10 Common mistakes new beekeepers make live Q&A

so we've got a bit of a rainy day here at the flow hive office this morning so we're going to be running through ten common mistakes that people make when they're getting started in beekeeping now there's nothing wrong with making mistakes that's how we learn so don't let anyone intimidate you and by all means ask those questions that might seem silly because that's how we learn so there will be opportunities to answer your questions questions in the comments below and we're going to run through the those common mistakes that beekeepers do do when they're getting started we all started off as new beekeepers once so don't worry all you have to do is learn move on and that's how you become a good beekeeper and if we look after the bees and you get that beautiful reward of harvesting honey which is such a magical thing so number one is let's say you've got a swarm or you've got a package and you're you're putting it into your hive and you didn't quite have enough of these frames made up so you just put some of them in you put the lid back on and then you forgot about it in that case what's going to happen is the bees will fill the empty space bees will always feel whatever space they have and they're trying to build it all out so there's about a nine millimeter gap between working surfaces so so if you leave a gap the bees will build all of this random comb and what that'll mean is you've got this big mess that's not serviceable it needs to be serviced for you need to be able to pull out these frames from time to time to look in and see how your bees are doing make sure they're happy and healthy so you want to make sure once you've put your swarm on your package in the box or perhaps you started with a nucleus then all of the frames go in leaving any excess space on these two edges push the frames together there's an important spacing between the frames so make sure they're squeezed nice and tight together any excess space on either side and that way you'll increase the chances of your bees building nice straight frames if you started with a with naturally drawn comb this is especially important if you're allowing them to build their natural comb from the comb guide that we supply okay so you can see they're courtesy of Hillary County a nice full frame so you want to make sure the bees are building it in the frame like that and that takes us to the next point which is having your hive level now if your hive is all wonky like this you haven't bothered to level it what can happen is the base will hang their comb down here and gravity it will take it off the frame and on to the next one so if you're drawing letting the bees build their beautiful natural comb make sure your hive is level in their sideways direction so your bees can build nice and straight down and not connect their wax right on to the other frame so if you have a look here on the flow hive - we have levels in built for you on the side this is the honey harvesting one so that is not so important for the naturally drawn comb that hive can be on a slope in this direction the forwards to back direction it can be on a slope and we need it to be on a slope for honey harvesting however the sideways direction and we'll put a level in the ventilated cover at the back here to find that level all you need to do is get that bubble in the middle and you've got level if you have our classic hype you need to use a conventional level and level the surface before you put your base down so that's a important one to remember a simple thing to do and it will help your bees draw nice straight comb now number three and do put your questions we'll get to them at the end of going through some of these points number three is you are inspecting your brood box you've got your smoker you're in your bee suit you're pulling out these frames and it's a it's a beautiful thing to look in and see what the bees are doing and you're tilted over to have a good look and comb has fallen out and fallen on the ground you only do that once because you feel so bad about all of that hard work falling out of the frame something to look out for on naturally drawn comb is it's very weak especially when they're starting out when they start connecting it to the sides and the edges it gets stronger and you can tip it over but at first it's very fragile so if you're using a plastic foundation or a wax foundation sheet then you can tip it over and if you're letting them draw the comb themselves don't tilt it like that you want to make sure it's always moving in this access if you want to swap to the other side you can simply spin it like that or you can go over like that but you're trying not to tilt it on its side okay number four your smoker going out now when you're using your smoker it's typical that you forget about it a little bit you absorbed in the Beehive this is wonderful world in here you're looking at and yes Moki goes out and when you need it because the bees have started to get a little bit agitated you don't actually have the smoker going and then you've got to take your gloves off and get your lighter out load up that smoker again and it's a typical classic thing that happens in the beginning as you're starting out as you progress you'll learn to just give you a smoker a puff every now and then to keep that smoking going keep it ready to go when you need it okay and that takes us to point number five which is hive positioning so bees GPS locate to the spot so if you put your home somewhere and let's say you haven't thought about it too much and you put your hive right where the entrance is flying past where you might need to walk so let's say you've faced the entrance right here and you need to get past here on a daily basis and you're like why did I put my over there then you go oh well I'll move it across the yard I'll move it just ten meters away that won't matter but because these locate to the exact spot what all the bees are doing is so they'll go out flying for the day and come back to the old spot because they remember where it was you end up with a ball of bees over here but your hive over here and and then you'll need to go through this process of removing all of those bees back to that where you've moved your hive or bringing the hive back again and slowly stepping it meter by meter across the yard so putting your hive in a position to start with it's a good idea thinking about where the flight path is going to go so it doesn't bother anybody and you don't have that situation where bees are randomly flying into guests as they walk down your garden path number six putting your super on too early so it's a wonderful thing to to watch your brood box grow and your bees bees building their comb on the frames and sometimes we can get a little bit impatient and put the super' which is the honey collection box on top here and we put on a bit too early and what that means is your bees will take a while to get going on that super if you're in a warm climate no biggie you can just leave it on there and I'll eventually get to working those frames up here in your flow hive super if it's a cooler climate then you'll probably want to take it off again because if you have too much space it's just a bit harder for your bees to keep the hive warm and keep that just around body temperature kind of temperature in the brood nest that they need to keep their babies happy and healthy and growing so so make sure if you're in those cooler regions to wait till the bottom box is nice and fall you want combs like you can see down here Thank You Hilary for these beautiful pictures and you want lots of bees in your box and all the frames nice and drawn-out like you can see this frame right here so once the bees have finished all of those frames and you've got lots of bees when you open the window when you open the side window you're seeing lots of bees sorry there's no side window on that there blue box when you're looking at the top of the hive you're seeing lots of bees then it's time to put your super on and then your your bees will be far quicker to populate that that super and start waxing it all up and storing nectar in your flow frames next one super on backwards now this is one I see from time to time and I remembered this because a friend of mine sent me a pic of their hive and it's a simple thing but I had this super around in this direction so basically the honey harvesting side was the same as the entrance side easy thing to do but what that omein is either you're trying to harvest honey and the bees are coming out right here so you're trying to put your jar here but the bees are all around it and it's much easier if you're harvesting honey on the other side of the hive away from the entrance also we built the slope either into the base of the classic hive or we've designed it so it slopes back this way so your honey actually won't come out if your box is this way but the slope is that way and you'll end up flooding your hive with honey so make sure to put the super' so the harvesting side is around away from the entrance like that okay the flow frame setup so the next one is when you go to super your home I'm just going to take the the roof off here and the inner cover off there's a few things you need to do to set up your flow frames to make them ready for the bees so I'll show you what to do right here you'll need to take this cap out and insert the key into the top slot and give that a turn what that means is all of the cells in that frame now pushed into the self-formed position ready for the base to whack that up and start their process of storing honey if you've just pulled them out of the box and put them in there's a chance that some of these cells will be in the up Way's position and the base won't actually be able to use that area of the frame so it is a must when you first set up your super key goes into this top slot of each frame turn it to 90 pull it out and that's all you need to do do that to each frame to make sure all the cells in the flow frames are set in the correct position ready for the bees to start working the next thing is the alignment of these frames now this is a common one there's a step here where you want to push the frames forward so they they form a nice window at the front and we've made a little adjustment screw at the back here so you can adjust that out depending on the size of your bee box and what that does is push the frame forward so you want to make sure all the frames are pushed forward and that way it forms a nice flat window that bees are escaping so if you have a look at that here it's nice and flat but if you had forgotten that step then what you'd see is something like this and then when you put the key in and go to turn it you can even get movement across with bees coming out here so make sure you get you adjust these screws at the back or a little hack if you you have anything to adjust them is just to put a stick or something in the back here to push the frames forward so they form a nice flat window like that one of the comb guides from the frames if you've got a spare one of them sitting around it's about the right size you can just put that in that area as well that's a good little tip if you're doing a lot of beekeeping you don't want to adjust those screws okay keep their questions rolling in we will get to answering them as we go I'm just want to cover a couple more points number 9 in a cover in the wrong place so thing that i do see out there is people get their brood box head up which is typically like that when you begin you just begin with the brood box the inner cover on top and the roof on top of that that gives the bees a smaller home as they're starting out then they come along and perhaps they take their inner cover out or perhaps they don't but they then might do something like this put an excluder there that's the grid that stops the Queen getting into your honey storage area so that does need to go in between the two boxes and then the super on top of that so that's not a very good setup because your bees won't be able to come up into your flow frames to start storing honey no biggie if you've done that all you need to do is take your flow hive super often and take this out the Queen excluder goes on top of your brood box like that then your frames which are all now set up nicely go right on top of that and that is the correct setup in a cover on top of that I like to leave the plug in but it's up to you and that will keep the bees in this area instead of up in the roof cavity then the roof goes on on top of that okay now harvesting honey before it's ready and you've been looking after your bees of doing they've been doing well there's lots of flowers around them and bringing in the honey it's all I've been exciting and you can't wait to turn that key and watch the honey flow right out of your home what happens if you turn it a little bit early is the honey might not be quite ready yet and you see it's quite runny in the jar this is nice and thick in the jar but if it's quite runny in the jar it means that you've harvested it a bit early the moisture content could be above that 20% range and your honey might not keep in your jar it will start to ferment you'll see a little bubbles form and will start turning into Mead no biggie if you notice if your honey is a bit runny in your jar just means you need to eat it before it starts to ferment or if you keep it in the fridge it will last longer that way so it's not not a major issue if you're anything like my family you'll eat it quite quickly anyway questions in the comments below there are some common things as said earlier if you make mistakes as you go that's how you learn it's no issue to make mistakes in fact if you've made some that you want to share it'll help other people as they progress in beekeeping so if you've got mistakes that you'd like to put in the comments below let people know your experience and how you fix that experience and that will help others get started that's what we're all about here on the Facebook live stream is helping everybody get their questions answered so they have success in this wonderful thing beekeeping trace here is going to answer the questions that people are putting in the comments below you might recognize her voice if you phoned up the office trace is often here answering the phone calls looking after people looking after their orders and she also keeps the wheels on around the office here so we're very small office at the moment and we're keeping our distance from each other so questions yeah thanks inna God these lots coming in and I've never done this so I'll give up my shot what a common question that's come through from a quite a few people from the UK is when do you know when to put the super' on and when's a good time to start their flow Holmes okay so a good time to put the super' on is when the bread box which is the bottom box here is nice and four you want to have lots of bees in the brood box they've gotten in there they've laid their babies you want to look like that when you open the lid lots of bees the bees have been the Queen's been laying her eggs in the cells the birds been been turning into grubs into and then emerging as young fluffy baby bees and then they will continue to grow and fill all the frames like that with nice wax and honeycomb and you'll find they'll be there will be um brood in the middle and usually honey out towards the edges when you see that they've drawn all of the frames they're working all of the frames that's the time to put the super' on so if you put it on a bit early no big deal if it's a guinea cold climate you can take that box off again if it's in their warm climate you could just leave it on and be patient as the bees grow and move up into the flow super great Diane wants to know she lives in Montebello California and has been thinking of starting a flow home how much space do I need to start with one box okay that's a great question and it's one that a lot of people consider as they get started in beekeeping and the answer is people keep bees everywhere from balconies in Berlin to rooftops in New York - to urban backyards out on farms and it's more about just thinking about where your your bees are going and whether they're going to bother your neighbors jars of honey go a long way if you do find that you're in very close proximity to your neighbor and perhaps some bees are going and buzzing around there light at night or something if they're share in the beautiful spoils that bees bring in generally people are happy about seeing the the bees around and let's say even in springtime if your hive swarms the swarm could go over the neighbors fence and you might then need to go and catch it it's a good time to talk about bees the universe and everything and bring them some honey and hopefully you can keep your neighbors sweet if you are you know real urban environment so you don't need a lot of space and that's a wonderful thing from a very small footprint you can get an amazing amount of real produce in the city people are harvesting amazing honey because people plant flowers all throughout the city and there's a really long season for the bees they can go and get flowers whenever they like and your bees stay happy and healthy whereas in that more natural environment bees this tends to be more of a season so well that's wonderful as well there tends to be longer periods without flowers so your bees will need to survive on the stores they have through those times certainly you get the beautiful honey flavors in the city people plan all sorts of things the bees will go and get those flowers and you'll you'll often get more variety than you do in say cropping lands where you've got big crops of similar things one thing with the flow home is you get to taste all those different flavors because the bees will tend to fill up so their center frames and then move out to the outside ones and more and more flowers and keep keep storing that nectar and creating their honey so you'll get a completely different flavor from this frame to this frame and that's really exciting to me different colors different flavors of honey you can even see that in these jars you've got a lighter one and a darker one here the range is from black that you can't even see through it right to almost clear honey and the flavors to match all of those different colors it's a young beautiful thing to be able to experience that keep the questions coming in we've got time for a few more Beauty got a couple of goodies here a few people asking seeds about moisture in the super and also like if you get that black mold and the super or is there any maintenance that people should be doing on their supers okay if you're seeing a bit of moisture in the super that is normal from time to time depending on what's going on if you have if you've got a humid time around any time but the temperature is dropping what happens is the humid air can't hold as much moisture when it cools down so so cooler air can't hold us much moisture as warm air so if it was humid then it drops down there you'll find that you open the window and you'll get a bit of moisture forming on the inside of the clear window here now bees do rely on if if they're hibernating for the winter for instance they can rely on that moisture as water sauce so it's not necessarily a bad thing and sometimes it's just the case that you have windows so you can notice that this moisture forming on the inside of the hub if you're getting a lot of my shirts really kind of wet then might need to work on making sure your home is nicely sealed under the roof perhaps there's some water getting into your home another thing you could try is a little more ventilation in the bottom but either turning this around so the vents are on top so there's air flow or you could perhaps take this the tray out altogether allowing maximum ventilation and it might clear up some excessive moisture but it's usually a product of the conditions and that the weather patterns fantastic so it's just Renard would love to know what's your favorite flavor of honey favorite flavor of honey I do have many favorites and more than a a having a single favorite the thing I like to do is taste all the different flavors and to be able to share that with friends and family when they come it's a wonderful thing to be able to compare one flavor to another flavor and share that experience it really is a joy so my favorite thing is lots of flavors rather than one single flavor but if I had to pick a flavor of honey that local ironbark here is one of my favorites it's got bright floral notes it's got that Australian eucalypt flavor and it really is a joy to eat that but there's also other ones that come in there's a butterscotch kind of flavor that is absolutely beautiful it's one it's a favor probably the all-time favorite of my sister she's totally obsessed with bees that butterscotch flavor when it comes in haven't worked out where it comes from there are as many flowers in the world as the there's as many flavors in the world as that flowers that produce nectar so it can be hard to pin down but also it becomes quite obvious sometimes when you can smell the flowers and link that to beautiful flavor and aroma that comes out of your harvests there there Fanning their honey and nectar and drying it out and then when you get to eventually taste that there are quite a lot we can pick by even seeing the color of it coming in as to what flower they're going after and it's a beautiful thing to be able to to then start connecting not that trees flowering and I'm seeing the nectar here when you go and smell that flower and you go and go and taste this honey and you start joining the dots and learning more and more I'm learning more and more all the time and it's a real joy to be able to do that time for a couple more questions yeah great a few people asking - about supers and can you stack them more than one hive you certainly can stack supers more than one high it conventionally you'll see even really tall stacks of supers you hear of people in especially in the North American parts where it's colder and perhaps people might stack their their hives 10 supers high and then be harvesting honey in the conventional way with a stepladder climbing up there taking the boxes off for honey dripping all over their head as they then take those boxes off and pack them down for the wintertime now with the flow hive you don't need to store so much honey on the hive you can simply harvest it as you go and your bees will keep replenishing those stores in your flow frames if the flowers are there and your colony is nice and strong so a different strategy is to run a smaller hive and and basically harvest the honey and allow space so you're storing honey in jars on the shelf instead of many boxes in the bee yard so that's a bit of a savings of equipment and also you've got to store all that equipment and you've got to make sure that the vermin doesn't get into all of those frames when you take them off so it's a wonderful thing to be able to just one or two supers and be harvesting honey from that I tend to like to keep my hives a bit smaller and when when the bees really breed up and start spilling out the entrance and and really crowded when you're look in these windows it's a good time to take a split you don't want to to expand your Opry and have another hive than somebody else will love to have your split that you've taken from your home so I tend to just do one breadbox one super however many people especially in the colder regions like to go for four perhaps two boxes and one super or one brood box and tea service it's up to you ask around from conventional beekeeping fraternity you will get the concept that you need more boxes the flow hive allows you to run in a lean away with less boxes and to be able to continually harvest honey and store your honey on the shelf stead of in the hive great question fantastic and Mike wants to know he wants to set up as beehive sort of towards his back Finch and here's a couple of gets and the slotted fence do you think the bees will be after will they fly through the fence or will they come over the fence what do you think okay if the fence is a little ways away from the entrance let's say you know within it within a meter or yard then you'll find the bees will probably fly out of the entrance and double back the bees will do that fine that'll just mean that if you're standing here the flight path will end up being past your head which I don't find a problem but some people might prefer to have the flight path up and away so they're not kind of accidentally running into your hair sometimes and all of that so a slotted fence depend it will depend on the width of the slots bees can fly through things but a typical fence with small gaps like that probably more likely to choose a less obstructed flight path unless you're banging up against it if you're right up against the area perhaps they'll even just walk to the fence and then fly through the gaps you'll have to experiment a little bit what should be see how they behave and then you might need to pull the whole back a little bit further or just turn it to the side a little bit so the bees can get a nice flight path time for one more question one more okay Mary Ann wants to know she's put the super' on and just wondering when should she does she need to inspect her brood box okay great questions there's a lot of people starting out in beekeeping at the moment especially in our northern hemisphere where it's springtime and people are really getting their hives ready putting their bees in their boxes and getting started so as to how often you need to get in here get in your bee suit pull out these frames and have a look depends a little bit on your location so here in Australia the the it's much much less demanding because we don't have the varroa mite now the varroa mite is a little tiny red light that gets on to the bees and if they breed up too much and there's too many in your hive it can really weaken your colony so that will be a reason why you need to get in there and check on how your bees are going more often in the summertime in in those areas where you have the varroa mite so you need to make sure the levels are low so the bees can get about their business and store their honey here in Australia there the way that people tend to do it is they will schedule in at least a few routine brood inspections to check for pests and disease by pulling out these frames say three times a year if you see the numbers dropping you see something you miss that's another time when you need to get into your hive pull out the frames and have a look and see what's going on I've got lots of videos showing you how to do that and we also have the beekeeper Dog which is a new initiative was set up which is a a online course to take you from a beginner right through to having quite expert knowledge and we've got many experts of the world contributing to that so that you get the best information because here for instance we don't have the varroa mite so there's lots of great information coming in for the things you might find in your area and and what you need to do in your area so the best information is going to come from your local beekeepers as to how often you'll need to expect and what pests and disease you might need to look out for thank you very much for tuning in tune in again same time next week put in the comments below what you'd like us to cover and hopefully we can answer all your questions so you can get on and have a great time beekeeping and enjoy harvesting honey after you've been looking after your bees and it's just such a wonderful thing to have that

Channel: Flow Hive

Views: 58,763

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Id: iNLx8dUZKUc

Length: 32min 50sec (1970 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 28 2020