Maintain your supers! make the bees job easier!

just up here of an evening at the uh well not the mating yard but where I got my Mini Plus and a lot of the remaining nukes that are just about to be transferred into hives because they're all Queen right and the flow is on so we've got loads of Bramble you can see it's exactly what we got stuff like this everywhere so nice little Bramble you can see it up there everything is booming but the bees are still flying so I've just literally want to just have a quick walk around see what's going on get my head together as to what I'm going to do this week put my bee Hood up because a lot of bees still flying around but I'm getting that smell that stinky Chestnut smell it's not like the buckwheat unmistakable look here before I get look at that I need to get another Super on that so that's what I'm doing tomorrow nearly full that's brilliant I knew these bees were working hard I saw them see what happens in your apiary as well when the summer starts to grow is you cut everything back and it looks great and suddenly out the blue everything starts to fall forward no matter how much space you got behind it always gets him to get there so I'll have to come in here and cut this back from the Hedge cutter I don't like taking this stuff off but there's loads of it here this is slow you can see the slows already quite Advanced pruning spinos or the Blackthorn that's the fruit the slow common slow but what I'm seeing I'm very happy about only loads of these flyers have a look inside the top here so I like my plastic covers oh yes it means I can see what the bees are doing nice I'm not going to mess with these because they look a bit feisty and I've only got a pair of shorts on and my suits run over I am just waiting to be stung aren't I but this is looking good we've got some real nectar going in and I know this will be good stinky Chestnut because this year where we've got some moisture in the ground when this flow started so I'm hoping that will have a good honey crop I haven't got an enormous amount of hives on the summer honey excuse me but what I have got is some good hives and for instance I've got a little nuke here that was a swarm so this I'm going to put a that's full of bees I'm going to put a nuke underneath that one that's a Mini Plus and I'm going to give it a nuke underneath and I'll grow into that and I'm going to do the same with the ones over there that I put Queens into the other week and they should give me I'm just getting stung by Stinger Nails here nothing else and they should ow um hopefully grow into that nuke it's actually 9 15 now and uh the last two days have been really hot really hot because I've got delivery of glass this week for my new jars and I wanted to get as many highs out as the last hives I needed to get out as possible so that I've got room at home all the pallets are put away blah blah blah so I'm going to put these out all those over amongst that look because that's going to be transferred tomorrow the day after but they'll be ready here to transfer those nukes into hides and then this will be what it's done I'm going to take away some of those empty boxes there as well and there and get them shifted because they need to go back home it's just that nice time to come out and just see what you need to do and catch up on everything because I'm going to need all my boxes sooner because everything's going to be split in the summer even these will be split last of all and what I'll do is I'll probably split them and leave them on site and give them a new Queen on site because they're not going to go anywhere for the moment there's one even when they're in hives they'll stay here because there's only about another two weeks of flow left but it'll still benefit them being moved into a hive because I'll grow into that Hive and they'll have more room and then I'll split them in half and then I'll feed them well good morning we've got this lime tree here I'll show you around it's absolutely full of honeybees and other insects the smell from this tree is absolutely amazing so I've got chestnut here you can see it's in full flower a big long yellow fronds and on the same time we've also got lime and obviously we've got Buckley which I visited yesterday and added a load more supers too I'll show you the picture now I took how many I took another 32 supers and left them all on there a couple I double supered because the bottom box was full already completely full and the other ones are just filling their second Super so it's going really well we've got a little bit of rain forecast for tomorrow but not a great deal but maybe more later on the buckwheat will probably last about another three weeks to four weeks then it'll basically start to wane but it's been really really good so far way better than last year but when you see this this tree was a tiny seedling when I bought it a tiny trioni not even a meat at all and it was at a uh a garden center and it was going to be thrown out and I just got it I chucked it in the ground and it was really root bound so I had to undo all the roots when I planted it and it's just got away I can't believe it now it's like the main centerpiece to the honey house so absolutely love this tree but it's really late this year it's at least a week to two weeks late because it's usually finished by the time the main Chestnut starts so this is what I've been doing this week as well I've been bringing back he probably despite these I've been bringing back all my empty boxes all my empty six Frame data nuke boxes back to the workshop where they're going to be cleaned up and readied for the summer splits so the summer splits configuration Inside the Box will be two partitions one frame of foundation so that goes into the hive and then in the in the Box already I'll bring either one or two frames of foundation and a frame of drawn comb that I've got because I've saved a lot from deadouts that I did over the winter which uh finally all melted down except those last few there those are reasonably good frames good frames there this is the Tower of frames that I melted down in my little uh wax melter and I'm I'm absolutely delighted with that wax melter I bought and I did a review on it if you're looking to see the review it's the Carl Fritz wax steamer you'll see back in my review and I think it was in March Time so that is this Winter's job to re-wax all of those and when I've run out of those I've still got those behind there to use and brand new friends behind there and brand new frames here so I'm kind of okay on frames for a little while but I've managed to get most of the things sorted out in here and I'm now ready to start work on the next phase of doing stuff little by little got the sync going in in about a week to two weeks when I've got it ready then we've got some solar panels I hope the hot water as I was explained in my last video but there's no rush but it'll be in it'll be in when it's done but today's job is going to be cleaning off honey supers that have got pollen in and it's going to be a scraping job and I'll show you what we're going to do with that now so these are frames that have been semi-cleaned out by the bees but they need scraping out so I've got a bin in here with a little arm across the middle that I use I rest all this wax we can scrape out and reuse it does come off pretty easily do you appreciate if I didn't do that you see the honey still in the bottom there and this is just honey most of them have got quite a bit of pollen as well so it takes a few minutes it's great for now you just got to get the worst off clean them up a bit but the good thing about these frames is the bees will rebuild all of this so I pressure wash this off and I'll be doing that this afternoon when the sun's out I get covered in but it doesn't matter because then we can put them all back in these boxes oh 10 is the configuration we have to rebuild on otherwise the Gap in between is too big and they'll build comb in between but we don't have to re-wax these frames they've already got the hint of wax on them and this actually this frame in fact is probably one I'm going to be taking out of circulation because it's about three mil longer than all the others and I bought a load of new frames last year and I'll probably buy some more this winter because my new extraction line won't take these frames because they're slightly longer everything has to be the universal size of these ones if you look they're all fitting perfectly well if I put this frame in the in the tens it actually is very very tight and doesn't fit that well so it's just a bit too long and often you can see it Curves in the super because it's just too tight and these are all going to go because I don't really need these but I'll clean them out now and I'll stack them out and see where we go from there but anyway that's today's job got to get that all done I've used a huge amount of supers already now this place is pretty clear that's all I've got left so I'm pretty pleased with that they're all empty as well those super they're just empty supers they can have more frames than if necessary and these are mostly all eights all my eights are in the old boxes and that's why my roofs don't fit on on many of the boxes because you can see the boxes are slightly bigger some bigger than others that is the size they all fit on this is the slightly bigger ones but they're all 10 configuration so anyway there you go work work work let's get stuck in if you don't maintain your supers it's kind of similar to maintaining your broodness you have to maintain your soup as well if you want good honey crops increase in efficiency and you will have bees that throw the nectar in there a lot quicker if they're not trying to clean and struggling to clean like that out some of that is is light pollen and summer is very dark and black now the dark and black they will properize over and they won't pull it out you can see it again on this one this has already been properized over from last year that's why I'm cleaning this one see how dark that is you can see those it's actually got properly they will never ever dig that out just wanted to add this photo in uh after I've done the video because I wanted to show you the end result what happens if you don't maintain your supers eventually they end up like this they will keep on properizing over pollen if it doesn't get used which in most cases 99 of the time it doesn't and what will then happen is you end up with a place they just will not build honey and even in a strong flow they won't clear it out and this is a classic example so you can see why I do this it may be that our plastic frames are more prone or more susceptible to this kind of propolization over I don't know but from what I've seen it occurs in most supers so it's really important you maintain your supers I'm not having to use Foundation here they will rebuild that perfectly once I press store pressure wash it see I've taken the top off and the underneath now is just fairly loose pollen so we're getting there these are to be pressure washed they've all been scraped clean you can see the extent of some of the crystallized honey in it now the bees will just not clear that out if you put that back in a hive and it was obviously level I've scraped the top of it off and I'll pressure wash the rest off you put that back and hide this time of year they'll just put honey on top of it they won't use that before they put honey back in it's unlikely so most of this is pollen and most of this you can see now I've taken the top off and it's it's still moist and they will it will now literally blow out with a pressure washer some of the other ones will be a little bit more difficult but obviously I've got some bees here that are homing in on the honey but they're totally harmless they're just trying to scrape everything out they can but all this is going to have to be scraped clean you can see the extent of the crystallized honey there I thought honestly I would have cleared that out last summer but they didn't take it it was just too much so I'm nearly there I just got these four left to do and then we're on to pressure washing so I want to get this whole lot done today and then I know it's a day lost but it's a day investing in my equipment and then these can get straight back on tomorrow I'll be outputting these on what a lot of work and it's very sticky but uh it's cloudy today which is nice I would be in the normally in the blinding Sunshine here getting my skin melted off of me and I'm not actually used to a lot of hot sunshine I prefer myself to be the work in the shade or Undercover or in a bee suit um so I'm quite lucky today just getting on with it while I got this chance and have the sooner it's done we'll get the pressure washer down here and I can connect that out we've got electricity and water just up there and that will reach to here and I've got a nice long hose on the pressure washer so fingers crossed this afternoon get that done after a bit of lunch and then we'll be able to take loads of these out tomorrow and I've got was it maybe 20 20 boxes to go out tomorrow if this is all done today so it's really good these are the ones I managed to salvage so these are in tens and if they weren't too bad and had no pollen in I've just scraped these off clean them up and put them ready to be rebuilt so that's the few out of all that lot but that's less I don't have to pressure wash or clean they're ready to go so there is it's just also a sorting out of equipment and doing the best I can with what I've got and it means that at the end of it would have used up a lot of equipment that otherwise would need to be clean and not be used properly this summer so you must maintain your supers properly it's all very well just chucking them on the bees and hoping but I don't agree with that I believe that you've got to get the maximum use of your supers you need to keep them regularly cleaned well I decided to not put all the gear on because I kind of started before I got wet and then I got wet and then they kind of thought oh well what a sight but you know what it's coming off really easily that's one side finished of this all those on the left are done all those are done going down the pile now obviously unfortunately the bees seem to have found the moisture and the Honey being wet a bonus to them so I've got to tap the bees off every time I make a start but it could be worse it's nice and warm I don't know this has always been a summer job so uh it'll be finishing late this evening I think but if I can get this lot done by this evening I'll be really happy disgusting just to give you some idea of the nectar flow we have running here every one of those trees that's in light color is chestnut there's just tons of it and that's where you want it on a really strong Colony look at that bees just pouring in there this one is actually almost on the ground but it's actually on a tire what happened was the pallet broke and I haven't brought a spare pallet up but it's a stream of B so I know they'll be straight up there onto these frames and they'll be rebuilding that with a bit of wax yeah they'll use a bit of Honey to build that but hey that's what beekeeping isn't it so that's how I maintain my supers it's a rotation we have to do quite a lot of it but at the end of the day that gives you lots of space for honey storage at the most economical work rate the whole library is alive so I'm really pleased look at that eh we've got some supers here that are way way too strong look at that I'm actually going to put two on top of this after probably too much or what I do is I'll give it one of the brand new ones and they can fill that out but this is nearly full and I would never want this to be this full at this time of the flow but it is what it is I'm pretty sure this is chestnut because this Hive stinks but we're going to give it a good taste it's so runny though some of it oh absolutely so strong Chestnut um that's the first one I can say I've tasted Chestnut for a couple of years in that strength but it's good really really really good beautiful we're back in business money money money money money look at those bees working earning me lots of money and at the end of the day I've got to pay the bills and this is what's important [Music]

Channel: Richard Noel

Views: 5,877

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Id: PUd4Loti3IQ

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023