Beekeeping Inspection Lesson One: Finding & Evaluating Your Queen

what's up guys we're going to jump into a hive today remember that hive that swarmed the other day and it landed on a pallet that i think that was april the 27th and now we're all the way down to about may the 16th i think the day is so it's been a while we're going to open up this hive and see what it looks like we caught the swarm and made them walk in on a super a medium super so then we went ahead if you watched that video it's really good and so what we did was we actually made that super on the upper part of the hive by slipping a deep underneath of it and we put an awesome frame from an awesome company we're going to see if that's just a bunch of talk or if that really is an awesome frame i'm going to show evidence of what a piece of tape does that i showed you how to mark your frames with a piece of tape we're going to see if the bees chewed that off or not am i going to be a fool or am i going to be a wise man i'm going to show you that piece of tape and i'm pretty sure it's going to be in great shape also we're going to find an unusual thing in this hive and i want you to pay close attention i'm going to show you why it happened and what you could have done to prevent it and you'll be surprised some of you are making this mistake a lot you are so let's jump into this hive and let's get started well what do you think brood in both boxes i would imagine we're gonna see brood in this upper super so what we might try to do today is add another deep to it and we'll move that super up higher above another deep we can add then maybe we can put a queen excluder if we choose to do that between the two deeps so let's just see what has a swarm done after a couple of weeks it'd be fun to find out i like to smoke under the hood a little bit before i open up the hive then i just like to kind of open it up slowly uh let's look for any small high beetles that might be on the yep there's one right here small high beetle here got it there's a ant or a spider here's another small hike beetle right here there's one there so i like to kill those small high beetles they kind of gravitate up here we might have to put some small high beetle traps on this hive since we've already seen some well i know maybe you've seen the video when i made this swarm and i threw a super empty super on top here kind of caught them in that super left them in there then i added the deep below it it looks like to me they've done a lot of work in this super up here they look packed we're going to start on the frame next to the wall lift that out of there see what we got using my j hook hive tool i love the j hook hive tool a lot of you know i was kind of slow moving that direction but it does make it easier to lift frames out working bare-handed today working some hives earlier and got stung on the hand a few times so i'm a little sore but not bad so you're looking at frames here this is a lot of nectar right now we have black locust in full bloom and it's beautiful making a lot of nectar for the bees and look at that these frames were empty as i remember and they've already drawn it out cleaned it up almost got this one like practically capped over all the way wow set that out because we don't have a frame hanger still wanting to get you guys to subscribe and help me get to 100 000 subscribers we've crossed 86 000 which is huge which means we only need 14 000 more and that's not a lot in in the world of youtube so if you enjoy the content that i create here to help you become a better beekeeper please subscribe give me a thumbs up if you leave a thumbs up the video kind of goes crazy and everybody watches it and i get more views if you give me a thumbs up and leave some comments you're going to leave a comment and say gosh that's a good brood pattern on both sides that's a good brood pattern a lot of you will ask questions like david oh no what are you going to do you got brood in a super um a lot of people get scared worried they feel like that's not supposed to happen how you ever going to get that brood out of that super david you've ruined the whole super full of brood yeah not really some people use all mediums for the brood nest i'm fine with that it's some impressive brood though isn't it like i said i might move it up i might leave it down here it's a brood nest area i'm getting old i don't like lifting up heavy boxes i might make i might go to all mediums for everything the brew doesn't ever stop it just keeps going this is a never-ending brewed cycle that just brewed frame after a brood frame after a brood frame i don't think the queen would be on a frame of solid brood like that because she's full of eggs she likes to lay eggs so you would expect her to be laying eggs on a frame that had some room for her to lay eggs on this is a different color here it's more brown on this side more yellow just because it's newer wax and it's sometimes the nectar flow at the moment has some influence on what color those frames will the wax on the frames will be you know if you have dandelions everywhere and they start pulling out some frames that can be really yellow for sure and the queen decided that other hives needed some drones so she laid some non-fertilized eggs to increase the drone population in this mating season in this swarming season so all hives have to produce drones in order to mate with other hives the queen would never mate with the drones from her own hive that would be her brothers if she was a virgin queen yeah the brood just keeps going i mean it's just like brood brewed brood oh nope i thought that was a queen cell let me show you that my eye just caught that little area right there and i was like gosh i bet that's a queen cell but it's just a stray piece of comb that they built in a funny way like that i wanna i'm anxious to look at the frames down on the bottom i'm getting bored looking up here nectar and brood that's interesting in it now the queen could be on this frame because it's a frame that has a lot of larvae on it but don't not really much in the way of eggs they're older larvae hey here's a tip for you you know you can tell how old different stages of larvae is in if you kind of get an idea of how it looks at different ages like a two day old larvae three day old larvae sixth day on larvae then you can think oh yeah i know when the queen laid those eggs yeah the queen the queen could definitely be on this frame because there's eggs and young larvae i forgot to wear my reader glasses so i'm and i'm in the shade a shaded area i'm doing my best to see if i might see the queen don't doesn't look like it here let's flip it over give this a careful look i don't see the queen there i'm gonna take a look at one more frame we have found the queen on these frames that are close to the wall wow talk about your overdue on the props there kind of went crazy on sealing this off with propolis when do i work bare-handed and window wear gloves i like to go bare-handed as long as i can but when it becomes problematic and the beads are stinging my hands i'll go to my gloves all right let's get this super back together then we'll take it off and then we'll look down below for the queen and those frames that we added in there that are supposed to really do an awesome job people often companies will send me things or ask me to evaluate things i think more than anything they just want me to talk about their stuff on my youtube channel you know the more beekeepers that are watching my channel the more chances they have at selling their stuff i mean i have 85 000 subscribers so 86 i think but there's a lot more people that view my channel than i have subscribers so it becomes a um kind of a good thing when somebody wants to promote a product they can do it on a a strong beekeeping channel one of the things that i'm doing that you guys like is i'm kind of giving you an idea about the pierce beekeeping company they're really kind to give us things to give away here if you haven't watched that video on how to actually become eligible to be a part of that giveaway you need to watch a few videos back where i explain that if you only watch one of my videos you're missing out on a lot of good videos so you know what you got to do is watch one video and go wow i gotta watch some more and just start doing some binge watching of my videos because a lot of you asked me questions that i answered like one video ago i was like you didn't watch my last video so wow sliding away here come back stronger than i look so do start uh checking out different videos that i make i've probably addressed almost every topic that you can imagine maybe not but i think so i'm gonna put this super over here on top of this hive there we go all right hey look at that piece of tape uh this says oh 427 awesome awesome let's get the bees awesome company oh okay yeah awesome company oh let's see what happened here some stray comb everywhere it's like see what happens if you can notice this i left a little gap right here here look at that do you see that it's about a little thicker than my j hook height tool but not much so that is a tiny space my error and leaving that space there resulted in this look at that you see that it's a piece of stray comb so that it could have some funky comb in here it won't be the company's fault it'll be my fault for not keeping my frames close together just that much of a gap i should have pushed them all from the wall both walls hard in the center sometimes we get in a hurry make little mistakes like that let's see what that looks like a lot of you keep asking me when you watch me make a video you'll say uh hey how did you put that little piece of plastic in your veil and that wasn't too many videos ago about four or five videos back so if you do start binge watching some of my videos you'll find answers to the question that you're asking but that's a good video i showed you how i just took a piece of plastic and i used silicone 100 silicone and just cut my veil and cut the plastic to fit and siliconed it in there and it is staying in there solid i want to encourage you guys to please leave a thanks down below i've got a special feature on my youtube channel here thanks and a tip if you'd be so kind to let me know that you've enjoyed this video as you watch it and give me a thanks and a tip hey that's much appreciated a lot of you are doing that and i thank you very much i didn't see the queen we're going to leave that frame out for spacing allow us to move things around all right here's a plastic frame i use plastic and wood frames together get my finger where the bees won't sting me they're starting to draw it out from the top not much on that side oh not bad on this side very nice and a lot of eggs on this frame that it's just been drawn out when you see eggs they immediately start sand queen those are straight up and down eggs that means the queen was there today and she could be there on this frame right now because there's eggs quick glance on the back side sometimes you'll roll over i didn't see her there all right let's check on this green drone comb for mite trapping if you don't know about green drone comb it's a neat way that you can control mites without the use of harsh and maybe sometimes questionable chemicals in your hive so what you do you just put this drone comb in here wait for him to start capping it off and then you freeze it all right well they're starting to draw it out in weird funky ways which is not uncommon could could be the queen here because she has to lay that drone brewed there those drone eggs and give it a look over nothing on that side it's time to actually freeze this it's not all the way capped over all the way down so i could wait a little bit i think i'm going to take it freeze it get rid of some of the mites if there's any don't see the queen so let's put that there and keep looking well we know the queen is in there we saw egg so we don't have to find the queen but it's just fun and we want to get to that awesome comb and look at it okay here's a nice frame it's got eggs they've cleaned it up it's got larvae on it some pollen in a corner and i'm looking for my queen and i don't see a queen on that side oh look at this this is some of the stuff we can see sometimes on this is kind of some used comb you can see i've used it before and washed it off and there's stuff on the bottom which is a base of cocoons i probably should have coated this with wax again it may have prevented this from happening but upon closer examination of this it does not have any brood in it so if we want to we can just remove this shake the beads off it just has some nectar in it and that way maybe we can get them to start building things correctly again i know you guys have seen this too and some of your stuff a lot of people will say this is just because it's plastic comb or a plastic foundation that's what they do i do see it more on plastic foundation but it's plastic foundation that we're kind of sloppy with or you know we're not wax coated well enough like i said this is something that i did by just taking something that probably been sitting out in the sun or in the weather i should have coated it with wax a little bit better but we'll see how they do with this let's look for the queen because i saw some bees pointing their nassau clan toward this side like hey the queen's on the other side tell what they were doing or they sometimes they just spray the nasanov clan to help the bees get orientated where the hive is in case someone were flying around confused but don't see the queen on this frame okay let's go across toward the awesome frame let's smoke them they're really runny on that frame i'm surprised these bees are so runny on that particular frame in a crazy way [Music] loud too there's a queen she's a big queen do you see how big she is gigantic getting fed there bees are feeding her she's walking around when you see that queen is on a frame like this you want to be careful what you do with this frame what i like to do is like she's right in the center i'm going to put it this way against this next frame so now i don't have to worry about injuring her because she's between those two frames you know as opposed to being on this side all right here's the awesome company i didn't want to say what the name of it is yet i think some of you took a lot of guesses at it and remember i didn't have these pushed close together so we're not going to hold them accountable for anything bad on that side oh wow i'm gonna have to say that is awesome oh my gosh that is just wonderful and look at all those eggs in there can you see the eggs and there's larvae in different stages now i want to show you notice how this comb is different color you have a brighter white down here and that's because it's newer wax that they have just secreted from their wax glands and built that out up here they've been tracking it with pollen pollen gets on their legs and it just kind of darkens it over time the act the pollen they put up here okay i'm gonna say i'm really impressed a lot with this awesome company this is my mistake on this side they built a little bit of extra wax just a little bit though not bad at all look at that kind of impressed all right i have to make a video about that company i think i have some more frames and another hive some larger i like more of them four or five of them well i've seen enough uh what we're going to do now is put this height back together our queen is over here and then we're going to add a deep height body we're going to put a super on it oh then we're going to add a deep high body and i think what i'll do is i'm going to run it as a i had good luck last year running a deep and a medium super through the winter and i'm going to do that on this hive so their brood nest is going to be consistent consisting of a deep high body on the bottom and a medium super above that deep and i'm going to use another deep above that as my honey super just because i want to torture my back that's the only reason i just want to lift up an 85 pound deep box full of honey yeah why not right hey if you guys have not taken a beekeeping class and you started beekeeping thinking that you know how hard can this be i can just watch a bunch of youtube videos and become youtube certified in beekeeping right that's not a thing i'm just joking but sometimes that can be very very costly because some people ask me questions on youtube here and i'm like oh somebody didn't take a basic class because that if you don't know that information you just asked me there's a ton of stuff you don't know that you need to know or else it's going to be bad all right so we got the frames kind of pushed back together good hey guys you see this super here i want to teach you an important lesson this is awesome i don't think you'll be taught this anywhere except here but look at this i like to set them on their sides like this because on the back side the bottom i could have a queen or something or queen cell and if i just set it on the ground you know bad things happen i like to set it this way but you'll notice you can see the ears to i call them ears the ears to the frame that means that this is the top when you're working a hive and you're moving stuff around your and all at once you kind of forgot which orientation these uh these hives hive boxes are you can pick it up the wrong way let me show you now look at this back side see how the backside looks different let me show you yeah look at this see no the ears are smaller down here you can barely see them with yeah but there's a gap there because they don't hang all the way down so this is the bottom so if you pick this up thinking this is the top all the frames are going to fall out so please whatever you do when you set a a box like this on its side it's important for you to realize which is up and which is down because when you pick it up to put it back on the hive you want to make sure the frames don't fall out and you can see i'm setting all these boxes on their side on the front side of the boxes all right so now we're going to put this one back again this is the front i don't have any bees that are in the way it's already kind of heavy a lot of nectar in it but a lot of brood all right we've got that in position very good all right now we're going to put our deep on again look for the orientation so your frames don't fall out pick it up so the top is facing up we're not going to put a queen excluder on right now another tip i want to tell you guys many many of you pronounce the queen excluder incorrectly so many of you mispronounced that i'm always correcting you when you mispronounce it it is not called a queen extruder it's a queen excluder gosh i felt really good about the tips i gave you in this video especially the one about how you pick up that deep hive body or your super making sure the frames you know are facing up when you pick it up like don't flip it over and all the frames fall out that's a very good tip and also the tip about keeping your frames pushed tightly together because if you don't it gets bad like that also i want you to watch the video if you haven't seen it yet where i caught this swarm and how we moved it over here if you haven't seen that video take a look right here and because you may have a swarm coming up pretty soon and you'll know what to do i'll see you over there

Channel: David Burns

Views: 48,241

Keywords: Beekeeping, beekeeping 101, Beekeeping tips, beekeeping training, honey bees, how to inspect a hive, smoker, keeping a smoker going, beekeeping classes, beekeeping basics, beekeeping for beginners, how to start beekeeping, why keep bees, save the bees, lighting a smoker, david burns beekeeping, varroa mite, when to start beekeeping, packages of bees, queen bee, where to buy a queen bee, bee suit, beekeeping business, Swarm, Beekeeping Lesson One, Finding the queen

Id: pbDae9uLkBo

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2022