Beehives LOADED With Honey!

so it has been about a week since we built that new Pig feeder let's go see how it's doing so they have not knocked it over which is a good start and this is about a week's worth of use here and very very little waste on the ground I mean there's some there's some right over here so yeah they're wasting some but I really think in the grand scheme of things that's not too bad so it looks to me like they're feeding off of this side of the barrel and kind of ignoring that side because look at how much it's piled up they're feeding it out or it's it's it's coming out on this side and I think they're not fooling around with this side and I think that's because they've got a little more room over there to eat than they do over here it rained last night and it seems to be pretty dry too there's a little moisture in places but not bad not bad enough that they're not going to eat it of course they'll eat just about anything anyway so slightly damp food is not going to stop them can I have this can I have this please thank you are you stuck in the mud are you stuck in the hog Waller pick your right foot up okay oh you are stuck there we go you're welcome so I think we can call this one a success Are the chickens Broody? I don't know. I think she was just trying to lay an egg I think she's trying to lay an egg too the meat chickens are finally gone and I learned some pretty important lessons on meat chickens this year the main thing that I learned is that 50 meat chickens is just way too much I had these aspirations of growing enough chickens for ourselves for meat and making enough to sell as well but uh that just really didn't work out 50 chickens is a lot of chickens to process by myself I also learned that a dog kennel makes a really really good chicken tracker it's super nice being able just to open a door and walk right in without really having to duck down and lean over and get all fussy with it I also learned that chicken processing knives are incredibly sharp I sliced the snot out of this finger at one point and that delayed butchering for at least a week hahaha uh we both we've got another batch of meat chickens coming next week it'll be 30 this time and it's going to be a whole lot better than 50. I think from here on out I'm going to keep it down to two to three batches per year maybe 15 to 20 a piece just for our own personal use this is one of the fields that we planted on the last video and you can see some of it is already starting to come up here but it has been very very dry so most of it has not sprouted yet there's a P right there not a lot of sprouts going on just yet this is the worst part of the Year for me with food plots because I plant it and I want to see like instant results but I have to wait so my best bet is just to not look at it for like a month but I probably won't be able to do that diesel Sprout as long as they've got ground contact having a little bit of dirt on top definitely helps but it's drizzling a little bit right now so if they get enough water on them they'll go one of my goals today was to get into those beehives and see how the honey production is coming along I think they've been bringing back nectar for at least a month now but it's rainy and it's overcast and this is not a good day to break into the hive so we may have to extend this one into tomorrow I want to mow out the trees that you see behind me here but first I want to take this entire front end loader off on the last video we took just the bucket off before we tilled up or Harriet up the fields for the food plots but I still got a whole lot of Bounce in this whole front end loader system and I feel like that's really rough on all of the joints and connections and so forth so let's just take the entire thing off that's going to make it more maneuverable and it's going to make it less a lot less wear and tear I think the only downside is I'm not going to be able to move trash and debris out of the way as I go along as I don't have the grapple It looks funny. So I want to mow out these pines and I've got other stuff to mow as well and this just makes the tractor way more maneuverable and helps to reduce wear and tear on all the articulations on that front end where it connects to the Tractor because things just bounce around and I one thing that I really hate is to see that loader are just bouncing around it seems like it's just destroying itself That's gonna do it for this chore I could definitely spend another two hours out here probably and get all of these little spots between the trees but it's really just not worth the fuel and plus that gives the rabbits a place to hide from the Hawks but it looks a lot better out here of course it doesn't look perfect because of all of that stuff but it's accessible now I can get in here if I need to get in here and uh yeah this is way better didn't puncture any tires on the tractor which is always a plus and the best part is I didn't run over any yellow jacket nests which is really good um let's go check on the bees as far as honey production goes I mentioned earlier in the video that I'm pretty sure that the bees started bringing nectar back into the hives probably a month or so ago and these are some very strong hives to my knowledge none of them have swarmed now that doesn't mean they haven't it just means I haven't seen it happen thank you now I really doubt that there's anything not much at least going on in this very top box but I want to break it open and look at it anyway because I do see some signs the nectar is coming in and I'll show you what I'm talking about Let's get this in a better position so that y'all can see because I don't know how good the camera is picking this up but if you see there's Brown comb on this of course and on the tips or on the top edges of some of these cells there's bright white comb that bright white comb is evidence that nectar is coming in and let me show you some even better evidence of nectar's coming in see down in those cells all those little shiny spots that is nectar this Frame is just about full of nectar I'm gonna grab one from over here as well to see how far out they put the nectar as well oh yeah oh man they are filling it up can y'all see that lots of nectar in that one as well of course at this point it's just nectar they've got a good ways to go before those cells are full and they dry everything out down to honey and cap it but there's a lot of nectar in here let's check the next box if y'all have noticed there's blue painters tape all over this Hive and the reason for that is I created a robbing situation in this Hive about a month about a month or so ago a little over a month ago and I was plugging up every crack I could find to make it stop and they eventually stopped oh it's got some weight to it I believe I see some capped honey in here which is really exciting oh I do see capped honey cause in this particular frame we've got honey this is honey right here and nectar right here the Honey's in the middle and kind of an upside down rainbow type pattern and then over here on each side we've got uncapped nectar one way to tell if the honey is ready to go is you can take these frames and shake it upside down a little bit and if it falls out it's obviously still nectar doesn't need to go and it's falling out just a little bit that is not a really good way to do it in my opinion and I may not even be telling that right but the best thing for you to do is to make sure the cells are capped if they are capped the bees have gotten it down to the humidity level that it needs to be at and it's good to go let's just go taste this and see what the difference is between this and this we'll try this honey first we'll check color and everything too so that's kind of a light actually it's kind of a dark amber color there usually spring honey is fairly light so my guess is that is last year's honey it's really good it's most likely last year's yeah we'll try some of this now this is not quite honey yet so it's not I'm not going to expect it to be super dark but it's a very light amber color see how much it runs as compared to the other honey this is my favorite right here let's try it that's good that's very light tasting that's some of my favorite once they cap this it'll have a little bit more of a flavor to it very very light tasting stuff um yeah I don't know what to say it's um mostly probably Clover maybe Blackberry too doesn't have a whole lot of flavor actually I'm hoping once they dry it out some it'll have more flavor so this is particularly exciting for us because we actually ran out of honey this last year we've been out of our honey now for a few weeks and um let me tell you store-bought honey once you've had real honey like this store-bought is just no good I love checking hives in weather like this because the bees have got all kinds of sunshine they're out flying they're out doing stuff they've got better things to do than hang around the hive and sting people that are tearing their hives apart right now so this is upside down but I think it'll work so this frame has got a mixture of nectar okay let's go from left to right honey nectar and brood in various stages here now that looks like a shotgun pattern which would be indicative of disease but if the camera was better y'all could see that actually all of these cells are full with some stage of brood in there which is great so most likely last year's honey which is awesome that they made it through the winter with extra stores this year's nectar most likely and um and brood right here oh yeah so really the same thing that was going on in the other box you can see some of those shiny cells down in there there's nectar in these frames and uh yeah they're working on these pretty good same thing in this box lots of nectar we'll go down one more now this box is looking promising oh that frame just came apart that's not good we'll do a different one for now I didn't come to repair frames oh yeah now this is this is great let's get a close-up of this so here's what's going on on this Frame we've got sorry we got honey out here on the outside we've got nectar down here in the middle and down here we've got brood and it's in this nice rainbow pattern right here so what that means is the bees are bringing back nectar so fast right now that as soon as these cells hatch out this drone brood hatches out right here they are immediately putting nectar in those cells and this is kind of the pattern that we get out of it so this this is capped honey right here this is nectar right here and brood right here this brutal hatch pretty soon and they'll stick nectar down in there so you may notice that I'm not using any Queen excluders on my hives and I've had people ask me before where are my queen excluders do you not use queen excluders and the answer is I don't use Queen excluders and I'll tell you why in just a minute but I want to break into this Hive because really good things are going on in this hive look at that look at that oh man that's exciting these bees are the bees that I got out of a cedar tree about seven miles south of here a couple of years ago these genetics have proven to be wonderful wonderful genetics oh wow pretty much the same story all over this one see how bright white that wax is those cappings that tells me that is brand new cappings right there that have not been stepped on over the last year by the bees it's a little dingier right there but I think they probably capped that first and it's starting to get a little dirty pretty sure this is all this year's obviously this is this year's right in here let's try that right there look at that very very light almost transparent that's really good that is really good I wish you could taste it here's the next box here and it's got me just a little bit worried by what I can see from the outside so this is kind of normal that was going on on one of the other ones but look at the population down here they're outside today they're polishing up the front of their hives here but there seems to be a very large population of bees in this Hive and if that's happening this early in the year we're probably going to have an overpopulation swarm if um I don't add room to it [Music] all right I'll put that one down I want to show you all this next frame right here oh yes this Frame is extractable that is the only part that is not capped and if I extracted this now that wouldn't affect anything most of this is capped on this side and all of it is capped on this side with the exception of a few right there that is amazing kind of a different story on this one lots and lots of brood in this Frame right here they're probably going to be filling these in with nectar in fact I can see right here that's what they're doing they're filling these inner nectar as soon as these hatch so yeah that'll be extra space for nectar pretty soon yeah so here's a better picture of that you see this side right here this one was just right next to that one I just showed you pretty much extractable let's taste this that is most likely last year's honey you see how dark that is as compared to what we were just looking at totally fine we'll extract it as well but yeah that's last year's hunting see what this other side looks like obviously that's much lighter right there to some degree it's probably a mix that's much stronger much stronger than that light stuff very good so I'm going to put a box of undrawn Comb on this or undrawn frames on this Hive there's some little bits actually drawn in there but the reason I'm doing this is because this is really the time it was what I've got number one but this is the time of year if you need to have comb drawn out this is the time of year to do it now it's really important to remember that undrawn frames does not equal extra space for the bees because they can't do anything with this stuff until they've actually drawn it out into comb but this time of year bees are drawing out comb there's a lot of bees and they have got a lot of nectar to work with and uh they're in a good position to draw out new comb for you and comb is the most valuable thing you can have as a beekeeper we'll just do the top box of this one last Hive and then we'll talk about Queen excluders so exciting let's talk about Queen excluders whoa my goodness my guess is that is last year's honey but uh yeah that's looking good let's taste it [Music] I don't know when it's from but it's delicious right here on the bottom of this Frame here you can see what is almost certainly this year's honey see how much lighter it is oh that is incredible all right let's get to the really exciting part of the video let's talk about Queen excluders this is a queen excluder right here and the purpose of this is exactly what it sounds like it's to exclude the queen from the honey super so on a beehive you've got bottom boxes and it depends on how many if you're using deeps or mediums I use all mediums on mine but you've got bottom boxes that are full of brood that's where the queen hangs out lays eggs and brood hatches and then you've got the top boxes which are the honey supers and bees tend to store honey in an upward part of the hive and that's why those are on the top and the bees go up in there and they put honey in those cells and this right here is to keep the queen from going up into those top boxes and laying eggs only the workers can fit through this the queen cannot so I don't use these it sounds like kind of an important piece of equipment right I don't use them for a couple of reasons well three reasons really the first reason is I've found that they're really just not necessary for me now I don't have some kind of Vendetta out against these Queen excluders personally I just don't use them if you use them that's fine if they work for you for you that's fantastic but for me it was just an added hassle on the hives and I decided I just didn't want to use them so I didn't use them and it's worked out fine what happens is exactly what I just showed you those bees they go up into those top boxes and if there is brood in those top boxes they'll let that brood hatch out they'll fill that hole that cell with nectar and then the queen is just not going to go up there if there's no place for the queen to lay she's not going to hang out in those boxes so once honey and nectar is established in those top boxes she's just not going to go up there so they kind of exclude the Queen by themselves the second reason that I don't use these is these little slots right here are very very narrow they are just narrow enough for a worker bee to go through but they're not quite narrow enough for a queen to get through the problem is there's not a huge difference between the size of a queen bee and a worker B so the worker bees are constantly squeezing their little bodies through these slots right here and rubbing their wings tightly through these slots over and over and over and over don't know how many times a day honestly that would be something cool to know but anyway they're going through these slots over and over again and prematurely wearing out their wings now that's just something that I've read it makes sense I can't say that I have witnessed that because I don't use these a third reason and I have read this again not a lot of experience with this some people call these honey excluders and basically the reason for that is these can discouraged the worker bees from going up into those top boxes and putting nectar where it's supposed to be in the first place so I don't use these for all of those reasons but the primary reason is that they just are not they are just not necessary for me with my five hives it's just kind of an added piece of equipment and extra hassle that I can do without so I'm incredibly happy with the performance of these hives here this is the hive that we added another box to right here and these hives all of these hives are just in wonderful wonderful shape and I attribute that to two things the first thing and this is the main thing is low might numbers I started off I think last year sometime doing oxalic acid vaporization to kill mites it's an organic treatment it is very very safe for the bees I've done other treatments before like mightoway quick strips formic acid does a great job killing mites but you sometimes lose a queen and I've had that experience oxalic acid is super easy it is very cheap and it kills the snot out of some mites the only drawback is you need to do it during brutalist period or you'll end up doing it several times over like a three week period the second thing is that I left honey on these hives over the winter did not get greedy last year with my honey extracting I let them keep a ton of Honey over the winter and they came out of the winter extremely healthy the third thing and this is something that I didn't have any control over is that I don't think any of these hives swarmed this year which is really nothing short of a miracle bees just tend to swarm that's what they do but none of these hives to my knowledge swarmed this year the population in these things is incredible this is my swarm tree right up here and I would come out here and check this tree twice a day some days during swarm season this year to look for balls of bees on this tree and I never found any and the population and The Brood in these hives confirms that most likely no swarms this year well guys that's going to do it for this one lots of stuff going on in this video I hope you enjoyed it I appreciate you watching hopefully we'll be extracting honey within the next week or so which is going to be great because I'm really tired of eating store-bought honey I'll see y'all on the next one thanks for watching

Channel: Fall Line Ridge

Views: 32,846

Keywords: fall line ridge, honey, bees, beehives, hives, nectar, beekeeping, beekeeper

Id: eujghhG11Hs

Length: 27min 22sec (1642 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023