Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees With Laurence Edwards - Episode 2

So I'm gonna have to get someone who knows what they're doing with computers to kind of teach me what's going on because they do not like my camera on YouTube.

I'm hoping you can see me now.

If somebody, anybody there, uh, if you can give me a thumbs up. And I'm guessing that's right, but I'm just going to go on. I'm going to crack on straight into it.

So what I'm looking to do today is just answer a few questions that have been posted on the site over the last week or so. I said I'll try and do this kind of weekly.

We've got our live event with Richard tomorrow, uh, so I just wanted to come in and do a little bit of a test to make sure that things were going right before Richard's on board.

So I'm going to jump straight in, answer some questions.

I love doing this, it's great fun.

Right, so first question I've got is, how do you make soft set honey?

And I'm just going to minimize that window there, make this a little bit easier.

Okay, how do you make— how do you make soft set honey? That's a great question, and it's one that I've covered under recent videos, so that will be coming live in the next maybe week and a half onto the channel. I've done a couple of different methods on how you make soft set honey, and, uh, it's really good.

I'm, I'm very much enjoying my new camera, even though YouTube definitely doesn't like it. So I'll put a note on there that you can, you can see how it's made. Uh, let me get the next question up.

I see there's a couple of questions come on there. Should I add a little bit of propolis to my candy board?

Um, I wouldn't, no. Propolis, I don't see the reason why, why you would do that. I certainly don't do that, but I guess it can't, it can't hurt.

Uh, Gypsy Gem says, I discovered yesterday that one of my colonies had died. I thought they both had. I've just checked again and the second one is still alive, so I'm going to give them some fondant now. I'm kicking myself because when I watched your last video about feeding fondant a few weeks back. Both hives were still alive and they're flying in the warm sunshine here in Lincolnshire. There's what looks like mouse damage to the outside. Forgot the mouse guard, so I think a lot of stores got eaten. They had a healthy, very heavy amount going into winter.

Hopefully I'm not too late for the other hive, which incidentally didn't have as much of the stores going into winter.

So I'd say that's a timely reminder for anybody watching this to check your hives for stores.

And also make sure that you get your mouse guards on at the correct time as well, because if you get a mouse in there, a little colony of mice, they just blitz through the stores and then you've got no chance of keeping up on them.

So give it a thumbs up, that one's been answered.

Well, I'm just going through and having a look at some of the different, different answers on here.

Uh, JBS said on one of the videos, should I have used the smoker to get them down to squeeze less individuals.

So yeah, I probably should. Best practice, I would have said, is to smoke them down a bit. I do find when you're laying fondant on the top of the frames though, the bees do generally just get out of the way. I've never kind of lifted it back up and seen dead bees, but it's a good shout. That's not to say that the bees haven't been damaged underneath. So yeah, best practice would be to just smoke them out of the way. So thanks for picking me up on that one.

Strads has said, please make a video on the measurements of a full hive.

I'm not going to do that video, I'm afraid, because it's one of those ones that it could just really bore people. There's loads of information on the internet on like the measurements of hives, so I would just say just kind of go and look. Dave Cushman's site's a good one for that.

I'm not even going to try and pronounce this name, saying about the starving colony video that they desperately defend the last piece of food, that is why they're extremely angry.

As soon as temperatures allow, liquid sugar syrup, 2:1 is the best and fast way to ensure stable food situation, have calm bees again.

Without a shadow of a doubt, when you have—

when you're feeding bees, they are the calmest bees in the world.

They really do.

They're just focused on getting that food and they don't care what you're doing. And it's the same when there's a really nice flow on, very nice chilled out calm bees.

So that one's answered. I think I've got some questions coming in here as well. So just collected some polystyrene food boxes from local wholesaler for €4 each, cheap investments for some bait boxes if they do work. No worries, I'm surprised you had to pay for them.

They're gonna have to like pay to get rid of them, but yeah, they're good, they are good.

The bees will chew through them pretty quickly.

But you will catch bees in them, especially if you use black comb as well. Christopher says, I've just got to move the camera a bit because it is right in the way of the comments.

I have frames that have drone comb built into the frames. Will the bees change the sizes of these cells, or do we need to cut the comb out?

Yeah, they never ever change the frame, they never change the comb size like that. So once you've got drone comb, that's it, you've got drone comb forever. The good tip with that one is to put the frames in at the right time of the year. So when you're putting foundation in, put it in kind of August, September, and they'll draw out pretty much 100% worker comb then. Good way of doing it.

Just, just looking at a few things, right? So John said, when, uh, on the feeding Fondant de Payne's polynucs, when he did this, he added a screw on top of the insulation to make it easier to lift up for checking.

That's a nice idea, John, like that.

This is a really good question. Dave T, what are the temperatures like when you add fondant? And I was going to reply to this one, and I didn't.

I forgot. So sorry, John. I'm answering it now though.

I would say you can feed fondant in minus twenty degrees Celsius, and I know that sounds ridiculous, and you're thinking, what minus twenty degrees Celsius?

But only you only ever need to feed fondant if your bees need feeding fondant.

So if you're going along.

and the bees are horribly light, like super light, then they need feeding.

So to take the roof off for 10 seconds, put a slab of fondant on, and put the roof back on isn't going to kill them, and it will potentially save them. So I've got no issue with doing that in really, really cold temperatures.

Never going to get to -20 in the UK. We're lucky if it dips below freezing, but I'd happily do that with a really sharp frost on, no problem at all. Um, I'm just trying to filter through the questions.

I might have to do this kind of before. Um, Dave T talking about the secret to revive wax foundation.

So again, I apologize for the clickbaity titles. I guess you can guess, guess what the answer was there.

But he's saying it's true that it can revive it, but not all wax foundation is okay. Some cheating with too much paraffin and the foundation deformed in the hive. Do you know some method how to spot fake foundation?

No, I don't.

That's it's a good question. I've never really experienced it, and you clearly do get it because you get a lot of wax imported from China.

I would say just make sure that the bees are drawing it out correctly, and then the bees are drawing it out correctly. I'm guessing that they've accepted it okay.

Sherry, this is funny because you've posted a comment on my last stream, and I'm commenting it on the next stream.

So I did a video the other day about cork sheet insulation. I've finished the video now. That's on the members section, so you'll see that coming up in the next couple of weeks. She's just saying that bees will chew up cork insulation if they can get to it. Thanks for the tip, because I didn't know that, and I wasn't going to protect the cork insulation from the bees. And anyone who's seen the video will know that I have protected it from the bees. So thank you for your tip, that was very good.

Uh, Daniel Harris saying about the camera, very good quality investment, can't wait for the high-def face stings.

Yeah, very funny, me neither.

Um, Sinister Hippo posts some really good comments on it, obviously knows what he's doing, talking about the gas vapour, saying, I have one of these, it's fantastic. Leather gloves are a must, but I use a pair of nut pliers to grab and move the caps.

I have multiple caps and a wet rag to rest the caps to cool when required. I, I've seen a number of people do it that way. I think that's a really good way of doing it with, uh, with the pliers, just to make sure that you're not burning it. I have to say, I'm falling a bit out of love with the gas vac. Just, I just can't seem to get like a stable temperature to make it work consistently.

And I've said this on the videos before, the first 20 hives are fine. So if you've got less than 20 hives, you can disregard this comment. But as soon as you get to a point where you're doing like 50 or 100 in a day, it becomes really temperamental and it just doesn't work, and it will fire out loads of oxalic acid sublimate and then it will block up, and it's just, I don't know, I find the Sublimox a lot easier to work.

Saying he has a solution to dead bees outside the front of the hive, which is having a skunk or a possum to come by and eat them all. that is a great solution.

No dead buildup of bees, it's fixed. Right, random one here. Wildways Farm, um, has asked, how do I edit my thumbnails?

What software and what video editing software? So I use Canva for thumbnails, I just kind of screenshot out of the videos, and I use Premiere Pro.

Uh, UK Comms Prepper said, where can I get old brood for baiting my swarms?

So we used to sell this, and I'm not selling it anymore, unfortunately. I think it was probably wrong of me to sell that, so no longer selling it. You can speak to a beekeeper, and I'm sure you can get some that should be fine.

Castle Hives OAV, have you tried the Lorob Bees vaporizer?

No, I haven't, but I've heard of them.

I would love to try it.

I'm going to go and have a look at that.

Always up for trying new things.

I'm guessing, I'm guessing you have tried it. Um, hey, you can jump on this stream if you want, uh, and tell us about it. You can do that.

But yeah, no, I've not seen it.

I'll definitely have a look for that.

Uh, Christopher saying, do you have any videos showing how you prepare your hives for producing comb honey?

No, I don't.

But what I do have is 4 kits that Thorn sent me, um, 2 for Ross Rounds and 2 for comb section honey.

Uh, and I'm gonna do a full video this year, so I might, I might break it up into like 3 or 4 videos, um, but I'm going to try and squeeze it together into one video because just to give you the beginning to end of Section Honey and Ross Rounds, that'd be fun.

Uh, Norfolk Honeybee on the foundation video saying, will they not build comb as good on old foundation? So they will, and even if you put completely old, stale, brittle foundation in a hive, they will work it.

But what they need to do is kind of like cluster around it and heat it up to get it malleable first. So you're almost kind of giving them a little bit of a head start in terms of the heat that you're putting in with the hair dryer. I don't want everyone to think you've got a hair dryer all over your wax foundation. If it was me, I'd probably just stick it in there because big strong colonies, it would be fine.

Uh, same video, Russell Cooper says, what do you think of rolling on an extra layer of wax onto your foundation More work and expense, true, but more wax on the foundation, the less energy the bees spend on drawing comb, right?

Newly waxed foundation degrades in weeks or months or years, of course stored inside of heat and sunlight.

So I'd say it kind of only degrades to a certain extent.

It's really easy to revitalise it. I definitely wouldn't be putting any extra wax on it because I think you'd probably give the bees more work to do. The foundation's there, that's plenty of wax for them to mould, and if you think, when you get the foundation, it's quite thick. And then when they work it out, they're not really adding a huge amount more wax to it. Might add a little bit, but they're more like molding what's there anyway. So I wouldn't do that. Be horribly slow and take quite a lot of time, I think.

Ian saying, I would like to do Demeray splits this year, but I have a national flow super, so do not want to end up with an original 14 by 12 brood box which is moved to the top filled with honey.

That is the issue. with using big boxes. It's good. I remember talking to Murray about this and he was saying, don't ever moan about a 14 by 12 filled with honey. And I was kind of like, fair point, really. If you've got it, like, it's about 60 pounds of honey, 120 jars, and if you're knocking it out at £5 a jar, that's £600 worth of honey. And you could probably sell it for more than that as well. So I will limit the grumbling of 14 by 12 boxes filled with honey, but I will say ice is, is heavy. Like, this is what got me into trouble in the first place, moaning about it.

Um, can I just ask, can everyone, can everyone hear me okay? It's not cutting out, there's no issues there?

Because I'm trying new things today. I just want to make sure that I'm not cutting out when I'm interviewing Richard tomorrow. If you could comment, that would be much appreciated.

Uh, Toby's saying, in your last short video, what was the stirrer you were using?

So that's coming up, that's on a video in the next kind of couple of weeks. It's on the members section now. It's it's like a purpose-built design stainless steel honey stirring device, and I will be giving it away.

So that is a competition that video as well.

It's like I don't know fifty quid something like that. I bought it off someone Danny from the beekeeping forum, and I'll be giving that away.

So we've got loads of competitions coming up at the moment.

I've got that stainless steel drill bit that I'm giving away.

I did one today on hive entrances. If anyone knows those, got one of those to give away.

I've got the coolest product coming next week. I'm definitely not going to tell you what it is so nobody else can do the video first. Castle Hives, I'm looking at you, um, and Andy as well. But that is—

I'm giving one of those away.

That's worth £250. Uh, Zest Hives, people love the Zest Hives. Uh, Bill got in contact with me, said, can I like do a video on it if he sends me one? Um, and then he'll reimburse me for the cost of all the breeze blocks and everything. And I said, I'll tell you what, reimburse me for the cost of the Breeze Blocks, but give me another one to give away. So I'm going to do a building a Zest Hive, and then I'm going to give away a Zest Hive as well. So I've got loads of prizes to give away, and we'll keep on doing that. Like, you guys make this channel, so I will give you lots of things. Whenever anyone asks me to kind of do a review or something, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say to them, need an extra one for competition, and then we won't stop until every subscriber's won something. I retract that last comment, obviously.

Right, Joe Murphy says, "What percentage of your hives were lost after the beast from the east?

What sort of mortality rate could be expected from a similar event after this warm period?" So it's difficult to attribute the deaths that I had from the beast from the east just solely to that weather system coming in because I made so many mistakes. If you if you check out the channel, I don't remember what it's called that video. I might replay that video a bit and send it back out. Um, but I lost about 40% of my hives, and it was me just being so stupid, like the amount of mistakes I made. And it was due to laziness, it was due to just, oh, couldn't make any more mistakes. And then we got the Beast from the East, so I lost so many colonies.

Like I said, I think it was about 40%.

Be interesting if we got a similar system in this year, because I'd say I wouldn't lose any more than 15%. Um, I'd like to think so anyway. But it does— it's this, this winter is turning out to be like the best winter ever. Couldn't really get it much better than this. But it is all dependent on what March, end of February, March is like. If it stays single figures all the way through until kind of middle of March and then just gets warm, and then we get a heat wave in April and May, we're gonna have very, very tall beehives. Um, I'll do it that way.

That's Jasper again in the background. He is going to be— we need to get him his own YouTube channel, I think.

Jasper, wait, got it.

Uh, right, Norfolk Honeybee, would, uh, will they put pollen in drone comb supers?

That is a great question, and do you know what, I don't think I've ever seen it in, in drone comb. I've never seen pollen in drone comb supers. No, so I've never actually really thought about that, but I don't think I've seen it. So that's a really good question.

Uh, JP saying you can always buy a cheap endoscope with a light on it that attaches to a phone. They work a treat.

I'm gonna get one of those. They do sound cool. I did have one before and it was just a bit— I don't know, maybe I've got a rubbish one. Um, but I'll definitely have another go at doing that.

Um, Andy from Brooklyn's Honeybee saying about people going into their hives in February I know what you mean.

All you can do is tell people not, not to be doing it, but it doesn't help when you get big beekeeping companies saying it's 7 degrees today, so I'm going to go and do the first inspection of the year in the middle of January. But yeah, I don't go in. We don't pull any frames until April unless they're boiling out over the top and we've got crazy heat waves coming in, and I'm talking like 25, 26 degrees. Yeah, we don't do anything. And he's just saying, or today, was he? Has he done it today as well? Doing doing inspections is absolutely shocking.

I don't know.

Yeah, I just don't get it. Don't go into your colonies in February.

Let's have a look some of these other questions then. Oh, another one. Just a quick one while you're there.

I've just done a very short video on this today.

The BBKA petition.

Have you seen the petition that the BBKA have set up about, um, increasing the regulations around honey and adulteration of stuff coming into the UK? I'm going to do a video on it urging everyone to sign it, but please go and sign it. It's a great petition, very much what's needed.

Uh, Toby's saying, do you get much oilseed rape in North Wales?

No, you don't get much at all, but there is luckily a nice little plot of it near here, about 40 or 50 acres, um, that I do have access to. which is good.

It kind of— it changes every year though.

The guy who does it, he alternates the crops, and because it's like most people just farm sheep up here, then you don't get much of it. But he does it and he alternates it with like potatoes and other stuff as well.

So some years there's only about 10 acres, other years there's 40, 50 acres. It's a difficult one to go to though, I have to say.

I don't particularly like going to the oilseed rape because you, you have to time it so well. I'd more go there just to build the colonies up, get big strong colonies for splits. Um, but yeah, all right.

Castle Hive saying look at the Depstech DS450, great scope with light, films in 1080 also.

Very nice, I'll have a look at that. Um, I've just been playing around with my new macro lens today and I just can't believe how good it is. Oh, you'll see, you'll see later on tonight. I'll stick a little short up tonight on that one.

Um, Ryan Jackson saying enjoyed the live stream. Ever thought about trying some of Getty's Black Bees? He runs mostly AMM.

So yeah, I've answered that question.

I've ordered one.

Yeah, I mean, in July, uh, so I'll see what they're like.

No one can— no one can say that I don't—

I don't try different bees. Um, so I'll be trying some AMM and see what they're like.

I've got high hopes for them because I know I know Jonathan's a very good breeder. Let's have a look at some of these other questions then. Patrick Colony saying, did I scorch the inside of the hide hive and wax it?

No, I don't do any of that. It's a brand new hive, so I just left it, left the bees to get on with it.

Someone called Star Just to start saying buying stolen innovation is shameful.

Thanks very much. I kind of get where you're coming from on that. Like, in all honesty, it is a bit bad, but what can you do?

Like, it's available on the market.

Surely Flow should be dealing with that in the best way that they possibly can. Like, it's not— I don't see all products that get ripped off. It's just some products that tend to get ripped off. Um, so we see. I, I do get where, where people are coming off, like, from that one, but I've also got the original one as well, and I'm doing the comparison between the two. And the first comparison I did showed that the original was, like, kind of way better than all of the fake knockoff ones. The attention to detail was great. So see what happens.

Uh, Vladimir saying, um, do you know when blueberry pollination begins and ends?

No.

don't have any of that up here, I'm afraid, and it'll be very much dependent on where you are in the world and where you are in the UK. Kind of most of the soft fruit pollination contracts are down south, and it's early in the year, so it's kind of April through to June, I guess. But that would be a guess. I honestly don't know.

This is Don from Dorset. Hi Don, I'm a new boy to bees. I have one hive that I have to move from its existing site to a new site only 200 meters away.

How can I do this?

So it depends on the temperature.

So I did this very similar move, it's about 100 meters away, my one. And if you do it when it's cold, you can just move them, it's fine. But the temperature is getting up a little bit at the moment, so I would—

if it's a bit of a risk, but I would just try and wait until you get a, um, a little bit of a cold spell, a little bit of a wet spell, preferably for a couple of weeks, and you can just pick them up and move them, and then you should be okay.

But if you, if you can't do that, you don't get the cold spell, you've got to move them away, over 3 miles away, leave them there for about 6 weeks and then bring them back. That's the only real failsafe way to do it.

In J Woody year 1, is that?

Got a cool picture of a dog saying, did I get an EpiPen? But no, I did a video today talking about EpiPens, um, and I've not got mine yet, but I'm gonna go and get one. Difficult to get appointments to go and see the doctors at the moment. Very difficult. Uh, hello Alex from Canada, and Vladimir, you're in the USA as well. Okay, cool.

Uh, saying, just caught your live stream and noted that your choice mix of parts to make up a hive, just thinking the same thing, the main part being the brood box. Um, talking about silver bubble wrap for roof covering, easy to replace.

It's an interesting point, that one, and I was kind of thinking about this and talking to someone else about it in the how you can develop like a cheaper budget hive. And I don't know if you've seen any of my other videos where I get those big plastic trays, so they're, I think they're 600mm by 600mm, and I use them for loads of different things. One of the things I use them for is stacking supers in the honey room so it doesn't drip on the floor. But if you've got a polyashforth feeder or any, any type of feeder really, you don't need a roof.

You don't need to pay for a roof.

You just need something to keep the rain off the polyashworth feeder. So I'm gonna—I'll do a video on that as well, showing like a super budget beehive with a homemade floor and then a nice brood box because I do think it's good to like buy your own brood box, polyashworth feeder, and then a bit of plastic sheeting as a roof. It could be good. Hey, this is my favorite comment of all this one. Kevin C.

Well done, Stuart, for being a good sport and being so honest.

Thank you very much.

I can't believe people not giving more thumbs up.

I have a bee in my bonnet about ingratitude in this world. I love the comment. I won't say it. My name is Lawrence, it's not Stuart, but you know, I get where you're coming from, and thank you for the kind comment and the thumbs up.

Uh, saying thanks for the great live stream, please don't block us.

I've blocked 2 people this week. Um, I told you, I think, I think I told you last week about the guy that I blocked who was, who was just who's never lost a colony of bees in 15 years and says I was a rubbish beekeeper because I've lost 2 this year and told everyone about it. But yeah, I don't block loads of people. I only block people if they're really, really aggressive and rude. If you say something I don't agree with, I'll just kind of have a discussion with you about it.

Can you do a demerit and take off the original brood box once the brood is out and replace with the super before they fill it with honey?

Not sure my extractor can take the brood box.

Yeah, so you can do— I'll do a video on this this year.

It's called a rolling demerite. So you're essentially constantly removing frames of brood from the lower box, putting them in the upper box, and then they— you're waiting for them to kind of be released. And you can do it in a way that you can transfer it over to other frames as well. So 2 different ways of doing that. In answer to your question there, yeah, you just, you lift the top box up, wait for However long it's going to take, it's going to be at least kind of work it out like 17 days as an absolute maximum, but you just need to keep on tracking it. You're never going to get to a point where all of the bees are emerged and they've not put any honey in those frames, but you can just take those frames and put them back downstairs. There's loads of different ways to do it, but yeah, you can do that, but they will backfill it really, really quickly.

Oh, Ridge Life is here as well.

Hello, how you doing? Um, I love it, all the YouTubers coming on. I'm gonna have to come on some live streams as well. I think we should— I think any, anybody who's got a YouTube channel here, if you want to join in this, just let me know. I'll send you a link. You can just come on board. Everyone's welcome here.

Um, Scott saying, do you think there should be an experiment to let nature take its course and find bees colonies that fall find a way of coping with varroa, say, in a remote place like an island or a peninsula.

Have to admit, I say I treat my bees with chemicals at particular times of year. So that's kind of the topic we were talking about on there really, isn't it? Loads of people do that, absolutely loads of people do that. Some are really successful, and in the US, like, you can be completely isolated, so you might take massive losses at first, but then you kind of get to a point where your bees are able to cope with Varroa in their colonies. You're never going to get to a point where there's no Varroa because they're kind of there. You're not going to get rid of them. You're just going to get to a point where the bees can cope.

But it was so interesting talking to David.

Like, he knows his stuff, doesn't he, David? And speaking to his— talking to him about his experience of going to see people who have got colonies of bees that are Varroa resistant, and then him saying like they are teeming with Varroa. They're clearly just like holding on for dear life. And he was keen to do some treatments, wasn't he?

But I think it's great. I do.

I think we need to try new things, and we need to do what we can to kind of combat varroa. But I think that integrated pest management plan is all about trying different things, isn't it? Trying new things to disrupt the cycle—

trapping queens, chemical treatments, organic treatments.

And then just see where you come from.

Oh, Strads has put, please answer. That's really helpful.

If you want, if you want an answer, put that on there, right?

Is it needed to take the new hive that far, or can I keep it beside the before hive?

So he's talking about if you're making splits in the same apiary, do you need to move it 3 miles away? So all I would say, um, if you're, if you're listening to that one, is I've done, I have done a specific video on that, making splits in the same apiary. And the answer, short answer, is no, you don't need to take it 3 miles away. But it makes the process a whole lot easier because you can fully balance the hive, the 2 sides of the split there and then, and not have to go back and worry about drift back to the original hive, especially if you're doing numerous splits. It makes it so much easier if you can kind of go back.

Damian, oh hi Damian, say how you doing.

Sorry I've not got back to you on Twitter, I just Yeah, absolutely flat out there, but this is a good way to catch me.

Hey, um, I'm looking at your hive system from the previous Q&A. I've ordered some of the Abello brood boxes. Do you think there are any other feeders that would rival the Abello but cheaper?

So no, definitely not. Like, the Abello is the only one that is that good. And again, I'll caveat it saying I do kind of work with Abello on a lot of stuff for their social media, so take that with a pinch of salt if you would like. Um, but no, it is loads better, and I'll tell you the reason why it's better as well. Is because it's got the bee space all the way around it. So if you wanted to do it cheap, what I've done is I've used the Suente feeder, or the Suente feeder, however I'm told to say it, and I put my own rim on it. So I've built a bee space rim on it. Some of those rims are coming off now, so it's a little bit weaker, and some of the ones I made with pine are just rotting. So the ones that I did with oak were considerably better. It depends what you, what you value. in terms of time. For me, I'd go with the Abello ones, they're considerably better. And what I've said before as well is, if you're going for the 12-frame Abello hive, they don't do a polyashworth feeder, but the Swenti polyashworth feeder that was designed for a top bee space hive fits perfectly on it, and I mean perfectly on it. So don't worry about waiting for the Abello one to come through, you can get the Swenti one, really good.

Do small hive beetles exist all around the world?

I guess so, yeah. Not in the UK though yet, which is amazing because I do not want to have to deal with those.

You also need to measure the heritability of a natural resistance for a rower. Yeah, that's very true.

And unless you've got control kind of of the drones that are in that system, then you're always going to be watering it down at the next level. So you need to be doing either artificial insemination or be really, really isolated so you're only sending the drones up that are from colonies that are able to actually reduce their susceptibility to Varroa. It's interesting though, I love all that stuff.

How much honey, how much more honey, how much more honey can a demaree get you compared to just leaving them in a brood box and supers Configuration? It's not an exact science.

I'd say quite a lot more, but that's not the reason we do it. I do it because it buys you a few weeks in terms of swarm preps. So if you do it at the right time of the year and you do it twice, you probably get your bees through without them swarming. And if you get your bees through without them swarming, then you end up with monster colonies. And if you get the timing right with the flows, you end up with loads of honey. don't do it to get the honey, it's kind of like a byproduct of my swarm management technique. Demarays are great though, love them. If I put a crown board under top demaray box when they start backfilling with honey, do you think they would rob downwards so very top box would end up empty? No, maybe, I don't know, because you've got the crown board there, I just don't— I think they would just still see it as one and the same hive, so they would just still put stuff up in there. Depends when you do it and it depends what the flow's like. What I would suggest is if you don't want them to store as much honey as you possibly can up there, is super up at the same time.

So say for example you've got a one single brood box and 2 supers full of honey.

When you do your demaray, take that top brood box, put that all the way to the top, replace the bottom one with an empty brood box, one frame of brood, the queen, as per the standard demaray. and then put in another 2 empty supers in between. So at the beginning you'll end up with brood box, 2 supers, and at the end you'll end up with a brood box, 4 supers, and then your other brood box. And then that way, kind of a bit more difficult for them to fill it all up, and hopefully they'll start filling the supers up before you, um, before they have all emerged.

Thoughts on going treatment-free, preferably with the native black bee, or as close to this as possible?

For me, look, I'm not going to do that, um, because I just— I've not seen the evidence to show that the bees can produce enough honey or be healthy whilst doing that. Um, also native black bee, kind of— I believe my view is that there is one kind of semi-native, um, remnants of a European black bee that exists kind of all over Europe. I've got nothing against it, but it's not— it's not something that I'd look into explore any further. Uh, We've only ever done walkaway splits in one apiary and had relatively good success. However, do, do agree if you can split in different apiaries, it will make it easier. Um, yeah, I, I think that's right. I'm not a fan of walkaway splits. I know, I know a lot of people do walkaway splits, but, um, it's not, it's not one that I enjoy doing that much. I prefer to kind of graft because a walkaway split, you can only have a walkaway split on one colony. So you're splitting one colony's genetics into 2, and if you want to do that 10 times, then you need 10 colonies to split that genetic. So you end up with— you start off with 10 genetics and you end up with 20 genetics. But if you do it with grafting, you can say, right, I've got 10 colonies, which one's the best? Right, that one's the best. Right, graft, graft, graft, graft, and then you've got 20 colonies all with the best genetics. So I much prefer grafting methods. Um, Drew's saying, when do you think it would be the earliest to do splits in the UK this year? It's completely dependent on your bees. Um, so, so doing splits with mated queen cells, you need to wait until you can get— sorry, doing splits with mated queens, you need to wait until you can get mated queens, which will be kind of— ours are coming in first, first week of April, so somewhere in April. And then also you need to make sure that your bees are strong enough to be able to be knocked back like that. Um, but I'd say with the, with the winter we're having, as soon as you can get queens and your bees are filling 10 frames, you'd be good to do a split.

Uh, Dry Cut Homestead says, so you're going to do a live stream on top of 30 videos a month? Laugh out loud. How do you sleep?

Um, yeah, how tired was I on the other stream the other day? I've said I'm not gonna have a big dinner tomorrow. I was like this. I was so tired. I've never ever been that tired doing anything before. I just wanted to go to bed. Um, so yeah, I, I work late into the night. That's how I do it.

Um, so Ridge Life, what are your thoughts on moisture boards and burlap used during winter? Um, so I see that— so this is something that's big in America, moisture boards.

We don't— you don't really get it in the UK. My view has always been, and I've done a video on this, That insulation is key, and I like to just put lots of insulation on top of the colony and then only have the ventilation on the bottom of the colony. Now, in America, it's like the flip reverse of that in that a lot of places use solid floors, and then you have like, I don't know, a sugar board, or you have wood chips with vents coming out the top with the idea that there's going to be moisture in the colony, it's going to go up and go out like that. It's not that I'm not a fan of it, It's just kind of not how I manage my bees. So I like to have the bees very well insulated. I like bottom ventilation and then top insulation, so the most insulated part of the beehive is above the cluster. So any moisture that forms, tracks on the walls, goes down, goes out of the bottom floor.

Yeah.

That's my way of doing it.

So my thoughts on moisture boards and burlap used during winter.

I'm sure it works, but I've not really got much experience using it myself.

Um, could Joe say, could you do a demerare and then take a few frames from the original brood box and use them to make up a couple of nucs?

Definitely, really, really good use for that, especially if you're going to do it with queens.

Um, what I would say is, like I said this before, the demerare is not— it's not always designed to be a preemptive split.

I like to do it preemptively because if I find it works really, really well But I think it was designed originally— oh well, there's loads of different versions of it, but one of the ones that I've seen is that you wait for them to kind of give you swarm preps. So you're going through, you'll see swarm cells, you see loads of swarm cells, open swarm cells. And I will do the video on this this year, but if you found swarm cells in your colony and you're happy to rear queens from swarm cells— I don't like doing it, but I don't think there's any issue in doing it— Then even easier than that is that you just, you take it down to however many swarm cells that you want. So say you want to take that top box and split that into 3 nucs. I would just get 3 ripe open swarm cells on 3 separate frames, knock down all of the rest of them, put them in the box upstairs. They will cap over those cells and they will treat them as queens that are going to emerge. Make sure you get your timings right, and then just go back however many days later, take out the 3 frames with the cells on, put them into 3 separate nucs, put some extra brood in, shake some bees in Um, and then not only have you effectively mitigated the colony swarming, you've got yourself 3 nucs as well. And this is why I said I really regret going over to 14 by 12, because you can't do it on 14 by 12 unless you're going to make up 14 by 12 nucs, which the demand isn't anywhere near as big as.

So I don't know what I'm going to do with my 14 by 12 boxes.

I think I'm going to have to go back and order a load of National Deeps, but it does work. Good, good technique to do. Uh, oh, you have to pronounce Arturo.

Is that it?

Hi Lawrence, greetings from the Netherlands. Hello, my, uh, my wife is Dutch, half Dutch. Her dad was in the— from the Netherlands, so I've got family out there.

Uh, Damien Abello, uh, Damien Abello been asking for some ideas for new products.

Someone suggested an Ashforth feeder that fits the groove system when inverted. Maybe follow up with him. Yeah, no, I know, I, I've seen that, I've seen that post. It's a good one.

It's a difficult one in terms of the rebate system as how you would invert it. It would need some really clever thinking.

I've spoken to Damien about what I want on a polyashwath feeder and he's not doing it. I want a big silicone plug in the middle of it, like a big one, so that you can just feed from— so you can feed syrup all the way through the year, like exactly the same as the BS Honeybees, which one, but like a big one, maybe, maybe 2 or 3. Um, so you haven't got to flip it. I think it'll work really, really well, and it means that you just wouldn't ever need to disturb the bees in winter. You could just pop the cork, pop the little plugs out, put fondant over the top of them.

Um, not, not as good for kind of like moving around.

If the cluster does move around, you might need to have numerous plugs, but I would like to see a single plug in there. But I will, I will follow up with him. I, I saw that thread I love some of the comments on that thread. I'm gonna, I'm gonna totally steal one. It might have been you that came up with one of them. Someone was talking about a separate, um, little entrance for the nuc to have it in one of the ventilation things. I thought that was such a good idea. Totally nicking that idea, and I'm going to do a little one of those, um, because the nucs, they do struggle when you're getting kind of battered by queens at the end of the year— sorry, battered by wasps at the end of the year. to have some way of just reducing it down and moving the entrance, I think it's a really good idea.

How many mating nucs are you using this year?

I'm going to use about 50. What's my plan for them? Um, so yeah, I don't want to outdo you, I'm not— I've got 70. That's just what I bought. Um, but I don't know whether I'm going to even use them all. Uh, my plan originally was to have them all at one apiary, single apiary, and have it as my queen rearing apiary. But it's the one that's furthest away, and I'm just thinking if I— is that the best place for me to go and put them? So I'm still kind of in two minds. I'm, I'm also considering using them in conjunction with the production colonies and then taking out the original queens and putting them in there and getting them drawn. I'm going to do loads of different ways of doing it. I like the— I think it's University of Guelph, I can't remember what it is, UOG, and they got a really nice video on how to do it. I'd just be kind of copying them, I guess. Um, everything I do, you know, it's not new. People have done it before. Um, but there were some really— there were some really good tips. I think Murray was coming out with some great tips in terms of like queen cell introduction the other day. Loved his tip about the foil. Thought that was such a good idea because you do— you get, you get some colonies that are just insistent on not taking your cells and they'll just go in, burrow in from the sides, and it's really annoying. I hate it when that happens. So he was saying about putting foil all the way around really gently and just leaving the tip open so then they can't burrow in. I thought that was cool.

Um, but yeah, I'll just see how it goes.

I will, I will document all of my plans for my mini mating nucs. It'd be good fun.

When splitting in the same apiary, are the main steps just shutting them in for 24 hours, face them a different way, and chucking more bees in the nuc you need?

Anything else you can do? No, that's about it. Um, you will get drift back There's not— there's no way to avoid some drift back because the bees, they just, they just kind of remember where they're going. I have to say, I, I never split bees in the same apiary. I just never do it. It's so—

you just go and get another apiary.

You only need 2, 2 apiaries, and you can just like juggle between the 2. It makes making splits so, so much easier.

Uh, Damien saying, commenting on the Abello post suggesting a 12-frame feeder.

So yeah, that They're looking at the 12-frame feeder, but I know how much it costs them for that, so I would just say get the Suyenti one. Suyenti one is perfect for that. Um, I've said to Damien, just stock the Suyenti one, why not? And he doesn't want to, understandably. Um, and then saying, also suggested a feeder for the 6-frame nuc and scrap the crown board on the nuc. Do you think that would work? Yes, I do. I think that would end up in a superior product as well, but you'd be amazed at how much the moulds cost for these single items like that. Like I would say, rough rough guess, you're probably talking twenty grand for a mold to make that feeder. So there's quite a lot of investment in it for maybe a minimum amount of gain. But yeah, that's something that I'm not too keen on on the Abello nuc is the smaller feeder. It works fine though. All of my bees that are in the Abello nucs do do really well. Ben, no, you're not not missed. Anything at all.

Um, Shane's saying also, what's your opinion on just using commercial supers as the only box size?

I think I'll try it this year. I think it's a good size compromise. So I've not, I've not used commercial supers. I've got a commercial hive coming, but I do see a lot of, a lot of people doing it. My own preference, like I said before, system— if I was buying it from scratch, I would buy single national deeps and use that across everything. One box size, it saves you so much time.

How do you feel about the use of supplements like Honeybee Healthy to 1:1 syrup for promoting brood production?

We don't use a huge amount of additives like that. I've got Hive Alive to use this year, and I'm definitely going to use that on the last feed going into winter, just as a bit of a preemptive dose against Nosema because of the addition of thymol. But yeah, I've never really needed anything like Honeybee Healthy or Hive Alive to boost it and never really done much testing, but I know some people that absolutely swear by it, and, and they make sure that all of their feeds have got the additional supplements and vitamins and stuff that bees need. So it's not— I'm not saying it didn't work, but I just, I don't personally use it myself.

Everyone talks about using drone comb frames to reduce varroa. They say to freeze the frame 72 hours.

How do you remove the dead drones? Do you put the frame capped with dead pupa back into the hive? No, that's not how I've— that's not how I've seen people do it. It's debatable, you know, whether that actually works, but the way that I've seen people do it is that they just— they'll just go straight in, take the frames out, and then just get like an uncapper and you can just uncap them and just chuck the larva away. I don't see the need to freeze it and then uncap them at the same time. I've definitely not said— I wouldn't, I wouldn't go freezing them, killing everything, and then putting them back into the hive for the bees to fix it. I don't know. That doesn't sit right, I don't think.

Is there any benefits to overwintering in a double brood configuration or with a brood box and a super?

No, not that I've found, not in the UK. I like a single brood box for winter, even if it's single national. I think, I think that works well with a feeder and the ability to feed fondant, puts you in a really good place come spring.

Joe's saying, how do you condense from a tall demerared hive to a single brood box for winter?

I've done a video on that. You just, you just take the boxes away, shake out all the bees, and just let them cluster up. Do it when it's warm and they're bearding out the front for maybe like a few days, and then they soon get the idea. A few bees die off, and then you end up with absolutely jam-packed boxes of bees, and then that's how you get good winter performance.

Um, as Bilal Evening. As you only go for bottom vent, how would you go about blocking roof vents?

So because we use, we use polyasphalt feeders as crown boards, the roof vents aren't really in existence for us, so we don't bother blocking them. But if you could block them anyway, you know, just stick a bit of Correx, Correx, yeah, a bit of Correx over them, a bit of filler, whatever, anywhere blocking them. You can wash the drone brood out with water, but if you use an empty frame and let them build the drone comb you can, you can melt it in a solar and get the very important wax. Yeah, that's a good shout. That's, that's kind of what I would say to do if you're going to do it. Like, don't bother sticking them in the freezer. Um, well, if you want to be humane, stick them in the freezer, I guess, and then stick it in the solar wax melter.

Do you feed pollen patties? I, I have fed them before, like pollen sub, but I just, I just don't do it anymore.

I don't see there's any need for us to do do it over here. Not building up for any early flows, so I don't bother doing it. Joe's saying, how long before a flow do you do a demerite? That is a really good point. So you need to, you need to get it timed right. You need to work back from when the flow is. It's like, off the top of my head, I should know this, shouldn't I? But I don't. I work it back every single time. So if you think about it, you've got a box of bees full of brood, and then you're going to take that box and put it upstairs stairs. So even if the youngest, like the egg or larva in there, is a day old, it's going to take 3 weeks for that brood cycle to go all the way through. So I would give it maybe an extra week on top of that because you want the new queen the time to be able to lay up that box. Might take her a week to be able to lay out that box, and then another couple of weeks for them to, to all emerge on top of that. So I'd say 5 weeks if you target your flow, the beginning of the flow, and do the demerite 5 weeks before. You're going to end up with a huge, huge colony to take advantage of it. Oh, Joe, we didn't— this, this is app— this is no football allowed. I will answer it. Will Arsenal get top 4? Bet you happy the mighty Saints beat Spurs the other night. I was very happy.

And Eduardo is saying he loves the underfloor entrance. Why is it not more popular?

I think it's gaining popularity. I cannot believe there's not like a cheap underfloor entrance on the market. They're like 50 quid, 60 quid. Um, they're so easy to make, like the simplest thing in the world. So I would— yeah, I want someone to make one of those. I saw one of the other tips on that Abello thing was like a molded under plastic underfloor entrance. Oh my God, that would, that would be the best sell in the world, wouldn't it?

Ian saying, Isabella at B Tradex this year?

Nope, they're not at Tradex. I think anyone is, um, apart from the Dogs Trust. So snarky, I know, but it's— yeah, nothing good, is it?

Danny C, oh, how do you like that snow?

I think that's someone else. Uh, Joe, best place to get oils to scent beeswax candles? No idea. Sorry, mate.

Uh, Toby saying, reading today in the Bee Farmer magazine about BS Honeybee struggle to get poly hives made.

Can you see a time when poly just ain't worth the money? Yeah, definitely. I think I did a video on this, it might be in the members section, but it's, it's that when we're there, we're there now. Like when I did the first poly hive versus wooden hive video, people would say, why'd you buy poly hives? And I would say superior insulation and they cost like half the price of a wooden hive. And you look at the price difference now between second cedar beehives, you can pick up the pieces and probably make up a hive for 60, 70 quid versus 160, 170 quid now for an Abello hive. So we're there. Um, I still prefer the polyhives, but they are not cheap.

Uh, JK Photography, do all my bees have attitude? When do you start selling F1 queens?

So no, not all of my bees do have attitude, but unlike some, I do post all of the angry ones on YouTube as well. Uh, but I am— some of them do, some of them definitely angry, and I'm trying my best to eliminate those and be a little bit ruthless to get those drones out of my colony so that when I do my queens, they'll be, uh, a little bit more gentle. First batch is confirmed for first week of April, and there's not many left.

Julian's saying, heard a good tip for wood boxes this week—

chamfer an upper corner and it helps guide your hive tool when prying apart. That's a nice tip, I like that. Julian's saying, tried using mini mating nucs last year, but with the timing between the queen emerging, getting mated, and starting to lay, the bees backfilled with empty cells. How do you deal with this issue? So it's difficult. This, this is the problem with mini mating nucs, that you just need to constantly be on top of it. And I know some of them some people who do, they just sacrifice frames and they'll constantly just be taking frames out, sacrificing the brood, scraping it back, and just putting empty frames back in for the bees just to give them something to do because they will just abscond. So I, I've not got the perfect answer, I've not got the perfect method or solution for that at all. I will review and show you my system this year, and if, if it all goes kind of horribly wrong, I'll show you that as well.

JK Photography, are farmers really now using pesticides that kill bees?

Can anyone answer? UK. I'd say yeah, and they have been for a long time. There's lots of horrible stuff that gets sprayed around. Just hopefully very thoughtful farmers who let you know when they're spraying stuff.

Saying switching to 14 by 12 and thinking of using foundation strips so the bees can select their own structure.

Any thoughts, or should I just go with full foundation? 100% go with full foundation. That is my view. Other people will say no, no, no, just go foundationless, it's fine. Um, my view is that there's such a big gap there, you need huge amounts of support for a 14 by 12. So I would prefer wax foundation. Also doing that at this time of the year, if you put that in in spring, you'll end up with like 60% drone brood, and then there's nothing you can do other than cut it out and start again. So personally, I'd use wax foundation. foundation. You're doing it as like a cost-saving measure, you, you won't— you're better off paying for it because the bees need to put in so much work to actually make the wax.

Andy's off, so see you later, Andy. Uh, Joe saying, how would you dispatch a diseased colony?

I've never had to, but would be worth knowing. Uh, I've done a video on this. I think that's coming out Saturday or Sunday. Um, oh, JK Photography, you are very kind with your super stickers. You did that last time as well. You don't— you didn't have to, but I'm very happy that you did. Thanks very much. Um, somebody bought me 5 coffees the other day. Did that. It was amazing. I put it on there. First person ever, they bought me 5 coffees. So I will— or anybody who gives me stickers or money, you know it goes back in. I've just done £12,000 on cameras and lenses, so hopefully you will get the benefit of, uh, of the donations. It is much appreciated.

Uh, but Joe, yeah, what—

so what I said is that The only time I would ever dispatch a colony and completely kill it— there's one exception, and that is if they had AFB. It's the only time I'd do it, and I would do it using petrol. Seal them in, pour fresh petrol over them. It's the quickest way to kill them.

Uh, Have you done a video on going foundationless? No, I haven't, but that's a really good idea.

I need to get it on my list. I've got 250 videos on my list, so let me write that one on. Foundationless beekeeping, good one to do.

Um, Jay Woody, do polyhives need to be seasoned to allow the plastic to off-gas before installing bees?

I wouldn't have thought so. Like, they're going to be made kind of months or years before you put bees into them. Wouldn't fancy doing it straight off the press, but no, I don't think you do. And you don't need to paint the inside of them either. Definitely paint the outside though. Polyhives are really susceptible. Oh, Eduardo's given me a super sticker as well. You're very kind. Thanks very much.

Right, I've answered all the questions on here. I'll go back to my other list of questions. So Mish Shep talking about how to modify a national floor to make an underfloor entrance, saying, how does this entrance fare when yellow jacket wasps try to invade?

On conventional entrances, the bees have a hard fight keeping them out, even with wasps. Traps. So that is the precise reason why I use those floors, because they're really good at helping— helping is the key word there— protect against wasps. It doesn't like eliminate wasps, and you will still get wasps getting in, but it makes it so, so much easier for the bees to defend it. Um, so that's, that's the main reason. So yellow jackets should have no problem.

Um, Steve Dawes saying, what is your opinion of putting a couple of frames of brood above the queen excluder to make more room in a single 8-frame Lang, thinking I would have to make sure no queen cells?

So yeah, I know a lot of beekeepers that do, do that, and you kind of like do it on a constant cycle. If you do it just directly above the queen excluder, you shouldn't really have any issue. They shouldn't see that as that it's far enough away from the queen's pheromone to start doing cells. But they might, so I would keep an eye on it. Um, but bringing it up above is no, is no problem at all, and then you can use those frames as long as they're not tainted for honey. Um, Harry Cook on the checkerboarding swarm thing saying, if, if it was that easy, we would all be doing it by now and we would all be millionaires. I, I agree, but it's, it's going to be fun trying it out, isn't it? I just think with all things like this You've got you've got to kind of have a go, and I there's no kidding anyone. I don't think that's going to be a foolproof method that I'm going to eliminate all swarms every single time, and I never have to do any inspections.

But it might reduce the amount of swarms that I lose.

You never know. So I'm going to give it a go, and even if it was, we definitely wouldn't be millionaires.

Thomas saying, how would you change modify the Standard wooden national hive.

So just in general or in relation to the other question? So so in relation to the other question, I just I added in those two bits of wood, turned it into an underfloor entrance, which was really good. In terms of modifying it completely, I'd probably just burn it and buy something decent because it is rubbish. It is a rubbish hive. Anybody who watched last week's stream and saw me recommending Chris Manton. Um, I should have put his Twitter handle on there, so it's @elmtreesbees. If you've not done it already, do, do follow him because I, I get so many good tips from him and he, he puts loads of good, really good content on Twitter. But he did a video showing how you put together, um, kind of like on a commercial basis. He did use a lot of glue. Anyone who watched it, he used, he used loads of glue, but it was good.

But it just— I was sitting there watching it and I was just thinking Because there's such rubbish eyes.

This, like, the design is so awkward and so difficult to put together. You look at the Langstroth and it's just 4 bits, put them together and it's done. And we've got this, like, the top bars and you get the chamfer the right way around, and then the inserts, and you've got to make sure it's all square, and you've got the bee spaces.

All right, so it is a mess.

So what would I do with it? I would scrap it and I would start again. Saying that, um, Again, another channel membership video that is on there, be up in within about a week, I'd say. And that is I've just I've retrofitted the national hives now with this cork insulation sheet, and it's come out really nice. I'm really really happy with both how it looks because it looks cool, but also I think it's going to work really well. It maybe cost me like fifty quid to upgrade it to buy all the cork, but that's because I was buying it like one sheet at a time. So I'd like to see a company sell pre-made cork insulation wooden National Modified hives. It takes it down to a 9-frame, so you've only got 9 frames to work, but you only really need it in the brood boxes. So I'll double brood, and it means I'll get 18 frames of brood, and they're super, super insulated, and there's no plastic in sight. So I'm quite, I'm quite excited about that.

Have you ever had wasps issues? And personally, personally, and lost hives?

So yeah, I've lost nucs. through to wasps. They'll take— as soon as they get in and they take over, they kill everything, and the bees just kind of give up. I've only lost a couple though, and, and it was my fault. I put weak— made up weak— made up weak— made up nucs that were too weak. That was the problem.

Do you do a beginner's course?

So no, I don't do any courses like that at the moment. I would love to do courses, and if we had a farm, I would do them, but unfortunately I don't.

Um, okay, so you've clarified.

Yeah, so, so frame quantity, I'm not really that fussed. Like, it doesn't bother me the frame quantity if it's like a 9 or a 12 or whatever. Um, but yeah, I would scrap it and start again.

Uh, did I get anywhere lobbying for changes to the honey regulations?

So no, I didn't. I, I didn't think I would, you know. It's just like, what can you do? I've got like 300 people signing. But the BBKA have got their own petition now, something completely different, but talking about stringent controls over the import and adulteration of honey. Everybody go and have a look at it. Google BBKA honey petition. It's a very worthwhile petition. I have signed it. I'm going to do a video on it, and it'd be great if you could— you can all sign it as well. That's very kind.

Thank you, Joe.

Eduardo saying, do you stain or oil or paint your hives? So wooden cedar, I don't do anything. I just let them go because I quite like the weathered look, and I find that you don't get a huge amount of benefit by, by painting them. Um, if I was going belt and braces, I'd wax dip them. Anything wood, I'd wax dip, but I've not got the setup to do that. I might buy a wax dipper though and see how we go. Um, and then all my polyhives I paint, so you need to be careful with anything poly, you need to paint them. Uh, Q&A with Gwyneth Griffiths, uh, soon hopefully.

I, I did approach him previously about doing— I don't think he was too keen to do a Zoom one.

He wanted to do like a face-to-face real action one, which would have been good. So we will do one. I know Griff will be up for that.

Uh, Stuart's saying, do they nibble the cork, do you know? Um, so I didn't know this, but somebody posted it when I said about doing it last week, saying that they do.

So I didn't take any risks. So what I've done is, if you— when you watch the video, you'll see on the rebates of the wooden national hive, I put it on the outside, and then on the inside, like the warm or the cold face, I always forget, I've stuck it to the wood, and then I've clad it on one side with ply and then put like a pine topper on it. So they shouldn't, they shouldn't be able to get to it too much. They can get it, they can get to it from the bottom. I might put a little cap on the bottom. But it's essentially fully enclosed, and I was quite happy with that. Putting the cork sheet, like, obviously on the outside it makes no difference, and on the inside it's only in one dimension, plus the ply as well. So it's like 32mm. I use 20mm cork sheet, 12mm ply, so 32mm. So 64mm lost space, and I've taken it down to a comfortable 9 frame, which I think is a cool number.

Joe's saying, have you got a video on using one of those show hives? So like an observation hive?

Um, no, but that is on my list to do that. I have got an observation hive and I've taken it to a couple of places and it works really, really well.

Uh, Julian's saying, what percentage of hives do you miss queen cells and then swarm?

That's a sign of how, how good a beekeeper you are, that. Uh, I don't know in terms of a percentage, like Definitely happens, but the biggest improvement that I made to my beekeeping was clipping my queens. Oh my God! I used to there's nothing worse than losing swarms, and you get big massive colonies, and you're thinking right that's it, it's honey harvest time. We're going to get three supers filled this week, and then you go, and then there's no bees in there. Like a little handful of bees left, and they've just swarmed and thrown out loads of casts, and it's because you've you haven't been been there for two weeks. But as soon as you start clipping your queens, then you've really not got an issue, because if they swarm and you're there within the time taken for the virgins to go out, so you're not losing the swarm with a virgin, then they just cluster up underneath the ventilated floor. So even if they do swarm, you've not lost them, and then you can kind of just dump them back into another hive and make some splits or do whatever. So what percentage of my hives do I miss the queen cells and they swarm?

Over the course of a year, I'd say maybe 10%, something like that. Have I ever tried the AZ Slovenian hive house?

So no, I've not tried that. That is on my list of ones to get this year. It's going to be crazy this year. I've got so many different hive types.

Arturo again, a question: How much space do you have between the frames?

So I use all DN4s or SN4s. So it's Hoffman self. Spacing. It's 36mm. Um, I love self-spacing frames. It makes things so much easier. I hate plastic frame spacers.

Uh, Chris saying hello and thank you from me and my son Jaden. You've been a great help. Hello Chris. Hello Jaden. Thanks for being members. Uh, Joe saying, what can you paint the inside of an Ashworth feeder with?

Guessing it's got to be non-toxic stuff so it doesn't get into the syrup. So yeah, exterior grade masonry paint is the, is the general thing that people talk about. I like spray paint, I have to say, like an exterior-grade gloss works really well, and I find you don't get as much mould buildup on it.

Another Joe, Chris, evening, sorry, just joined. How do you search for a new apiary with regards to local forage?

What's, uh, what's good, what's not so? So just, you need to research it, get on Google Earth, do some research. And see what you can get and go to someone with a plan to where you want to put bees as opposed to saying, can I keep bees on your land? Because otherwise they'll just give you the worst. It's Jasper chilling out. How big was your channel? Did you need to start getting promo reviews in terms of like products? So it's interesting question that I must have annoyed every single beekeeping company there was when I had like 2 200 subscribers saying, can I have some free stuff? Can I— I'll review it on my channel and get like 20 views. Um, some of them were really good, like Abello, and they were, they were receptive to it. Uh, BB Wear as well, they give me like— give me the suits for free but gave me like a nice discount with me saying I'll do some, do some videos on your suits.

Uh, some never got back to me, and I kind of think you, you remember the ones who were good to you.

Uh, And you, you remember the ones who weren't so good to you. But it's not, it's not the case of like everyone's going to do that. I, I completely appreciate that it's not everyone's strategy to put money in through social media. It's my daughter here.

Yeah, what's happened? Oh, she bought me a toy, right? I think that you want to bring it up here. Bring it up then.

Look, look! Hey, Daddy, Colin does a dab with Iron Man!

Come here, Daddy!

Colin does a dab with Iron Man! Oh, Daddy loves me! He loves you, right?

Let's see who this is.

Who's that? That's me and Do we look similar?

Right, this is my little girl Ivy. She's going to be the future beekeeper. You say hello. Hello. So you want to tell a story about bees?

Can you say, can you say hi? That one.

No, I don't know that one. I'm Ivy Edwards.

You say it then.

I'm Ivy Edwards. I'm Ivy Edwards.

Ivy Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Right, that spells the end of the stream unfortunately, so I will be back tomorrow night at 8 o'clock doing it with Richard.

Thanks to everyone that dialed in. Thanks to everyone who asked questions and left stickers or whatever.

Hey, Daddy, I don't have a bee smoker and I don't have a bee suit yet, so how about, how about if Emmy has one and a bee smoker, Dad, I can go with them then?

That sounds like a plan. She wants a bee smoker and a bee suit.

But I will leave it there.

Thanks everyone. I really like doing these live streams and I'm glad that everyone dials in.

Let's say that.

Let's say purple daddy. Purple daddy.

I'll see you all tomorrow night, 8 o'clock, with Richard now.