Spring Swarm Prevention | Inspecting all hives for queens and swarm cells.

[@KenBlackRifleAmerica]

Looking forward to Spring my friend. New video will be up for tomorrow morning. Have a great evening! See you for coffee... BEE Happy ☕👍🐝🐝

[@BugFarmerBees]

Hi Ken. I am having my coffee now and answering comments. Your video is in this mornings queue after the news :-)

[@KenBlackRifleAmerica]

@@BugFarmerBees 👍👍

[@MountainTopBeekeeping]

13:28 purple hive Unmarked beautiful looking queen in middle of the frame 16:16 what a brood pattern ❤❤

[@BugFarmerBees]

Thanks :-)

[@MountainTopBeekeeping]

@BugFarmerBees your welcome

[@apveening]

Queen cup at 14:05 (Purple hive)

[@BugFarmerBees]

Thank you. I will get ion the hive tomorrow and wipe it out. No swarms for me this year :-)

[@zulikkowalski3547]

I might have seen your purple queen at 13:37, in the middle towards the lower right. There was also a second queen cup on the sage hive

[@apveening]

I think so too.

[@BugFarmerBees]

I will go back and look again. When I looked the first time it looked like a big drone but I may ave been mistaken. Thank you for your keen eye. :-)

[@maryjanebeatty6030]

Beautiful bees! Thank you for sharing part of your day! Have a great weekend:)

[@BugFarmerBees]

Hi MJ. You too.

[@icymountainhoney9940]

Love me some Bug Farmer videos. Good job sir.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Thank you. I live me some people who love Bug Farmer videos. :-)

[@Numismaniac_Canada]

You were definitely a braver man than I am! Great video!😅

[@BugFarmerBees]

Get some bees. You will be amazed how brave you can be :-)

[@BrianCooper901]

Good video! I never heard it called a teacup before I like that. I haven't had a chance to go through all of my hives yet but we are getting close to jumping into all of them when the 10 day forecast looks promising.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Next wek we will go through the back row and add supers :-). The flow has begun whee I am :-)

[@BlanchardsBees]

I do like the traditional wood frames myself but I've slowly been buying more plastic. Less break. Did you throw that pollen sub on the ground? Bet the SHB larvae would love it!😬🫨I plan on spreading my first original Queen Lattice genetics around the yard more as well this year. Genetics have been around 3 years might as well go for 4.❤️🐝Weather has been crazy here.

[@BugFarmerBees]

I am starting a new channel called the Beetle Farmer :-) It's nice when you have a queen that is producing so much you want to clone her. :-)

[@BlanchardsBees]

@@BugFarmerBees definitely for the survival traits for the weather up here. ❄️🐝

[@williamkn621]

I need to catch some swarms, higher loss in Texas plus growing my nieces beeyard

[@BugFarmerBees]

Lossed stink but caching swarms is always awesome. I have unsuccessfully tried to catch swarms for years and never seem to pull it off. maybe 2023 will be the year :-)

[@strugglingbeekeepermarkcot9642]

They are looking good my friend so far up here in West Virginia my four hives are still alive.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Hi Mark. It's always nice to hear from you friend. If I were a bee I would bee happy every day to wake up in one of your hives in such a beautiful location. The nice weather should be happening for you too. This will be a great bee season for us in the south/midwest this year. I can feel it in my bones :-) Take care buddy.

[@DaemonLlama76]

I'm loving that you are coming into spring, and ramping up for bee season. But it also means winter is not far away for us here in Oz. Question. Have you ever moved a hive of bees more than 3 feet, but less than a mile? I had to relocate a hive on my suburban block, and there was a fair bit of carnage with the move. :(

[@BugFarmerBees]

Yes I have moved a hive across the yard. The trick is seal and move the hive at duck when all of the bees are home. After you move the hive lay some branches or brush against the front of the hive. This should force the bees to re-orient to their new location because outside of their hive looks different. I have had success every time I have tried this. Just know some of the bees will fly back to the old location so it might be a good idea to put a small box that loos different from the current hive with a frame in it in their old location. You can then capture the stragglers and move them back to their new location. After a few days the should all be oriented to the new location. Good luck.

[@DaemonLlama76]

@@BugFarmerBees thank you. I've set up a nuc box where the hive used to be and just moved a second lot of stragglers back to the new location. Hopefully the re-orientate soon, as the weather is starting to cool here.

[@apveening]

And another cup at 19:55.

[@BugFarmerBees]

I will be getting in there tomorrow to wipe it out. Thank you.

[@michaelfike7542]

They have swarming on their mind for sure. Hopefully they don't. We went from 85°here yesterday to the high of 50° today crazy weather. 🤪

[@BugFarmerBees]

I just want to make sure all of my bees stay in the hive at least until the flow is in high gear. If I can make it that far I think they will decide to stay.

[@michaelfike7542]

@Bug Farmer hopefully the weather will bring it on early. Swarm traps are out and I'm ready for it all. Have a great weekend and stay safe. ❤️🐝

[@ChuckFresh]

Very cool setup. I don't think I'll ever be man enough to stand up to angry bees!

[@BugFarmerBees]

You should get a hive or two down there. You can certainly do it. It looks much scarier than it really is. Anyway, What is your honey situation? If you nee more let me know. I'll send a few bottles your way to get you through the year. Tell your wife that my wife loves her cricket videos. Stay in touch and let me know about your honey sitch. Take care Mr. Sting-O-Meter :-)

[@zulikkowalski3547]

I found my queen dead on the cinder block outside my hive last week 😞. It's too cold here to go digging around, it was my biggest hive. They requeened themselves late last summer, I'm hoping there were 2 queens in there going into winter.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Wow. I hope there was a new queen in the box. Maybe as soon as the weather breaks for you you can inspect and possibly give the hive eggs from another hive to get them started. I really do hope it all works out.

[@BackyardBeesNC]

I'd probably mark those first couple hives for requeening.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Hey buddy. Great to hear from you again. It has been a while. How are the bees? Are you still selling queens? Maybe I can add one of your queens to my apiary this year. Anyway, you are correct. I do think the white hive is due for a new queen. I will be working to move the pink queens genetics throughout the bee yard this summer. Those are my plans but that doesn't mean the bees will agree :-) Anyway, It's great to hear from you and I hope all is going well. Take care.

[@ME_MeAndMyBees]

Hey Bug Farmer. . . Can you remind us Viewers why you use 'Heaters' in your Bee Hive ? (Barns.) I thought Bee Colonies should 'Hunker Down' as Autumn into Winter occurs. . . And have enough Resources to last these x4 Months or so. If you 'Heat' does that no keep the Hive to Active and thus Run through their Stores quickly (?) Can you explain your Hive Heater Remit. Think I would blow up my Garden having any 240 Volt (UK) Cables all over the place. 🙄 Am always amazed what US Folk have plugged in despite weather. (Guess 120 Volt is less Zappy ! ) We are getting an odd day of Sun, Dry Flying conditions. (Only about 10C / 50F at the moment) but my Bees are Alive ! And liking time out of their Hive confinement. 🙃 We are just about to start Spring in mid March onwards here in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Hope to Raise my own Queens and have a few more Colonies to increase my Apiary. Any Honey is a side benefit. Am only a Hobbist entering my x 3rd Year being a Beek. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

[@BugFarmerBees]

Hello and thank you for the question. I initially built the hive heaters to insure the survival of my bees in the non-insulated langstroth hives over the winter. They work well and keep the hives at +/- 3F degrees of my set temp which is generally 72 degrees. Its counterintuitive to what one might think but the bees actually use less resources during winter in a heated hive vs. a non-heated hive. The bees do not need to generate their own heat therefore consume less food. They don't snack on their stores because they are board like we humans do when we are idle. As for the Bee Barn heaters, well, they don't really need them but I am a hobbyist and figure what the heck. The heat lamps in the bee barns are much smaller than those for the old configuration and over the winter rarely come on. In short, I am a tinkerer and just can't help myself :-) All of my power is run correctly in plenum cable, grounded, and terminated in outdoor receptacles. So I am pretty safe. It's really no different than outdoor Christmas lights. Thank you for the great question and for stopping in to have a look at my videos. I really appreciate it and love hearing from our brothers across the pond. I hope to see you in future comments. Take care.

[@daverowden-RowdyBeeFarms]

Are you going to build more barns. Thought I saw a queen cell on purple hive. Thanks for the video

[@BugFarmerBees]

I do plan on building two more. I have begun work on them but I have a ton going on right now. I will be revisiting the purple hive because many people have called out that queen cup and I really don't want a swarm. I'll be plucking it out of the hive tomorrow :-) Thanks for stopping in to have a look and taking the time to drop me a comment. I really appreciate it. Take care.

[@rtxhoneybees]

Purple hive had a crazy amount of walking drones and a huge population. That one is going to swarm on you if you don't intervene.

[@BugFarmerBees]

I am going to intervene today. after seeing the comments I realize I missed a bunch of queen cups. Thanks for the heads up. Take care.

[@damneighbor1566]

Do the Waggle Dance!

[@BugFarmerBees]

I am doing it right now and my wife is looking at me funny. Thanks for stopping in to have a look. Take care.

[@damneighbor1566]

@@BugFarmerBees well I was hoping you would record it so all the kids could do it as a Tic Tok dance!

[@clarkkent7973]

Do you wish you hadn't removed the queen cup from the white hive? It seems like they needed a new queen!

[@BugFarmerBees]

No. I will be replacing her with a queen from the pink Crynock hive. The Crynock girls are awesome and I want to spread her genetics around the bee yard. I will be checking in on the white hive soon to see how she is doing.

[@brianhoffman500]

Is it possible the white hive already swarmed?

[@BugFarmerBees]

I guess that is a possibility but there should have been at least a virgin queen in the hive. I will go back and check on them in a week and let you know.

[@brianhoffman500]

@Bug Farmer Thank you. I really enjoy your videos.

[@a.j.stenbeck1852]

What type of bee was that? A "Crynock"?

[@BugFarmerBees]

A Crynock bee in the pink hive. They are a wonderful strain of bees that were provided to me a couple of years ago and they just work, work, and work some more. The Crynock bees are a very robust line of bees.

[@sidelinerbeekeeper]

You got offended by the "missing" plexiglass. Lol. Bees can easily survive in that hive.

[@BugFarmerBees]

Offended? I don't recall being offended by anything. The fact that a main feature of the hive was poorly executed and incomplete is a huge issue that can't be ignored. Yes, bees will eventually live in that box but not before I either permanently seal the glass-less windows or cut and install my own plexiglass.

[@iacobciuchete6600]

m8 stop giving advice you dont kow beekeeping at all....

[@BugFarmerBees]

The only advice I give is to learn from my mistakes. I do appreciate you providing me the opportunity for anyone reading the comments to reiterate that point. Thanks for being out there to keep me straight. I appreciate you stopping int o have a look and taking the time to share your opinion with all of us. Take care and I hope to see you in future comments. Take care.