Recently I had an opportunity to remove a honey bee colony from a hollow pillar in front of a house. The process was documented in this video, including the use of my new bee vacuum, and the installation of the bees into a hive. I also check up to see how the bees are doing just over a week later.
Year: 2022
Splitting 1 Honeybee Colony into 2 in the Same Hive!
When you might be short on extra hives to house bees, but need to split a colony, it’s possible to use multiple entrances of a horizontal hive to facilitate a split, housing both resulting colonies in the same hive. In these videos I prepare for the split by moving the colony to use the central hive entrance, then split it into two colonies, each residing in one end of the hive.
Beehive Frame Comparison
You might have heard me, or others, talk about “Langstroth”, “Layens” or even “Lazutin” beehive frames (or others, especially outside the US). But maybe you have no idea of the differences of these. In this video I explain and compare these three frame sizes, and explain how and why I decided to use Layens frames over the more popular Langstroth.
March 20, 2022 Beehive Inspections
On March 20 I inspected the hives for the second time this year, specifically looking for brood. If the colonies aren’t starting to build up brood by now they will have trouble surviving into spring. The videos of these inspections, including some mishaps and surprises, are below:
Adventures in Rendering Beeswax
Beehives produce multiple products besides honey, but getting a final product from what the bees make often requires some work. Beeswax is a valuable resource that must be separated from other materials within the comb. I am trying to do this, for the first time, and it’s taken a couple tries to get a product that’s worthwhile and ready for further refining. This video documents my attempt(s) and the outcome(s):
“Schrödinger’s Bees” – Are they Alive or Dead?
This time of year is critical for the beehives – if they’ve survived winter they’re going to increase their activity and start producing brood, but until flowers start blooming they won’t have much nectar to support them. I inspected the hives to find their status coming out of winter, and to see if they have enough food to get into spring. The inspections were recorded, but the microphone was muted. So the video has taken a different “cinematic” turn. I hope you enjoy this “silent movie” version of the first hive inspections of the year.
Conversion Hive Construction
There is a series of videos on my YouTube channel about a nucleus colony of bees that I have migrated from Langstroth frames to Layens frames, in a hive that I built to be able to hang both frame sizes parallel to each other. Some had asked about plans for this hive. Although I don’t have documented plans, I did make this video to document and describe the construction of the hive:
Conversion Hive Construction Video Coming!
Since posting videos showing the use of my conversion hive to move bees from Langstroth to Layens frames, I’ve received several requests to share plans of that hive. I’m currently working on a video showing how that hive was built, but that project was done before I started making YouTube videos so I’m learning some new video editing skills to retroactively put the presentation together.
That build video should be posted soon but, in the meantime, here’s the video showing the setup of the conversion hive and addition of bees: