Beekeeping - Splitting an Angry Hive (Africanized Bees?)

[Music] I got to tell you I'm kind of not looking forward to this the bees are angry and I'm a little anxious but this needs done I'm going to attempt to split one of the hives that is showing some angry behavior one that's been angry for a while I suspect that it required itself and now has some angry genetics you know some African ization or whatever you call it I'm apprehensive because it's not the ideal day it's been kinda off and on with cloudy and sprinkly weather and that makes them even more angry but I can't keep putting this off the bees need taken care of and I think somewhat irresponsible to leave hives that are hot and angry because then that genetics is being spread onto other people's hives so you know I just got to get out here and split this one hive and see if we can get it taken care of now that we're kind of close to the hive I'm gonna go ahead and put my hood on just in case they see me coming [Music] you got to make sure that right there is closed all the way up because if there's a little hole they find their way in there and then get in your veil and that's really uncomfortable another thing I have to be aware of with this type of veil if I don't have my ball cap on the veil sits really close to my face and sometimes touches my nose and that would be a good place for a bee to land and in sting my nose that would also be uncomfortable it doesn't help that it's very hot and very muggy I just looked at the weather online and it is last I looked it was 88 degrees but it feels like 97 with the humidity I would say it feels more like about a hundred and seven all right I'm going in I forgot I need to get the flame going I need to get the burner hot and get some smoke rolling before I get in there because I don't want to start burning smoke after I get the bees all riled up [Music] [Music] alright I have my two noot boxes I put an empty frame because I'm going to put four frames of brood and honey whatever they have in there and then have the empty frame so that the in case they start to build really fast I got my two lids ready the goal is to take this deep box has ten frames split it five frames actually four frames in each of these two nooks and then take an excess frame off and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them and then take the deeper medium here the seven and five eighths and put it on the baseboard and put the lid on it and let that act like another hive I'm not sure where the Queen is if she's in that bottom deeper in the top but that's kind of the whole point in splitting the hive it's like divide and conquer you put the brood in three different places and then whenever you come back four days later you can tell hopefully you can tell where the Queen is based on where the eggs are if there's no eggs in four days no Queen one of the three boxes should have eggs and the other two should not we'll see how it works I'm going to try to position my cameras in such a way that you can see this but once I get started I'm not going to be terribly concerned about what you're seeing so if you miss out on a little bit I'm really sorry but I do expect that this to be a bit of a train wreck because these bees they come out hot when the bees come out in thousands my main concern is just not getting killed there's no turning back once it once I pop this lid I'm in this I'm going to have bees all over me some in the entrance this is going to get them going bit I'm actually a little bit surprised that they haven't come out hard and fast already this top box is probably not needed all at all at this stage because I am going to split the hive Wow I'm really surprised was it the smoke is it just a good day there's something different going on they're not that bad yet but I am nervous so I just keep puffing the snow to smoke around me here they come still not that bad really I mean compared to how they have been in the past this is a lot of honey with a little bit of brood so I'm going to go ahead put that in here on the outside there's a lot of brood on that one milk is mostly honey there Brewed real spotty Brut pattern okay both women look like this now on the inside you can tell they are not liking me at all so those that is a sweat hi it's a deep box wit and there's two two frames of mostly honey in here I'm going to check just to make sure the Queen's not in there and we'll see what we can do about bringing that other one a lot of pollen on their legs there is a bit of a flow going on I noticed that after all these rains several things are flowering up mmm going to look on this bottom board out got me my look on this bottom board just make sure I don't see the Queen medium blonde which feels very heavy so I has a lot of money in it rainbow news to see if there's any brood at all in here yes there is brood a little bit mostly honey I don't have any help today so that's why you're you're getting the camera angles that you are okay lots of good brood in the middle of this one so there's definitely brood in the medium box so this is going to be a good block so but you know see if we can do it I don't need to dig around in these boxes because I split the beat box you can't see because the bees are on my camera I slid that deep box so there's there's four frames in each of the deep my glasses are falling down on my sweat I can't do anything about it if I touch my face they're going to get me so we have a good chance of splitting this three ways where we could possibly end up with three hives I'm going to put the inner cover on [Music] and I'm going to try to get out of here before I do I'm going to see if I can get that medium Ramon one of these other hives it's hide number two they're drawn there's out pretty well I'm not even going to dig in there I'm just going to give this mostly empty medium there's almost no bees in there so I'm not worried about making them fight or anything I forgot that I brought these classic needle traps out I've been seeing a few beetles so I'm going to go ahead and control these it's just a little trap where you pour oil in like that and then you put it between frames and hi I changed my mind instead of an empty frame this one's empty on one side I'm going to put this in place of so they can have all their honey and all their that they've already worked hard for so I figured it would be all full but it's not so I'm just going to tape this empty one out and put this one in here [Music] the way they get five frames that's already worked on and I think that's going to work out well for both of them because this one has honey but one side is mostly empty this deep box I'm just going to put it out in the field out here put it in the grass that way the bees that are in here will evacuate and come back to the hives that's what should happen in any any honey or anything that's in here will be cleaned out there's not a lot I don't see the Queen in here but if she's a small dark Queen it would be difficult to see her anyway kind of want to go ahead and peek in number three since I'm here because number three was suffering last time we came out it looked like it possibly could be a dying hive but there's plenty of bees coming in out so I'm just going to pop the top and see what's in there I think these which falling on their legs so there's something going on in the hive hold on what's going on here [Music] that looks kind of sloppy it looks like there's there's been some wax moths in here I don't see any worms I do see some hi beetles so mate maybe when they were weak maybe when they were weak the moths got in hopefully hopefully the Butera it's a little fluffy in here I bet there's a problem oh yeah oh yeah you see that that's wax moth that's terrible you can see there's some some moth nest in there oh this hive is is suffering this hive is suffering that's too bad I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do about it oh yeah these this hive is dying this hive is not doing well at all there's plenty of bees going in and they're trying to make it work but it is infested with worms those are the wax moths moth larvae okay well it's a good thing that I'm splitting my right I kind of think I don't have a choice but to put this box out in the in the field in the sunlight and let it get robbed out I think that's what I'm going to have to do that's very unfortunate for the bees that are in here they're trying to make it work but I can't I can't let this belong that makes me sad for that one hive but it was completely overtaken by by the moths and the larvae so there's no way there's no way it was going to survive that hopefully as I Drive away they'll lose interest I kind of doubt it because I smell like the sting pheromones and I also smell like honey I'm a very interesting person right now to the bees but we're gonna get away from the hive anyway and see if most of them leave me well there it is I don't know if I did that right I don't know if I did the right thing but it was just me and the bees and I knew I had to get something done I couldn't just leave those genetics to keep going in those hives I have several hives that need this done and I can only get to one today I can I'm not a very good beekeeper the truth is if you're going to be a beekeeper you got to have time for it you got to be able to go out there and take care of these things but I have so many things going on on my farm all the time like even right now my wife and son are in the garden doing a job I should be doing and the weather wasn't very good most of the day today kind of rainy and on and off so it just wasn't a good data to do beekeeping but as it cleared up I felt like I got to get it done I have three queens on order I'm going to go pick them up Wednesday morning at the local beekeeper I'm going to put a new queen in each of those three splits hopefully I can find the one of the three that has the Queen so I can get rid of her and put new Queens in but either way I got it I got to make something happen I wish I knew exactly what to do all the time but I don't this is real life this is a small farm I have the Internet and I have a couple of friends but nobody can be with me while I'm doing this so there are certain things that need to be done in the moment that you can only draw on your knowledge as best you can to make things happen I'm walking up in the orchard right now hopefully these hoping these bees leave me so I do want to encourage you that if you want to be a beekeeper and you want to get a hive or to give it a shot don't let any of this discourage you but you have to keep your eyes and your mind open to the fact that it's not always going to be easy and for me the first couple seasons were fairly easy but I also failed because the hives died and this season has been more difficult but I've had a greater success rate out of six hives well actually the only one that has died is the one that we recognize that was dying today and I put it out in the field to finish it off so it doesn't just create a bunch of wax moths so anyway five out of six hives are doing fine and one of the remaining five is split now so maybe I can get another hive out of that one to put back in the box that I just basically killed which solves one of the problems because my wife and I were discussing that if we keep splitting hives one of the concepts is that you split your hives to conquer the negative behavior the angry bees but then you end up with more hives and we can't just keep putting money in hive boxes we have spent a lot of money just getting these six hives up and running and we weren't looking forward to splitting three of them and ending up with nine or ten or twelve hives we just don't have the money over the room well we might have the room but we don't have the money to keep putting into these bee boxes so in a way having hive number three died at this point may not be the worst thing it was struggling anyway I can put one of these splits in there if it is a successful split and I'll be right back up to six or seven hives I might have to end up buying another box okay this video has been plenty long thank you for sticking with me thanks for watching it is always a pleasure sharing my story and my journey with you I'll talk to you soon

Channel: Daddykirbs Farm

Views: 217,869

Keywords: beekeeping splitting hives, splitting honey bee hives, splitting hives youtube, splitting hives video, splitting hives, splitting or dividing hives, splitting hives bees, angry grandpa scared of bees, angry honey bees, angry bees, africanized bees, africanized bees united states, africanized bees vs honey bees, africanized bees youtube, africanized bees texas, bees, honey, beehives, honey bees, healthy living, beyond organic gardening, permaculture orchard, modern homesteading

Id: Psuqv8Jk284

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2016