The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - LIVE Chat of Backyard Beekeeping Q&A Episode 325

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

This is an audio recording from the YouTube video:  https://youtube.com/live/UayrR5GZRVY?feature=share

So we're live. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I see some people already in the chat trying to post their questions. Ross Wagner looks like he's going to leave early. I have to start with my usual spiel, of course. So hello and welcome. Happy Friday. Today is Friday, September the 26th.

This is Backyard Bekeeping Questions and Answers episode number 325. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this is The Way to Be. The Last Way to Be of the Month. So the month of September is over with, basically. And because it's live, we don't have the same normal list of comments that are going to be made and questions that are going to be answered during this live session. So you're going to have to just kind of check the session after the fact if you're not here with us. And I appreciate those that are here.

And I do have the questions, but let's talk about the weather because that's what everybody wants to know about. Well, everybody, a lot of people do. It is 72 degrees Fahrenheit right here, which, is in the northeastern part of the United States, state of Pennsylvania, northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania. 72 degrees, that's 22 Celsius, by the way. 72% relative humidity. So I notice there's not a lot of bearding going on today. That's good news because we don't need it.

We've had a lot of rain recently. The UV index is six, like that matters, because after the fact, what will you care? Air quality is good. That's good news. And the best, beekeeping day. for those of us who are here in this part of the United States is going to be Sunday. It's going to be nice and hot. This is crunch time.

This is when so much happens in a very narrow time frame. That's why when we get these weird rainstorms and hit a sudden cold blast or something like that, it really messes things up. If you've got any kind of schedule you're trying to stick to. And I know that you want to know what's going on outside. What are the bees getting their pollen from? So the pollen report, hi. pollen is just piling in.

I don't know if that's a good thing, though. I don't really want them brooding up really strong, although nutrition has to happen, has to be at its peak, because what are they making? They're making the fat-bodied winter worker nurse bees. And those have to be the healthiest ones because they are all critical,

but right now they're making those bees that are going to last all winter long. They're a cast of honeybee inside the colony that lasts longer. Keith Spillman is finally, here. So welcome, Keith and everybody else that's here. I appreciate it. Let's think about what's going on outside. And of course, it's going to be different where you are, but I'm just going to give a rundown of what's happening in my neck of the woods. Goldenrod is still kicking. I'm really surprised.

It looked really bad during a recent rainstorm. Everything seemed drab and brown. But as soon as the sun came up and things dried off, the bees were right back out there. So Golden Ride is fantastic. Max a million this year is doing fantastic. So the Maximilian sunflowers, I don't know what's going on with it, lots of bees on it and everything else, but the pollen quality on the maximilions has a low amino acid profile. So in other words, it's not fantastic. It's not a complete food for your bees. But think of it as a buffet. We want our bees to get a little bit from everything so that they will benefit because guess what? There's a medicinal value to sunfellers. flowers like the maximilian.

And so even though the total protein might not be that great, it benefits them in other ways, like dealing with nozima and stuff like that. Goldenrod, high value. Cosmos, pollen and nectar, those are still holding out and they'll still be good, right up until winter comes. So after the first frost, that's when we start seeing those back down. The other thing is marigolds, I'm paying attention to marigolds. They're really tall ones.

They're like four feet tall. They're all over. And I'm going to plant a lot more of those next year. It won't be a substitute for something else I've planted in the past, but we're going to definitely put in the work on probably a 700-foot-long patch of marigolds, the tall ones. Because honeybees are doing fantastic. They're all over them. And by the way, I need to recognize Ross Wagner for giving me $10.

Thank you, Ross. So just before I get started on the questions that you guys are posting, Clover, that's doing great. Clover just keeps running going. So if you've got open spaces and you can't grow trees and vertical gardens and things like that, clover should be where grass normally is. It's fantastic. And a little tidbit of information that's kind of interesting here.

A lot of people complain about ants getting into their hives and eating their polystyrene insulation and things like that. And when they put layering, like when they're insulating this time of year, Ants set up shop right between the hive and the insulation. But while I was laying in the grass, as most people do, I'm sure you all do, so I could get eye level with the ants, because there was a swarm happening. Ants swarm. And the chickens all ran over and ate all my ants.

So, now that's a little bit frustrating. However, I think that they are actually controlling the ants on a lot of my beehives. The ants don't even get a chance to get established because the chicken stand right there and eat them while they try to go up the legs. Here chickens do that? I don't know. So let's get right into this since Ross fronted with a very nice donation. We're going to start right off with him. He's in southwestern Wisconsin, has one hive in a three-deep one super setup. I wanted to reduce to a two-deep one super. What frames should I prioritize for leaving for the final configuration? So this question

that Ross has is something that a lot of people are dealing with right now. How to condense the hive. First of all, there's a lot of bees in there. So it seems counterintuitive to jam them up. We want to get them out of the box. I use escapeboards. So I use Circelle escapeboards are my favorites. You can even make your own.

I'm sure there's lots of YouTube's on that. And we need to get the bees out of the top boxes. Now, what we do is similar to what I have done in the past and referenced in the past, which is make maximum use of the space that the bees will be in going into winter. So if you've got the number one and the number 10 frame, usually like the outside of those frames, does not have a lot of drawn comb, maybe even doesn't have capped honey in it.

So when we find full deep frames of capped honey, we fill those partially filled frames. We swap them out and put the full frames in their place. And then often people will say, but then they don't even eat the honey that's over in the first frame and the 10th frame or the first and the eighth, however many frames you've got in your box. That's true too, but it counts as insulation.

And on those warm days, those weird warm days that we hope we actually don't get too many of in the wintertime because, let's face it, we want our bees to get into a state of torpor and stay there. That's when they economize the best. So when they spread out and they have access to that, we need that condensation inside the hive so they can get into those frames and consume it. But that's what I do. I swap full frames for partial frames,

get the partials out, full frames in. And I have a question relevant to that later on too. So it's not just Ross that has that question. Intimited the amount of manipulation that I might be in. The other thing is, when you're doing the frames, getting your bees off of the frame, don't upset your bees. So this is why we also,

need to pay attention to the weather because we want to do this on a nice warm day. And I realize you may not have that in your forecast at all. So time crunch. You have to get out and manipulate your bees. These are back-air beekeepers. So usually we can pick and choose because we can do our whole apiary in a day. If you go out there and you start manipulating frames, pulling honey and things like that on a cloudy windy day or on, you know, a slightly rainy day, the bees, their temperament is

different. They come after you. So last year I made a huge mistake. I have one of those wolf box. I don't have it sitting here, but it's those high velocity little fans. They're great for blowing a few bees off the top or a few bleeds off the edges when you're trying to put your boxes back so you're not smashing them.

But I got excited about it. I decided I'll just pull up these frames and blow the bees off of them and drop the bees in hive butler toads. It was really efficient. You turn that thing up, blast the air out, blows the bees off, put him in the tote. Now I have a bunch of angry bees in the air and no one could come up my driveway for about five days without getting a very intense response from the bees that had a pretty long memory about that. So what doesn't upset them very much? Surprisingly, picking up the frame and giving

it a quick shake and shaking them off the frame does not upset them as much as hitting him with a blast of air. I don't know why. It just doesn't. And then go straight into your high butler tubs and stuff like that when you're harvesting. And that's the time when you're replacing, you know, if you're packing down. I have single deeps and mediums together. That's my standard winter configuration. We're going to talk about that later as well. 21st B is here. Okay, so watching live from Arkansas. So those you may remember last week, we talked about 21st B. They got hacked, lost their channel. So I appreciate those of you who went and subscribed and helped them kind of recover and get their numbers back.

So anyway, shout out about the channel. Much appreciated. So let's keep that up, too, by the way, if you can go and visit 21st Beach channel, not right now, after we're done to live stream. And go subscribe and see what's going on because it's about a very unique design of frame for your hives. I have those out in my long langstroth hives. right now. I'm going to be talking with some people tomorrow in Ohio about Langstroth-style hives. And these frames come with holes already in them so your bees can travel through them. They're super rugged. Check them out. Okay. If you've got a question for me, as always,

please type in all caps. Otherwise, I'll assume you are all just talking to one another. And that's fine too. That's encouraged. David is here. Says my first year with a long laying. I have what would be, what would your suggestions on arranging the frames of brood and stores? So this time of year, the brood is really jammed up close to the entrance. And they've got lots of resources. So it's a standard progression. You haven't, excuse me, I have a lozenge in my mouth. Anyway, there's the entrance and no other venty, the way I set mine up.

That guarantees me that the brood will be here and there will be a steady progression, brood mixed with bee bread and everything else. And then we have a partial honey with partial frame of, you know, there might be some drones and then there might be some other bee bread and then capped honey. And then it progresses until you get nothing but capped honey as you go through. And then that's why when we're inspecting that hive, if we're packing them down for winter, it's a horizontal hive. So the pack down is a little different. I started at the distant frame. So entrance way over here. the last frame over here because that's when we get into the first frames that are nothing but capped honey.

And we see how many of those there are. If I've got six of those capped honey frames, that's for the bees. So again, what we talked about earlier with Ross is if there are partial frames between the brood and then these full cap frames of honey, we'll pull those and move the full frames of capped honey up adjacent to the brood frames. And then anything past six or seven frames of capped honey is for you. And that's what follower boards are for. So instead of packing down boxes, we're just shifting the following board,

follower board, whatever you want to call it. It's a solid board that as far as the bees know is the end of the hive. So that's the space they're living in. The top bar hive has the same situation. Interesting hive there too, by the way. But the pack down is really easy. Don't be like me and shift all the frames. Brian's here from Castle Hive, so we say hi to Brian also. Anyway, packing down boxes is a lot more

difficult than just moving a follower board over. And then as a temporary thing, I'll pull frames of honey and put them on the back side of the follower board. And I intend to go back and get them later. And then I forget. And then there's locked in frames of capped honey in the hive that bees can't get to. And I forget about them, Njel, this time a year. And then I pull them out and I put them at my robbing station. or feed them back to the bees because they've been in there for four or five months. Probably still good to go, but this is the time of year where robbing is skyrocketing. So my robbing station, I have a new robbing station this year. It's fantastic.

Those of you that were in the waiting room ahead of time saw the premiere. It was a three-minute video of nothing but bees at my robbing station. It's a genius design. I just want to point it out in case you want to know. because raccoons have come to it, can't get to it. And the deer have come through. They don't eat honey. They don't care.

Skunks have come through. They can't get to it, but they eat the stuff that falls on the ground. It's a great design. It's nothing but a coat rack on the side of a building that has all of the racks are perfectly distant for Langstroth frames. And I can hang six Langstroth frames per rack series. So it's really interesting. Anyway, it works really well.

And Castle Hives just gave me $10. I don't hate it. Let me tell you. Okay. So if you want to also, maybe after the fact, you know, you're watching this, you're thinking, ah, but I have stuff to do. Well, it's a podcast. So just do a Google search, the way to be podcasts, and then you'll be able to listen.

There you go. So, and that's it. So Bill Robinson's here. It's been a long time since I've seen. So I'm glad everyone's here. Let's get into the very first question for the day. And I do need to say, if you want to submit a topic for consideration or a future Q&A, please go to the way to be.org, click on the page marked contact.

There's a form that you can fill out. I read every single one of those. So let's start right off with Trish Westberg, who submitted her question on YouTube this week. When do you move your frames around to confirm? Full frames of honey are in the center going in a winter. Also, when you pull your supers, you replace the other box of frames or to the bees to possibly draw during the fall. Okay, so drawing out comb this time of year, that's a pipe dream, almost.

Although I have to say the top R bees and some late season swarms have proven me wrong. I put one-to-one sugar syrup out there. If you can, if you get a swarm, okay, so there is a difference. if you get a swarm, you can keep them drawing combs so long as you keep providing them with one-to-one sugar syrup. If you have a resident colony that has not finished out some of their frames, just adding sugar syrup this time of year doesn't seem to kick that in. They don't seem to jump up and start drawing new comb. So we really need perfect weather conditions for that to happen. But new installs, new colonies, we can use those as comb builders. If nothing else, let's say

you think they're not going to make it, exploit them. Have them draw out all the comb that you can get them to draw because drawn comb on foundation or foundationless frames is where this weight and gold comes spring. You can just store it. So it does work. And I've already answered this question. So we just talked about this for Ross. Same exact situation. Swap out full frames for the partial ones. Pull the partial ones out. Maximize your stores for winter. A lot of people do go through winter with single deep. brood management, which means they have a single eight or a single 10 frame Langsroth box. It's deep and or two mediums. And they put a queen excluter on top. And so during the year, everything above that is nothing but honey for the beekeeper to take off. And it makes packing down easy because there's no brood in those upper boxes. So when you go right back down to that box, you pull your queen ex luter off.

now you have your chim of food and resources to get them through winter. When I made the shift to insulate my covers on my hives, and when I made the shift to remove top venting, because of bees were telling me at every turn, they don't want top venting. Every time I built these really super well-constructed, extremely detailed manufacturing. I built these supers, feeder shims on my hives, and we put some screens in them,

and they plugged up the screens with propolis right away. So you don't have to think very hard to figure out the bees don't want that passive ventilation. So then Be Smart Designs came out with their insulated intercover, which made my really cool, extraordinarily well made, feeder shims kind of obsolete, because now I had an insulated intercover that I could just pop on and I didn't have to make anything. Put that on there and then put a medium box over the top of it and I had this feeder shell, which we all have now.

And so that changed the amount of consumption. Before I did that, 70 to 100 pounds of honey was what a standard colony, full-sized colony Langstroth Hive, needed uninsulated. Now they need about 35 or 40 pounds, and they didn't even use up all that last winter and I'm in the snow belt. So it works.

Let's see. I do have another written question here, but we are going to go to Home Steady Arms. I have a flow hive, mid-coast Maine, and getting ready for the winter. I'm noticing the bottom plastic catch tray has a decent amount of water in it on a weekly basis. Will that be an issue in winter? No, in fact, that's perfect. Here's why. So, and by the way, flohive was ahead of a lot of stuff

that I have changed for my Langstroth hives without even knowing that they were ahead of it. The very first flow hive that came out in 2015, of course, I bought it. They had a screen bottom board with a removable insert, hated that base. Did not like it at all.

It seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing. So number eight screen and you know, you could do Vero accounts and stuff like that. But their later iterations have a completely enclosed bottom board. Screen, they call it aluminum, but it's aluminum. They have an aluminum bottom either way works. And under that is a removable tray. And at first they had these white trays. They were actually kind of brittle.

So they kind of broke up. They had partitions in them. They didn't last a long time. So I still have some around, but they, even upgraded their trays now that this off yellow color much tougher they have ribs in them so if there's liquid in them it doesn't all go forward or all go back it stays in each little segment so moisture does build up in there this is a fantastic advantage and here's why we can pull that out rinse it off and put it right back in and get rid of the moisture if you have a solid bottom board and let's say

somebody made a mistake and when they put together their hive they instead of tilting slightly towards the entrance with a solid bottom board, they slightly kept it pretty much flat or slightly tilted it in the other direction to the back. Huge mistake, particularly going in a winter. The condensation that forms inside your hive, that goes down the side walls, now pools on the bottom of your hive on that solid bottom board. So if you don't tilt it slightly towards the entrance, it has nowhere to go. It stays in there.

And that creates mold mills. do in all kinds of problems. The screen bottom boards with a removable tray underneath lets you clear that out and you get a passive mite check out of it. You can find out how many varroa mites are in there. What are the kind of critters are living in it? And it's very easy. So I actually buy extra trays. I power wash all my trays at once. But when I'm out pulling the tray that's under the flow hide there, I just stick a clean one in right away. And we are taking taking moisture away. So it prevents moisture from pooling inside your hive. So it's fantastic. Appamate hives are also screened bottom boards. I'm always forgetting to pull those.

And because it's plastic, I just, I don't know why it just skips my mind. I forget that I can pull a tray, clean it out, and put that back in. So even during wintertime, yes, you'll pull those because there's a lot of detritus down there that, again, otherwise would just be inside the hive sitting at the bottom, waiting for a warm enough day for your bees to do the clean out. This way, it goes through the screen and you can do the clean outs, and it gives you something to look at in winter. Go through your stuff at the bottom. So I hope that answers the question. So it's not an issue. It's a benefit that you can remove it because that water collects there no matter what kind of hive you have. Even these fully insulated hives have

condensation in them. So moving on. Okay. Keith Spillman says, recently a speaker mentioned that small high beetles join swarms and go to the new location do they do this on purpose or just get caught up in the exodus you know you people in your small high beetles i don't have any keep meaning to talk to dr jamie ellis university of florida about his small high beetle exploits i just don't have any so i can't say that i've seen one show up and um you know so could they try travel with them. Let's think about that. Okay, uh-huh, I have an idea. I mean, I'm no, obviously I can't play with small-high beetles because they don't have, but here's what I'm thinking about. Keep in mind that small-high beetles are pheromone-based. They chase after pheromones and

smells, things they like. So when you're being swarm, notice that you also see a bunch of foragers that often still have pollen on their corbicula. They're just flying off with everything. I think rather then the small high beetles attaching to bees or something while they're flying out and swarming, I think that other small high beetles in the area may be smelling the swarm and following them and joining them. And it seems like the bees should be able to get rid of those small high beetles in that situation. Pure speculation.

Don't know anything about it. Can't do any direct observations I would like to. But so I can't. answer that question definitively. But that's a good question for Dr. Jamie Ellis. In fact, pitch it to him because he will probably write about it in the American Bee Journal because he does a Q&A article on that every single month. So, so Phil Lee says you have chickens, not small high beetles. Okay, yeah, it could be something of that too because let me tell you what else I don't see around here. Spotted Lantern flies. They have to come out of the ground. They have to pupate. They have to

make it. My chickens are Johnny on the spot. They don't play. Keep in mind, they are the closest living relatives of what, the T-Rex. That sounds like a joke. That's true. Look it out. It's pretty fun. All right. So as told by Mimi, question, are you planning on trying out the new Neroa, Neroa treatment? If it is approved, where he lived, I was just reading about it. I knew somebody was going to ask this question. A lot of you I bet you don't know. Here's why. This is a new Verro-destrictor mite treatment, but it's a novel treatment, and it's just been approved this month, by the way. So you might be hearing about it here first. It's an MRNA treatment. So that freaks a lot of people out. It says, oh, the RNA, oh, they're going to be GMO.

So what it is is listen to this. They feed it to the bees. The bees consume it. And then it impacts the varroa destructor mite reproduction. So what happens is varroa destructor mites just can't reproduce at all. So what they do is they just live out their little adult lives and then they die. And then there's no replacements for the mites. That stuff is pretty expensive, by the way.

If you look for it right now, you won't find it because it's sold out. That's how convinced people are that this is going to be a fantastic solution to varroa mites. So for those of you who accept the type of research, and I'm one of the people that does, the way it's delivered to your bees. It's just fed to your bees as a powder. You can feed it on the bottom board. You can feed it inside the hive on top of the bees on a feeder shim. They consume it.

And then it kills a road to strikeer mite, zero impact on Queens, zero impact, because they had to prove this through research. This didn't just come out. They had to prove it over years of research. It doesn't kill your queens. And it's not temperature dependent. Anytime your bees are prone to eat, it works. So you're going to be hearing a lot about it. And if you do a YouTube search right now, you won't find anything because the influencers don't have it.

So it is a proven thing. The studies are published. It just got approved. And that stuff is pretty impressive. And for those with deep pockets, I suppose, or who can make deals on it, I suppose. But it wipes out. In other words, what's the efficacy? 100%.

100% of the offspring do not develop. Interesting stuff. So I'm interested that as told us, by Mimi even knew about that. So do a deep vibe, go search for it, and here's Castle Hives, the as lantern flies here now. So Brian is in competition. He wants the lantern flies.

I've just willed them out of my area. I was also talking with, and that's, by the way, I'm joking. I don't believe I have the power to drive something out just with my thoughts. but I was taking pictures at a local winery, and we were out in their vineyards, and I was asking about the spotted lanternfly because I thought it would be cool if we could get a few of them in our pictures.

They don't have them. And so among the growers out here in Northeast Pennsylvania, which is weird because it's in northwest Pennsylvania, but it's called Northeast, the vineyards there, they're not seeing the spotted lantern fly succeeding, which is weird because it's in the county. there might be something about wintering over and the adults don't winter over the offspring do.

So they lay their eggs this time of year and those have to survive winter. And so I don't know how cold. I think if it gets below, if it 15 degrees below Fahrenheit sustained, kills them. But we get that here. So I think that may be a reason why. So Jose says,

what is your strategy for packing down your hives? just talked about it. You can have to watch the replay because I do have pictures too to show. So one more question with the flow hive in Maine. Should I do any insulation underneath it or is the plastic tray in a bottom board for winter? Okay, so I can say that. I don't want to turn this into a full-on flow-hive discussion because a lot of people are very incensed about any discussion about flow hives. So we'll talk about any bottom board that is not insulated. Even I have bottom boards that have metal trays. So at the bottom of the hive,

not a problem at all, not insulating it. So long it's enclosed and the wind just can't blast up in there. There are people that absolutely dig in and say they have open screen bottom boards and the worst possible weather and everything's great. I personally would not do that. But I don't think you have to go to the extra yard. Insulating, the top gets priority.

So directly over the top of your hives, number one for insulation. If you're going to add anything beyond that, down the side walls. Look up something called hive huggers. That stuff's expensive, but it's super insulation. So the R value of that stuff is much higher than other material. And it can take exposure and everything else. So the need to insulate the bottom, last thing to consider.

Here's what I do and where my logic lies. year after year, I've done incremental changes to the hives to see how they make it through winter. So there comes a point where you hit the level of diminishing returns. In other words, the amount of work you have to do for what the benefit's going to be gets reduced as you hit a point where with the insulated intercovers and some insulated caps that I have on my hives, and I also have insulated hives. So I have the Lans hives insulated with sheep's wool. I have the Apame hives, which have their own insulation, just the way they're built. I tried licein hives. I don't use those anymore.

And those were insulated even the bottom is polystyrene. And because those that were just three-quarter inch pine or cedar or whatever they happen to be, had the same results in spring as those that were heavily insulated here where I am. Now, this can be totally different. If I lived in the Klondike where Etienne Tardif lives, then he has to insulate everything or he'd have no bees. So even he says there's a limit to how much the insulation benefits the bees. And after that, it does not improve their survivability or winter climate at all.

So where I am, because I have strong spring colonies, because they're brooding up at the right time, they're not demonstrating stress that would show that they're too cold or something like that. I stop so I don't insulate the side walls. I don't care about insulating the bottom. I care about enclosing the bottom so that the bees have control over how they move air through the hive. So that's where that comes from. So ribbity reptiles says you seem to like gadgets.

Why haven't you tried brood minders? stuff yet. I have a whole box of brood miner sitting 10 feet from me right now. Why I don't use them is because, and here they sit, and I know somebody's going to write me and say, you know, if you want to give them away, I'll take them. No, because I intend to use them. I want to know the temperature and humidity. I wasn't real impressed about the weight scale system. Like, why do I need that? You have to think about, and I do like, Let's be honest. I'm a gadget nut for photography and cinema work. I buy things I will use once and never get a return on that investment because I just get obsessed with knowing things

and having some ability that it didn't have before. So using brood minders, because I have friends that show me all their broodminder readouts on the graphs and charts on their phones and it's got a great app and it lets them know exactly, you know, when the bees are gaining weight every day and the temperature, fluctuation and when the brood is low based on temperature, all these other things, it's good to know stuff, but it wouldn't change the way I manage my hives. So in other words, it's information that I can also get with thermal scans from the outside of the hive. So you have to run another app and you have to, of course, record everything and then go

and show everybody else your data. So if I were doing some kind of study that required very accurate logged data day by day looking for consistencies across many different hives i would use the brute minor stuff sure i would but you know for me personally it just uh the thermal scans are enough because are they alive are they dead that's where i'm at today i want to know where's the cluster in that hive going through winter and last year they were when they should have already been up at the top they were halfway up so that's when i knew i was going to have a fantastic spring because they still have a lot of food above them, hadn't even gotten close to their emergency rations.

And so a brood minder is going to give me temp and humidity and let me know again when they're brooding up, which I can do with thermals. Now, the advantage would be on insulated hives, which thermal scans, which reads surface temperature, don't help with. So I can see that. But they're also going to get propylized up. They have a little battery, a little tag that comes out that has a serial number on it that matches your app on your phone so you know which colony has which number and so on.

I think they're fun, but for me, I don't need that kind of detail. So that's an interesting screen name, Rivity Reptiles. Keith Spelman, do we know how a winter bee is made almost like a step between a worker and a queen has to be nutrition, right? Absolutely, it's nutrition. So I love entomologists when they have. this discussion because there are those at Cornell, for example, that want this to be another cast of bee. That's how different they are. So right now we have three casts in the hive,

the queen, the drone, which is the male, and then the worker. But then there are these fat-bodied winter bees that are physiologically different. So what makes them different? The nutrition that's used when they're raised. The queen does not lay a different egg, which is, this is interesting. If your mind isn't blown already by the fact that a worker bee, so here's a worker egg, and then the nursebees decide, hey, we need a queen, they take the worker egg, they build a different cell around it, and they feed it copious amounts of proteins, right? I'm just going to call it that. It's, you know, it's very complex, and people like to give a very simple, I'm not even

incompetent to explain the composition of the food that they're giving them. But the part that blows me away is they've taken a worker. They produce a queen in a shorter amount of time from the same egg through diet alone. You get an entirely different cast of bee inside the hive. That would be like, I don't know what to compare that to. Could you imagine if you could do that with people, you could change this. kid just by how you feed or what you feed, and they come out totally different. That's what we're talking about. The fat-bodied winter bees can store fat in their head. They store fat in their thorax,

where other bees can't. They store fat in, of course, their abdomen, which most bees do. Not only that, they become this mobile resource that can care for and feed new brood without bee bread in cells without all the resources stored all over the hive. They carry everything with them. That's why they have these big fat stores built into their bodies. They are physiologically different from a normal worker honeybee. And instead of living six weeks, they're living eight months, six months. It just depends, again, on their nutrition. That's why I said at the beginning of today, this nutrition that's coming up right now what's going on this coming week, where I live is going to establish how healthy your fat-bodied winter bee stock is going to be. So it's really,

really important. So how they're made, I'm sure a lot of people looking into it. This becomes, I think the idea of how they're made, how practical is the knowledge, right? So we want to, I like to know things just for knowing things. I have to give a presentation tomorrow. I'm about to unload a bunch of information that is not going to improve their beekeeping one bit. but it's going to be exciting to know. It's fun stuff to know. So it's knowledge for the sake of knowledge. If we were nutritionists and we were coming up with a special diet to create better winter bees,

then we would need to know these things. We need to understand the complex composition of what's being fed that produces the best winter bee. Genetics play, too. So again, it's beyond my realm. So those that I've spoken with do not know how that works. It's complicated. Yeah, so Wingrove says, L-O-L, fat, head, bees. It's true.

No, fat in their heads. Okay, so Westcliff, Honey Company. Let's see, feed. I'd like to use some of your above-average videos and photos in a presentation for my daughter's second grade class. Is this possible? and where would I find those if so? So for Westcliffe Honey Company,

you have to go to the way to be.org, click on the page, mark, contact, and give me all your information. And I support education everywhere, so that's likely that I might be able to extend something to you for that. So, all right, let's get on here with, oh, and Steve Butler's got something. Do you think temperature plays a part in it?

No, if there were reptiles, temperature plays apart. Temperature does not play a part in whether or not it's going to be a regular worker honey bee or a fat-bodied winter bee. And the reason we know that is because the brood area where they're developing them is 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit consistent. 95 target right in the middle. And so there's not like a really hot area or something. That would have been kind of easy. There are reptiles that the genders decided by what the temperature is that those eggs are kept at.

Honeybees, nothing like that. All right. Moving on, Marlene Manson. It says, another great video, thank you. It says, we're headed into swarm season here. Southeast Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I built two horizontal hybrid flow hives that currently occupy my bedroom balcony. Had a sneak peek two weeks ago for the first time since the winter packed down.

And when the weather was warm and stable, no sunshine. sign of swarm cells, but both are strong and growing. I remove the follower board and popped more empty foundation frames in before the old honey frames. So they have an additional five to keep them busy. My question, how do you do a Demari method with a horizontal hive? I've learned that you take the queen, some empty drawn frames, nurse bees, okay, and so it goes. So, and by the way, I know somebody's going to write me and say, it's Damari. Okay, Demari. Okay. Demeri. Damari, it's the same. We know who we're talking about. The whole point of it is to get your brood area to be less congested so that we remove one of the triggers that causes your bees to prepare for swarming.

So the Damari method, the Demari method means that you pull frames of brood, you move them up. There's a queen excluder. You move those trains of brood up above the queen excluder. Some people even include a spacer box between that and the next box up. That creates a loss of brood in the brood area. Now they feel like they're less congested. Now that swarm instinct is reduced. And then, of course, those that are above the queen excluder, those workers emerge from those cells.

They move back down through the queen excluder and join the rest of them. So that's one way. Now, with a horizontal hive, we have follower boards, as I mentioned earlier, that define the end of the space that we're keeping all these frames in. You can make another follower board that goes somewhere in the middle of between brood frames and your food resources that are capped and stored. You cut out a hole in the center of that.

It can be a four-inch diameter hole. It's not critical. You take one of those plastic queen excluders and you staple that to that board. And so now workers can pass through the queen cannot. So we pull brute frames out. put them on the opposite side of the follower board, and you put empty unfilled cells that have drawn cone into the brood area, and we have a loss of congestion and a removal of worker bees that are developing in the pupa state.

So that's another way to do it. I should say that I don't do any of that, but I understand that if you're stuck and you want to make sure that you are not losing your bees, this gives them a sense of more room to expand, more room to develop brood. And then, of course, those frames, we should keep in mind, too, the frames that you use like that are dirty frames. They are dark. They're dense. I don't know if you've ever tried to harvest honey out of those brood frames.

But that's what we're talking about when we take these frames out and we move them opposite of Queen Excluter, and then we let the breed that's in and to merge out, it later gets used for honey stores, and it's not an optimal honey frame. So that's another reason why I personally just don't like that method in general. You could, and I see that you can't make splits. So that puts people in a pickle. So if you can't do splits,

you can look at colonies that don't have enough brood. So the flip side of things. You can take brood, frames out of nurse bees and fortify a weaker colony with them and that satisfies this need for more room and reduces congestion inside the hive so there's a lot of ways to do it but when you stick with just a brood area and i'm really it's growing on me the idea of single deep brood management because those frames just get cycled over and over for brood you remove those those about every years after they've been used for brood for five years they're almost not workable anymore or the

toxins have concentrated so much on those that we want fresh comb but it keeps them out of your honey supers so that the honey frames that you have are nice and clean workable easy to uncap i don't know if you've ever even scraped the beeswax of an old brood frame it's almost worth just throwing them away you're in power wash territory so anyway what else we have if anyone has a question for me you have to type in all caps or I'll think you're just talking to each other so question number three comes from David Niquot okay so this is on a video left the comment there where they had Africanized honeybees that were killing their livestock and stinging everybody and they were out of control so

And my recommendation was, of course, to euthanize the colony. Complete. So David says, wait a sec. If you kill the queen and inject a new queen that has already been filled with sperm, is that possible? Then those aggressive bees and that line of genetic will die educating new queen genetic while still using those aggressive bees working for a new hive. Don't know if that makes sense. So I want to make this clear when we have a colony that has become dangerous. I'm not talking about five or ten bees, which is a lot to some people, coming at you the minute you get your coffee and you walk out to see what your bees are doing, you have them stinging you in the face. That's not an Africanized response. Africanized response

is hundreds and thousands stinging your face. So when they come out, they really come out. They empty the hive. This is not a hive that I would recommend that anybody work with. I recommend euthanizing them yesterday, which I volunteered to do for the couple that I was helping out with that, but they felt confident that they would do it themselves. So, and a lot of people said, just swap out the queen. Is, are you serious? Let me explain the situation. He's a beekeeper, first of all, the people that had the problem with the hive.

He was in his B-suit, and they got into his B-suit and stung him more than 50 times. they stung their chickens in other words they were so there were so many bees on a chicken they could only see the feet sticking out that's aggression he couldn't go into his own house he went down the road and they followed him more than 200 yards this is not a normal colony of bees and swapping out the queen isn't anything i'm even interested in those genetics need to be removed so let's say you did let's say i tried to work with it and said okay let's put a queen in there let's let's take a hit let's get in there, let's dress for war, and let's requeen the colony. The attitude of all those bees is still there.

So it's not an instant turnover of attitude. The other thing is they have drones. Those drones have their genetics. Those genetics are spreading around. We need to stop that too. So I recommend total encapsulation, total destruction of that colony of bees. I don't even want to play with the idea that you could still keep those bees around and get more honey. Me personally, if you get up, just imagine, you know, the mailman pulls in.

This is a rural mail route. I think about these guys all the time because I hate to laugh about it, but they're scared. Like I've had Amazon delivery people. They're clearly from the city. They have no idea what they're getting into. They pass all these B warning signs on their way at my driveway. Some of them just throw stuff out the window and leave. I don't blame them.

I still mark the part that says delivered with care. In fact, if they get out of their car while yellow jackets and stuff are swarming around them, yes, we have even that. And they set it against my garage. I hit the part that says above and beyond because they're not ready for that. You and I, we're around singing insects all the time. But true hostility, a truly dangerous colony, that's on you. You got to deal with those things. So, oh, here we go.

you know what so kill the queen here we have donna schneider how do you keep all the pieces from falling out of that appamate feeder when i check my hives i take the feeder off and set it at a 45 degree angle but the pieces fall out donna i was going to answer you today i had your thing for it up okay so let's say i knew this question was coming this looks like a setup this is one of the appamate feeders which i really like right now but if you tip it up you know these things have a tendency to fall out these pieces are just set on here the center part can fall out it doesn't even matter which configuration they make these for nucleicides and stuff too it's not the way it's designed so and i realize this probably isn't the answer you want but when you take an appamay cover off and you

lay it next to your hive upside down. This sets in it perfectly. It's designed to hold it. And the thinking is, too, that you may be at a time when you're feeding this, because these are designed for syrup and solid food. If you've got some syrup in here, you can't tip it anyway. So you have to keep it level. I know that that's not a good answer.

Let's say you want to tip it, no matter what. It's all empty. You want to tip it. I would put little tabs of tape around it, I guess. I've never had the problem because when I inspect hives, I don't put anything on the ground. All of my hives have space next to them, or I set up a little hive stand that I carry with me.

Those B-smart designs, plastic hive stands, they're lightweight. I have extras just sitting around because when I'm going to do an inspection, I pull that hive stand over and I sit it next to the hive I'm going to look at. and I take my stuff off and I set it right on there. Nothing gets sat on the ground. So not a great answer, but that's pretty much it. I think if these are falling off, let's problem solve. So if these covers just fall out, right?

Maybe we can wax or propylize them or do something to make them just gummy enough to stay put. But that's it. I hate to have my answer be. Well, then just don't tip them 45 degrees or whatever. But that's it. They're not designed to tip. Anyway, Christina Mann says African-Ives bees produce less honey and more awful, hateful, terrifying bees.

Listen to Christina Man. Christina. Oh, yeah, I know. That's a new name, but I know who that is. Okay, so. All right. Next question comes from Wendy. says good morning. I know you like the dual feed. See, listen, this is, this is from Wendy. And

so who did I add the question from Donna? So this is Wendy that says, good morning. I know you like the dual feed app of May feeder, which I love as well. I get ready to over winter. I'm not sure if I should use the center area for fondant or take the whole thing off and put the fondant back over the inner cover, insulate on top. Are you leaving yours on over winter? And if so, how do you insulate. Okay, these happen-a feeders. Let's talk about it again. So this is where the fondent pack is going to go. Look underneath. The bees have access to this. And look where it's situated directly in the center, where it belongs. The syrup is on the sides. So if you put fondant packs in there, which I do, and it worked really well last year, last winter was the first

winter with these and because they've made changes appamate is always changing things i don't like see these little dimples little finger grips i don't like that because it reduces space i have for fondant i don't pick them up like this anyway but anyway those holes let the bees come up and i leave it encapsulated just like that this is my fondant feeder the fondant packs let's say i had one you would cut it lengthwise and put half a packet and then put the other half in a Ziploc bag in until you're ready for it and it works how do you insulate so that's the other part of the question what i do for insulation i hope you can still hear me what i do for insulation is not pretty but it's functional i want to balance this on my dirt rooster coffee cup double bubble i also nicknamed this billy bubble

all right I take two pieces of this this stuff will make you look good in a selfie by the way it's good stuff now I just lay it over the top I don't cut it down I let it stick out farther than it needs to then when I put my cover over it it smashes everything down and creates a perfect insulated cover it's ugly it hangs out underneath the cover everywhere around the edges going into winter this stuff works so well and later once you've done that a few times it takes on the shape of your feeder keep in mind some people also don't like these little slats in here but keep in mind most of that is resting on the box so that's not open venting the other thing is by keeping them on all the time your bees again propylize these up so they're sealed shut there's no airflow through here So your double bubble contours around it when you put the cover over it

And it takes on the shape of your feeder and that's more than enough because also the cover that you're putting on the double bubble is insulated also You can get something like the b max polystyrene covers even though you don't have their hides Just get the b max polystyramine cover sits on there and you can strap it down or you can put Bricks on it that's how we do that And let me just tell you it's a huge point of frustration for me. When I look and I see that a colony has moved up prematurely or we're in March or April and the weather forecast is terrible. We get snow here in April, which is really bad. So they're brooding up and they've moved to the top and I need to feed a colony.

And then I realize they only have an inner cover and an outer cover and no space to feed them anything. So I'm gradually, those things are expensive by the way, so bit by bit, I'm buying more of them and I'm rotating out some other insulated covers because I don't have another cover that allows me to feed liquid. There are times when you want to feed a liquid and have a solid option at the same time. And I mentioned earlier today that the B-smart insulated inner covers changed my need for my feeder shim because I just rested a medium high box around this and they don't fit well on here. So I expanded, I used expansion foam and sealed up the inside. I also make my own wooden plugs for these because the plastic plug that goes in here, you have to use your hype tool to pry up.

I don't want to. So I made my own plugs. these are still great, but you would put a wintertime comes. We could put a fondant pack over this hole. Now we have fondant. Spring comes, all of a sudden you want to put a syrup on there. So now we pull that off. We put a rapid round on here.

And this accommodates a rapid round. Works really great. So now we've got that. I cannot put sugar syrup and have a fondant pack or maybe have a pollen patty on there in spring at the same time. And the guy that makes these, he's a great guy, this is a great design.

There wasn't anything like it when he came out with it. But now we need to be able to feed two things at once. You can also do that. In other words, leave this opening here because remember there's a box around it. It's insulated. We can put a fondant pack over here and then we can set aside another reservoir-style syrup feeder,

but it's not ideal. So we're either feeding solids or liquids with just a single hole like this. So Apame is killing it when it comes to their designs for being able to feed liquid and solid. Now on the nucleus hives, it's a matter of whether or not how you fix it. There's a candy plug arrangement and there's a liquid arrangement on the cap that goes in. Those cannot feed solid and liquid together. So the nucleus hives, you're picking one or the other. So for survival food, if you have to make that choice, the number one survival food for me here, where I live, is fonded.

Through the years, we've used sugar, sugar breaks for winter emergency resource feed. But you know, the bees that survived on that were those that were really strong to begin with. In other words, a smaller colony that was having a hard time or struggling a little bit, did not recover with that. the amount of energy they use to dissolve a metabolize, crystallize, or solid sugar, because some people are also thinking, yeah, it works as a desiccant. It takes moisture out of the air and turns the dry sugar into solid sugar. That's like a 1% capacity for taking moisture out of the air. So now the fondet, again, these things, because they're new, so the fondant has changed that for me.

I always wanted to make fondant in the past, never did. Jim from Vino Farm. He has a culinary background. He made fondant once. And I thought, eh, just sell that stuff and I'll buy it because I don't want to make it.

You know, heating things and stuff, cold fondant. Anyway, I'm overdoing it. Those feeders are fantastic. That's how I use them. All right.

Now, home steady farms. I insulate my wrapping rounds and entire feeder sham area. Is it better to cut open? the hive live fondant pack and scoop into the rapid round

or just use the hive live packet straight on the inner cover that's a great question given that choice I put it straight on just a little hole by the way see I have this handy too this matches up with a hole on the center of the insulated inner cover this cuts a hole on this put this through here keeps it from collapsing.

You see it through the back. This is what I would lay. I wouldn't even use the wrapping around. I would just put this on its own. Because the bees have cleaned these out until there was nothing left with this packet. These are the small ones, two pound packet. The hides that I put the five pound packets on, they never finished them. So, and I know, you know what, while we're talking, let's just, just the two of us.

I know they say in spring, whatever is left over, just mix it with water. feed it back to the bees. Have you ever mixed this stuff with water? That is not easy. I need a blender or something. I was not successful in getting this to liquefy easily. So then what I did is, this is still a fresh pack, but anyway, I just cut them open, prop them up, and set them out, and spray them with fresh water and let the bees clean them out as an open feed in spring. two, that's not just fondant, that is also a hive alive. So it has all the ingredients of a hive alive treatment for nozema. So it is more than just fondant.

So for me, those saved bees last year in particular when everybody was losing their bees, those that had the big packets on in my negative woods when spring arrived and spring did not arrive. See what I'm saying? Spring arrived on the calendar, but it was terrible. my bees say great. But if I didn't have a feeder shim on, I was losing my cookies over that. So this year, they're all going to have feeder shims.

Next one comes from Nesem. N-E-I-N-E-N. Have you heard of any results from Randy Oliver's study of the Veraxan strips as far as placement on the top of the frames? I know what he said. I don't know what he's published.

I know that he said that laying those strips, for those of you don't know, varoxan is an extended release, saturated cardboard strip. The efficacy is really good, but of course people wanted to lay it across the top bars instead of putting them down in between the bars, which is what they got their approval for. The point is to get your bees to walk on them, contact them, and be exposed to the oxalic acid. Randy Oliver said that laying it across the top bars was a bad idea. So putting them down over the frames.

I don't know if he's going to publish the study or if it's just going to be on scientific beekeeping.com. You can go and check that out, but he was not impressed with over the top. He was very plain spoken about that not being the way to go. Now that said, I have another friend, Bob Benny, who is also doing testing of laying it across the top and trying some different, I think he's got his own formula.

I'm not even sure. He has access to the University of Georgia, and those entomologists there are taking his data right now, and they're looking at that. So I think a lot of people are just waiting to see. Wouldn't it be convenient, though, if we could just lay it across the top? I would do that tomorrow. I don't like sticking it down in the frames, and then it's, of course, every other frame. See, here's a frame that doesn't get one over it.

This one gets over it, this one gets over it. It's exposed to both sides of the center frame. And on it goes, because they clear out the brood underneath. those ferroxan strips. So a lot of people are using them. It's a good control method. And I think some people are just leaving them in for extended periods of time. But how easy it is to just prop up a box and laid it over the top.

I mean, that would be super. So anyway, Randy Oliver, I don't know if he published it. He was not impressed laying over the top. Follow, I have to say, because I'm me, follow the guidelines of the company that produces the miteside that you're about to use, and the varroxan, those who developed it, do not recommend laying it over the top bars. Installing it down in the brood frames is the way to go. Let's see. Okay. Yeah, the brood does not get capped where they hang. However, the argument is that though they don't brood and use the cells underneath the varroxan,

Once you remove them, the recovery rate for the colony collectively is remarkable and excellent. Okay. Done with the dual feeder. Question number five comes from Donna from Dade City, Florida. I have a couple of Apamate hives. How do you keep all the plastic? Oh, there it is. You already answered that.

I'm ahead of the game. Question number six. This comes from Kelly. It says I'm kind of freaking out because, the long-term winter forecast is suggesting a hard winter. You know, our weather people can't even predict what's going to happen in two days. They're so far off the mark, so often, I don't even know what to say. And this is not the only time I've heard this, that they're predicting an epic winter.

We have a weather guy in my B club, and he says, these new models that predict weather are so extraordinary. And they're saying that the weather, this winter, is going to be the worst. that you've ever seen so but anyway let's say it's true the most recent winter here in northern new jersey was not nearly as severe as yours was in western pa you can say that again we were in the snow globe award competition with over a hundred inches of snowfall anyway so i'm not sure if i should do two deeps on one medium or two deeps and two mediums go by weight just pack it down and hope for the best i do use hive alive alive fondest thoughts. By the way, while we're talking about hive alive fondant, use code Fred 10, get 10% off.

Anyway, I do a single deep and a medium, and that's it. But I made a drawing. This is my drawing. So this is my configuration for nucleus hives, and this is my configuration for my single deep and a medium. And also where I loose. fit my insulation on top. It also shows I use solid bottom boards and as mentioned earlier the solid bottom board of the removable tray, screen on top. Entrances reduced to three eighths of an inch, no top venting of any kind. And what I've shown in these illustrations are the hive top feeders that allow for fondant. So the fondant you can put on the Be Smart Design's insulated intercover, fantastic piece of kit.

You can also put it on the Appame. So they accommodate both. I have normal three quarter inch pine sidewalls, and these insulation caps are something I'm expanding. So I'm making my own two-inch rigid foam board, insulated caps that I slide over the top of the hives, which will enclose those Appamee or B-smart-Style peters. So I hope that's clear enough.

that's what I do. Now let's see, you just can't pack it down because there's just so many bees in there. I get it. But do your best to use an escapeboard and get them down below. Pull them off and then put emergency food resources. Here's the thing, because right now where I am, I want them to backfill the top box. This is it this coming week. We are any honey we're going to pull.

We're pulling now. The flow supers are full. wall-to-wall, which is amazing because it wasn't like that last year. So we're going to pull all that off. Flow supers get pulled completely. So I am going to try a couple of them because I'm listening to Steve Rapasky. He is a big commercial beekeeper in my state. He's also a friend.

He did the book called Swarm Essentials. And he does single brood management, and it sounded really convincing. So I am going to try that, not with every hive, some of the hives, and we're going to see how they fare. So packing them down, this I think it's overkill to have. I did this in the past, two deeps, two mediums, what I called super colonies. I thought they were going to do great. None of them ever did well going through winter. It was too large of a colony.

There was too much condensation because there's so much space in there that the bees were not occupying. And it was kind of a mess. So, backing them down is the way to go. So the next question, let me see if I have any, let's see, let's see, I'm moving on the host tops, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Question number seven comes from Richard Turski. It says, should the hive entrance be oriented to the end of the frames

or broadside to the frames, or does it make no difference? The reason I ask is I will be assembling a one queen keeper's hive soon and would like to place the entrance at the back of the hive instead of the side. Thanks. Okay, so this question comes up actually quite a lot. And this is where I really enjoy people like Randy McCaffrey, Dirt Rooster, and Mr. Ed, who is Jeff Horschoff. They're in the south and they do these. Of course, this is different, you know, north-south.

weather extremes. But all I want to know, how big was the entrance, where was the entrance located? And most frequently, the entrance is hitting the broadside of a comb, right? We would say frames, but there are no frames. These are spaces that feral colonies move into and occupy. So we look at bee trees also, the entrance. What is the comb orientation? You know, when we put them together, we have all the frames in a row, and then the entrance, you know, goes right. right between the frames, do you know that's referred to as the cold way or the cold orientation and that when the entrance feeds into the broad side of a frame, that is the warm way or the warm orientation. Isn't that interesting? So the bottom line is, does it matter? Does it make a difference?

No, it doesn't. So it just has to do with configurations that are convenient for the beekeeper. That's why the long laying is a certain way, and the standard laying stroth is a certain way, and the national hive is a certain way. And so entrances coming out the side or the end has made. No difference. The reason it's called the cold way is because the air from the entrance would pass right through between frames and go right up into the colony, or if it were hitting the broad side, that broad side of the cone, then would stop the airflow and prevent it from just transmitting further into the hive without the bee. is helping, I can find no study that shows that it makes a significant difference. Question number eight comes from Alvin.

First have checked, see if anybody has a question. Alvin is in Yonkers, New York. It says, hey, Fred, I have a fireframe nuke that recently superseded their queen. I saw the new queen on Saturday. I first noticed her queen cell around three weeks prior to that. She's still as small, does not appear to be laying. Are there still enough drones around for her to mate? Should I keep feeding or just combine them with another hive at this point?

Okay. No eggs, no brood, queen, doing nothing. If she's truly an unmated queen right now, I do see lots of drones around, but keep in mind, I don't know, what would I do? I personally, this is just my opinion, I would combine them. with another colony, if we've got another colony handy, I'd remove the queen and combine the colonies. It's too late. I can't suggest that.

Somebody else wrote me and said they just bought new queens right now because they had queenless colonies. I would not recommend buying queens, maided queens right now and trying to get them going in a new colony this late in the game. We're into the first week of October next week. So I just wouldn't do it. I would join them and keep them stronger. Okay.

By the way, if anybody has a question for me, all caps. Okay. This one comes from Trish Saunders. This is I'm going into my first winner with your horizontal hive design. By the way, for those of you who want to know what the horizontal hive design is,

go to the way to be.org, click on prints and plans. They're free for you to download. And you can just use it as a start. point or you can build them as is if you want to have an above-average life for your bees you can do things they're free uh you cannot redistribute them however so anyway my brother-in-law use cedar for wood i put a fireframe italian nuke in may south coast of massachusetts and the hive is amazing and right now i have 25 frames in total they have given me 41 pounds of honey i see that you have the

insulation in the cover my question is do you put any extra insulation on the outside. I have a feeling I'm not going to need it, but I wanted to ask your opinion. Right now, I have 14 frames that I will leave for the winter. 11 deep frames of honey. That's too much honey, by the way. Cut them down to about seven or eight is my recommendation.

And harvest the rest of that. Seven deeps with brood eggs and larvae. So the other frames are being built up. I wasn't planning on feeding them over the winter and wondered what you thought of that. okay so here's the thing um i don't insulate the sidewalls because already the long lengths are hives that i my design they are full dimensional lumber so there are two by 12s they're thick enough what did make a fairly dramatic change is when i did two things one i insulated the cover

so i used rigid foam board and then i put billy bubble over that which you know is double bubble and then I created a quilt out of double bubble or double billy bubble. And then I seamed it with the aluminum tape, this stuff. And I extended it out. So when I made the quilt and I made the seams, there was a little compression area and I turned it into a gasket. Because when the top comes down, even though it's really heavy and well made, expertly crafted, when it came together, there were little gaps that air could pass through. So by creating double bubble that went out and acted as a gasket,

zero airflow enhanced insulation cavity, improved wintering. So again, I go back to my beginning explanation where I do these incremental changes, and if what I have in spring is a strong, robust, thriving colony of bees, I don't need to change anything unless it starts to show that what I'm doing is somehow deficient. So if I've hit the sweet spot, the gasket was the sweet spot. Double bubble gasket between the cover and the side walls on the long-langsroth hive, locked it in. That was fantastic.

If I had put brood minders in there, I probably would have had really fantastic information. would have done, like, reported really good stuff. But scaling it back, you know, all those frames, that is a lesson learned. You do not want to leave a whole bunch of surplus honey in a horizontal hive or any other hive. Because when it's that far away from your bees where your brood is, they're not doing anything to keep it clean. So they're not keeping condensation off of it. And so these really freezing nights when it gets, you know, minus 10 or something, And then during the day, it's at 32 to 35, which in midwinter feels really fantastic,

condensation is forming on that capped honey that's far away from your bees. So try to gauge it to where you think your bees are going to be. And then if you need it to, because it is a long hive, if the bees seem to be progressing through the honey, and it's very easy thermally to see exactly where they are, and as you move closer to the farthest reaches where the honey stores are, you could back fill with the cap honey that you've stored maybe in your basement or something until that time comes. So, oh, bees in the abyss.

Oh, by the way, thank you, Morrow, for the time donation. I really do appreciate it. So James Barron, I bought a horizontal hive. What's left? Bees in the abyss. Hi, Fred. Have you used the hive heater? And do you have any opinion on it yet?

hive heater. Oh, oh, oh, the hive heater. Man, I think the guy's name is Steve. The hive heater, which is also a hive dryer. I've not used to it. I never got one. And I think he was in Utah. Am I right? And I met him at the North American Honeybee Expo in January. I will be there also this coming January. So I get to be a presenter this year. But no, I don't have one. I haven't tested one. I haven't got any updated data and it's supposed to talking about moisture in your hive, it gets moisture out of your hive in the upper reaches. So very interesting. Again, you know, a kind of novel approach to drying out your hive and removing moisture

that, again, below the cluster your bees need, above the cluster, we don't want it and don't have one. So this concludes our time today, unless someone has a question. They want to type it in all caps. We're going to wrap it up. Remember the very year, this is crunch time in the United States, northeast and part of the United States. If you have not gotten varroes under control, get your mites under control if you're practicing treatment.

If you're treatment free, you're going to want to make sure and clean your bottom boards and do everything you can to get your mites under control. And we're going to be packing down. So first week of October is it. If swarms show up now, I will explain that what I do is I remove the queen. I contain the swarm overnight without their queen, and then any hive I put that swarm in front of they go into. It works every single time.

So I want to thank you for being here. And if I'm seeing you tomorrow where I'm giving it a presentation, I hope it's a good time. And I hope you don't regret inviting me to be there. So thanks a lot, everyone. Keith for being my bouncer and I hope you have a fantastic weekend with your bees and enjoy beekeeping.