Randy Oliver on Spring Management

Randy Oliver presentation on Spring Buildup, including:
- Transition from winter bees to summer bees
- Colony development follows pollen/nectar availability
- Nurse bees run the show!
- Large winter cluster = faster spring buildup
- Nutrition needs and challenges
- Health challenges
- Swarm impulse triggers & prevention
- Splitting options
- Raising your own queens & making nucs
- Mite resistant stock on the horizon?

[@jimsbees5963]

Randy Oliver is the GOAT! Whenever I hear someone wants to get into keeping bees I say learn the basics then read and watch everything Randy has out there. Thank you very much for sharing this video. I continually pick up on things every time he presents. Great questions at the end as well! Wish you all in Alaska a great season!!

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks so much - and good luck with your bees as well.

[@blackberry5908]

Amazing presentation. Randy Oliver should write a book. Thanks for the upload.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

I think he's awesome, too.Thanks for watching!

[@hillkid4mountains]

Great video. It is awesome to see beekeepers from different areas within North America reaching out and seeking knowledge from somebody who has spent most of his lifetime working with these fascinating insects, keeping a commercial honeybee operation, studing their biology along with the inner workings of a hive, and applying and sharing his findings in this area of beekeeping for resistance stock. So much to learn and apply to all of our own apiaries and environment. Thanks Anchorage Backyard Beekeeping and Randy Oliver and Golden West Bees of Northern California. Thanks 🐝

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks for watching!

[@lenturtle7954]

Well its absolutely true the longer and more you know about bees the more unanswered questions you have about them . In sask we dont pull nucs to slow swarming as much as we use brood manipulation in order to keep the queen in laying space . Our season is short and we need huge hives for our massive honey flows in early July .

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Great example of how local climate matters. The Saskatoon average high (May - August) is 15 degrees (F) warmer than Anchorage! And our swarm season and nectar flow mostly overlap, so it's dicey (especially for backyard beekeepers) to build monster colonies without swarming. Our season is short enough that a queen right split in mid-June barely impacts honey production, because the nectar flow is generally over by the end of July.

[@wstepnout7215]

Love the presentation! Randy is a wonderful source of knowledge with research and documentation to back it up. Thanks from eastern Canada.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Totally agree. Good luck with your bees this year.

[@brianschrombeck7313]

Excellent information! Thankyou for all you do Randy

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks for watching!

[@kellipuryear995]

Awesome. I'm so jealous. My walkaways made new queens and cast small swarms.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Sometimes the bees cooperate, sometimes they don't. One of my mentors likes to say that they read different beekeeping books than we do ....

[@atlas4225]

A very clean interview and you definitely brush up on his material as your summary questions are on point. Well done! Thank you for the content.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

[@lenturtle7954]

There should be a lot more beekeepers listening closely to Randy . The method of rearing large colonies is critical to having large honey crops ,which is honey per hive and is how to be financially viable if you are selling honey .

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Agree completely for commercial beekeepers and extremely experience backyard beekeepers. For less experienced beeks, the guarantee of not swarming outweighs the cost of losing a swarm (and a viable queen). For them a queen right split in mid-June guarantees they keep all of their bees in their boxes, and going into winter with 2 colonies makes it much more likely that they'll come out of winter with one. With good gear and methods (and a bit of experience), they can get both through, then sell one the next spring (local nucs go for about $375!).

[@framcesmoore]

This was really great. Randy did a wonderful job. I live in virginia. our flow has started, I am trying to keep them in the box. Anyway thanks so much for posting this. Have a blessed week

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks for watching, and good luck to all of us keeping them in the box!

[@lenturtle7954]

I think everyone is looking for a pure mite resistant strain ,however adding those genetics to exiting colonies could produce better or worse genetics and many inbetween . Diversity of the mongrels may be the best way to ensure species survival . Randys extrodinary effort im sure will succeed at improving the species even if you buy his queens as replacements year after year to hybridiz your own stock . And culling out the failures . You dont lose the hive you only need to replace its queen with one of his queens and away it runs !!!

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

I believe mite resistant stock is the future. When more colonies survive winter, commercial beekeepers make more money (and spend less on treatment) and backyard beekeepers don't give up in frustration after losing colonies several years in a row. There are many apiaries with stock that is so resistant that their "treatment" for high mite counts is to re-queen, not treat. It will take years, but I hope to get there myself.

[@ac5040]

Great video, thanks! I am on a Hillside in ANC and happy to say that all four of my hives made it through the winter well (so far), with no treatments. It remains to be seen where things go from here. We have several feet of snow as of April 14th, but the bees already had their cleansing flights a week or two ago.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Congratulations!

[@lenturtle7954]

Great information thank you

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Thanks so much, and thanks for watching.

[@williambates6811]

Great Video. I live in southern Maine and southern packages and Nucs are brought in every spring by the truck load. How much of the yearly dead out hives are from bees that are not adapted to the environment?

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Great question. I haven't bought bees for 4 years, so all of my colonies are theoretically have the genetics to survive Alaska winters. But I still have a few dead outs a year. It could be that my virgin queens mated with non-winter hardy drones with dominant traits, but it could be several other things, too.

[@Dan.Parker]

It'd sure be great if more people considered the impact large-scale commercial farming has on agriculture and Nature in general. All the chemicals and diseases and problems it introduces, these government agencies should be regulating in order to preserve nature, yet they are doing the very opposite and destroying everything.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

I'm not sure which chemicals you're referring to, but I generally agree that we should be way more transparent about the health risks of herbicides and pesticides.

[@Dan.Parker]

@@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping @56:30 you begin to talk directly about the pesticides and chemicals for instance, yet this is the same throughout all agricultural fields.... cattle, poultry, produce, apples, you name it, it is being destroyed by chemicals, engineering, and mass production.

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

@@Dan.Parker thanks for clarifying. I think we're on the same page.

[@tachedegraisse1303]

Is there a reason for you to put your five-frame nuc in five-frame boxes instead of directly putting them in ten-frame boxes?

[@anchoragebackyardbeekeeping]

Absolutely! Putting them in a nuc to start gives them less space to heat. They can keep it warmer with much less effort, which means they'll build up much faster.