Spring cleaning of the long hive

hello mr. Han here today is February 1st 2020 I'm in the field and the very far back of the abbey where we've got these two old lean-to huts but I think we've got about 28 highs back in here and back here also underneath the huts is where I keep my long hive and the long hive it's always been just just a little plaything an experiment just a fun thing for me to do it's not anything that I'm trying to get hunting from but more it's just like experiment because I really love to see the bees draw out their natural cone so the the frames were built and designed to allow the bees to do that and then for me to enjoy them seeing seeing them do that and then just watching that whole process now my frames are a little bit different because and I'll show you that I've put sides on them but we're going to go ahead and clean up the inside of this box I know there's some down piece of broken comb in there and since all of our other boxes are rotated ready for the spring I want to get this bureau ready for the spring as well so by the grace of God we'll get this girl cleaned up bees will be ready for the spring and ready for them to make a new queen and swarm out and maybe I can catch them too let's wrangle now it is a little bit cool outside it's right about 52 degrees right now it's overcast but I think as long as then we're in the 50s we can work our bees they don't they don't really like it that much but it's really not bad and they can break and regroup right away so let's go ahead and open up this girl and see what these girls are doing so soon as I move that back for what I started hearing them let me grab the camera I'm gonna see if I get the camera set up so y'all can watch exactly what I'm doing now this is the inside what it looks like and I've got my frames all in there the way the way I built these frames I'll take this one out and you can see it's just a top bar and not added these side pieces to it and then for a starter strip like I cut these little diamond shape pieces of wood these rectangular piece of the wood right here and then I coat them with wax to get them to start building it out and they build on this stuff really very well and you'll see what these combs look like once I open it up let's go ahead and spread some bars out and see what it's looking like in there so let's see what we're looking at as we take this thing apart I mean they've got comb built all the way out one two three four process 17 of these frames they've built comb on and we're gonna get rid of some of this stuff and let them draw some fresh stuff there you go it's all honey on this one on the back side of it that's pretty funky looking comb but since it stores they're gonna keep that here's one that has broken off but it still got stores on it there's lots of broken comb up in here terrible looking not so good looking so I'm gonna I'm gonna pick all this stuff up it's a bunch of honey down here let me grab the cam I'll show it to you so you can see it's a pretty bitch much of a mess in there and all this really I want to clean all this stuff up I don't like all this random looking comb I like everything nice and orderly and neat so we're gonna go ahead and clean all this stuff up [Music] I'm gonna leave this stuff because they can just build right on to that that's fine with me but this stuff that's on the bottom that's got to go it's got to go it's all honey - it's all honey let's get that stuff out of there need some room [Music] get this stuff out of here it's all honey well a lot of its honey it's still some old comb in there got a funky though looks like the home that mildew on it and this this section of comb is going to break off as well yeah see it's got mildew looking I'm really saying that before but we're not gonna I'm not gonna do anything with that I'm gonna just leave that one like that it's still on there this next one I think I'll take out cuz it looks about the same yeah it's it's detached so we'll take that one out got a few bees on it but there's that green or palest tint to it I've never seen that but the bezel won't mind it they'll eat it so all this stuff I'm going to speech are bees strengthen all this stuff off the bottom I don't want it to reattach that comb to the bottom of this box bees aren't too happy I'm working here I might have to smoke him yeah we put a little smoke on it you must be getting close to the cluster so they're just coming out of the bottom right here [Music] [Music] [Music] get that cleaned up so we're going to make some room so I can stop moving some of those frames this is about six pounds of honey right here it's very typical what I've been finding all our highs the the stores of honey have really been a lot in all of our hives so to find all this honey in here it's not surprising to me not this year at least alright now we're going to we're going to get right on to the bees I think after you open this flame up you can use another frame of honey look at this man that is like beautiful [Music] there's one they didn't start working on I dropped that in there they never started working on it instead they pulled the comb out Wow we a lot of honey look at this it's all honey when I got got some pollen on this side I'll show you that boy this is beautiful look at this so you can see the pollen down in this area right here nice [Music] oh we've got some brood on this one some of its uncapped I don't see our Queen on this frame lots lots brood and this brood is not that new some of its new alright so like [Music] you can see the brood some of its I'm capped this side as well it's still a little bit uncap but most of that is all cap rude oh I see some brand-new comb being built [Music] brand-new this was stuck on the bottom they may not even come up have to smoke pcs see what I got didn't want to because I kind of think our Queens on this there's so much new brood on it I don't see you're on this side maybe they'll get it off there you go cut that off of here look at this [Music] nice looking brood in there let's see if our Queens on the other side oh I don't see her I'm going to take off that bottom piece because that is messing me up and does have a little bit of brood on it but we're going to sacrifice that [Music] I didn't bring a knife with me there you go so now we got that piece cut off and they won't attach it to the bottom of the box now very nice listen wax book it Seymour brood on here look and see if I see the Queen on this side I don't see her I'm gonna scrape this bottom off don't want them to get the idea they can attach the comb to the bottom [Music] alright let's see what's on this brain [Music] thumbs up nice and easy let's check it out that's an old section of brood huh there's that Queen let's see if I can get it to see it all right here she goes she's somewhere right around here she's a big black one there she is right here right here walking around checking out things that's really great our Queens in good shape alright let's finish up cleaning up this hive this next frame they're drawing out some Newcombe want it perfect and some following coal on the bottom that I have to take out this is really why I want to come in here to to get this stuff cleaned up so that these bees will be all ready come springtime I'm glad I'm doing this and it'll make it so much easier for me to pull frames out of here because all these all this wax on this bottom it's just terrible it may not be terrible for the bees but for me I'm not interested in all that they got the capability to produce this wax build it up again and how more than happy to give them the opportunity to do so and there's nothing on this stuff it's just the pain in the behind there's nothing in it it's just something for them to work around and to get my way to clean this bottle more all right next week I love it when they come out easy like that again just this nectar in here you can see the glistening of a nectar a little bit of pollen as well that's how these frames really should come out you just pop them they pop right out you give looks like they got some drone cells in here but there's nothing in them you see more frames to move when they come out like that that's a good shape [Music] you go very nice and then this is our last frame right here that's all empty comb I think I'm gonna go ahead and drop that one in there close to our Queen so she can start laying in that one they built all that proof list on these edges and so by doing that these frames weren't sitting tight and I need to sit have these frames sit really tight cuz I don't want the bees to be walking up onto the top of this box so I'm just cleaning off all this propolis just cleaning that off and then it'll fit really good again perfect I'm gonna drop that frame empty through frame into this pot have to drop an empty frame because they built this stuff out so far I'll never get the next frame in there let's go ahead and drop in there everything is looking real so let's cover it up again and there you have it a long box ready to go ready for the spring all cleaned up and I and I'm sure that these girls they're gonna be swarming pretty soon I don't know if I'll ever catch these girls I don't even set traps back here I don't worry about these bees back here yeah they're on their own I split them and if they swarm they swarm but there's so much Anchorage back here there's plenty of woods for these girls to go into and find a new spot so that's all I got for you in this one so thanks for watching keep on watching and I'll be making more god bless mr. head I'm out here until the next video [Music]

Channel: Jeff Horchoff Bees

Views: 27,478

Rating: 4.9487181 out of 5

Keywords: Spring cleaning of the long hive, honey bees, splitting bee hives, queen bee, worker bee, drone bee, drone comb, worker comb, hiney comb, hive tool, bee smoker, modified langstroth hive, burr comb, hive beetles, pine straw, smoker fuel, end board, spring time splits, bees wax

Id: _0Q1XznCy-o

Length: 20min 29sec (1229 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 21 2020