Did our bees survive the arctic blast? 02/01/2024

hi this is Gary with gb's it's February the 1st and it's about 70° out today it's a beautiful day here in central Oklahoma uh looks like Winter's going to come back at us again pretty quick so we're going to get out today check on the bees stores kind of just check on them generally because we had some minus two degree weather a couple weeks ago I guess and uh we kind of want to check on them today and I'm going to light the smoker up and I'll show you how to do that got plenty of leaves that have fallen and I use these leaves pretty much all year that's about all I ever use but I do use barbecue pellets and so I'll start out with just a little bit of cardboard and I'll light my cardboard and get it going let it kind of get going in there and I'll just get a handful or two leaves and I'll put them in there little bit of more leaves in there we're going to pack this pretty good cuz we're going to be going for quite a while today so if you're just going a little while if you get a couple handful of leaves it'll probably do you for I don't know you know 20 or 30 minutes but I layer this I'll put about some more of those in get that going real [Laughter] good get it go until you kind of see the fire start bellowing out and put you another layer of leaves or whatever you got handy if you got pine needles leaves some people use burlap I just use whatever I've got around the price is right for another layer in there fill it up the rest of the way with leaves you want to put your leaves or find needles on last CU you don't want any Sparks coming out of there onto your beads so give something that'll kind of slow that down kind of filter through these leaves good thing is when you're out and you notice you're kind of running low on smoke you can always take your top back off put you some more leaves on there and keep going and we're ready to go [Music] in the South B yard uh I haven't been in these bees since October the 1st so we'll see what we've got going on uh I'm sure we got a few Deb outs we usually have about 10% debt outs every year uh it's been as high as 30 but the last two years I've had 10 I've been happy with that I've been using for a couple of years which I will attribute some to this I've been using this High Life fondant which they can take right away um they don't have any problems taking it and they don't have to invert it like they do sugar so they they take this right down and it's got plenty of benefits it's got some vitamins and things in it that really does help them it seems like they do really good kind of helps with a little bit buildup plus you know an insurance policy because we'll have some colder weather coming up they'll start building up a little bit on this and then I'll start some pollen patties probably oh depends on the weather first of March somewhere in there and we'll get them built up for spring splits coming up so that's kind of what we're doing today assessing and uh assessing the stores and using this High live fondant I got this fondant from Hill Co bees John at Hill Co bees they do have a pretty good price on these they're really good free shipping over $100 I think it's over $100 and uh so ends up pretty pretty nice these are about $6 a piece I think and usually just one does me I usually have enough stores kind of get through but this kind of helps them and uh that's the packet of the fondant it's kind of soft and I'll just take and open this up fact I didn't bring a knife but I'll use those scissors F I'll make it work but uh I'll just cut a slot in that put them down and they'll get up there and eat that fondant out of there and then when they're all done you'll just take it out but there's a list of what all it has in it and I also use the uh the liquid hi alive when I feed in my jars which I leave on year round and haven't had any problems doing that so uh we'll be feeding feeding that when it warms up when it gets you know really warm and the nights are like in the 50s I'll start I'll start feeding the sugar feed to them and the fond it'll probably be done by then I'm going to get my suit on okay all suited up I'm going to get in these hives check some stores I built these sugar cake feeders I've got a video on that real simple to make I kind of like them and I'll show you why I like making the sugar cake feeders you can just do the camp method you can you know there's all kinds of different ways you can just put your sugar on a newspaper or whatever uh they have moved up and they are out of feed they've gone through 10 lbs of sugar wow that's really surprising cuz last year they only went through about eight so and looks like they're up in all the way up in here it looks like we can check them a little bit today we can pull one out and see if they've got any honey left but they have gone through that Sugar a lot of times they will move up and get the sugar first um but it it looks like they might have some let's just pull one frame and see what we've got here yeah they do have some honey left there's probably well the next frame's empty at least this frame's got some looks like the the two this way are empty looks like this has one so they've got about three frames I've got a little bit left so usually you'll have sugar packed in here they had 10 lbs of sugar I'm going to go ahead and put these these patties in we've cut a place for them and if you cut them a little wider like that my wife actually did that I'm usually not that good with it but if you'll cut those little wi like that when they get up in there it's kind of easier to get them out once you try to get them out they like to hang out in there if you want to take them off when they're empty so we'll put that on there for them we did the front of the package cuz it's pretty pretty hard to see them the back when they're up in there you'll be able to see them a lot easier if you'll leave that little strip there and use the front so they'll get on that um we'll kind of watch them that fondant can go pretty fast um you know usually two or three weeks so I'll go and check them in two or three weeks and we'll we may have to throw some more fonded on I do have some sugar bricks left I could put some sugar bricks on them and I may bring them back up on the ones that needed so I'll kick a brick up on this one to tell me me that they are a little low on stores they did have a couple of I left this honey super on here it wasn't a full super so I didn't take it and they could have some in here too so I'll check on them but right now we've got some cold weather predicted to come in and I'm going to go ahead and put fonded on everybody so I'm going to check this one out I'm not seeing any activity coming out of this one this was a paper combin that I did really late in the season and it was a couple of pretty hives that had lost their Queen they weren't doing real well I went ahead and got a queen established in there with them uh I just combined both of these and we'll see what's going on but I don't see any activity going on yeah they're it's a dead out you can see that they don't have any sugar here or they haven't taken their sugar and so uh whether the queen wasn't viable or something happened we don't know but those things happen that's kind of the way it is we can look down in here just to make sure there's nothing going on but I don't believe there is yeah they're a dead out so they did not move up they either didn't move up to their sugar or they just they just didn't have a queen something was going on you could tell that were pretty small so when they died out so we'll we'll do some splits early spring reuse some of this we'll come up and take these in to protect the comb a little bit and we'll go to the next one I went ahead and took the sugar out of this one moved over to the one that didn't have the sugar put the fondant back on so we'll take that and put it back up we'll check on this next one it does have activity so we'll check them out and see how they're doing they have not even touched that sugar so they obviously had a good and this was a deep so they probably had really good stores just double deeps and um so it looks like they're doing okay they have moved up they are on this sugar if you can see they've been eating that sugar there's nothing right here I could chip some of that away there you can see they have definitely started on that and I can pull that out if you want to get an Underside shot of this let me pull it off real quick and there they are consuming some of that sugar so we'll put them on a Pond it they'll be set to go we'll travel to the other yard see what we've got going in the main yard okay we're in the main production yard um this row is pretty well what I had production last year there's a couple of I did some splits I did I guess four splits you can see the singles and most of those are splits and then all these single row back there I did splits on last year too so we're going to check on those and some of them went in the winter you know pretty small some of them built up real well we'll just have to see how it went we'll just do the same with them check them real quick see what they've got got they still have sugar they have been eating the sugar as you can tell it's pretty thin in places we just take this Hive alive and we'll just hit it with the hive tool couple of places and kind of work it back a little and we'll put it in there for them and head on to the next okay they still have there's a lot of bees in here and they have been working at Sugar I'm going to go ahead and give them some f it okay yeah they've been working this sugar pretty hard on this one a lot of bees in here I was going to brag on how good they've been so I haven't been having to smoke these too much but these are a little little rambunctious they're in there they're popping through their sugar right there and that's a good thing about these sugar feeders that I like is that they pretty well stay contained and you can stick your fondant and your pollen Patties or whatever on the other side so I have that's why I made two sides I put a a board in the middle to divide them and to make two areas so it makes a little easier when you want a feed check on them in the winter if you don't want to be in them very long today's a pretty nice day but you know if it was colder and I was doing this you wouldn't have as much problem in fact I probably shouldn't even let my smoker today but you just never know okay they have really gone through their stores so I'm going to move that other sugar cake down here we have had a a super mild old winter you know it's been really 40s 50s 60s and then it'll go it's been down to minus two and it's just been really up and down with our with our weather this year and so they when they get out and fly a lot which they have been then they use a lot of energy and so they really hit that Sugar hard and so that's why they've used almost 10 lounds of sugar already I'm just going to dump the rest of this on there and there's a lot of bees on this row too I mean there's a lot of population going in the winter on this row especially except for these splits I did they really hit theirs pretty hard too they're down to about one two three four down to about four frames three four frames so and we'll check these next time see kind of how they've done after they've used up this fondant but my experience is they will grow in numbers on this fond and then you know they'll get some better warmer weather coming on after this cold old snap hopefully will there will be some things for him to eat coming up quickly and they're about the same they've hit quite a bit of that this is pretty well all empty right here you can see I just barely hit it and it'll crack so there's not a lot left there oh man this still look tight and they've got a little bit left little more than that other one is pretty Hollow right here so they they tend to get on the middle frames ball up get on the middle frames and they'll eat this part out so you really got to watch because a lot of times they will not move out into this area so if you you know it's good deal to either put fondant on or put some more sugar in that middle area can lose a lot of bees especially come you know very first part of spring coming in the spring maybe March that's that's where you really have to watch your stores CU if you just pop it and you see sugar and you're thinking oh that's good well not always you got to make sure they've got it in this middle part right here cuz that's where they like to eat and when it's really cold they're not moving oh oh they really run through theirs haven't they they hav't hit there's too bad seems like these double deeps had a lot better stores yeah you know then a lot of these are these were mediums here these were deeps those were mediums so seems like the double deeps had butter stores going in the winter and they haven't hit theirs quite as much but they are getting on a little now you can see some places see they're eating this out in the middle right here so got to a little piece put over that so these this row was all splits done pretty late in the year September area I think I did a video about it um I don't like doing late splits but sometimes they just get so many bees in some of these that they just and I ran these singles and I actually took honey off Moses last year um and so we'll see how they're they're all seem to be doing really well I'm really happy about that I ordered these Queens um I'm trying to think where I ordered these Queens from I did a video about it I can't really remember but anyway we ordered new Queens last year uh for all this row and um so we're going to keep going I have to get another box of these out these come 15 to a box and uh you can order them single if you want but get a better deal when you order more okay these guys are really down to about maybe one maybe two they're pretty small they have been taken they have been taking this so we'll see how it goes we'll go ahead and leave some fond it on here and maybe they get built back up I really don't want to check for Queens today so we'll see how it goes can definitely tell this was split row because they're a lot smaller but they have made it I do I did put insulated Lids Oops I did put insulator Lids on most of these the smaller ones they've really been working theirs and they've moved over to this side they're all pretty well on this side they have done number on that boy they haven't touched this too much right in here they have you can see it's kind of right there don't touch it too much it's like they haven't hit too much either they small they're so small though the if we can get them through another month month and a half they'll be doing well they'll really get their numbers up quick those new Queens made it through the winter they normally do really well and getting their numbers up quick and spring so and they have come up to get theirs they are working it it's a double deep so they probably had plenty of stores I haven't touched these much they are on there now so okay this is in my West yard and I mainly all I do in this West yard I've got some eight frames and some Queen castles and um I just raised Queens I raed 13 Queens here last year uh on to raise some more this year um getting a little better every year at raising queens and this year I'd like to raise oh 20 or 30 Queens uh it's a little hard in Oklahoma when the wind blows so hard but and I did them pretty late in the year so I didn't have a great take on them but um anyway so we use these Queen castles and then we use these eight framers I'll use them for starters they are out of sugar completely so I'll have to get them some more sugar and one two three four four yeah about four frames so it's good we checked on them we'll put the we'll put the fondant on them and put them back together so we'll put this sugar I've got on them I'm going to put some fondant on them and we'll definitely use them to raise some Queens come springtime all right that's it for today I appreciate you watching and we'll keep you updated on how they did on this fondant and go through the cold weather and see how we did I appreciate it thank you

Channel: GEEZBEEZ

Views: 874

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Id: AyZ_T0QTW-E

Length: 34min 52sec (2092 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024