How Did Horizontal Beehive Do in Winter?

[@marklunny9662]

I've just found your channel and subscribed. I am a beekeeper from Scotland. I built my own long hive in 2018 so a lot of what you are showing us the same as I have been through. I am keeping 2 colonies in one long hive but we need to see if they survive the winter. I love your comment about our own stories. I decided to tell my long hive story on Instagram!

[@menace2584]

Unless you have a honey flow on, you need to feed hive two and three. Remove queen excluders on hives one and three. May to move some honey frames from the long hive to hive three. Good video.

[@daddykirbs]

I think I need to remove queen excluders before it gets cold. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[@linr7342]

I have both Horizontal Hives and langstroths. We put 1/4" insulation sandwiched into the walls and roof. OUr bees in the horizontals come our far better in winter, bees love them. You don't have to break apart their homes every time you get into them. You can easily inspect all your boxes even when you have heavy flow. On lang stacked most will not inspect the brood because they have to lift heavy boxes.

[@hectorbarrios8178]

The third Hive is starving badly you need to feed it at soon as possible. Protein and sugar. You don't have too much time those new baby bees will need food.

[@fergieferguson2457]

Agree with Dennis!might also add pollen feeder!idk about Texas but we’re I live in Tennessee I run pollen feeders all winter open feeding all winter with 2:1 sugar syrup even Thoe I keep dry sugar on top,but in tn it could be 25 one day 70 the next so when my Bee’s come out for cleansing flight they also got something else to feed on. Just my 2 cents works for me!!but as the old saying goes put 20 beeks in a room ask a ? And get 49 different answers...good luck

[@bobwebber8521]

3 things. Wide stabilizers added to bottom of legs. Holes in end of lid. And of course the horse poo. When you get to standardize all your gear you will find things a lot easier. Personally I can't help but feel your colonies could be condensed down a bit to make them stronger as there is a lot of empty frames.

[@PaulRobbins-uu2ew]

I concur & suspect that these few bees are consuming all of their resources trying to heat a mansion, when they should be in a 2br house.

[@user-bi5if1ip6t]

Awesome video. Love those bees. Thanks Blake 🇺🇸👍

[@martysgarden]

That's exciting,,the first Bee video of 20/20. I have Australian native stingless Bees in my small backyard to help with pollination. I love those Bees. All the best with your channel this year. Marty

[@daddykirbs]

How cool! Native stingless bees sound very interesting. Thanks Marty :)

[@terry2346]

Coming from Minnesota I don't think I would call what you have Winter! More like a typical Fall day. :) Fun to watch and dream of when Spring comes! 21.19 if you are primarily interested in the long hive.

[@gwenellis625]

LOVED YOUR VIDEO.. BUZZ BUZZ FROM NORTH QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA.. PS NO SHIT CRUEL WINTERS HERE...WE ARE LUCKY....

[@bpapiary7162]

Your 2nd hive either has drone laying queen or laying workers. Those are drone eggs in the queen cups and will be torn down shortly. You should go back through and look very hard for a queen. If one is in there, pinch her and add a new mated queen ( which probably isn't available) or wait 2 days then add a frame with eggs and don't open it for 30 days. If there is no queen then you have laying workers which is a tough fix. Never use excluders over the winter. The queens can't move through them with the cluster and are left to freeze or starve. In Texas you probably only need 1 deep but 2 is good. 2 deeps plus a medium is complete overkill. Put the supers on once both bottom boxes are full of brood and bees. After winter you may want to put the bottom deep on top of the upper deep because they like to move up. I live in Iowa where we have much colder winters and run screened bottom board with a mite count slide in and they survive just fine. As for the under drawn comb, don't add comb until the boxes are 70 to 90% drawn, then, once weather permits, checkerboard the undrawn frames to the brood chamber. Hives 1 and 3 looked good. I'm not sure about horizontal hives but I do know that up here most people run langstroth hives.

[@thuffman44]

Lang Hive 1 - Good you found brood!! Great you observed that the bees are foraging by bringing back pollen (that's always a good sign) Lang Hive 2 - Lots of empty comb! Good seeing you give plastic foundation a chance by rubbing bits of wax onto it (nice technique). GREAT that you inspected all the way to the bottom box! Likely they are queen-less, but who knows; they could pull through. Great choice condensing the hive down into a single box! Lang Hive 3 - Decent food stores in upper box. Lots of empty (and old) foundation in the bottom box. Appeared to have only a couple frame of brood, so I would have gone with your 'gut instinct' and reduced them down as you were mentioning. That would have allowed you to pull out those unused frames with old/dark black foundation. Its not a big deal, since you can always tweak during next inspection Long-Lang (horizontal hive) - Good to see they are maintaining with a few frames of brood and plenty of food stores!! All in all; I'd say your bees are being 'typical' for "cold" season time of year in your area. It's normal for queen to slow way down in production. With this crazy weather; there's no doubt that the bees will go into high gear in due time! You do very well inspecting your hives considering everything else you got going on with the family and farm!!! Thank you for sharing your progress. I enjoyed watching ✌️🐝🐝🐝

[@tycreps6407]

I'm thankful for both of you gentlemen! Thank you for sharing and helping us all along!

[@daddykirbs]

Thank you Tim for taking the time to make those points! I really appreciate you being in the Fanily and being so willing to contribute.

[@daddykirbs]

@@tycreps6407 Tim is a pretty cool beekeeper :)

[@beezapapiculture9418]

Very instructive! Thanks !

[@pnwRC.]

Great tip on the horse dung! I may try that out.

[@TastyandEasy]

I’m new here with pleasure my friend .. congratulations for your channel very beautiful!! See you 🔔🔔🔔 regards from Italy Tuscany..

[@christinawinters6844]

Screened bottom boards are not a problem for bees. Im in Wagington state and use screen bottom boards all year and leave them open all year. I find it doesnt affect them any different then the few that i have on solid bottoms cause i ran out of screened ones.

[@spex357]

Like the addition to the Legs.

[@hankdoughty4375]

Might want to put a frame of brood from another hive i then colony you put down to one box. If the queen is dead you may have a laying worker which won't produce a queen.

[@twistedtreehomestead904]

We will be starting a homestead, I’d like to get horizontal hives. How often do you check on your bees? I have a lot to learn about bees and looking forward to having them.

[@daddykirbs]

In the Winter I don't check often due to unfavorable weather, but in the Spring through Fall I try to check once a week or so depending on the activity of the hives.

[@twistedtreehomestead904]

Thank you for sharing and responding!

[@suzanneburns6130]

I did find it amusing when you said you were going to take the top box and let it be. (Bee).

[@daddykirbs]

Hehe... I noticed that more in editing the video and wondered if anyone would comment on that.

[@cs-mh2dh]

I never knew anyone to mix hives like this.

[@linr7342]

I have stacked langstroth, horizontals and adding Layen's this yr. Love my horizontals over stacked any day.

[@misseileen6012]

Can you post a link where you got Your been outfit from

[@jennyhemfjell8876]

did u see that queen cup on frame 6? on the second hive.

[@daddykirbs]

In the bottom box or top?

[@daddykirbs]

Oh wait... I don't think there were closeups of the frames in the bottom box. I guess I missed that queen cup.

[@jennyhemfjell8876]

@@daddykirbs bottom brood box at ca 19:04. i see a queen cup. not a finnised one but a beginning of one.

[@daddykirbs]

@@jennyhemfjell8876 Oh yes! that one I should have mentioned too... it's old.

[@prlsvs]

Are you open feeding? If not where could they be getting nectar from?

[@daddykirbs]

We do see more of our late winter flowers in bloom, including fruit trees, mountain laurel, agarita and our first sighting of bluebonnets. All of these flowers are good for the health and early build-up of our colonies. None of these will produce honey for our consumption, but they will produce honey and pollen that is good for baby bees to eat. (that was copied from an email that I get from Gretchen Bee Ranch. They are a local beekeeping couple that shares information to the local beekeeping community)

[@kyledaugherty2]

Your queen may have froze to death because she got stuck below the excluder, while the rest of the cluster moved up to the honey box.

[@daddykirbs]

Oh jeez... that makes sense. Some lessons are tough. Thanks for pointing that out.

[@m.scotthern6306]

Exactly, remove super and excluded after summer death but before golden rod bloom. They will reduce numbers and fill the deeps with winter storage. The short frames of supers don't support the cluster well and wont have the winter bee brood.

[@jeffcotton526]

It is too early in Central Texas for any nectar flow this time of February. Some pollen available now but not much. The honey you're seeing is from last year probably. Didn't see much of pollen in the cells though, might want to consider feeding some dry pollen substitute.

[@donbearden1953]

Blake, do you ever feed your bees pollen substitute or pollen patties?

[@daddykirbs]

I have sometimes fed sugar syrup, but never pollen patties.

[@donbearden1953]

Blake - I’ve always fed dry sugar in the winter as a backup even if there is very much honey, this year I did that again but in early January I started feeding the pollen patties and my hives are busting at the seams with bees. I have double deep 8 frame boxes and every frame is covered with bees. I going to start splitting them as soon as I see a drone or Queen cell to keep them from swarming. So far I have not lost a hive! Good luck!

[@nannygranny9534]

Do you possibly build long hives for sale. I am really interested.

[@daddykirbs]

I had a friend build these for me. Someday when my barn is finished and I have space for a workshop I will certainly build them.

[@nannygranny9534]

Daddykirbs Farm - A Homesteading Story Do you think your friend would build me a couple until you get set up?

[@bcrouch2626]

Horizontalhives.com has free designs or Dr Leo will sell built ones . He introduced them here along with no chemicals . Check him out

[@melissawarfield]

Looks awesome for honey. I don't know too much about beekeeping. How long have you been doing beekeeping? Great video!

[@daddykirbs]

I still consider myself somewhat of a beginner since I don't have the time to dedicate to more education, but I have been practicing now for 7 years or so.

[@Mondo257]

Love the video keep it up

[@daddykirbs]

Thanks Jack

[@cammierobertson942]

Where can we buy your honey

[@bcrouch2626]

Brood and eggs are done in front of the opening

[@jspacone]

I was struck when you said that you forget to remove the screen bottoms every year. I don’t know squat about bees, but allow me to offer you a bit of wisdom from my line of work that could carry over well into your beekeeping - checklists. Checklists ensure I don’t miss a step. And if I DO miss a step, or if I do things in a suboptimal order, then I change the checklist. Sounds like you could use an “end of the year” checklist. I enjoy your videos!

[@kyleroberts7813]

This comment pissed me off and honestly i dont even know why... Its really good advice that I follow constantly.

[@m.scotthern6306]

I wouldn't want to run that many empty frames. They should finish drawing out the combs completely before adding another frame. It leaves a lot of empty space for hive beetles and they have to keep it warm.

[@hectorbarrios8178]

I think you are a queenless in the second hive, and you have a worker laying eggs.

[@goodcitizen3780]

Consider moving honey on that long lang hive. I'd move a chunk of it back and slip in some drawn empties like you did on the other side. Going into spring these long hives can get bound up with honey too close to the brood nest. You are coming along and I think you will love the long boxes. I didn't see that you had an excluder frame in your first long box video. Please consider using the excluder frame and open the middle entrance as soon as the flow starts. You will find that your production is greatly increased over this next season. Also, when running excluders on the vertical langs please consider using a top entrance. It is really the only best way to use the excluder. Yes, there is the chance of a virgin queen coming back mated into the top entrance but no more really than her returning under the top of a no top entrance excluded hive. I've been enjoying watching your progress. Thank you for the videos

[@daddykirbs]

Thank you for those observations and tips. I really appreciate it.

[@nannygranny9534]

Keep me in mind when you do.

[@christinawinters6844]

Hives with less be coverage you can consider consolidating down to one box. They will work more efficiently with less space thats not being used. Check out demorilized bees. Interesting topic and literature out there.

[@weetreebonsai]

tweeted

[@daddykirbs]

Thank you weetree!

[@yomamadum3711]

First comment

[@daddykirbs]

Way to go!

[@nomerc3608]

@ 20 minutes in I had to stop it.... Incompetent is all I can say!

[@michaelobrien4644]

A strange thing to say mate you would know that he always says he is learning how to keep bees so if you are so smart why don't you show us peasants how it;s done or are you just a mouth if not i would love to learn from a true master so what do you have to say Dip Stick are you going to educate us or not cheers .

[@Bayoucdl]

NoMerc that was harsh! Instead of criticizing him and all us newbies how about you educate. That’s how we improve. Don’t bee a jerk.

[@bcrouch2626]

Better hope you don't get African killer bees. Arizona only has the killer bees and have trouble with them.

[@justbill62]

Don;t open hives, it is winter leave them alone. No need to examine now. Iff you need info look at the landing board for info

[@goodenoughhoney1667]

Thanks for the information. I have Apimaye beehives come checkout my KZbin videos n Lemmy no what u think. Thanks for all your content keep it up have a good one!!

[@highkicker11]

Why are you working bees when you dont even know the temp, i mean working bees below 50 degrees F or 10 degrees C is bad for brood and the winter bees needed to keep the colony alive. They have a tough enough job keeping the hive at temp as is. Then you opening it up means major heat loss

[@daddykirbs]

It was well over 50 degrees. Probably over 70 that day.

[@highkicker11]

@@daddykirbs i hope your right, cause i think its a shame if a colony dies.

[@cindiferguson9775]

I assure you he's right. It's Texas! Lol. We didn't really have a winter this year.

[@highkicker11]

@@cindiferguson9775 well i dont know for sure but i think februari is still a winter month. At least up north winter last 3 months and thats from the 22ste of december. You know the winter solstice

[@cindiferguson9775]

@@highkicker11 February SHOULD be a winter month, but it has been exceptionally warm down here this year. I'm pretty sure we'll have another cold spell, but I'm sure it won't last long.