Feeding the bees. First week inspection to see how they are

hello everyone and welcome back welcome to my channel whichever one applies to you uh so if you've seen any of my other videos from last year earlier this year whichever one you've seen uh you know that I had one beehive last year and it failed I did not make it through the winter with the Beehive I made some crucial mistakes um so I'm not I don't consider myself a beekeeper yet I don't in my personal opinion I don't think you're a beekeeper till you can keep a colony going through Four Seasons you have to make it through a winter before you can consider yourself a beekeeper if your bees die you ain't keeping them so as a second gear new beekeeper I've got three or four pieces of advice my opinions that I would give someone that is planning on going into beekeeping someone that is starting their first year in beekeeping uh I've got four three or four pieces of advice that I'll give you now these are my personal opinion uh number one is uh keep your EXP expectations low uh you're not going to buy new bees or package bees and throw them in a high body and in a month have 40 lbs of honey I don't think that's a realistic uh realistic expectation I've heard some people talk about how productive their bees are it might have something to do with with um when they get them in the hive how long they've been in the hive I don't know uh the best you can do with a brand new Hive I think in my personal opinion is maybe some honey in the fall uh that's going to be about it uh your first your two goals as a beekeeper there's two things that um that a beehive needs to be successful and this is my opinion two things that a beehive needs to be successful one bees you need lots and lots and lots of bees you need a strong Colony two drawn comb a beehive cannot be a beehive without bees and drawn comb so your first year as a beekeeper ought to be growing a big colony of bees and getting drawn out C uh there's certain way different ways to do the get the colony big there's certain ways to um to get them to dry out comb uh there's ways to stimulate them to dry out comb I suggest that you do your own research uh listen to a bunch of different ways listen to a bunch of different beekeepers uh some people use bananas to stimulate growth they say you'll produce 20 20% more Brew 20% more bees if you feed them bananas uh which I'm going to start uh sugar water simulates nectar they need nectar to draw out comb uh lots of sugar water the first year till you get your all your comb drawn out but keep your expectations low uh don't plan on getting honey within a month uh I just i' I've got a A friend of mine it's a beekeeper his first year as a beekeeper he got no honey it drew out comb for him in the honey super but there was there was no honey in the honey super now his second year third year he did a lot better he's gotten plenty of Honey off of him since then but his first year was all about drawn out comb making bees number two don't be a cowboy beekeeper wear some protective gear uh wear a wear a hood wear a veil wear a jacket wear long pants cuz you're going to get stung uh the more you get stung the U the more aggravated you're going to get the more timid going to get going into the Beehive you're not going to want to inspect them like they need to be inspected if every time you open the hive you get stung three or four times it's it's just totally frustrating I tried it last year I am not going to do it that way again this year I am going to wear some protective gear these bees are not your friend they're not pets they don't love you when they're flying around you all in your face and all around you they're not trying to give you big tickles or B kisses they're protecting their hive they're looking to get you out of their stuff they don't want you digging around and they don't want you taking the roof off their house and digging around in all their mess they don't want you in there they're not your friends um if you use one of these if you're a vapor use a mod use Vape I suggest you smoke yourself down before you get in your beehives they do not like this I had to learn that the hard way every time I opened the Beehive up they were all over me I finally started smoking myself getting myself smoked down getting all that pretty smell off of me and they started leaving me more alone after that still got stung but they started leaving me alone um don't come in here smelling like lilac and Roses trying to get accepted by the bees they don't like it they're going to be all over you they're going to be swarming you I think in my personal opinion the more you smell like smoke body odor and be crap the more they're going to leave you alone number three be proactive you're a firstyear beekeeper I'm a second-year beekeeper I have not seen a hive beetle yet I've never seen a hive beetle in a in a in a beehive I don't know what they look like I don't know what mes look like have no idea never seing one on an actual beat that I know of I may have and I just don't know it I don't know what I'm looking for be proactive start a preventative maintenance program beforehand start your do something figure out ways to um to treat for mites uh if you're like me I don't want to chemicalize my hives I do not want to put any chemicals I don't want to put anything foreign to bees or chemically altered stuff in my beehives I don't want to use m control chemical mic control uh I just don't want to use all that um so I've got a technique that I've seen other b b institutes use that I'm going to try involving powdered sugar I'm going be out here doing that next weekend I'll make a video on it show you how I do it how I've seen them do it might be something you want to consider I don't know if they have mites don't know I don't know what I'm looking for I'm only a second gear peekeeper I have don't have the experience I don't have anybody around to come look and see if I have them so I don't know uh High Beetle I saw a guy on YouTube that went n years without seeing hive beetle he came out did an inspection on his beehive bam he had an in infestation High uh hive beetle larvae all over the place Hive beetles all in everything chewed up all his wax he had not had a hive beetle yet so preventative maintenance goes a long way in a beehive be proactive don't be reactive number four resources uh look around your area see what you got out here uh be need pollen they need nectar they need water if you've just got some little puddles of water around here and there that's holding water holds water for a while you have to think in the future like at the end of August when it hasn't rained since May the end of May are those puddles still going to be there um you have to think like that because if they're not still going to be there then you need to have some sort of water source now a water source could be a galvanized bucket in the middle of the beard you just have to make sure you keep it full you put in a little Pond or whatever I have a couple ideas on how I'm gon to handle mine and uh but I have to have a water source for them out here because the nearest real water source I have right over the top of those big pine trees there's a pond back there and uh I it dries up it gets low on water uh have all kinds of water out here right now down here in the woods back here there's plenty of water right now but it's been raining now at the end of the year the end of summer all this water will be dried up and they won't have any water so one more thing I wanted to bring up on point number one the low expectations uh don't give them too much room uh I messed up last year I put a I had them in in a super I mean in a hibody uh really quickly really fast within a couple of weeks I threw another hibody on them and uh then I had a Hy super sitting on top of them the bees were not ready for that I didn't know what I was doing I didn't know how to make the bees go to the top um and they did nothing to uh to fill out the second Hive body uh they barely got into the honey super uh so I mean just take your time with them they're going to grow bees want to grow a colony they want to be big they want to be strong they want to be able to defend themselves so last week I bought two nukes and I got them set up last week unfortunately I wasn't able to shoot any video I did that during ran between rainstorms uh it was a rainy stormy weekend last weekend uh but I went up into Arkansas picked up a couple of nukes bees came out here and uh got them in the hives didn't take long to do uh it didn't take long to put a nuke in there so this week I'm just going to get in there real quick I a couple of frames of uh of comb that I put in there from last year want to see if they drew that have drawn that out there's c one new frame of came with the nuke I wanted to see what they were doing on that had sugar water on them on the in top feeder sugar water I'll show you that in a minute how I got that set up and uh so I I went in there a little bit ago looked in the feeders the feeders are completely empty uh we'll leave them with some more sugar water this week when we leave and uh I don't think they're going to be ready for any more space this week but if there's about eight frames of bees in there I might throw a honey super on there and let them start pulling that out so um let me get set up suited up and all that kind of good stuff and uh see what we got going on over here so one more thing I wanted to mention before we get started here uh I forgot to bring up at the beginning of the video uh on the advice I guess you could call this five I don't know what number we're on but one more last piece of advice that I have for a beginning beekeeper that I learned last year have your place to work give you a little work area uh place to set you stuff uh learn how to use your smoker don't learn how to use it in the be yard uh figure out how to use it at home uh sitting on the back porch or whatever don't come to the beard and try to start using it say mine is not lit anymore anyway don't get into the habit of U setting stuff on your beehives it's a bad habit to be in um because you wind up moving stuff a thousand times and uh last here one time I was doing a hive inspection and I um I set my I was putting everything back together I set my hive tool down on top of the Beehive turned around to grab it to put it away and it fell down into the frames and all the way down to the bottom board and I had to uh take everything back apart and um it was just a pain just a total pain um anyway so have yourself a little work there even if you have a little fold out camp table or something where you can set stuff on it um and before you open the hives up have everything ready you W to have these hives open forever uh because it brings in other pests and predators and all that kind of stuff this smell gets out pretty quick and everybody in the woods is like hey there's a beehive open somewhere let's go find it you wind up with Pest and other predators in here messing with your bees well so uh let's open these beehives up see what we got all right so we got this um top board on here we're just going to set it off to the side uh I've got a u Feer in here used the honey super I'm going to build me a feed box a top feeder box to go on here I'm not going to buy one I'm going to make one myself it'd be cheaper and easier just to do that um I'll show youall how I'm going do that in another video soon I had sugar water in here this thing has just got bees all in it right now uh because it's empty and I'm going to be getting them out of there and uh and putting more sugar water in there all right we're going to pop this top board off here I'm a little bit of smoke calm them down a little bit also plan on doing a little high uh little bit of housekeeping while I'm in here some of this old comb this bar comb off the top they got this sealed up pretty good hang on all right let's pop this thing open see what's going on if they've done anything this was a piece of thrown out comb that I put in here a frame of drawn out comb looks like they got some pollen and what they call be bread in there mixture of pollen and honey that's what the bees eat I think from what I've Been Told this was one that had some comb on it I scraped it off so they get a fresh start on it a little bit being drawn out on that side little bit also want to try to find the queen while I'm in here never been real good at finding a queen lot of nectar on this one for some honey little bit of cat brood in there I'm not experienced enough to know whether the queen should be on this one or not I have no idea see nectar there she is right there there's the queen right there don't know she a big old girl ain't she for so when you're doing this you want to take a time um of course uh last year while I was in here I made a mistake and uh accidentally dropped one of my high one of my frames on the ground so I didn't know if Queen was on there I had no idea yeah that was that was horrible so I'm going to skip this Frame skip this Frame there's one in here this one right here was um empty it came with the nuke so I want to see out of there come on get out of there don't squish you well you're just determined to get squished aren't you yeah we're starting to draw that out got a lot of lot of Comb on starting to draw that side out yes sir those bees are having a feast aren't they all fair all right I think I'm going to let these bees go one more week without anything on I'll put some more um some more sugar water on them U probably not going to go through this one over here like I went through this one cuz they're going to be about the same stage I'm sure get all these high get all these frames pushed back over I was going to give him a banana I tell you what I did some research on these bananas and U man I know more about a banana now than I ever thought I'd know did you know the banana doesn't turn black it freckles ain't that cute and from what I understand this the first time I ever put a banana on my beehives so this is a new thing for me so we'll see how it does but what I understand stand they'll eat the uh banana whole banana peel and all so this is going to be interesting it's supposed to stimulate them to u to have more growth in the hive produce more brood I think I already said that but I'm bad about repeating myself on videos and anything you put in the hi that they don't need they won't eat it I did find that out last year I put some stuff on them last year they didn't need it they didn't eat it so if they don't need it they won't eat it um so I'm just get some of these bees back out of the way give them a little bit of a treat for being a good good girls that thing will be gone by next week what I understand we'll see then take your um sugar water I use a uh right now I'm using a one one to one I use a four lb bag and just in case you're wondering 4 lb bag mixed with two quarts of water is one to one so that basically gives you U two quarts of uh sugar water they're already in there drinking it yep so all right well I'm not going to get into this other Hive too much so I'm going to go ahead and um shut this up take a quick little break cuz this is not uncomfortably hot but it is warm and I'm going to get in the other one put a put a banana on top of them give them some more sugar water I'm going to get on out of here and get back to town and uh so hey thanks for watching if y'all enjoyed the video give me a thumbs up subscribe anybody you think might be interested in seeing this video h forgot to take see that's what you got to pay attention to I forgot to take my freaking uh frame hanger off there now I got to open that back up and uh and uh get my frame hanger off there if I don't take it off there they'll they'll uh they'll uh what is that stuff that sticks to the hive I don't even remember I can't think of it right now propy they'll propy it in there have that thing stuck in there good anyway if y'all know somebody's thinking about getting in beekeeping and uh you think they might be interested in in uh hearing what I had to say about it uh share this video with them uh give me a subscribe if you enjoyed it if you enjoy it I under your subscription uh give me a subscribe and I appreciate everyone of y'all for watching hope y'all enjoyed have a good day thank you

Channel: Dees Bees Honeybee Farm

Views: 6,372

Keywords: beehive, beekeeping, honey, bees, banana

Id: MMT3eADJfgY

Length: 25min 23sec (1523 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024