A Day In The Life Of A Beekeeper – March: The Awakening

Clearly, that is a drone laying queen. So I have completely killed that queen there now. This is a really interesting thing to see, actually. I've got hope for this one still. They've not got the resources to create a new one. I can just say that that's a drone layer already, just from the behavior.

Shall I? Can I walk away?

Shouldn't let it get that close. Admit that one definitely a mistake on me. Good morning, Zane. Before we go, I've got something to show you.

Okay, let's have a look. Got some progress.

Right, so Zane, what do you think?

I think it looks the business.

It's definitely coming together, isn't it? Zane hasn't seen it yet since I've got this new felty fabric on the top there, so we're doing it bit by bit. But this is the idea, the livestream, so I can talk there, and that's the background. So I know it was quite doom and gloom last week, but I thought I'd give you a very quick update as to what's going on. We've now got a treatment plan in place for Helen. She's due to have surgery in a couple of weeks, and then she's going on to chemo. So 2026 is going to look very, very difficult.

I don't really know what it's going to look like at the moment.

But all I do know is that what I need to do now is just get as much stuff done as I possibly can. And luckily Zane is here again today, so that is what we'll be doing.

So what's the plan today then? Are we back at the forest?

We've got a big plan today, got loads to do. So I need to go back to all of those apiaries that we went to last week and just fix stuff up and bring boxes, like move some boxes around. Need to do some more feeding, need to change out some queen excluders, need to fix and clean out some mini mating nucs, to finish cleaning some frames. Probably have some lunch at some point as well, but lots and lots to do. Zane, we are in for a treat today. I've got to stop talking like that, but I was up here yesterday sorting all the bits out that we need to do. We've got like 3 videos that I need to finish off, got to do the wax frame melting, got to finish off beeswax video. Before I tell you about any of that, how cool is this here? This slate here was in my house and I took it out because the log burner went out and look how perfectly it fits on there, like all dimensions round.

It's actually really cool.

To the millimeter. Yeah, it's quite handy because what I want to do, I've got a little burner here, The idea is going to be have a burner there to do cook eggs or whatever.

Don't know. Burning things, cooking stuff.

I've not I've not quite worked that out yet. All I know is that that's quite a good fit.

Yeah. Like it.

Right. Let's get to it first thing.

Oh. Right.

I'm going to get both of these burners on. I've got loads of pre-prepared wood, which is quite nice. Idea with this one is I'm going to get a big big pot of boiling water on the go, and then this one here is my. Soda washing for the frames. I've got about 20 frames left to do in there, and then I need to clean them all in the boiling water here. There's a few there that I forgot to dip, so I'm gonna get that done today, gonna get this on, and then we'll go out somewhere else and let the temperature go up. Before we get started properly, last week we went into the little mini mating Abelo hive and the bees were, they were starving. They were so close to death and I dribbled the syrup on it and I had a few people saying, oh, that's quite a good idea. A few people saying, shouldn't have let it get that close. Admit that one, definitely a mistake on me. But come have a look. I've had to switch the entrance around because there was a lot, a lot of activity yesterday. But they're looking pretty good. I've got good vibes and I'm going to have a little sneak peek inside, see what's going on. So I was up here yesterday, it was a really nice day yesterday and it's supposed to be warmer today. So as the temperature comes up, you're going to see lots and lots of bees. But there was almost a bit too much activity entrance there and I was thinking, oh, have they found the feeder? There's syrup at the top and I was scared that other bees had come in and found the syrup that was up there and bypassing the weak starving bees. So I just switched it round, which is a good little tip if you've got any early season Robbing. So that's back to its original position now. And there we go, we've got some bees coming out. Zane takes a step back. Look at this. Just have a look at the top of that. We've still got quite a lot of dead bees, but look at the amount of bees in there, Zane. So I'm not going to pull frames out because they're struggling to come back, but what's nice is that I know they're up in the feeder as well. That is a lot more bees than there were last week, and robbing bees don't hang around until The morning. So these are definitely all the good bees that should be in this hive. I've got hope for this one still. Good little technique that. Let me put the feeder back on. If you go back to the video last week and you see bees shimmering like that and there's no stores, dribble the syrup directly on. Putting on the feeder doesn't always work, but that is very, very good news. Let's get on with it then. So what I'm doing up here with the frames is I'm going through. Let me show you how they start off. So I'm taking old frames like that, cutting out all the wax from the middle, just kind of scraping them down, and then that goes into a boiling washing soda solution in a pressurized container. That is what is over here. I'll show you that in a second. Actually, I'll show you it now. All right, so it's heating up at the moment, but I only just started it, so it's not going to be warm. But you can see it kind of like screws up like that. I am doing a full video on this as well. But if I take that open, you're going to have a look in there, Zane. So you can see this stuff here, there's a tiny little bit of wax around the edge. The majority of that there is washing soda crystallate. So you can see it's just kind of like all mushes up like that. It stays good for a surprisingly long time, but that there is just a big tub of water, and then I've got 10 packets of washing soda, 500 grams, like 5 kilograms of washing soda. But the frames come in like that, cut out all the wax, I chuck them in, I weigh them down, I get about 20 in there. And then what I've not done on some of them is what I'm finishing off today. So these ones here need melting down, But let me show you this. This is how it's pressurized. So it has a rebate all the way around there, and then there's a gasket in it. You can see it coming out there, look. Put that in, and then that goes over the top, so it creates a really nice seal. But then this is the cool bit. This goes in here, and you can get the pressure down. Now there's definitely a vent. There you go, there's the vent there. So it's not like completely pressurized, but it is pretty pressurized, and it means that you can get a lot more steam in there than you would if you didn't have this clamping down system. So the idea is the old gantry frames go in here, you put that over, 12 to 15 minutes boiling with the wood power, and then on this side here, I'm gonna fill that up with water, put it there, and then we're gonna get that as a boiling— I'm gonna get that up to boiling and then just dip all of the frames in it. And I'll show you why you need to dip them in it. This is the problem. So you can see the frames here, like these ones here, They've been dipped in boiling water, so they've gone through the full wax boiling process, and you can see just how nice and clean they come out. Get a good close-up of that there, Zane. So the most important bit really here is this groove where you're going to try and get your foundation in. The wedge will come out there, and if you don't boil stuff up properly, it's covered in wax and propolis and gunk, and you just can't get the foundation in. But you can see they come out pretty much perfect like that. But this, this is the problem. This is what I'm here to fix today. It's not really a massive problem. It's just if you put them through that washing soda solution and boil them and then just hang them out to dry, You get all of the washing soda on the frames, which is obviously not what you want, but it's really, really easy to fix, which is big massive pan of water over the boiler, dip them in, shake it off, put them back out to dry, and all of that crystal will be gone. That is what I'm gonna do just now. So plan Zane is I'm gonna get that fire going like really, really hot. I'm gonna get that one going hot as well, and then we can— I think we should go. I don't want to put anything in here. It takes a good couple of hours to get that one full up. Let me get some wood. One of the main comments, Zane, that I got on the video last week that you probably saw as well is that people loved you asking questions.

Oh, really?

You've got to ask more questions. Yeah, it's good, it's helpful because I think I don't necessarily know what to answer the whole time, but from someone who doesn't understand beekeeping, just asking like general questions, I think it's really useful. So keep them coming.

They seem like silly questions at the time, but they are genuine.

They're good questions.

Genuine questions.

Right, so I'm grabbing all the bits. When we were at the apiary last week, I was short of a couple of things. I was short of these boxes. I was short of a couple of feeders, the queen excluder. So I've got 6 feeders to take, a couple of queen excluders, couple of boxes. I swear there was more. You, you voice noted me, didn't you? Let's listen to your voice note. An extension box for the keeper's hive. 2. A license brood box extension plus feeder. I need a queen A Lysan queen box extension plus feeder. Let's go and get that. Right, a bit of Jenga there with the Lysan one. They don't have a feeder, so you have to have an extra box as well, and I'll put the feeder inside it. Right, quick update. It's only been on, what, 20, 20, 30 minutes? And, um, I've got to wash my hands in there because it's quite nice and warm, but that's like bath temperature. Yeah, oh, I'd get in there, it'd be nice. We could do that up here, couldn't we? A big one on the go. Not my favorite bit, but you do, you need that one up at a very high temperature. There is a gauge at the front there that's a bit dirty, but you, you see it when it boils because it starts rolling. We're done in this apiary now, Zane. We're going to go back over to the other one and find those bits. There's only one bit that I'm missing, which is the queen excluder slash entrance for the Paradise Smart Hive. Gonna have to have a look for that at the apiary, but I think we've got everything else. We'll only know once we get there. We'll only know once we get there. So back in the car, Zane has set up the camera, and we were kind of thinking, how are we gonna have this camera here? We're gonna have it on just me, or we're gonna have it on me and Zane? And Zane convinced me that he didn't want to be on camera today, but maybe next week. I think if you want Zane on camera in the car rides, then stick it in the comments, because my idea, Zane, was going to be that you could ask some questions while we go there, just about random bee stuff.

Okay.

Yeah, go on.

I mean, I can still ask.

Yeah, well, go on then. That's cool.

Okay.

He's there, by the way.

What is your favourite part about beekeeping?

Favourite part of beekeeping is, it's easy. So there's a few different elements that I really do enjoy. In terms of the actual beekeeping, I do enjoy queen rearing. So queen rearing is, from a technical perspective, I find it very fun, but from a mindfulness perspective, I like it as well because you can really get stuck into it and just forget about everything. And then it's the story, and it connects onto one of my other really favorite bits, which is giving— selling people nucs sending people nucs, and we built up our reputation on nice calm nucs and stuff, and people get them. And I guess a lot of people not sure whether it's true. Does it live up to the hype? And then they get them and they like them, and we get so many nice comments, and they say, oh, we got this much honey, and like, our children got involved, and it was just nice. So I love those 2 things, and they're quite well connected because we produce the queens that then go in the nucs that then go out to people. So not far from the next apiary. I am dying to get outside because it is a beautiful sunny day. We've got a lot of work to do today.

Little trick.

Everyone's got a system. I still feel bad from last year Driving over all this and creating these mega ruts. We got so, so badly stuck. I'll see if I can find some photos for you then, because it was pretty bad. But that explains the, the long walk down to the apiary. So look at all the bees here. I love it in the spring. It is 16, 17 degrees here today. It's the middle of March. I could go in and do an inspection today, but I know there's no point in doing that. There's nothing to be gained by doing it. All I need to do is make sure they've got enough weight, they've got enough stores, they've got enough space. They've got all of those 3 things, I'm happy. I'm gonna get my veil up though because there is a lot of bees on the go. We're gonna be opening up some of those hives. So this is pretty much what I do on most hives in March. I unstrap them like that, I'll come down, I give them a little bit of a heft. Absolutely rammo, that is. I'll look in from the top, I'll see— this is a really interesting thing to see actually. So where we fed them last week, look at this. So we've got bees upstairs, but we've also got a really interesting little clue here, Xand. Come have a look at this. So when you start seeing bits like this, little bit of burr comb there being built at the top where the bees want to go up, it's a surefire sign that they are ready to expand coming into spring. So this one here needs another box. I'm going to have to get some more of these sorted. I only brought one, but these bees are really expanding nicely. If I pop the lid here, you'll see there'll be tons and tons of bees. Perfect colony of Buckfast bees. This is one of the Lutz ones as well, but you can see, look at that, there's a lot of stores in there, really, really heavy. The last thing I'm going to do on this colony here is feed them anymore, but what I will do here is I'll just remove this little bit of burr comb. I'm just going to lift it straight off.

Oh, that's a nice one.

Shake any bees off, and then any bees that are in the roof like this, you can just tap them outside the front. Always check to see if the queen is there. Doesn't look like she's there, so roof is now clear. Any rubbish goes in there, and the colony's set back up. Really important few little checks there. I'm checking for weight, I'm checking for space. I know that I added space underneath last week, so there shouldn't be an issue there. They've taken down the feed. They're very, very heavy. There's an active flow. I don't need to do anything with this colony now. They're set up perfect for the next few weeks. I still do strap everything up though, pretty much all the way throughout the year. We had 40 or 50 mile an hour winds. Did you have winds where you were last week, Xane?

I did, yeah.

It was very windy, wasn't it? And a couple of my boxes fell over. These would have definitely fallen over had they not been strapped up. Looking pretty good. So you see the difference. Yeah, that one where they were coming up and showing intent to go up, Whereas this one, the feeder's empty, but they're not, they're not in the feeder and they're not showing signs. There still should be a good colony in here, but there we go, not quite as prolific. They've got black plastic frames in there as well, so I know I can't really overfeed them. So I'm going to go full up again on that one there, and the bees will take all of that down. And that's pretty much what it's about, like, all the way throughout the year, which is just balancing this space and stores conundrum. Sometimes the stores to the bees Sometimes the honey is for the beekeeper, and then what's good for you is kind of good for them, unless their objective is to end up in someone's chimney. All right, that's really heavy, that one. This is, this is a double, but a 14 by 12 underneath, with a Maysmore feeder. Bees are going to be up there. Really, really nice, that one. Definitely doesn't need any feed. Okay, nice weight in that one. Now again, this is one where it's half and half, so you can see, look how different it is, Zane. Just an interesting perspective though, you saw how dry the other one was and saw how many bees were up in the other one. You can get a real good indication of how strong a colony is by how clear they leave their syrup. Look, you've got a few dead bees up here and then they've not come up and cleared the dead bees. It's nothing sinister, but it's just an observation. So I would say probably not going to be quite as big. If we open this one. Look at that, Zane. Queen on the top bar.

You get her? I think so.

That's cool. But you can see, look, they're only kind of covering the 4 frames there. Not so much activity over there, but looks like a nice healthy colony. Always nice to see the queen, but again, not as big a colony. Lots of weight, so definitely not going to feed. Same as the other one there, Zane. So look, see the little triggers, the little signs? You just start to get used to these signs, which is when you see the colony doing something like that, you know it's time to go. So you could almost leave one of these strips off, knowing that the bees, if they're ready to go, will give you this signal. Quite a useful thing to do. Definitely didn't do that. That would be way, way too organized. But, uh, no. This one is understandable that they're up there because this is the only one that's on single brood. Quite dark, the bees in here as well. So it could be, could be some sort of supersedure that's gone on on that one. This is the one that needs the extra box though. No queen in this one. I'm going to shake all the bees out. Zane, if you want to get a close-up. And then because I've given that one space, I'm going to give it a good glug of feed as well, just to help them get all of that drawn out. So I'll just get this local straw, it's basically just grass that's gone all nice and hard, a few life rafts for the bees, and then we'll close them up. Okay, cool, so that's all of the nucs done. I'm not going to go into any of the other ones where we just added additional space, but I do need to add some more space to the keeper's hive and the Lyson one here. And then I need to fix the Smart Hive as well. Okay, going into the keeper's hive. They've still got a decent amount of space, but what I'm going to do is I'm just going to use this colony here for a few more splits, give them the space. So I'm just going to load them up. Got frames of foundation in there, got National frames of foundation onto Langstroth. They will just fill the ends with drone comb. I've not designed that, I just didn't have the right size. That's what it should look like. So simple as that, 2 boxes on. Not going to feed this one because it looks like there's quite a lot of stores in that box there anyway, so all good. So this one here, the Anel Lycan mix, definitely needed some action, so I've got an additional brood box for it, and then I've got another empty brood box that I can put a feeder in. But looking at it, I can probably get away without the feeder. Let's give it a little heft. So now just, just hefting that, that is really, really heavy. Definitely don't need Anything else on that in terms of feed? I'll take a look. I bet there's loads of bees in this one. Yeah, I'm a big, big fan of this colony. You can just see how nice and calm and gentle they are. Very orange bees, not keen to come up, but a very nice configuration, and I'm going to give them some more space. This one here will be brilliant for making up some Langstroth splits. Okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take some of the frames out of this top box here because we aggressively added 2 boxes last week and this top box is not They've not even touched it yet, so I'm going to take some frames out, fill up my Lysan box, get it on there because they really do need some space. So I've got myself 9 good frames there, mix of comb and foundation, and I'm just going to place that straight on top. Look at them though, aren't they chilled? So even just like minimal selection, you can do stuff like this, which is this colony here is clearly one of the calmest in the apiary. So if you just want to rear your own queens. You just graft out of this one, assess what the daughters are like, and if it works, then rinse and repeat. And if not, then you maybe need to go and select another colony. But simple selection can just be that, which is looking for the ones that you want, rearing from them, and taking it from there. What I will add is that what a lot of people miss on that bit there though is you can do that, that's your maternal side, but what I would say is the offspring that you have, if you put drone foundation in, then you're going to be getting the right type of drone to influence that across all of the matings in the local area as well. So you can do, you can do quite a lot of good by not only selecting your best colonies and breeding from them, but also culling the worst ones so you're not flooding the air with really rubbish, horrible, aggressive drones. So what I've decided to do, as opposed to messing around changing frames over there, is I added these 2 extra boxes on. I double brewed last week, so They're fine with one box. I'm just going to take that extra box and place it over here. So now they're both on trebles, and then I'll just add additional boxes as required. So the final thing is this Smart Hive here, and I'm definitely missing a piece. If you zoom over here, Zane. So this section here is where all the honey taps out of the Smart Frames and collects, but it's also the queen excluder. Like, that segment there is the queen excluder, and I just can't find where that's gone on the other one. I've looked everywhere for it. So what I'm going to try and do is just temporarily put another queen excluder in. So you see, I've got them set up on— I've got the roof there, I've got my nice dry feeder underneath, some nice burr comb that will clear up at some point. Like, if I had to guess, looking at that, I'd say drone layer all day long because it's not covering that many frames, only on 3 frames in a big box like that. They're buzzy, they're a bit flighty, so I'm not going to waste loads of effort and energy on it. There's plenty of time to fix this later on in the year. So all I'm going to do is just add on a wire, steel wire queen excluder. It's a perfect fit. Actually, I think it might be a better fit with this one here. Let's have a look. Yeah, I'm gonna go with that one. The Paradise system interlocks so you can't go over the edges. Now the queen can't get down from up there if she's good and go and lay up Stairs, and I'm just going to put the supers directly on like this. Now it's not a perfect fit, but nothing will be able to get in through the edges. The feeder now remains sealed at the top, nothing can get in, nothing can get out, and then lid on the top like that. But that is effectively good to go now. I'll have to order another bit or share the bit over there if we need it for untapping. I'm sure it will turn up at some point though. Right, so I'm going back with more equipment than I brought at this one here, but that is everything done. Everything's fed, everything's got space. We need to go get some lunch and then on to the next apiary. So that was a nice fun Aprilia. I don't know about you, Zane, I love being outside in the sun. It's kind of my thing. I said to Zane today to bring— just get through here so we don't crash— bring some shorts and a t-shirt because it's going to be warm. And Zane, what, you didn't want to do it because?

Because I don't want to get stung.

That's fair enough.

But you handle stings like an absolute champion.

You've handled them quite well before.

Do you think? Yeah, I feel like I'd fall to pieces when I get stung by a bee. I've only been stung twice, and one, in all fairness, it just snuck under my collar and I think I crushed it by accident, and it obviously stung me.

So with the stinging, people ask a lot, they say, do you get used to being stung the whole time? And I say, yeah, well, you do. You get used to the after-effects of being stung in that I don't have a big reaction, but the pain of being stung is exactly the same as day one being stung. Which is like, ow, that really, really hurts. It's very painful, isn't it? But it goes down quite quickly.

It's the shock as well, actually.

Yeah, the shock, yeah.

You get shocked by it.

But you saw the bees there, they're pretty chill, especially early on in the year. They're quite good. You can get away without additional protection. But yeah, I don't think they were stinging on your legs.

Okay, shorts next time.

Shorts next time.

I'm roasting.

Yeah, because I was going to say, because I mean, I'm in shorts and I'm really hot. It's nice and hot and warm.

Tight jeans.

Okay, jeans. Tight jeans as well. There's like no ventilation, Zane.

Let's go.

But yeah, what was good, what was good in that apiary there, 2 signals that the colony was giving, and you'd get used to these hints and tips that the bees give you. So you could see where they were building the wax going up like that, and it wasn't just the fact that they were building the wax up there that drew my eye to it, it was the colour of the wax as well. Very white, very early season wax, very new wax. So something that your eye is drawn to, and as soon as you see that, it's the bees saying, we're running out of space. Like, we would draw that comb further down towards the brood nest, but there's no space We're chock-a-block down there, so we need more space above. Now, I'd given them more space below the previous week, so there wasn't an issue with space. But if you had that on a single brood box colony, if you went in kind of middle of March on a nice warm sunny Saturday morning and went in and you just inspected your bees at that point as well, and there was loads of brood and the queen was there, and you saw this little trigger, this bit of white wax going up, for me that's a very clear signal that the bees need a super. Now, it doesn't mean that when you put the super on, you're going to go back the next week and it's going to be completely drawn out and full of honey, but it will be within 2 or 3 weeks and the timing is there. So I use that trigger a lot in my production colonies when they start building that new wax. It doesn't mean that they're not going to go back down into cluster, doesn't mean you're not going to get another beast from the east, but it's looking quite nice. The weather at the moment is favourable, it's dry, it's sunny, and I think when we go into those colonies in a couple of weeks' time, they're going to look tip-top. So it is lunchtime. Swan's Farm Shop, best sausage roll around, but they're out of sausage rolls today, so I'm going to get myself a pork pie. I know Zane's not going to want a pork pie, so there is a cold sausage roll for you as well. Is that good?

That's good.

Yeah, okay, let's do it. So Swan's Farm is my absolute favourite place in the world. They do stock our honey here in the wonderful new jars. Check out those jars, look at that. But they've also got an incredible butcher's counter steak pork pie. chicken, lamb, and then lots of pastries, sausage rolls, pies. You can eat a lot of food in Swan's Farm, and I do come here all the time. But check it out, it's really, really cool. If you're ever passing, it comes highly, highly recommended. So we're just talking to Zane in the car about how much nicer it is with the sun out, and sitting outside having a delicious pork pie from Swan's Farm shop really is a real treat. But back to work, we've got lots and lots to do. So it's half 1, the sun is out, we're at the final apiary of the day, and there's not really a huge amount to do here other than to tidy up anything we left last week, pick up a few bits, and then go back to the forest to do the final bit of work of the day. So final apiary, the sun is out, the pollen is very much going in. It is flooding in. Definitely the start of the early season dandelions, which to me really is the trigger for the beginning of the season. I love it. I love being out with all the bees flying around. You can see the bees coming back in with full pollen loads like that, like tracing them back in, and then they're landing in there. And what I know is that that influx of pollen, that influx of nectar, is going to turbocharge these colonies. So within 3 or 4 weeks from now, we're going to see real expansive growth. Middle of March at the moment, so for me probably expecting that first or second week of April, which will mean swarming will be for me in North Wales back end of April, early May, which is pretty much where it is every single season. But there's not a huge amount to do in this apiary. I did most of the things last week. I just want to heft a couple of hives, make sure that the ones that were weaker and needed topping up with syrup get another little top up, and then also I've got a couple of hives here that I just want to take away. But I'm enjoying it. I hope people are watching these videos enjoying it as well. Me and Zane were saying that This style is like so much easier, so much nicer, so much more fun to watch. Hope you are enjoying it. If you are, definitely stick a comment. But back to work, Xane. Should we do it?

Yeah, let's go.

So this is the first one that I remember because it's the first one along this line that I didn't put my Lutz Queen into. So it means that it's going to have just a little mini feeder down on it like that. And as you can see, it really is a very, very small colony, this one. I'm not going to go crazy. I can just say that that's a drone layer already just from the behaviour. Should we have a look, Xane?

Shall I— can I walk away?

Yeah, yeah.

Just a sec.

So it's really good, Zane, saying all of that. The difference in behaviour there is so noticeable. All of the other colonies are really nice and chilled out and calm, and then you open this one up and they're aggressive, they're angry, they're not coordinated like you would see on the other colonies. And for me, I know exactly what it is straight away. It's a drone laying queen, and that means that the colony's in chaos. They've not got a queen, they're going to die, they don't know what to do. They've not got the resources to create a new one. And I think we did have a look in this one last week, but look at that. There is no possible way that this colony is getting through it. So you see on that side there, Zane, you've got loads of drone brood over there, spotty. So that one there, bit of pollen going in, which is nice, bit of nectar going in, but not a huge amount on the frame. I just want to show you the frame where I know it's a drone layer, Before we take it any further. Look at that there, Zane. That to me is what's telling me that's a drone layer. Also, that is the worst frame I've ever seen. I picked this one up on last week's one. That frame needs recycling out. But if I shake off all those bees, you can see clearly that is a drone-laying queen, a queen that is never going to come back into lay properly. She's laying unfertilized eggs that are turning into drone brood, and unfortunately every single bee in this colony, if I left it as it was, Is just gonna die. So I'm gonna do my best to not let them die, and I'll show you how I do that now, Zane. So the reason that I've not put this frame down here is because this is where the queen is. So you can see there, very undersized queen coupled with drone brood coupled with lack of coordination. I'm really, really sorry, but if I leave this queen here to stay alive any longer, every single bee here will be dead. So I have completely killed That queen there now. But by killing that queen, I can save every other single bee. Now, I always say don't throw anything over your shoulder when you're beekeeping, with the exception of a queen, because you want that pheromone to go from here now. Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this beehive away. I'm going to shake out every single bee before I do that. I'm going to take these old manky frames and I'm going to melt them down, sterilize them, and clean them for reuse again. Just want to get the majority of the bees out the way, and I'll take the whole hive up over here. So what we have here now is just lots of bees, lots of worker bees that will really easily beg their way into the adjacent colonies there. So this hive, these frames, I'll package up, we'll isolate it all, take it home, we'll sterilize it. Let me show you what's going on back over at the beehive, because the bees now will be clustering up. So you can see all of the bees up in the air, they don't know where to go. They are going to try and cluster up where they think the beehive was, which was there. So you need to take away everything, and I mean everything. I'm going to put it somewhere else, and it's almost instantaneous. You can see where are all the bees going now. They can't go in here. They're thinking, well, was there the beehive? So I'm either going to go over here, I'm going to go over there. And you can see the bees have said, yep, this one will do, and they're just all going to go in there now. So you might see them clustering up on the side like this. They do that just because it's a nice warm space, but they will transition down. They'll find the entrance, which is just down there, and before you know it, they are all going to be inside here. So on this hive here, I've got a super, and then I've got an English feeder on top of a queen excluder. And then last week, if you remember, this one here I double brooded by putting a new brood box on the top. So that's the original brood box, and that is the new brood box. So it's an interesting one to have a quick look at. I was going to take all of this configuration off and put a polyasphalt feeder on, but they've They've not finished the syrup yet. I wanna show you this, and this is something that I probably wouldn't normally show. So just quickly take a note of a few things. They've not finished the syrup yet. There's quite a lot of dead bees in the syrup. They're still very, very active up there. They're drawing comb upstairs. Right. I'm gonna close that lid again now. So the bees are giving you loads of clues there as to what's going on. They're actively feeding, which is brilliant. It means that they've made their way from the bottom up to the top. So you can expect that the frames in that top box there are gonna be drawn out now, or they're gonna start drawing it out from the center out. We could see that they were still actively feeding, which is good. It probably shows me that it's not a huge colony because that's not a massive amount of syrup in there. It also dictates what I do next, which is I'm not going to start pouring syrup into another one to change it. I'm just going to leave it like that and let the bees work it out. The next one is all of the bees, dead bees in there. Now obviously you don't want dead bees in there, but coming and fishing out dead bees at this point when there's loads of bees around is silly. You're much better off letting the bees finish it. Taking off that cone, putting some straw in there, letting the bees coming up, clearing everything out, and then at the end you'll just have some dry straw and dead bees to clear out, as opposed to trying to do it now and getting syrup everywhere and attracting robbing for the sake of a few dead bees that really aren't going to make a massive difference to you. So no further action on this one. What I would do though is I'll just grab the feeder that I'm going to ultimately put on here, so when I come back next week I know that I can just swap them over at some point. And then I'll strap everything back down again. Now this hive here shows you the complete opposite of what was going so well over there, which is I take the lid off, wanted to put some feed in here or change the feeder over. This feeder is telling me a lot of things as well, which is okay, we've got a few dead bees in there, but we've got no bees underneath. I have detached the bees from the feed, and this is the problem I always tell people about. This is what can happen. You put all of that feed in there and the bees don't know where it is. So I'll try and solve it to the best of my ability, and I will try and get this off without spilling all the syrup, which I didn't manage to do very well last week. There we go. So all that might be is that the bees weren't ready for that syrup yet. If I take a look at what's downstairs— okay, nice decent-sized colony of bees. So all I'm going to do is really, really simple, is I'm just going to put it in the configuration that I should have done in the first place, which is reversing it like this. Lifting the whole box back down. There we go, this colony here is now fixed in. So there we go, the lid's on. I've reconfigured this one, I'm much happier with this now. It's always the risk, but now we've got the colony is here, the feed is there. I'm going to open it up, I'm going to drizzle a little bit of that down on the bees, not too much, but just to let them know where it is. Close that up again. And now all of that empty space is at the bottom, all of the warmth, all of the bees is there, they've got access to the feeder. The idea will be that they grow further downwards. So we'll give this one a little bit of a heft. Feeling nice. So syrup's down to probably 25% remaining in there, plenty of weight. Don't want to overfeed in spring, it's not about going around and just pumping the bees full of syrup. I want to give them the least amount of syrup possible to make sure that they've got a sufficient buffer in order to be able to handle whatever spring throws at them. Okay, this one here is on 4 Langstroth deeps. This one here is now empty after we've got all the mice out. Right, this one here needs a feeder change because this has got a tiny little feeder. You'll see what I mean about compatibility here. So that is an Abelo shallow roof, and then that's That's an Abello Super. And then this is like a little feeder that we've got on there, and then that's the Abello crown board that's designed for their feeder. But if I take that off— nice colony there. These are on double brood as well, and you can see lots and lots of activity in here. This is an old German colony that I'm very, very proud of. Really nice and dark, not 100% the friendliest, but wow, these guys produce crazy amounts of honey. And then I'm going to pop this feeder on, which is a big upgrade, but I'm not going to feed it because it doesn't need feeding, this one. I'm just kind of setting things up just in case I need to come back. Now that's not ideal. I have added in that double bee space, but I'm just— I'm happier with that to give me the contingency. And you can see now that that roof doesn't fit on there as well. It doesn't really matter. That there will do until next time, and then next time will almost certainly be 2 or 3 weeks away, and this colony will need supers, and I'll be taking it all off and There's something going on a bit strange here. Can you see the weird spacing that's on there? I think it's just a bit of wood that's come out, but if you zoom in here, Zane, look at that. They've tried to block it all up with propolis. You see it along there?

Oh yeah.

And then also that is a queen wasp, but I'm going to try and just lever this off without my hive tool. So if I put that there, you can see what I mean about the bee space issue. So this board is maybe contributing to an additional bee space on there, and you can see it where they've made the propolis, but you can see it where you've got this additional burr comb here as well. So it'll either be next week or the week after, we'll come through, we'll clean everything up, we'll get the bee space right. But this one here looks really, really nice. I'm happy with this. I'm just going to heft it and see if it's worth putting the other one on. Oh, no way. All right, so that's super, super heavy. And again, all I'm doing is I'm just, I'm just stacking stuff up. Appreciate it's all, all over the place, but what that means is it gives me the ability, if something happens over the next 2 or 3 weeks, everything's there in order to get that colony through, to split them, to make sure they've got a good feeder in place. So it's just damage limitation again this time of the year. Okay, so this one doesn't have a feeder on, so this is probably the one That I'm most concerned about, and I'm pretty sure it's the one that we couldn't get the roof off last time as well. Oh no, here we go. Okay, that's, that's really encouraging, that one. That's a 14 by 12 one in their zone, and it's the same sign that I showed you before, which is the bees, they're hitting the roof, they're kind of finding all of this new comb, they're creating all of this nice new comb up here. But I know on this box here the bees need to expand out that way as well. So I'll come back, I'll clear everything up. It is a little bit light, so I'm just going to place an English feeder directly on the frames and then put the Abello super outside of it like that. And then we'll fill it up with syrup. Frames and feeders, so I'm just going to go all the way to the top and then we'll drizzle a little bit down. So you're always making a judgment call with frames and feeders with tons of space. I'm going to go all the way to the top and then just a little dribble down the hole. Lid on. All right, so we're going to pack everything up, Zane. We're going to get that box and we are on our way. So I've got my drone laying colony in here all boxed up. I was going to grab the Nucchi hive as well, but there is just no space in the back of the truck. So that's definitely going to be one for next week. We'll pack all of this up though, back to the forest, going to finish off those frames Just play around with some mini mating nucs, and then maybe I'll go home for dinner. Back at the forest, and the first thing I want to show you is my DJI power bank. I have got 3 of these, and these are brilliant, aren't they, Xan? You like these as well. But I left it, it was about 40%, and then I just got 2 of the solar panels hooked up. And although it's generating a massive 33 watts of power now, it charged it up in what, like 3 hours, which is pretty good. So we've got that 3rd one on as well. And we need to do, we need to do to finish these beehive, uh, beeswax videos. And then the smoke has all gone out, like the burner's gone out. But it's quite amazing then if you like come look at the temperature. So you can see about 75 degrees on there. You want to get up to 100. But if I open it up here, you can see, like, that's very, very hot water, like nearly burning. That would probably do the job as it is. I don't even think I'm going to light that one back up. So let's have a look at that. So unfortunately it went out, but oh, it's still really, really hot. This one, I need to get it boiling. You need to see it like on a rolling boil, because then I'll stick the frames in, they go in for 15 minutes, and unless you get the boil with the soda that's in there, you're not going to get all of the wax and the propolis out of the groove. You need to do it properly is what I'm saying. So we're going to get this one hot again and then I'm going to finish off those videos. And then I've still got 2 or 3 more things we've got to do, Zane, but we are very much getting there. Right, next up, Zane, we're going to fill up some of these mini mating boxes. I've been busily making them. So I sat down last year and put together so many of these little mini mating boxes and I'd really good success with them. So inside, all I've got to do is take out that bit of plastic there and then just fill the fondant feeder there with fondant. So it's quite simple. You can use pretty much any fondant. I quite like a soft fondant like this Honeybee Pro one I'm using. No affiliation. But the reason I like it is that it's, it's nice and soft and pliable. You'll see there, so you can just get it down into the feeder. Kind of not that many voids at all. It's like nice soft stuff, and you don't want any protein in it, so not— protein patties definitely not required in this one. I find myself just kind of chucking it in like that. What I like about it is it's really soft and pliable, and it's not even that sticky. So obviously you should be wearing gloves if you want, but there's no disease risk here. It's just you'll get sticky hands at the end of the job that wash off quite easily. But look at that, look how pliable and soft it is. and there's no protein in this as well. This isn't queen-rearing fondant, not high in protein with either sub or real pollen in. This is just really nice, soft, pliable, vitamin-enriched fondant. Now what you wanna do on the first time is you just wanna pack it as much as you possibly can. You wanna pack it all the way up to the top. You don't wanna leave kind of gaps and stuff like that because you might as well just pack it all the way, and it means it's a little bit safer for the bees, and it means that you've not gotta refill it Kind of earlier in the season. So that's about where I like to get the feeders up to. You see, when you put the crown board in the right way like that, it's kind of almost touching, which means that they can't even crawl over the top of it. They just have to go through that slot there. I find that's probably the most efficient and the safest way. I'm going to crack on with the rest of these, but the wood burner over there is definitely up to boil now. Let's go finish off cleaning those frames. Right, so we're nearly up to boil. You can see We've got a little bit of steam coming out there, but you can set this one up before it is really boiling anyway. Let's get some frames in here, Zane. But all I do with these frames, got some Langstroth ones here. This one's definitely much better for national because it's just a little bit lower down. But you'll see once you turn them over, it's all good. It's very warm this side as well. So normally you put this on, don't you? And then like lever it all down. You just gotta put it over like that, and then I find I just get loads of wood in and turbocharge the fire, get it boiling right over. Right, so it's been going for about 20 minutes. It's definitely come up to the boil now. It is only up to about there. I'm just gonna take each frame out one by one, and I'll show you the difference between the done half and the not done half. So you can see the difference there between the half that's yet to go under with all the wax on, and then the one where all of that wax and propolis has been completely dissolved. And normally you'd get like everything submerged at once and just take it out. But with the big Langstroth ones, you've got to turn them over, do the other half, and then we'll go into the dipper. And I have found the easiest way to do that is just to get them all out and put them all back in again. A little bit time-consuming, but look at that. You can see just how well it's dipping the bottom halves of those frames. So you can see, really nice and clean, and all they need is that final dunk in the water, little rinse off like that, and the job is done. So it's the end of another day, and I think this format is pretty much fixed for me and Zane because Zane really enjoys doing it. Much better for me because I get loads done in the meantime. Hopefully it's good for you as well. The best thing about it is you get tons and tons of ridiculous outtakes. So, Zane, roll the outtakes. What was I saying? Just like mumbled, jumbled nonsense.

Let's go. Good.

Sun's out. Only slightly improved by probably the best sausage roll. It's not a sausage roll with the best pork pie going. I really do love my pork pie.

Ah! Right.

Put it a beehive video. Sorry. Last one. I'm tasting it. It's got a bit of a weird taste. It's like icing. You like Greggs? You start something and you're like, it's got a bit of a weird taste. It's not got a weird taste. You taste the frames that I had previously. Start that again, Sam. I'll veil up. Let's take a look into the veil.

Yeah, cut. I'm gonna get my veil off.

Okay, start again. Yeah, sorry, start again.

No worries.

It's like, you know, the icing they have on Greggs doughnuts.

Yeah, the office.

Why didn't we just say the office? So I've got my colander.

Very YouTubey.

It was YouTubey.

Very YouTubey.

Very YouTubey. I'll finish it off, rinse it out, and then it definitely is home time, bud. What is that noise? I'm gonna crack on with the rest, but there is no— right, I'm gonna crack on with the rest, but that kettle over there is definitely No, not the kettle. We need selfie cam on Zane next time.