How to START BEEKEEPING! Inexpensive and Sustainable

[Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we just pulled up into dr leo's bee yard and what we're going to do right now is go over how you guys can save a ton of money raising bees providing uh pollination for your homestead honey for your pantry and just good environment for all of us to live in dr leo's getting ready putting the stuff together and we're going to walk you through some stuff and more education golly who would ever thought you could learn all this stuff just by watching youtube all right let's go we're gonna talk about bees can't believe it i came all the way down from up north and i'm down here freezing i brought the wrong jacket it snowed on me this morning what's going on down here i thought the ozarks were supposed to be warmer yeah they are but uh welcome to the door until i showed up yeah good stuff so we're in the bee aproary it's kind of a tongue twister it is you all right stay with me now all right go on did we do it again do you want to do it again i thought we were doing fine all right well here we are with dr leo we're in his bee apparently down here in the ozarks i'm dr lea my website horizontalhive.com shows you how you can get started with beekeeping in minimal expense and doing it all naturally so that's what we will talk about in this video yeah this is springtime and many people are thinking about getting into beekeeping and having a couple of hives in their backyard to have good honey for themselves and their children this is how we started keeping bees here on our homestead um in 2008 so 14 years ago after getting this land and this tree in the background is where everything started if you want to get bees you really have two options one is to get a package of bees which are the commercial domesticated variety which is not really winter hardy where you live and has very little disease resistance but a much better alternative is to catch a swarm of local wild bees using a very simple box that's called a bait hive or a swamp trap so when we moved here we put one of these boxes on this big oak tray that takes two people to hug and there this is where we caught our very first swarm and we went from zero hives to 40 hives without buying any bees one of the reasons it's better to catch your own bees is not just the lack of expense but the bees that come in a swarm from the local wilderness uh will be locally adapted acclimated to your local conditions will have much better disease resistance than the commercial strains so what i recommend and you can get the free plans and free advice on that from horizontal hive.com is to take a box this is the one i have built the plans are for results have.com or you can purchase one there and this is that you put in the spring in the tree to catch your swarm of bees i'd like to show you how to set up this swamp trap and how to position it for best results the box needs to be the right volume the bees really avoid very small cavities when they become congested and they b tree in the woods or even a wild colony living in the city somewhere in the wall of a building a swarm that means the queen and half of all of the workers fly out and scouts move in all directions looking for a place to live if they find your box that looks like to them like a cavity in a tree the swarm will very likely move in so the volume needs to be right because when the scouts come and they go inside and they see it's too small or too big they will not accept it the ideal volume is 10 gallons or so so this box with the plans on horizontal hive.com is exactly the size that the beast prefer inside there you have the same kind of frames you have in your horizontal hives i use the lance high frames lay ends and there some of them will have sheets of wax um that the bees will start building honeycomb on um if you already have some old frames that have starter strips where maybe you harvested honey and remove this honey and left a little bit of this common top this starter strip is totally fine and they will build from there but if you are just starting you can put foundation wax there like this also you take two tubes they call slow release tubes and you fill them with lemongrass oil and you tie them to that frame that is closest to the entrance these supplies are available on horizontal hive.com and this smell of lemongrass that's released at the right concentration from these tubes going through the plastic wall of the tube is are sending the bees another signal that this is a great cavity for that sword so you just put all of these frames and of course the swarm doesn't need the frames but you do if they were to move into an empty box they would start building this honeycomb there right away and then transferring them to permanent high would be much more difficult but when i catch a swarm transferring them with these frames from this little box into the permanent high will be as easy as opening the sleeve lifting the frame with honeycomb and all of the bees and lowering it into the permanent hive so i put this frames here the lemongrass in slow release tubes and now before i set it on the tree it's very important to secure the lead there very tightly what i do i just put four screws in there uh not only so the wind doesn't blow it or squirrels don't detach it but more importantly this is for safety if you're carrying down a box full of honey bees from the tree on an extension ladder and then you drop the box the bees will not appreciate it but at least if the lid is solidly attached there they will not come out and start stinging you and everyone who happens to be around so i just take a few screws and i attach this top to the uh box with the small screws to hold it in place and trust me you don't want to be bringing down a box full of swarming bees and drop them so you definitely want to probably screw that lid down some guys put ratchet straps or straps around yeah that's another good option yeah and you know i've handled hundreds of swamp traps and i only dropped it once yeah that's all it takes i was i was glad the lid was securely on all right so now that you have that box ready um let's talk about where to position it and there imagine yourself a honeybee and you're looking for a place to live um they will be looking for it in the trees right because that's where the bees live and research show that if you put this box down on the ground your chances of catching a swarm will be much lower than if you elevated 10 or 15 feet up in the tree the bees prefer to be in the tree um even for the protection from predators um so we'll take the extension ladder and put it on this big oak tree that caught me the first swarm i ever had and also keeps catching my swarms almost every summer another consideration is that the tree needs to be big and conspicuous and easy for the scout bees to find so the bees on the edge we have the power line running there so it's on the edge of vegetation is much easier for the scouts to find than the same kind of tree that's in the middle of the woods follow all the safety rules when working with leathers if you are not comfortable climbing up the ladder with that box under your arm you can tie a rope around the box throw the rope over a branch and pull it like on the pulley uh instead of carrying it with you just make sure there is good footing it's not too soft and the leather is not going to start walking so make sure you can [Music] that there is good support the ground is not too soft that there are no sharp objects protruding here uh like tpos or all fencing and that everything feels solid before you actually start climbing up in terms of attachment of the swamp trap to the tree you have two options righteous straps or a piece of wire that runs around the swamp trap with the nail in the tray and you hang it on that wire like a painting you could also tie that rope around there and then climb up there and just take the rope with you and then pull it on up so yeah lots of ways to skin a cap he's going up yeah so uh one option is having this wire and you take a really really big uh screw like three and a half or four inch screw you'll drive it into the tree and then you have this loop on this wire and you will hang it on the loop like that and then secure it additionally with one swarm trap with one ratchet strap but i have ratchet straps in place in the tray from the previous year because i hang swamp preps on this tree every year and it's a good practice if you catch a swarm stick to this like a tree because it can catch your swarms not only the following year but even sometimes more than one swarm in the very same year so for this reason i have the ratchet straps already up there i don't need this piece of wire i'll just put it straight up there in place without driving a nail into the tree [Music] all right both doug and me are up in the tree 15 feet off the ground and this is the ideal height to hang your swamp trap the orientation of the entrance doesn't make much difference so you can position it whatever is convenient for you it's preferable that the box is in full shade so it doesn't overheat bees will not move into a box that feels too stuffy and too hot inside it's very important too that you carry a small level and you actually check whether it's plum because if you have this frame that i showed that only has a strip of starter calm of a strip of wax foundation in the top these will start building it down according to gravity and if your box is out of plum like that on the tree not only the bees will interconnect several frames together you won't be able to pull them out but also rain water will be running down and into the entrance so just make sure that this box will be positioned plumb and then you are ready to attach it to this tree with these ratchet straps so it will be like that if you need to put uh something like a block of wood or a branch between the swamp trap and the tree to make it plump do it now and just run the razor strap around it and fasten it so you to use two ratchet straps because the tree keeps moving in the wind and sometimes one of the ratchet straps may fail and bust so you don't want this box falling down on the ground especially with the bees inside so always use two forms of attachment [Music] so there we go this is the first very simple and very important step in getting your bees instead of spending the money on something that's not even viable you use a simple piece of equipment that will last you 20 or 30 years to get the locally adapted robust disease-free bees you know he's talking about how those bees are adapted they're almost like heirloom bees right because you guys get the seeds and then you grow and then you save the seeds and then it adapts to your environment and then year after year it happens and then that's the best seed is the heirloom seeds just like the bees you don't want to be bring bees from california over to wisconsin and then think they're going to do great through the first winter or two they're going to die on you they're going to be sickly you're not going to get the production so you just got to keep all that stuff in mind right just heirloom bees now we're in dr leo's little bee yard right here and we'll show you some of the beehives that he has and we're gonna well i'll just show you that's the italian beehive don't mess with them that's the italian bees and all of these designs are also functional they're not just pretty it helps bees orient to their hive if all of the hives are identical some of the beasts from one hive may go to another hive by mistake and this is what spreads disease but when you put beautiful fancy pictures on the hive they know for sure that is their hive the less there is less drifting of the bees and less spread of disease that's what we talked about one time is why you don't leave all your hives white but every time you guys see hives they're always white they're stirred the um mouse guard that i haven't removed yet from the winter as we talked about it's important to protect the boxes from mice in the winter it can be a piece of wire stapled to the entrance and there i don't put too many um hives in the same spot there are probably around 10 hives here um and i spread them as much as practical for you uh to give this opportunity to return to the right hive with no mistake again it's very important for staying healthy for the bees but also don't put all of the eggs in the same basket if you have a larger number of hives i now have around 40. if they were all in the same spot and you had some kind of contagious disease that can happen even to wild disease resistant stock then you don't want it to spread to all of the hives so now i have hives in six different locations just spreading them in smaller apiaries which makes for more driving but it also contributes to the much better health of the bee colonies and all of these boxes are well insulated there is one and a half inch of natural wool inside and there it's beginning of april and it was 75 degrees two days ago but today it's freezing cold it was snowing in the morning so when you have good protection in the walls you don't have to worry about bees or being too hot in this summer or too cold in the winter or suffering from from these wild fluctuations of temperature in the summer in the springtime that's what happens a lot of the bees you know get 70 degrees real quick and they start separating and then doing their thing and then that night it could drop that fast and because they're separated they get cold and then they might not make it so yeah having the wool in there is a good uh help for them knives are that hive if you've been watching uh doug and stacey's bee videos but no way not in doug's bee yard i gave them one of these panels that my family painted instead of now painting on the wall of the hive as we used to do we now paint it on a piece of paper and they're scan it this way we can print it on a piece of aluminum it's very long lasting and after 10 or 15 years when this eventually starts fading in the weather and exposed to sunshine you can replace it again without losing this artwork forever a very important point when you catch a swarm and it's easier than you think it is then you have to remove the box from the tree and put it where the permanent high will be and you cannot move the bees too far because they have a good memory of where the box was there in the tree once they moved in as a swarm so if you take it up from the tree and you put it here they will find it but if you were to move this box even 20 feet or 30 way feet away hoping to put them in one of these other hives in the apiary all of the foraging bees would be returning back to the original spot and getting completely disoriented and lost so you have two options either take it down from the tree and put it in a permanent hive right under the tree or you need to take them a couple of miles away and put it there if you want to move them from here um to a hive that's a hundred yards away you need to take them out three miles for a week let them forage there for a week and then bring them and put them into the permanent spot again the idea is for them to not remember the original placement of the trap on the tree and keep coming there getting lost yeah let me try it yeah this guy was populated with a swarm and see how robust they are it's 46 degrees and bees normally do not fly and um in temperatures lower than 55 degrees but these uh northern bees do not care what you guys got to do is like me and gary are doing gary's got a swarm trap at his house and i'm gonna have a swarm trap at my house and then he's gonna catch one and i'm gonna catch one and then we're gonna switch because we live so far away from each other all right so we had to come inside this is so cold out there even those bees were moving around but i'm like let's get inside so dr leo was uh explaining to me about his big you know vision right uh because like myself and stacy he's an educator and that's what we really like to do is we like to you know educate people teach them about a thing you know a subject and then hopefully that that's going to help move them you know closer to their goals you know closer to being self-sufficient closer to living off the land you know those are our goals and that's why we work so well together is because we're focused on the same kind of things so what we're inside of right now is we'll hear dr leo i'll tell you oh yeah our neighbors were moving back to town you know those neighbors we talked about in that other video [Laughter] into our creek so now we did install the proper septic system in place and now i don't have any of these terrible things happening anymore but they're a home we're transforming into learning center it will be school of natural beekeeping so this room pardon the mess it's all work in progress but almost done this is where the lectures will be held and then we'll be able to walk outside and work with the beehives and soak in all of the beauty of the ozarks with this stream and all of these big trees that we never cut down right here in one spot so to tomorrow doug is attending the two-day workshop that i teach in town we rent the room there and then we come to my airport for the practical hands-on experience but starting the fall of 2022 after this renovation is complete these workshops will be taught right here at our bee farm we they're all of the bees and the trees and the streams around us and the lectures happening within a few steps or where the visa button if you're guys like us i mean that's kind of some big news so let's leave a big comment down there congratulations dr leo on your learning center you guys know we're getting a learning center put together too and we'll be working on our classes and you'll probably see dr leo even up at our place hosting the class and everything yeah that's the plan for the fall of spain to 22 too yeah so that's uh we have heart of teachers and we're just trying to share with you guys all this knowledge make sure you guys check out horizontal hive.com and you can get free plans if you want to build a horizontal hive you can get free plans if you want to build a swarm trap box if you have no time to do those you can actually buy them and they ship them to you anywhere in the u.s yeah absolutely and you know even if you buy the cost of the swamp trap with frames and all ready to go is just 99 plus shipping yeah if you are up to buy these it would be 200 dollars just for the bees with no equipment so with the very small upfront investment you are getting into natural beekeeping in a sustainable way supporting the local strain of these and also without breaking the budget you know what's happening too if you buy non-local bees say you live in wisconsin and you buy a package of bees from georgia these bees live in your hive in wisconsin and they produce drones the male bees and the honey bees made outside of the hive so all of these georgia drones flying out of your hives in wisconsin are mating and impregnating local queens in wisconsin uh destroying their adaptation because their progeny will no longer be wisconsin these this will be a mix between wisconsin bees and georgia bees so they won't be as disease resistant or winter hardy as the mardi colony was so please understand that if you buy non-local bees not only you will not enjoy beekeeping because you will have to medicate them to even keep them alive but also you would be undermining the health of the local honeybee population and if you'd like to learn more about these natural methods and swarm catching there is a lot of resource on horizontal hype.com and also in the two wonderful books that i translated and published for you one is keeping bees with a smile this big bestseller on how to get started in keeping these naturally and horizontal highs and the other one is the classical french book specifically on keeping bees in horizontal hives where instead of building up one box at a time that's very disruptive for the bees and very hard on your back with all of this heavy lifting you put bees in the box like you saw in the empire a minute ago um and there the bees do the rest yeah you don't have to lift all those boxes around we started off going up and now we're going horizontal and it's been a lot easier so if you guys got any questions we always comb the comments to see if you call them the comments did you pick that up to see if you guys have any questions that we can answer for you guys and also check out horizontal hive.com you can attend one of his classes in person he's got several more this year and then you can also see him at homesteading live conference in hannibal missouri we host that every year stacey and i um in august so we hope to see you there too so yeah a lot of information in this video so hopefully you guys got a lot of uh got your pencil out you guys were taking notes true and you know i wanted to tell you that they're keeping bees is simpler than growing tomatoes or potatoes because with vegetables you need to plant them and protect them from groundhogs and their rabbits and deer and you need to water them and cover them if it gets too hot or too cold with the bees if you start with the local bees you put them in the box and you just open the box a few times a year give them the frames and then pull the frames full of honey seriously that can be as simple as that if you start with the local bees so check out horizontal5.com and these two books sir and you can get started this very season yeah and they're easy keepers all right you guys smash the thumbs up on the way out and see you on the next video

Channel: OFF GRID with DOUG & STACY

Views: 39,478

Keywords: Off Grid with Doug and Stacy, Doug and Stacy, Doug, Stacy, Off Grid, off the grid, off the grid living, off the grid homes, off grid living, off grid cabin, off grid with Doug and Stacy, off grid solar power system, off grid house, off grid homestead, off grid solar, homestead, homesteading, homesteading for beginners, homesteading off the grid, cooking from scrtch, self sufficient, growing food, how to grow food

Id: rKAz0X71BMg

Length: 27min 15sec (1635 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022