maryland. And so I don't know what the temperature ranges are there, but also always check in with other beekeepers who are willing to talk with you and find out what their configurations are, how their bees get through winter, and how many resources are left over when spring arrives. That's the goal. That's the goal. I kind of have is that when spring gets here, I would like to see them use up 80% of all their stored resources when the dandelion bloom hits in a meaningful way, right? Because then I don't have to worry about taking off all the old honey and swapping it out with fresh drawn comb and things like that.

You can harvest honey in the spring, but keep in mind what you did in the fall. You likely provided them with a bunch of heavy syrup. So the honey that's that you take off in spring that's left over from winter resources is likely constituted somewhat from sucrose that you put in there from processed sugar. So that would be something you keep. Feed back to the bees in spring before honey supers go on and things like that so you can feed it back to them but leaving it on is tough because you're trying to get ready when that new nectar flow comes in they won't be touching the old capped honey. So you do have to do some manipulation there.

I hope I'm not giving you too much information, but also packing down horizontal hives. Might as well mention that too. You kind of gauge it. How far into the hive are they? How many frames? All my horizontal hives are either lay-ins or their long langstroth, and the long langstroths are all deep frames. So think about those frames, deeps representing a deep box, right?

So there would be eight or ten of them. That would be all-capped honey. and I find that that's too much. So since I've been heating them, not heating them, extra insulating the horizontal hives, they use much less when it comes to stored honey. And they do have to move sideways. There's a lot of discussion about

well, they move sideways less efficiently than they move vertically. And that's where those warm-up days come into play. When you get those warm days that kick off, that's when the colony kind of migrates a little bit they make movements so they do access those but they can get through winter with five or six deep frames you don't have to have a full 10 frame because that would be the equivalent of a 10 frame deep box on top of your piece and then keep good records I asked our B club members that were out of breakfast how many of them are keeping logs and

keeping records very disappointing very tiny group that we're actually keeping B records. Please keep records so that you know year after year after year what worked and what didn't. We think we're going to store everything in our mind and it's all going to be accessible and you only have a couple hives at the time or something. Please write down everything you can think of and document it. How many resources did they take? What was their condition going into winter? So some of the things you might considering write down would be how many frames of brood mid-September? How many frames covered by bees at four o'clock in the afternoon? Because remember at two in the afternoon when you look into a hive,

you've got a foraging force that's out there that you have not accounted for. So wall-to-wall bees, you know, you come up with your own way of documenting what's in your hive, but how are they set? Food and resources, pollen present, how much of that, and off you go. You'll be good. Also keep track of any treatments and things like that and feeding that you did because what I do with my bees the feeding is not always the same okay next we're going to move on to question number four it comes from Dwayne from this is a hard one Bondell Wisconsin B-O-N-D-U-E-L so anyway as much as I subscribe to your belief of no venting I have a long hive that I built with three and a half inches of

thumb insulation in the cover and two inches in the walls. It holds two colonies with up to 16 frames each. So we've got a long lane that can handle 32 frames. That's big. So in a way the temps were in the upper 80s and very humid on Saturday. The bees began bearding in the afternoon and by 6 p.m. there were thousands of bees from each colony all over the outside. So what you're describing right now, Duane, is exactly what's going on in my own apiary. The colonies are wearing their bees in the hottest part of the day. And what else is going on at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the afternoon? The foragers are returning with an entire day's worth of collected resources. So they're coming in with up to 90% of their own body weight.

That includes 30% in the pollen load and the rest in new. nectar. So when they bring all that in, they have to distribute that inside the hive. It takes up a lot of space. The nectar that's getting processed and passed on invertases the enzyme that the bees are using that creates and inverts the sugar from sucrose to glucose to glucose and fructose, and they spread it out twice the surface area that it ultimately will occupy. Guess what's in the way? Thousands of other bees. We need them out of the way so they can properly ventilate and work. inside the hive. Now, would that mean that I would put up a whole bunch of other entrances to vent the hive? It seems like that's what they would need to do,

but they're actually venting very efficiently. And I use this my example. So it's not just a belief, by the way. When people say, I believe this is what happens, your belief of no venting. Okay, my beliefs, my practices are based on observation and gathering of information from other observations that people are making. So where do I go to find out if I need more venting, even though the colony of bees may be huge, humidity may be high, and the resources coming in, there can be a lot of bearding going on. I go to people like Jeff Horchoff, who's Mr. Ed. I go to Randy McCaffrey, who lives on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and they're doing ripouts. So the reason this is so valuable to me is.

because these aren't even insulated. You're describing a very well insulated, very well constructed horizontal life. So Randy McCaffrey, for example, or Jeff, they get in there and all I want to know, how are they situated, how big were the vents, how much honey was stored in there. So these are feral colonies of bees, not managed by people. So these aren't beliefs, these are observations which become statistics for bees. How large was the colony? How big was the comb, how many combs of honey, how many resources were there. And then they're all coming through this tiny opening and everything else is completely sealed, which means they're drying down their honey with that tiny opening, which shows what excellent manipulators of their environment they are.

They chose a space is completely closed up and a hot environment and a human environment, and they still manage to store lots of honey and resources and then take advantage of the those resources as the year progresses. So it is very interesting, and what we do is we think, as my wife often does, it's super stuffing in there. Maybe they should be vented, maybe we should open them up. That made perfect sense to me when I was first keeping bees. Until I realized that what we're doing to the bees

and the way that we're venting and managing and things like that is in contrast to what the bees themselves would be doing if we were leaving them alone. Because even when I did top, I used the insulated intercom, covers right now which are made by B-smart designs as soon as they came out it was the only one that really made a really good quality one and so I got them for as many of my hives as I could but I didn't change them all at once why because I need to make these comparisons through the years if I did everything to every hive all at once I would not know if one was improving the interior climate for my bees over another so I also had my own feeder shams which had integrated intercovers built into the box And then someone else said right away when they saw my feeder shim, which had a hole in the middle, which was just for a rapid round feeder to go over. And when the feeder was not there, that hole was closed.

Someone else said, you need to vent that top. You need to have screen in there so that the bees can then vent through the top. And so I did. So I provided number eight screen on those feeder shims, and I left some without those. And guess what the bees did that had the screens in them? So I had a controlled vent through the front, through the shim on top, and the screens that are in the corners so that the venting could happen from the bees. They completely sealed those up with propolis.

So the bees are letting us know. Now, if they happen to leave them open, if you provided them with a screen like that and they left it open, then they're telling you that they want that venting. But I had none here in the state of Pennsylvania that were left unsealed by proposes. is once given the opportunity. So they still manage, keep in mind what is the temperature inside the hive that they're trying to maintain? They're trying to maintain over the brood area 94 to 97 degrees. So that interior climate is under the control of your bees. They can cool things down if they want to.

If they're too dry, they bring in water and they evaporate the water inside and they cool things down and they add humidity in the process, they are experts at controlling the climate inside an enclosed space with a single entrance. Now, the added insulation makes that job for your bees that much easier. So it sounds like you have a great hive. I'll bet they're going to do great,

and I don't think you need to add a bunch of other ventilation for them to manage that space. And your colonies, it's dramatic. You go out there and there's a beard of bees. I have a couple pictures of my hive vise, where it's solid bees from the hive fizer all the way down to the landing board. Now as it cools off at night, and as they start to dehydrate the nectar that they're processing, that they're turning into honey inside the hive, as they dry that down,

you'll see those numbers change and they'll start to migrate back inside the hive. So that's just how I arrived. I'm explaining kind of the periphery of how I arrived at my current configurations, and it's functioning very well here. So it works. So anyway, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't, you know, if you want to shade your hives or something like that, that does not hurt.

If you're putting up a beehive and you're thinking about parking it next to a tree, if you've got trees like maples that have leaves in summer and provide nice shade midday, and then by the end of the day or the end of the season, we've got angled sun coming in, and they shed their leaves in the fall, so now they get a warming benefit in wintertime. So I'm not against shading a hive.

I just don't think we need to change the configuration of the hive add vents and things like that because the bees have demonstrated that they manage that extremely well. And there are a lot of reasons why the bees are moving out onto the face of the hive while they're processing the honey and resources that they've brought in. That's all. So not sure some venting isn't.

appropriate. So I don't tell you I'm just explaining my thought process and the logic behind how I arrived at what I'm doing. You can certainly try out venting and see if it helps out your bees. But I've done both for years and that's how I arrived at where I'm at today with my non-venting practices. So moving on. Question number five comes from Mike from Kangaroo Ground, Victoria Australia. Is that a real place? Kangaroo ground? Anyway, it says I came upon research being carried out by the University of Warwick in the UK where they have identified fungi that may kill a varroa mite in a hive application. I'd be interested in hearing your views on various research areas that are being pursued to combat the varroa mite. I'd like to hear some interviews with

these researchers. Okay, I do like interviewing these researchers and fungi is not new. The microcilium, and the guy here in the United States, it probably is the first name in this research is Paul Stamets. And Fungi Perfecti, he's given a TED talk. He's a great resource. And this, by the way, the study that's linked here, keep in mind, this is from 2008.

All right. So it was kind of a flash in the pan. People get really excited about it. because there would be fungi that would attack the Varroa destructor might and kill it. I think it even blew up its guts or something. It was pretty graphic. And so that looked really promising. Why not just culture these, right?

And then get them in the beehive and then get them to act on the Varroa mite. But what happened was, and this kind of plays into the previous question, the interior climate of the hive became the greatest challenge. In other words, the fungi that they were working with did not survive inside the hive, and that's why there have been no updates about it. So I've reached out to several people on this because I reached out to Paul Stamondis because I wanted to find out what progress has been made. How is it looking right now?

Well, his focus today is on giving health benefits to people. And so he's not really continuing his research with the honey bee with the road instructor might. and I wish other people would take it up but I think that the reason they backed away from following on with that is because they haven't found a strain of fungi that can then do what they thought it was going to be able to do as far as killing the varro destructor mite so I can find nothing current nobody's carrying out the research I did talk with Dr. Erica Shelley who does best for bees she's friends with the other PhDs that were doing research with Paul Stamis and there's nothing new. So if something does come up, I mean, it sounds very promising,

it's very interesting, and Microsilia is super fascinating and extraordinarily capable and useful in how it interacts with the environment. And it just did not work out well for the bees. But the reason I responded to this today with the Q&A is because several people, it comes in kind of waves where people reach out, hey, did you know this? Did you know this? Could actually kill the Varroa mite and everybody's ignoring it. They're not ignoring it. They did the research and they worked on it as much as they could and they kind of hit some barriers when it came to a hostile climate inside the hive for that to do its work. So thank you for that question. And another reason that I mentioned it is if somebody else knows of some current research or if somebody has picked up that

baton and they're taking that forward now and they're making gains or they've discovered some new ways for to work then I would love to know about that so please share the link that would be very interesting so moving on to question number six illuminate says from your expertise and in your area will colonies draw out frames during the fall flow okay so I don't know about the fall flow yeah we're kind of into that they kind of quit so but the next part of this is with feeding so in other words and this happens a lot because I like to or in the past like to I'm not going to do a lot of this anymore is I would collect a swarm in September and I would put a swarm in a hive and then I would feed them like crazy because the end of the year

so I would also put them in better comb because better comb is pre-drawn foundation right so it's a pre-drawn synthetic beeswax that its properties are virtually identical to beeswax it's just not made by bees better comb sold by better B. For those of you who want to look it up. So what happens is we get these late season swarms and then just for kicks. I like these underdog colonies. They surprise me over and over.

They survive until spring. And it's exciting because you can get them to build comb. We put a bunch of syrup on there. And I use light syrup. By the way, I rarely, if ever, put on that heavy syrup, the two to one, 16 pounds of, of dry sugar to one gallon of water. That's a heavy syrup.

That's what people use to build up your colonies at the end of the year because they'll store it like honey and it gets them through winter and they backfill their frames and things like that. But I used to light honey and by that I mean one to one and even lighter, right? So eight pounds of dry sugar, gallon of water and sometimes even less than eight pounds.

And here's the thing. They do draw out comb but those are new colonies. Those are swarms that are ready to build infrastructure. The existing colonies are like pulling teeth. You just can't get them to, at the end of the year, invest in drawing out new comb. Even these healthy, robust, super productive colonies that are just fill in frames with drawn comb.

They're just filling up with honey in their cap it. You can pull it off and 11 days later. You've put those drawn frames back and they process it again, they cap it again they'll fill frames they'll fill cells with honey at the end of the year but they won't make new comb so you might be wondering why don't they do that uh because i think they realize that the environment's backing down so even when we artificially stimulate that after we've drawn off our honey and now we're thinking let's just get them to build some more comb and infrastructure by feeding them they tend to just fill up the cells they have available and then they stop

Remember that they need warm temperatures inside the hive in the areas where they're doing that bees wax cone production. So it needs to be in the 80s because they're going to work it up and it has to be malleable and they have to be able to produce it because remember, they're going to produce that through their wax glands. They're going to pull those little wax shingles off. They have a little spike on their legs that they bring it up to the front and then they start to amend it and work the wax up. If it's not warm inside the hive and you don't have resources coming in that trigger that. behavior, then it just doesn't happen. So it's really frustrating. But that's why if you get a late season swarm, feed them and feed them and feed them until they stop building cone because they're

already kind of programmed to do that because when they swarm and they move into a new environment, they try to produce infrastructure to guarantee their survival. And to do that, they need lots of nectar, lots of resources. So you can help with that, but they just don't do it. So, and I'm lightly smelling goldenrod honey during the walkabout. So this is in Northeast Ohio, so the climate's very simple to mine here in Pennsylvania. And yeah, you smell the apiary before you are even in it right now. So it's great, but at the end of the year, it's hard to get them to build new comb. So the substitute for that, if you need to expand a colony,

if you need more resources in the hive and they don't have drawn-out foundation, the kind of guaranteed thing that they will use, is Better Combe. And I use that every other frame. I don't like fill a box with it because that stuff is expensive. So look at that. Better Combe at BetterB.

Tell them I Sanchez, you can spend the same as everyone else. No discounts. Question number seven comes from Shamund. S-C-H-A-M-M-O-N-D. That's a YouTube name. Just got my Better Be Smoker.

It's August 24 of 2000. the wire included with the smoker is used to hold the upper outlet grate in place so pellets won't fall out when you tilt the smoker they must have been watching you fred so anyway that was my cover shot for today this smoker this thing is big by the way so this is what we're talking about it came with this wire ring and there were no instructions about it so i said oh that wire ring you could hook the lid and then just hang it up buy it, you know, I didn't know what it was for. So now I'm told according to this, according to shamond, that it's to hold this spark arrestor inside. There's a ring that would go in there. Now the thing is when I pushed that spark arrestor plate in there, it held in its own because there's already a groove here. So it already did its part and this is full of, of course, switchgrass pellets that we're talking about. So the thing is, I just wanted to mention how I arrived at this smoker in the first first place I went in search of kind of the most expensive smoker I could find and I went to

BetterB I went to other websites I was looking for features like spark arrestor but I found out and of course a good shield to make sure that if you can grab this this can be running for hours and you can grab the shield it has kind of a fabric on it and I don't know if that's fiberglass or something but this is a very effective heat shield so nothing hot comes against this example so if this is running for a while you can lean it right up against an apame hive or a polystyrene hive and it's not going to burn the other thing is you can set it on a polystyrene hive or something and the same heat shield here provides a standoff from the bottom so once again the combustion chamber is not in direct contact with anything combustible or that would melt so this actually kind of by accident turns out to be kind of the best made smotechemy I've ever had. It does have practical features too. Like see the cone on this thing? It's really long much longer than the cone and the others and that creates this longer smoother channel of smoke and

allows you get that in a more focused way to different areas. So I'm going over with features since shamond here asked the question or wanted to make sure and let me know that they figured out what the ring is for and they've updated apparently the description of it because now there's more information but this actually is I think it costs $65 here's what I was thinking about when it comes to smokers have you ever worn out a smoker I have not so even when I started keeping bees in 2006 I got a kit smoker which by the way I parked because I just don't use it doesn't make me happy anymore but I never wore out of bellows I never wore out the smoker itself

bellows are replaceable they're nuts and bolts you take them off you can put a new one on and uh this by far is the best smoker that i've come across as far as the way it's made and uh it was part of a how to light your smoker smoker and smoke less options so you can actually work your bees without smoke so i did a video about that if you haven't seen it please go down in the video description this smoker is included in that And of course we burn the switchgrass pellets. There's a link to those down there too because that's a fundraiser for the Northwest Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association switchgrass pellet page. If you go there, you Google it. And all the proceeds go to a nonprofit, which helps us teach people about beekeeping.

And the feedback on the smoker pellets is fantastic, but just in my search to find different smokers that had really good features, How about across this one? It had no reviews on the Better Bee site. It obviously is from Better Bee. It has their branding and everything on it. And I think people were avoiding it just because it's $65. And I'm here to tell you, if you're looking for a gift for a beekeeper,

that's a good quality that they're never going to wear out, that's going to function really well and not burn them when they forget and they just put their hand on it. This is it. And don't forget your cork so you can stop your pellets. so in other words you go out you did your inspections you burned your pellets a little bit you come back you set it down you put the cork in it saves the pellets to light and smoke for another day

so that's where that comes from and i want to thank uh shaman uh for letting me know that that's what that ring was for so here it was just speculating and uh by the way bought the smoker i finally have a quality smoker thanks you're welcome and I'm really glad. So that's it and if you want to Google or look for that video it's called B-smoker key features lighting best fuel and smokeless options. So that was a fun video to make and I showed a variety of different smoker styles and features that I look for. Question number eight moving on. I can't even do the name. It's just a bunch of letters. So it's a YouTube channel name but

Some people have to create a YouTube channel name and a YouTube channel if you want to click like on somebody's video or if you want to save them in a playlist or if you want to subscribe to someone like you're probably doing that right now. You're probably subscribing to Frederick Dunn, YouTube and to thank you for that, by the way. Anyway, the question here is from K-R-Z-Y-S-Z-Z-T-0-F-D-Z-I-E-R. You get it. It's nonsense. So I'm Fred wondering how long will the pellets last perfect condition. So and we're talking about the switchgrass pellets. Who knew? So anyway, the switchgrass pellets They last in storage. You have to keep them dry. You have to keep them where condensation won't form in them. So out in your shed is not a good place for them to be.

So storm in your basement or something because here's what you're, why we don't want your pellets much as described earlier on in today's Q&A. If things get really cold overnight and in the following morning things warm up, what happens? Condensation forms on the cold surfaces that remain. So your pellets can take on moisture. We don't want that. So you can put them in, they come in a bag, you can put them in a closed plastic pail or something like that, and just keep them where they're not going to get moist. You also don't want to dump them frequently back and forth into a bunch of different containers. Each time you do that,

the pellets start to break apart and come undone. So keep them static in a place where you don't have strong temperature fluctuations. If you're in the desert southwest or something, it doesn't matter. Just don't let them get rained on. Don't put them outside. Don't leave them in the back of your pickup truck and things like that where they can get soaked. Because once they're wet, they're wet, and I think they kind of expand on their own and their ruin. Because I think that's one of the things they actually use switchgrass pellets for, they throw them on water and they expand and soak up like oil spills and things like that. I don't know the full extent of that, but when they get exposed to water they expand

and they do their job in another way. So other than the way they function for us, which is that smoke or fuel. So just keep them dry and stored and don't frequently shift containers with them. I just put mine, each of the smokers is loaded, they sit there, and we don't move them around too much. So that works. Don't let them get wet, don't let them get frozen, and then warm up and get condensation on them. Question number nine comes from Matt, from Tegerton, Wisconsin. I've planted several fruit plants, trees, and bushes, and many of them require pollination from another cultivar of the same species. I know that honeybees only visit one species at a time, very efficient pollination that way.

If different cultivars of a species have different colored flowers, would my honeybees still go from flower to flower of these different cultivars, for example? If one apple tree has white flowers and another has pink flowers, would my honeybees cross-pollinate these two varieties? Do they primarily choose flowers by sight, color, or by smell? Okay, so what's being described here is honeybees practice something called floral constancy. And when they do that, if you go out and you look at your yard, and if you've got clover and you've got dandelions, and you've got self-heel,

and you've got all these other floral varieties out there, watch the honeybees as they visit each plant. Those that are on dandelions, for example, will skip over clover and only go to other dandelion blossoms. That's floral consistency. That's what makes them great pollinators. Now, the question is, what about the color of the petals of the flowers if they're the same basic species, but maybe they're a different cultivar of that species? Would a honeybee then only go to white flowers on an apple tree and avoid light pink flowers on the apple tree? because they need this cross-pollination, and the answer is they go to both because they're the same species.

And am I just speculating about that or is that through direct observation? That's direct observation because we have cosmos out there. Cosmos have a variety of colors. Some of them are brilliant orange-yellow almost. Some are white with pink tinging. Some are burgundy. But they've all got the same center. They've all got the same.

properly to the bees, because part of the question is, do they smell that it's the same? Well, they definitely sense the pollen, because they know what pollen they want, what pollen they don't, and they sense the nectar. I'm not sure how unique the nectar flavors are or sense or whatever somebody who understands all these nuanced changes or differences in what one flower produces. I don't know how keen the bees are on that, but they definitely go to the different colors. And for example, sunflowers. I have sunflower. out there, I have the Goliath sunflowers. You know, the really big sunflower heads. That's a definite change to some of the sunflowers that are only three feet tall and they're a deep

burgundy and then they've got their florets inside on that one. The honeybees do go from one sunflower to another sunflower. So they do that. So they, within the same basic plant species, they'll stick to that. They won't go, for example, from ironweed, which looks very similar to Joe Pied. weed. They go from ironweed to ironweed to ironweed. Here's a joe pie weed. They fly over it and they land on the ironweed only. So they are floral constant for those because those are distinctive species of plants, right? So different cultivars of the same plant, the same apple trees, for example, but they've got variations of, you know, the different flowers there. I highly suspect they go to all of those. So I don't think that's a problem. Question number 10. Last question of the day. You're probably relieved. This comes from Troy

11 in Pennsylvania. How would you feed hive alive fondant in a seven frame Apame Nuke? I have it divided into three frame colonies. Okay. So the way the appame, oh, I have the Apamea nuke sitting here. This is what it looks like. So this is just one of the supers. This holds seven frames, or you can have three frames on each side and a divider in the middle, therefore making this a double colony. That's why you have these different entrances.

So the question is, how do you feed hive alive fondant? And I did it in these last year, so I have a ready answer. First of all, I want to talk about high-blive fondant for a microsecond. Do not buy a whole bunch of this stuff in advance. It has a shelf life. Two years. Now, you might think two years a long time. You know, if you don't use this stuff, two years comes pretty darn fast.

This one will expire in October of 2025. So in other words, this is the winter. I have to use it. They come in two sizes. Two and a half pound packs. This is the five-pound pack. Now see how thick it is? What does the feeder from Appameh look like?

This is an Apameh hive top feeder. They make these for nucleus. You also have in the seven frame nucleus hive, which if you make it into two colonies has three on each side, so it's a six frame then. There are two of these side by side, so you feed each side separately. Very important and that's fantastic. It's made really well for that.

You have this feeder cover, that comes off if you're unfamiliar with apame i want to say that this is the most convenient feeder system on any beehive that we have any configuration hands down this is better than the rapid rounds this is better than even i hate to say it but the bee buffet i like the bee buffet but when it comes to look when we open this up the bees don't fly out at you so you can check your feed winter summer it makes no difference rainy day It doesn't matter because you're not exposing the hive down below while you're checking your feeders. Now another thing that ties into an earlier question, there are little vents. So this is, they have a liquid side and a candy side.

So if you're going to feed your hive live fondant, you're going to set it for the candy side. And that means that it's open so the bees can walk out and freely roam in this entire area. So when you do that, but what I want you to notice is there are these little vents built. into it the hive could vent through these and i like their thinking they included the vents just in case the bees want them or they don't maybe in a different climate they don't but here's what they do and my grandson loves to point this out there are vents all around the periphery of the feeder as well they propolize all of it my bees do they propolize these they propolize the vents around the surface they do not want air flowing through the top of the hive so what we do is

we shift it from the liquid setting here to the candy setting then you take your fondant pack whether it's the two pound or two and a half pound or the five pound makes no difference you can cut the whole thing right in half and do anything else so now we've got an open edge to both sides so and then i just drop it right in here there's enough room for it so this is for liquid or solid so we've got it in the candy which is the same for your fondet so i cut this in half i put it in there Now, some of these have a configuration where there's a feeder riser in the middle, and then there's a little space on either side of that. When I find that, I cut this in half, then I just cut it in quarters, and I put that up there.

The bees consume 100% of it, and all that's left is this plastic that it came in. That's it. They clean it out completely. So on the warm days that I was describing in wintertime, they get up in here and they get that fondant. Now this is supposed to be your emergency resource. For those of you are not feeding fondant, you could pour dry sugar up in here, and you would find that your sugar kind of turns into a sugar brick

as condensation forms up in here and solidifies to some degree the sugar that's up here, and the same thing, you would have this in your candy setting. Anything that you put up here that you want your bees to be able to roam to and access, it would be the candy setting. Spring comes along, or you're trying to get a swarm kicked off, close it up and you pour just to this there's a very clear full edge right here

you just pour your syrup until it's up to that line and you've got it so you open it up you look to see if the sugar is consumed if the syrup's consumed you fill it up and you close it up again now when the fondant is in here when you pull this off your bees can be out and about so it's a little different for that but if it's syrup they can cannot be out and about but I've never had problems you open it up you check it right away and then you put the lid back on these are really well designed and now if it's syrup they can't close these vents but when you shift this to the sugar setting and they have access to this whole interior they also seal these

openings in the cover so pretty simple they also make these for wooden nukes as well so that's Apamah feeders cut it in half if you've got this configuration if you've got the configuration where the riser is in the middle cut it in quarters it accommodates the five pound or the two and a half pounds that's it very easy so that's it we're into the fluff for today and what do we want to talk about well wass and hornets we have was studies going on right now there was some interesting pushback from people why are you helping the enemy why do you care about wasp they're so mean they're the jerks they're the devil don't help them well I'm trying to learn about them so I do have a yellow jacket wasp nest I'm not worried at this time of year about them overrunning my beehives but it does tie in because as we get to the end of the year and the resources start to dry up and if you want to know if you have a predictable dearth in your area, go to a website called B-S-A-E-S-A-P-E-E-C-A-P-E-E-D-E-E-C-A-P-E-E-D-O-RG, type in your zip code and you will find out

whether or not you have a dearth, what kind of fall you have, and what kind of environmental resources there are for your bees? In other words, colony swarms takes off what are their chances? So there's a bunch of habitat for them or not. So there's a bunch of information. Also, if you want to know, if you've got pesticide loads on the agriculture around your area. That's in there too and it's all graded. It's all super interesting. So what I want to point out is your biggest threat coming up. What's happening right now? If you're like me, you've seen pollen coming in, out the wazoo, and your bees are building up and they're brooding up and you've got these full brood patterns, which my beehives have right now. So the populations are just really

growing fast. And here's why. They need to take advantage of the resources that are going to be coming in over the next few weeks and they need to get them in. And this is their last chance to store up for wintertime. Your greatest threat is at the end of that you're going to have a huge workforce of honeybees and your honeybees are going to be the first ones to start robbing out your colonies. So one of the worst things. So your last concerns are the yellow jacket nest that's you know at the end of your driveway or whatever in your apple orchard because the honeybees themselves are already there. They're already in your apiary. The strong colonies rob the wheat colonies and they're not friendly about it. Sounds kind of

weird but the honeybees predate on honeybees. They go after their resources and once robbing begins, good luck stopping it. So the reason I'm talking to you right now is I want you as soon as those resources start dwindling in the environment. I want you to reduce your entrances. So for me, most of my entrances are reduced all year long anyway, so it's a no-brainer. I don't have to think about it at all. Three-eighths of an inch high. three inches wide, that's it, year round, they're fine. Of course, I have other colonies with wider entrances, bigger entrances, because I want to see, of course, how they work, and we don't want it to be a one-off. So year after year after year, we are documenting how these bees hold their

own. Big strong colonies can defend themselves against almost anything. Now later, when it gets colder, the resources are gone, the honeybees aren't robbing each other, that's when the wasps kick in, and because they fly colder. They'll fly at 45 degrees, and they'll be landing on the landing board in the morning. Sun's not even fully up. Your bees are inside. They're clustered, and the wasks get a pass.

They go right through the entrance, right up the interior walls, and what are they after at the end of the year? They're after the honey resources. So once wasst, because they're at max strength at the end of the year, and that's why you can get hundreds or even thousands of yellow jackets

mobbing a hive. Now, the earlier question was about Vespa Crebrough, about the European Hornet. Do they go in in big numbers and rob colonies of all their nectar resources? I've never seen it, not once. However, if you've reduced your entrances, they have difficulty in getting through those openings. One of the smallest entrances, and this was developed because of wasp robbing and things like that. This is the Hivegate. This is also sold at Better Be. The inventor of this. this needed his colonies to survive against really high pressure from vespits, from wass that were

attacking the beehives. So this long channel with a narrow entrance provides your bees with an opportunity to protect themselves. So in other words, as the wasp comes in here, or is it going to come up? It doesn't get to go through the entrance and go straight up the interior front wall of the hive like they normally would to get to the honey up above. They have to go all the way through here and uh-oh where do they come out directly under the cluster of bees where they're likely to engage guards and i did publish a video about that and i showed with an endoscope what it looks like when they're coming through here what it looks like when the colony wakes up and they can defend themselves and how a channel like this or a narrow entrance helps the colony defend itself against these little jerks

the yellow jacket wass at the end of the year but remember that it's your honeybees themselves that are going to be putting the greatest pressure on one another. You go to inspect a hive at the wrong time at the end of the year and there's no resources around and you make a mistake and you cut into some honey or something and let the robbing frenzy begin. It is best to close up that hive and stop your inspection because they're going to really set upon that colony of bees that you have and they're terrible about it. They don't care about anything. So, you need to paint that bleak picture, but if your bees get robbed out because you fail to close up the end, and keep it small. That's the other thing, these multiple entrances, upper entrances and stuff like that. That is just ringing the dinner bell for the robbing groups.

So venting is one thing, upper entrance, a total another another thing altogether. So if you're doing that, be mindful of those and as the year draws down, close those things off. Okay, so process your honey as soon as possible. Your back-air beekeeper, you don't have 50-gallon drums of honey that have to be loaded around with a forklift. we have supers or maybe we're pulling frame by frame. I like to do that. What do you put them in? Hive Butler Tots. If you've never heard of Hive Butler Totes, look into them.

They are the easiest way to do it. You're looking at the super and you've got three cap frames, but there's three more that are 90% done, but you want to pull these three. Go ahead and pull those three. Go ahead and get them extracted and have other frames with you to put in. right away. If you do not have frames already withdrawn comb because you're a brand new

beekeeper, maybe the frames that you can bring with you that you put in right away would be better comb. I don't get anything for mentioning that product to you. I'm just saying it works. I have it on the rack. It's ready to go and that's what I use late season swarms, for example. Why waste all their time drawing all the comb? I check aboard it every other frame. So have comb that's drawn that's ready to go when you pull these frames. and get that comb in there so they can continue working. So here's the other thing. I recently pulled some frames because I have a cousin in Vermont, Peter Wilder,

who wants two quarts of honey and I wanted to make sure that he had it. And half of the frames were capped, half was uncapped. So I only pulled two deep frames. And what was the water percentage? It was at 18%. Not bad at all. So you can draw. you can draw that down further. So if you pull frames,

this is the reason I bring it up, you pull frames that are uncapped, you can set them in your hive butler tote and you can blow fans on them. And this will help dry down any of the open cells that are still there and you can test before you uncap it, you can test the open cells to see what the water percentage is.

If you're above 19%, it's possible that it can ferment, right? If it's over 20%, I guarantee you it's going to ferment. If you're at 18 something, I would say you're good to go. If you're at 17 and a half, you're really good to go. Because in those that you uncap, you also always want to test it. How do you know what the water percentage is? You're going to use a refractometer.

And if you don't have one, please go to Amazon or wherever you shop. Look for the one with the best reviews. Spend your $25 and get a honey refractometer so you will know the water percentage. Don't store anything that's over 19% in my opinion. You run the risk of fermenting. So, process it right away. And the reason I say that is late season honey here in the northeastern United States. We're talking about asters and golden rod and jove highweed and all these other things, right?

That honey can start to set in just a couple of weeks. So I don't want you to be stuck with a five-gallon bucket that's three-quarters full of honey. And then it solidifies in that bucket. Now you've got a challenge. to warm it up and process it again so try to pull your honey on an already warm day we have really hot days ahead if it's in the 80s that's a great chance to do it set everything up so you can get in there uncap it extract the honey and then get it through your screen so if you filter you might use a 600 micron filter or you might use a 200 micron filter 200 is as fine as I would go

and the reason is you still want the pollen and stuff to get through so 200 microns and still gets through the filter and it still identifies your honey as honey you want it to be so anyway getting it in the small jars right away is really important in my opinion because if you do need to warm it up again to 110 degrees and reliquify it so you can give it to somebody who only wants really good-looking liquid honey there's nothing wrong with it when it crystallizes but now you're just warming up jars and you're not dealing with a big bucket right so process it bottle it as quickly as you can that's my to you. Don't let it set in your buckets and you can pull frame by frame. Hive Butler, best way. There's a lid. You put it in there. You sweep your bees off, put it in, put the lid on and they

don't chase you. Okay. Also, for the first year beekeepers, this is a shocker because they didn't realize they need a shed. They need storage areas for their off-season stuff because we talked about packing down. When you're packing down and extracting your honey, you're pulling out boxes that don't go back on the hives. So if they're not going to go back on the hives, where are they going to go? Exactly. You need to have plastic on, if you're going to put it on a concrete floor or something like that, think of cleanliness, right? So you don't want your honey to drip and soak into wood or in the concrete. So you can lay down plastic first, set your first box on that. Now another thing I've done in the past is, especially with medium supers, because all my honey supers that we're pulling off mostly are mediums.

So you lay down these big industrial trash bags, you put your medium box down, and you fold the trash bag over the top of it. This is after they've been extracted and this is after you've let the bees clean them up, right? So then you put the next box on and you fold it back over and you can get three folds out of it, mediums, right? And shallows, maybe even more. But you get three. So what that does is creates a barrier between each box. All your frames are in there. They don't drip down onto the frames of the boxes below. Now other options are to put each box at 90 degrees put them in the open air have air blowing in there and this keeps Wax moths for moving in and consuming all of your beeswax it's in there and making a big mess

So that works too, but I also found that just closing them up with trash bags or any other plastic that you have But the trash bags were a little thicker because it's a double there because you're folding it over each stack over just means nothing's getting in around the edge You're not going to get mice in there. If you stack them 90 degrees to one another and it's in a shed somewhere mice can get up in there and chew that stuff up. So think about rodents as well But the plastic bags have worked and again after you've cleaned them up and then they'll be ready to go now Do you have to put them in a freeze cycle first where I live state of Pennsylvania? No. Here's why because while they're in the storage area, which for me is a garage While they're out there, we're going to get freezing temps at night. So they are, in theory, already getting through freeze cycles.

And I've never had stored frames get munched by the wax moths. So I don't see wax moth larvae in them. Now, I've had problems with wax moths in hives that were left, all put together, all closed up, still with the entrance open. Because then they can move in, then they can occupy it. You run the risk of mice if you're opening as great. than 3 eighths of an inch i'm telling you this ahead of time so that you can plan for your winterization you don't want mice getting in they can't get through a 3 eighth inch horizontal opening you don't have to put mouse guards on if you're down to a 3 eighth inch from top to bottom they just can't get

through trust me so we covered enough of that storage have space for it and uh somebody commented about double bubble we talked about it last week and said that it's not available at home depot and loads and things like that. So I have an idea for you. Double bubble is a product. Okay, so double bubble, it comes in different thicknesses, has a different R value, and the way it's used can differ. There are companies that sell it, but they sell it in these big monster roles. What is a backyard beekeeper going to do with 175 foot roll that's 16 inches wide, right? So here's the thing. Here's where your bee club comes in. If you don't belong to a beekeeping organization maybe you need to start one if there's if the ones in your area are just

terrible you don't like them you don't like those people start your own but anyway join a B club because one of the advantages of that is next time you have a meeting you can say hey can we please buy a 275 foot roll of double bubble from the double bubble company and pay the $300 and then distribute that to our membership we can buy it by the foot and charge everybody, you know, a dollar 20 cents a foot or whatever it is, whatever it comes out to be. And then everybody can buy exactly what they need, and they don't have to each shell out fat stacks to buy double bubble. Because I think there are enough people in most bee clubs that would want to use it for insulation as a vapor barrier and everything else. You talk about, like I just mentioned,

stacking up your hive bodies through winter, trash bag, smash bag. Double bubble would work for that. need insulation value but it is aluminumized so if you put that between your boxes I'm just thinking on the fly maybe it won't work but I'm thinking if you got a bunch of it left over maybe seal up your boxes with that and stack them up and that keeps them from leaking or from mice getting through I need to do some tests now that I'm thinking about it would mice chew through the illuminated coating of double bubble we know ants won't so mice chew let's find out shall we So anyway, double bubble, bulk buy it through your club.

Let them use the resources, the dues that you've been paying all this time. For my club, it would be, of course, the smoker pellet income that they've made and to help out the membership there. So anyway, and then you just buy it back. Piece mail. Enough said. Okay, so buy it. It's not available at Home Depot and Lowe's.

So go to the source, get it shipped. Anyway, don't forget. you have to be ready if you've got lightweight hives i have a couple of them that i'm very concerned about they're queen right they're building a bunch of brood uh they're not building a lot of resources so this is the first year i've had colonies like this that are robust in every other way they seem to be just bringing in massive resources the brood looks great their varroa mite numbers are down everything is fantastic they're not storing enough honey this year now here's what i think I think I might have done. I think with 43 colonies in one consolidated, basically it's two

apiary areas, but they're in the same area. I think I have saturated my area with too many bees. So I think I need to get my bee numbers down. Now it's not every hive because the dichotomy here is that some of the hives are producing a lot of honey. They're storing a lot. They're doing fantastic. But then I've got a really strong colony. It's a puzzle. Why aren't they bringing in the same resources that this one over here is doing. So I'm thinking if I had fewer colonies of bees over the same area that they would actually be bringing in more resources per hive because you go out and you're looking at flowers,

if there are bees on almost every flower that you see, I think the area is saturated. So I think we can overload an area. Now, the flip side of that too is the solitary bees, the native bees that are here, because honeybees are not native. The native bees are also doing extremely well because they have the native bee houses

that they move into, right? So just the ones that put their eggs and everything for next year in these little tubes, these little bamboo pieces and stuff, they're more occupied this year than any other year before. So I think they had an easy winter. They're doing fantastic. So I don't think I'm really encroaching on

the native bee populations very much, but I think we're not getting enough resources per hive, so I think that's a vote for stepping back on the number of colonies I have in one specific area. So I need to spread them out a little bit, and when you do that, be mindful of other beekeepers who may already have hives where you're going to bring your hives and put them.

So if you've got satellite bee yards, for me it's using a friend's yard or my son's yard, yard 15 minutes away, then make sure other beekeepers aren't going to be unhappy with the fact that new colonies show up because we don't want to encroach on each other's area. But I think I have too many bees for my area right now because the honey load that they're bringing in is not sufficient, which means now I'm going to have to do something I don't like to do, which is backfeed those bees to make sure that they're ready for winter when it comes. Last but not least, just make sure to keep plenty of fresh water available.

This time of year historically has been a time when your bees also sought out high mineral and salt content water. So in addition to not in place of freshwater, we want to also offer them containers and open feeders of Morton Sea Salt water. So fresh water with one teaspoon per quart. of Morton sea salt mixed in, free choice, put it out there, see if your bees go to it, and if they do, of course, just keep those full. So for me, this time of year, in my area, they're after those sea salts. We did the tests. We compared all the different sea salts together, even the expensive stuff, the Celtic sea salts and all that stuff. We did all those comparisons, and Morton was right up there in the top too, so it's inexpensive. Why not use it?

That's it for today. I want to thank you for being here, and thank you for listening. and I'm sorry we did not do a live. We'll go right back on track with the live last Friday of the month next month. So enjoy your last Friday of August. We will see you in September. So thanks again. I hope things are going very well with your bees. And I appreciate that you were here and that you listened

and that you're subscribing and liking the videos.