Beekeeping | Step-by-Step Guide to Adding the Next Box

I'm excited today to share with you guys something that a lot of you asked me about all the time is that when do you add the second deep Hive box to The Brood Nest area today I want to show you how to do it and I want to show you when to do it because if you wait too late they're going to swarm on you if you do it too early that is chimney up and never pull out the frames on the outside edge hey everybody David Burns with you today I'm here to help you make fewer mistakes and keep healthier beans so today we want to expand this Hive into a second deep box and what we're going to be using today is 10 frames that are already drawn out and I'm going to show you a secret weapon that I use to bait the colony to start moving up because if you don't bait them it's going to take a long time for them to ever get up there let's get to work this package I installed and I'm pretty sure that they're ready for their next deep box I've been feeding them so on top here is my burned feeding system which are back in stock temporarily they're back in stock anyway but this is a feeder that I use have been feeding them they're done eating there's enough things out in the wild now just natural habitat for them to continue to get a good incoming source of pollen I see pollen coming in they're bringing in nectar so you want to see what's going on in this Colony make sure they've pulled out the wax on a lot of these frames and make sure the Queen's laying well is there anybody that's harder on smokers than I am oh my gosh look at my smoker this is the one that I featured in a lot of the videos and after they get kind of worn out out comes the Gorilla Tape to cover up all the holes but then you know there's just oh more holes you can put your fingers through at the top here look at that that's not going to work anymore it's just done right the canister is not bad I could re-staple something on there probably if I was really really wanting to do that but instead look what I got for Christmas wow a brand new smoker Please Subscribe click on the Subscribe button I'll watch all my videos Isn't that cool oh one of the things you got to remember when you get a brand new smoker look down in here oh the little disc that's a great to keep the smoker feel off the bottom you need to fluff the little legs out so that it sits on the bottom of your smoker like that if you don't do that you're going to have trouble with your smoker for your whole life so feet legs go down like that make sure they're facing the bottom and then now you can use your smoker fuel starter which I'm just using some Shipping paper here and then light that Shipping paper get that burning good and then once you get that burning good I always recommend you use burlap so get some burlap always leave links in my description below on where you can find this burlap that I use I always highly recommend burlap it's so nice to use it's food grade by the way so yeah we're going to take a look at this Hive back here it's time to expand it up into another brood box hey I'm making some smoke hey John I'm making smoke wow my smoker was worn out this thing is really making smoke wow I'm impressed all right wow uh let's try to go without a bee suit today and we'll go to the bee suit if we need to in fact let's try to go gloveless I don't recommend any of you try to go with uh without any gloves or a bee suit it's just something that it's a hot day today I'm gonna see if I can get away with it but bees can sting you and it hurts it hurts for days for some people so please make sure that you're well protected before you work any bees so my rule of thumb is when five frames at least five are drawn out and have bees working on them now it's time to add the next deep box but I'm going to show you my secret weapon that forces them to go up into the next deep box even if you have undrawn Foundation like this Frame here it's going to force them to draw it out faster in your next box so watch this video all the way through I love doing B inspections like this a brand new Colony starting out for the first time this year oh I just love that patch that play button that's cool all right so let's take a look let's go ahead and start taking some frames out over here oh look they're drawing comb out all the way over against the wall very impressive great great start all right so let's see about this next one here uh-huh oh is it heavy heavy heavy heavy which means there's nectar on board again they're drawing it out in the corner and they'll work their ways down onto the rest of the frame but look at this side yeah I knew there had to be some weight because it's heavy brand new comb put on this year a few weeks ago already drawn it out capping over the Honey at the top and pouring in the nectar it's nectar until it gets down to about 18 to 19 percent humidity or moisture and then at the then they cap it over like here at the top but look at that beautiful make sure the Queen's not there we don't want a skipper don't see the queen okay we can leave this Frame against the wall over here we got room to move the other two pretty well so let's give it a little bit more smoke since we're working without gloves again if you want to try to work without gloves it's not advisable unless you know for sure you have the confidence to do it and you're not allergic to getting stung by bees and remember you can develop an anaphylactic shock toward bees anytime even if you've already been stung a lot of times and have never had an anaphylactic shock it doesn't matter you can go anaphylactic anytime good indication to always take precautions oh look at that side of this oh I got nectar dripping out of this side oh look at the larvae beautiful larvae down in the cells eggs and larvae and I see a queen not going to tell you where she is I'm gonna let you see if you can find the queen get the kids get Mom and Dad on the video over here and say Mom and Dad see if you can find the queen this is the time then the video where you get more people to watch it like pause it get a bunch of people say come see if you can find the queen I know where she's at everybody see the queen everybody see the queen not going to show you but she's right there she's right in the frame you should be able to see her can I get real close or does it go blurry let's try that probably blurry but let's back out to there where's the queen I love it look at all the eggs and larvae down in the cells do you see that I know the sun's on the right direction but that is great watch your queen keep eyes on her when you put her back in there all right so everything is good we're done looking the inspection is over because the queen is out of the queen cage from the package she's laying this Hive has expanded into one two three four five and I want to look at this Frame right here these over here because it looks like they're already working some new comb and I want to make sure they're not going to go wonky comb on me leave a comment below if you've ever had your bees make some wonky comb and wonky means they pull out some straight comb all in the wrong direction and it's a mess so here's a new frame we don't want them to start wonky business let's make sure it's straight oh it's beautiful look at that they just started drawing this out straight and level awesome so our inspection is over all we have to do now is actually manipulate the frames so that we can put another deep on top of this one here's the secret weapon are you ready so excited okay so here's the Deep box we're going to add now whether or not this deep box has drawn frames are undrawn it doesn't matter you're going to do it the same way so these are drawn out from another Hive so what we're going to do is actually take out this Frame right here so let's go ahead and do that hey by the way thanks everybody for watching my videos I love you guys you guys are awesome I want to help you enjoy life like I'm enjoying life today oh gosh life is so good look at those uh Queen uh cells that were on there from the last time the hive was in here making Queen cells there there are no beads in there now little stored pollen now look at this we have a space here what we're going to do is we're going to move the frame over that has the Queen on it and some eggs and we're going to put it up in this top deep that will bait secret weapon that's going to bait the bees to move up here because the queen's up here and nurse fees are going to be forced to come up here and start taking care of The Brood that's up here let me show you how to do it you don't have to move the queen up there if you don't want to you can just go ahead and move a frame of any open brood because they will go up and start taking care of that have you ever seen in your life any better brood pattern ever I don't think so I'd love to sell you one of my Queens look at that wow holy cow brood pattern alert look at that pollen stored honey in the corner perfect this is Picture Perfect she has another crazy brood pattern oh my gosh I'm gonna go do a dance somewhere and come back insane there are 3500 cap cells on this side all right here's a frame that we want to move up it's got the queen on it and you can see it's got a lot of good open brewed eggs larvae and that affords more nurse bees to the top all right so let's place it in our new deep box and we'll drop it right in here keeping eyes on the queen all the way down so we don't injure the queen making sure that she doesn't get on any wood or anything on the sidebars and see we're putting this you can do this even if you don't have drawn comb like I do here you can have undrawn comb and it works just fine now we'll put this Frame here right alongside of it perfect now I've got one that I took out that's got some pollen and nectar in it and I'm going to put it back in the hive to take the place of the one that I took out I'm going to put it toward the middle because it's warm enough I don't have to worry about The Brood being separated what they're going to do is the queen will quickly start laying and using utilizing this Frame and start laying in it so let's make sure all 10 frames are tight together and I usually do it with my hive tool put that bee back in the box there there we go so if I take the hive tool and I can spread these tight by twisting my hype tool like this on both sides of the box so I twists that a little bit twist this and all of them are evenly spaced now let's put our other deep box on top there we go second deep is added there's no need to add any feeder or anything okay now we're going to put the top cover on and you may notice here I don't use inner covers a lot of you constantly asked me David why don't you use inner covers I made a video whether inner covers are worth it or worthless check that video out right here what's the deal with inner covers are they necessary I'll see you over there

Channel: David Burns

Views: 28,690

Keywords: Beekeeping, beekeeping 101, Beekeeping tips, beekeeping training, honey bees, how to inspect a hive, smoker, keeping a smoker going, smoker fuel, 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, When to add the next box

Id: Temvefv-57Q

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023