Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees with Laurence Edwards - Episode 26

So it is Christmas time and everything is crazy and nobody knows what day it is or what week it is, or is it December or is it January? But everybody's left the house and I have got a cup of chamomile tea, so I thought I would do a live stream and let people know what's going on because there is so much going on at the moment. And I appreciate it's probably not suitable time for everyone, kind of like 3 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, 28th of December. Um, but I can't do evenings at the moment, so hopefully this is a suitable time. If you do have any questions, you'll have to jump into the live chat because we are in between websites at the moment and I'm struggling with the forms that are going on on the old website. So hopefully some people will arrive and ask some questions. If not, I'll just kind of like talk about what is going on at the moment. So you will see that we've got a new brand, new logo. It was a bit controversial, wasn't it? Well, some people liked it, some people didn't like it, some people really didn't like it. But I'm hoping that over time people will get used to the new logo. I've ordered loads of these hats as well, which I think are pretty cool. I'm not going to put it on at the moment, but why do we— why did we get a new logo? Because I asked a company— I've got a company involved to do a rebrand of the website and they just said, they said, we can't, we can't rebrand your website. Like, we can't redo your website with the current brand because they said you're just gonna want us to do it again in 6 months' time. Like, what you're asking us for in terms of the website scope doesn't align to your brand at all. So we can do it, but we really don't recommend you doing it. So they said, we'll rebrand it for you. And I kind of thought, this is just This is classic, isn't it? Upselling, classic upselling. I knew what they were doing, but I just thought I'd go with it 'cause I wasn't 100% sold on the old logo, especially the fonts. And this is the bit that was clashing massively 'cause I wanted a really nice clean, clear font and they said, well, your logo's like a really not clear font at all. So anyway, we had a long discussion and I decided to trust them and immediately, like I looked at the logo and thought, yeah, it's nice, I quite like it. It's not, it didn't blow me away, but it's definitely grown on me. But I put my faith and my trust in this company, and they have just been so good, and I couldn't be more happy with the website and how it's coming along. And it's ready, like it is sitting there ready to go. We could have pushed the button on December the 24th. That was when he rung me up and said, it's ready, do you want to push the button? And I said, yeah, let's definitely push the button 24th of December. He said, but I'm not going to be here from the 24th of December to the 2nd of January, so if anything goes wrong, then then you're on your own. So common sense prevailed and I did not push the button. But 12th of January, it goes live. So we will have a brand new website and I'm so excited about it because I can, I can see the website live. I should probably, I should probably give you a little sneak peek really, shouldn't I? Because you have decided to log in. How do I do that? All right, let's have a go. Okay, all right, I think I've worked out how to do it. So here we go. It might go a bit buffy, but this is the new website. So I'm hoping you can see that I'm just kind of flicking through a website now. But as you'll see, it's very different, a lot cleaner. He's done cool stuff like this, like awards and accreditations, like Moving across the screen, and then like all of our reviews and stuff. Pretty cool. And then you've got a blog. So if anybody wants to feature on my blog, which I've really been trying to go all in with at the moment, I just clicked off that. You can't see that bit, can you? Right. Yeah, that's not working. Anyway, there we go. That is a sneak peek, a sneak peek even of the website, and it is cool. I love it. So what else is going on? So yeah, I'm going to North American Honeybee Expo. in on the 2nd or 3rd of Jan. I'm very much looking forward to going. I'm really not looking forward to the flights though. Absolute mission that is going to be getting over there. But I, I am looking forward. So I think a few people in the comments have said they're looking forward to seeing me there. So hopefully catch up with as many people as possible, um, at the Honeybee Expo. I'm, I'm properly overwhelmed by the size of it. It looks really cool and it's, it's different from anything you get in the UK. Just due to the sheer size and like what people bring. I just can't get over how many different vendors are going, how many people are going, like how long it is. I looked at the Honey Show and thought, oh, that could be good to have a little nose around the Honey Show. And it's probably like a little tag-on thing because it's not like a Honey Show conference. And looked at it, and correct me like if I'm wrong, but there's hundreds, literally hundreds of different categories there. Um, so I'm so excited to just go and be, uh, interested in beekeeping and go out there and try stuff and, and break stuff and buy stuff. Definitely going to buy stuff and bring it back. But yeah, not looking forward to the flights. Right, so I'll go through, I'll go through some of the comments. Um, I think it's Honey says he loves the new branding. Thank you very much. Hello, Damien. Happy Christmas. Oh, it's good. People people liking the logo and liking that. Happy Christmas from the Arctic. Cool. I really want to go to the Arctic Circle at some point. Sweden as well. We're very very multicultural today. Hello everyone. More people liking the logo. I did have a good Christmas. Thank you very much. Hope all of you did as well. As I said, looking forward to meeting as many people as possible. At the Honeybee Expo, come say hi. Come and like tap me on the shoulder. I see here's a lot of different countries, isn't it? Hi, Anne from from Western Canada, and Alan saying, "Yep, I am going to to Narby." I love the name Narby. It's cool, isn't it? And then Pinky's Honey again saying he likes the website. Right. So Ben's Bird says, "Hi, Lawrence. Your videos have really inspired me to start beekeeping. I got my first hive, and I've still got to get some bees, but your videos really help." A lot. I'm glad they do. What I'm trying to work on at the moment, as per the advice from some people on the website, so some of my customers, is to try and produce like a simplified web page, so offline from YouTube, just to like restructure some stuff and make it easy to follow things. Because I'm aware that I just dump everything into YouTube, and I try my best with playlists, but I've yeah, I've got in the habit of not putting things into playlists. So I am going to try and make it a bit easier. And I'm also trying to double back on myself a little bit in terms of content and going back to not necessarily like simplifying things and going back to basics again, but just refilming some of the videos that need a bit of an update, like how to add a queen to a colony and how to make a split. So you will see some, some kind of new updated videos coming through, and then I will be focusing on queen rearing a lot this year, different, different methods of queen rearing. Trying to keep it— get back to basics with beekeeping, I think. So Ian just joined. 12th of Jan, website goes live on the 12th of Jan, barring any last-minute dramas, as per Damien's comment there. Thanks, Damien. Hi, I hope you had a nice Christmas. My question is, with the mild weather we're having, would you skip the OA treatment and go for an early spring treatment instead? So it is, it's a difficult one every single year, but where it's getting milder and milder, I'm kind of doing the opposite of what maybe you would expect. I think, I think other people are doing the opposite as well. But as, as you get these milder winters, I'm not waiting for like a January, February cold snap. I'm moving it to the left. So the blanket advice that you used to get was Christmas, around Christmas time is a good time to do oxalic acid sublimation. But I do mine now middle of November, middle to kind of back end of November. And I did that video, I went into a couple of colonies. Yeah, you only saw one that I went into and looked inside to see if there was any brood. And it just, it seemed at that point a very good time for us in North Wales to have broodless colonies. And I bet you any money if I went in there now, there would be brood because it's been warm for a few weeks, and we're kind of like, what, 4, 5, 6 days past the solstice? So that would definitely trigger them to start laying some, some brood that will probably be capped over in a few days. So, so I am moving it to the left, which I appreciate is no, no good for you, the question that you just asked there. So yeah, an early spring treatment instead is actually a really good idea. Not a lot of people ever use like Apivar as an early spring treatment. It's always done in the autumn, but it's actually a really effective treatment to put in now. So if you've got a colony of bees and you can go in and they're clustering, the only risk with putting Apivar in now, and I hate this risk, is that it's when you're wedging in the strips, it's kind of like if you're wedging a strip in and you kill a queen, you are pretty knackered. So what I would suggest doing if you're going to do Apivar now is say you've got a cluster, so you've got an 11-frame hive and you've got a cluster of bees in the middle, I would take out the the frame closest to you, just like a frame of stores, put it off to one side, and then I would wedge open the cluster, literally wedge it so you, you're splitting that cluster in half just by pulling them away. Then put your strips in and then close it back together again, as opposed to just trying to wedge the strips in, which is what I normally do. Um, but if you put them in now, like the treatment for Apivar, they say 6 to 8 weeks— so 6 to 10 weeks they say, I think, is the treatment, but a lot of people go just with 8 weeks or 2 months. So if you put the treatment in now, by the end of Feb you can take the strips out. And as long as you're taking the strips out by, say, the 1st of April, then you're never going to have any overlap with supers. And then you're allowed to put supers on as soon as you've taken the strips out. Literally, like, that you can go there, take the strips out, put the supers immediately on. There's no withdrawal period at all, as long as you're not putting the supers on while the strips are in. So yes, Apivar would be a very good treatment to use now, especially if you've not done an oxalic acid treatment, so I would go with that. Hello from Devon. Hello, and afternoon from Ireland. Hi, Paul. So Henry says— Henry is a channel member as well. Hi, Henry. He says, Merry Christmas. Roughly how many hives you have at the moment? Are you planning on expanding this year? So, we've got loads, absolutely loads. Um, are we planning on expanding? It depends. So for the nucs, yep, because we, we just can't keep up with the nucs at the moment. For the honey, definitely not, not on a commercial scale. The— I don't know if anyone saw Griff's video that got pulled down before most people had a chance to view it, I guess. Um, I want to message him actually and say, why have you pulled it down? Who have you upset? Upset somebody there? Because he doesn't sit on the fence normally, does he? He says what he feels, but he It must have been someone having a go at him, uh, or telling him, advising him to take his video down for him to actually do that. Unless I'm seeing things and I just can't find the video anymore. But no, so, so the nuc front, yes, I'm looking to expand. On the honey front, no, we'll just kind of keep up with what, what we need for ourselves for our honey business, which isn't much. We still produce like a few tons every year, but I'm not, I'm not getting any more beehives. In fact, selling a lot of my beehives, a lot of my 14x12 beehives that I've got. I've probably got 150, 200 of them. Um, once they're, once they're all clean and sterile, I'm gonna sell some of them, a lot of them. If you're interested in a deal, let me know. And we got hello from Holland as well. This is great. I, I love that there's so many people from all around the world who between Christmas Day and New Year's Day have nothing to do. So they kind of come onto a live stream. So hello again from Holland. Nicholas says, "I will transfer 30 hives from Swedish National to Dayden and three-quarter Langstroth next year. What is the best way to do this and when?" So I've obviously never done that exact conversion there, but I always find that the easiest way to do any sort of transfer is just go and buy some sheets of ply and just get the cheapest ply that you can possibly get. at like 3mm, 4mm ply, and then you cut them into a board that's compatible with both different sizes. So what you're going from there, you're going from Swedish National to Dadant and 3/4 Langstroth. So you need to make sure that the board is big enough to cover the Swedish National totally, but also big enough to cover the bottom of the Dadant totally. And it doesn't matter if it's bigger than both. it'll look a bit rubbish, but it doesn't matter if it's bigger than both. And then all you do is you just put, um, the Swedish National is your normal beehive, and you'll just put— cut the piece of ply, put it on top, cut a big hole out in the middle of it, like literally maybe 4 or 5 inch circle, and then put the Dadant or the 3/4 Langstroth on top in the spring, and then just let the bees go up. And in the spring they always go up really quick. Um, I would put a feeder on feeder on top as well because that's an additional way to entice them up. And then I would just keep on feeding them until they've drawn out all of the frames in the Dadant and the Langstroth. And then once you get to a point where like they've, they've pulled out loads of those frames and they're definitely rearing brood upstairs, I would take a queen excluder and put a queen excluder in between the 2 boxes with the piece of ply still there and just go find a queen and make sure the queen's in the box that you want her to be in. so in the Dadant or the 3/4 Langstroth, and then just keep on going. And then after like 2 or 3 weeks, there won't be any brood left over in the Swedish National, and she would have laid out all of the brood up in the top. And then you can just remove the National and do whatever you want with it, and then you're all set to go. And that technique works on any single conversion. There's no hive type other than like a top bar or something like that. In which that technique won't work. But spring's the best time to do it. Definitely do it in the spring when they're naturally expanding, and then you can feed them as well. So Arctic Beekeeping says, have you tried the ApiMai hive? So no, I've not tried it. I have approached them a couple of times, and always when I was in my phase of buying like every single possible hive that I could ever afford. I did look at them, they seem so much more expensive, like I just— and I spoke to a few bee farmers who, and I know they've probably got a view on it without having tried it, which goes against what we're all about, but they were just a bit too expensive to have a go on. I think they're like £400 or £500 for like a plastic insulated hive, and I have no doubt that they are pretty good because they will be well insulated, but I just don't know, don't really like the look of them that much, and I think that Anel— careful how I say it— are very similar in that it's like a plastic molded and then injected with insulation inside. So I'm not one for spending unnecessary money, um, but I know, I know a lot of people do, do use them and do say that they're really good. So I think, I think they are good, but for me they're just a bit overpriced. Uh, Ben's Birds says, my first hive WBC. Could you maybe do some videos on them? Can't really find any instruction on how to work them. I would love it if you could make some videos on them, by the way. You're, you're 11? Oh, amazing. Hi, Ben. Um, you— I was reading your post before thinking you're at least 24, but yeah. Okay, so WBC, that I could, I could get some WBCs because they fit a national frame. Um, leave that one with me. I don't think, I don't think the, the management of them is kind of any different from just like a standard national. I know you've got lifts and I know you've got gaps in between, but you're essentially doing exactly the same. But I do— I love WBC hives, they're absolutely beautiful. And as luck would have it, there is a WBC hive video on the membership page at the moment. That's not a shameless plug, it will be released probably in the next couple of weeks, so don't rush to the membership page just to see that. But I did, I went to Thorn Beekeeping and they had a WBC and I do a video on a WBC there, just poking my nose in, being awkward and nosy, but there is one coming up. But I will add it to the list. Says, with the mild weather, are you finding the bees are going through their stores quickly? So yes, definitely, that is the downside of a mild winter and if you get really mild, it does tire out the bees as well. And it gives you the biggest problem if it just stays mild all the way through and we get to like March, April and it's 22, 23 degrees and then you're straight into spring, then I think a mild winter is really good. But the problem comes is if you get a really mild winter followed in the middle of like Feb or back end of Feb or early March with like really cold weather, and then you will find so many colonies died. And that, that's the real problem. Like, my— I'm not fussed about my stores being depleted because all I do is I just go and heft, and if they're low, I just give them fondant, give them a big slab of fondant, and then that fixes any issues to do with like them starving. But the bigger risk is, yeah, is, is them just— they kind of get like worn out. So, so that the more work that the winter bees do, the shorter they live. And then if you get to a point where, where the queen needs to go like turbo to build up enough bees to see the colony through, to be able to keep them warm, but she can't because it's -15 or something crazy in the back end of February. And then you, then you get real huge winter losses. I remember one year that happened and we lost probably 20% for that exact reason. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be bad. Um, Eric says, what is the best beekeeping show in England? Last year he visited Coventry, this year he's going to Telford. Uh, so the, the Coventry one, yeah, is not, is not going ahead this year. The British Beekeeping Show, very aptly named, uh, formerly Bee Tradex. Um, but the Telford one's good. Like, the Telford one's only, only one year old. I'm going there again this year. I'm doing some, doing some cool stuff there this year, actually. And it's good. What I like about the, the Telford one— and there's loads, there's loads of good beekeeping shows in the UK, it's not just a combination of 2. But what I do like about the Beekeeping Show is that just everyone's there, so you can have a look at all the different, all the different vendors and just kind of chat to people, which is really good. But I understand the British Beekeeping Show is making a comeback in 2025, so it'll be interesting to see what they do to try and attract people back. I only read that this morning on Patrick's departure email from Bee Equipment. which will be interesting. I'm following that one to see, see how that goes. I'm just gonna drink my tea before it gets cold. Uh, Stuart says, hi Lawrence, your videos have helped me so much in my first year. I've made some catastrophic mistakes— haven't we all— and lost 2 small nucs over this winter, but I'm learning all the time. I just noticed every time that I put, uh, somebody up, my face goes really weird. That's strange. I'll maybe leave that for a bit. Yeah, do you know what, losing small nucs over winter, we all do it. You get like really trigger happy in this at the end of the year thinking, I'll make a little split here and I'll make a split there, and you take colonies into winter that just aren't going to make it through. But you get used to that and you begin to understand what you can take through and what you can't take through. But as long as you've got a couple of colonies coming through, you can always increase them up again very very quickly the following year. I just thought I'd add at this point, I will be ducking out, like, not yet, but my, my wife and my daughter and their friends are coming over, so my wife doesn't know I'm doing a stream at the moment. So I'll— at some point it'll be like everyone's back and I'll be like, right, see you later, bye. Uh, but I've probably got a good 25 minutes, half an hour left. So Jim said, uh, hope you had a restful Christmas. I did, thanks Jim. Will you be continuing your visits to other beekeepers' apiaries in 2024? So definitely yes, but it's very hard to get people to agree to being filmed. I, I like, I definitely get more, way more rejections than I do people saying yeah, yeah, sure. Like a lot of people just say no, don't know, absolutely not, no thanks, not interested. But I love it, I really enjoy going to other people's apiaries, so it needs to be relatively close, but I will travel. Like I've been, I travel a couple of hours to go and spend a day at someone's apiary Needs to be need to do a few videos for a good amount of travel, but I'm definitely up for that. I enjoy it, and I think it's I think it's good for the channel. So definitely up for that. Oliver, good afternoon from the sunny Isle of Man. Hello. It is definitely not sunny here. Oh my goodness! It has been quite a crazy 24 hours in Wales. It's like sunny one minute, and then like three inches of rain. and then 85 mile an hour winds, but it is, it's all right, not raining at the moment. How do you manage your time when you have a full-time job and loads of beehives? So you don't sleep, you just, you just try and get on with it as best as you possibly can and, and focus your attention on the things that add value and don't take a huge amount of time. Hence why I'm not putting tons of attention into managing lots of big production colonies for bulk honey, because there's no bulk honey market anymore. So I just kind of like limit it down to the things that actually do add value. Uh, Paul says, will you be sticking with the polyhives or still mixing with the wood? Oh, it's an interesting question that. I, I really sit on the fence on this. Like, I definitely prefer the polyhives And I have it— having been through like a big cleaning process on all of them as well, that I know I did— like, disclaimer, big disclaimer, I do social media for Abello, um, so take that with a pinch of salt. But believe me, like, I'm being honest, the Abello hides are so much better than any of the other ones on the market. And, and it's just so apparent when you clean them because like the Ascenti ones that I've got, like, you dip them in, in a So like in baking soda and you clean them and then you dip them in the sodium hypochlorite. Always get that wrong, say hydrochlorite, but hypochlorite. And then you leave it for 24 hours. I do. You're only supposed to leave it for 20 minutes, but I leave it for 24 hours. And then they come out and the Swienty ones come out and they're just looking like battered and like all bruised and bits falling off. And like propolis has got into like the beads and it's just, it doesn't look, it's clean and it's perfectly sterile, sterile. But it doesn't look very nice. And then the Abello ones are just like they're new, absolutely brand new. There's no dents, there's no scratches, and the color just comes back perfectly. So in terms of poly, like, I'm not going to be buying cheap poly hives anymore. Definitely not going to buy any more Suiyenti poly hives. Um, realized that I just plugged selling some Suiyenti poly hives as well earlier on. So yeah, no, take all that back there. They are truly brilliant. No, they're not. Honestly, they're not the best hive, uh, in the world, and I won't be buying any more of them. But the wooden ones are a lot easier, um, to clean. I just, I, I find like the process of like sterilizing and cleaning wooden boxes quite therapeutic, and it's quite nice. And you just kind of get a box out and you scrape it off, and it's, you know, it's metal on wood, and you can keep things clean. And then you scorch it with like a big scorch gun, and it's just loads quicker, and you can do it all. You can do a whole box in like 5 minutes. Like probably, probably not even as long as that. Um, whereas the poly ones, it's a bit more long-winded. And I find that like the difference between the bees in the poly and, uh, the wood is— it is apparent and it is different, and there's no doubt they do better in the poly, but they do, they do fine in the wood. It's not, not really a massive difference. The only, the only one where I'd say that I definitely wouldn't swap it over is the nucs. Like, they do so much better in nucs. in terms of poly versus wood. I wouldn't have any wooden nucs, and the poly nucs are still loads cheaper as well. There we go. So Joe's back. Hi, Joe. Are you doing some pollination in your area? So no, we are, we are North Wales and we only have sheep, and as far as I'm aware, sheep don't— they still don't need pollination. It'd be good if they did. But no, I wish we did live close to areas that needed pollination, not so much for the pollination fee but for the byproduct of lots of nice honey. I'm not going to try pronouncing that, Pre— well, I'll have a go. Pre-Shack says, hi Lawrence, I just started beekeeping last July and my dad and I have found yours and Griff's videos very handy. We plan on going to the Beekeeping Show in 2024. Are you planning on going? So yes, I am. Come and say hi. Joe says it's still 11 degrees down south. It's pretty warm for this time of year. Is your decision to offload your 14x12s because you're focusing on queen and nuc production, or is 14x12 just not practical? Yeah, so very much the former, in that I just don't have the requirement for lots of big production colonies on 14x12s. And then the nucs, we have made a decision to no longer do any 14 by 12 nucs because it's difficult to get the numbers right, and then it's a huge amount more resources that have to go into the 14 by 12s. You can't be anywhere near as aggressive making the splits, and everything else to do with them is more expensive as well, so it makes them kind of not anywhere near as cost efficient to make. But if I was like going down there keeping bees in my back garden or going down like a bulk honey production route, I would still use the 14x12s. And I'm still on the fence in terms of what's, what's better. Like, is it a single national, is it a double national, or is it a 14x12? Like, there's, there's things I really like about the 14x12, such, such as it's a single box which is easy to manage, and the things I don't like in that it's quite difficult to do any sort of swarm manipulation on it. What one of the things that I don't like about the 14x12 And it's the stupidest little thing that probably doesn't apply to many other people, is that because it's long-lugged, it's like the ratio of the long lug to the weight of the frame. So with the Langstroth, you've got like short little tiny stubby lugs, and you never— I don't think I've ever broken a single Langstroth lug ever on any type of Langstroth. And I kind of sometimes break lugs on normal nationals, And then on 14 by 12s, I break lugs all the time, and it's really annoying because when you break a lug, it's game over for that frame. You effectively— it doesn't matter how you break it, you might as well just chuck it in the bin. And I do it all the time. But I've had it before where I've just like put a 14 by 12 box down full of honey, like honey and brood, and put it down like a little bit too hard maybe, and all of them are broken. Like they're just all cracked. And that— so that annoys me with 14x12s, but that's, that's me being a bit heavy-handed with them maybe. But then there's lots of good things to go with 14x12. Like, one of the good things is that in terms of like frames, if you're buying frames, they're the same price as like a standard national, and you're getting like an extra 50% brood area for the same price of the frames. And then the boxes aren't proportionally 50% more expensive. So kind of like on a per square inch basis, 14 by 12s for me work out cheaper. And that was the only reason that I went with them, is that I kind of— I was being like tight-fisted, uh, and didn't really think it through. But they're fine. A lot of people use 14 by 12s. Uh, for me, is it 14 by 12s or is it standard nationals? Probably Langstroth is, is the way that I would go if I was starting again and didn't have any kit. I would just— I would I would just use Langstroth, much better format. Uh, Bruce, Bruce says we have been mild over here across the pond, but it's supposed to start getting cold here in Jan. Yeah, I, I think we're due a really decent cold, uh, kind of spell as well over here. I'm kind of hoping that we're going to get a decent cold spell, and like I said, not, not back into February, hopefully Within the next couple of weeks, it starts dropping, and then January can be as cold as you like. I just don't want a topsy-turvy spring. That do anything to not have that. Hi David. Hi Chuda. Ben again. Hi Ben saying there's an old beekeeper in the village I live where I'm starting starting out helping him. Also have a flock of chickens and a rooster and sell their eggs in my village, and I plan to locally sell my honey. So. I guarantee you will sell whatever honey you can produce. You always do, especially if you've got like in a village like that. People absolutely love buying local honey. It's great. And you don't need to go crazy with the branding or anything as long as you've got like a little compliant label on it. You'll sell loads. So good luck, Ben. It's good, good. You've got like a nice kind of business mind on you selling the eggs. And I bet your mum and dad pay for like the chicken feed as well, and then you get to keep the money from the eggs, which is brilliant. I sell eggs as well, but I don't— my mum and dad don't pay for the feed still, unfortunately. Uh, so Tudors Honey Farm says, what can you tell us about your queen breeders? Well, I— so we use Duncan Simmons for a couple of ours, but we do have a new selection of breeder queens in, and I, I can't tell— I can't tell people who they are. I've been sworn to secrecy, unfortunately, other than like that they are exceptional. really, really good, and we're transferring over from the Duncan Simmons lines to this line, um, for, for the— this upcoming year, having tested them last year. But so it's very like tight-lipped, sorry about that, but they are very good. Uh, Peter says hi from Stoke-on-Trent. Hi Lawrence, do you collect swarms or just rely on your Buckfast queen? So I used to collect swarms, and every year I say I'm definitely not collecting any swarms this year. I just can't be dealing— I've just not got the time to go and do it. But the only reason that I might occasionally go and collect a swarm is just for like video purpose. That's the only reason, because I do, I do think they're pretty cool to make videos on. And, and that's one of the videos that I do need— I need to update. I need to update and put out some new guidance in terms of what I think is the correct etiquette for collecting and managing swarms, because my previous videos did not Did not follow the correct etiquette, but yeah, I just, I rely on my Buckfast queens. I don't, I don't go collecting swarms. I've got plenty of bees, can make splits myself, and I like to keep it as like a closed unit. I don't want to bring a swarm in and then not know if it's got a disease and then get in trouble with disease again, where I could just make splits and got my own queens. I would buy some of your bees, but I have to get Dartmoor specialized bees because apparently Dartmoor bees are specialized to live on the moor. So I'm not going to disagree with you, Ben. I wish you all the best with your bees though, and I hope the Dartmoor specialized ones do well for you, which I suspect they will. You know, it's Dartmoor. It's interesting because obviously Buckfast come from very close to there, don't they? And my bees are Buckfast as well, so I'm sure they would do well, but I don't like getting into discussions with people around uh, the kind of what bees are best for certain areas, because I know that my bees would do fine in North Scotland down to southern Portugal because it's kind of the same weather. It's not like it's, it's not like it's really that different. Sorry if that's a bit harsh, but Ben from 11— I forgot you're 11 there, Ben. Sorry, I take that back. Happy New Year, Lawrence. Hopefully I'll see you at Telford again. Did you get around to assembling the super last year. So Chris from National Bee Suppliers, hi Chris. I did not get around to assembling it, that is on my long list of things to do, but I have, I have looked at it in awe. Um, it's, it's a lovely piece of cedar. Thank you, thank you for giving it to me. I will, I will do it. It's a good, it's a good idea to do that as a video. I'm in between, uh, apiaries where I keep a lot of my stuff, and I'm just, yeah, that's about as good as an excuse as I can, uh, get, I'm afraid. But I will, I will do it as a good shout. It is— I, I did see where it was the other day and it's kept in good condition, so I will do that. Um, you'll probably see that I went down to Thorn as well to, uh, to go and view some of their stuff, so we can, we can do something together and have a think about that. Uh, Peter says, what is your opinion about full plastic frames compared to wooden frames, and do you recommend car I think, yeah, Carpathian Queens. So I, I've got one Carpathian Queen and I, I can't, like, I can't not— I can't recommend it and I can't not recommend it because I don't have enough experience with one queen for 12 months, but they look pretty good. Um, in terms of full plastic frames, I really like the idea of full plastic frames and I think that there's a certain niche for them. And like, for the reason that I bought some full plastic frames waxed ones was because I want to use them on the heather, and then I want to scrape the heather back and press the heather out. And I think for like that niche, they're perfect, and you couldn't get— you couldn't get a better frame for that. Because trying to use like foundationless wooden frames without wires, it's just like it's a recipe for disaster, and you'll just get all this horrible comb. You will end up getting loads of bees in it, whereas doing it on plastic frames, it works really well. In the brood box, like, my main concern always with plastic frames is that what do you do if you get disease? Because I know what you do if you've got wooden frames and wax foundation, and that is you really sadly pour petrol on them and stick them on the fire. And it's a very neat way to completely eradicate the disease, but they won't let you do that with plastic frames. And I don't even think they'll, like, turn their back and say, well, I'm not looking like I'm they're tightening up on things. You definitely can't burn plastic like that, so you'll end up looking at like waste disposal for the plastic-contaminated frames. And it's never happened to us, but I can imagine it would be hugely expensive. So that's the only thing that ever really puts me off it. So I did buy quite a lot. I bought, I can't remember how many I bought, maybe like 400 or 500 last year, and I've got them going onto my heather. So I've got them, I've got the bees building out on them now, and what I have noticed is how incredibly slow they are in comparison to wood and wax. Like, if you, if you've got like a strong colony of bees, like really strong colony of bees, and you put say a super of wax foundation on and you feed the bees— I know that's not best practice, but say, say you do that— like within like 4 or 5 days they could have completely drawn that out if you get the right conditions and the right temperature. Like the, the equivalent on plastic frames takes weeks. if not months. Like, I just, I just can't believe how slow and how reluctant they are to draw them out. And I think once they're drawn out, they're really nice, and it's nice having them on the brood frame. And I find that they're less likely to turn worker brood, like worker foundation or worker sizing, into drone. So you'll get like a benefit in terms of the amount of actual worker bees in your colony. But it's that— it's those 2 things that I'm really not a massive fan of with plastic. One is the disease issue. What do you do if you get disease? And then 2 is just the speed in which they draw it out. So if I had to choose, it'd be straightforward. I'd just go wood and wax. But I'm still intrigued with plastic ones, so I will persevere. So Simon, yeah, just stumbled across. Sorry, I gave nobody any warning whatsoever. I just started talking and it was just me on my own. But we've got up to 69 people now. So if you do enjoy the lives, and this goes for all of the videos, in In fact, if you like the video, do please hit the like button because it, it does really help. I've— I hate doing YouTube videos in December, and I always end up having more videos in December because I've just got loads left over from the previous year. I like to do 3 a week, which I think is like quite a lot of videos. So I do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but I, I've ended up with quite a few more this year. But I find in December people just don't watch videos. I don't know what it is. I don't know whether it's just people just aren't up for watching beekeeping videos at that point in the year, but it's— yeah, we don't get many views. Quite depressing. So if you do enjoy the videos and you do watch them, please do hit the like button because it does help. Uh, so a few more people. We've got Baker's Bees. Hello from Southeast Louisiana. What's it like? What's the weather like in Louisiana? Is it same as over here? Camille Bugs, hi from Lincolnshire, see you next week. Hi Brian. So we have 2 hives in Scotland in a place that is not sheltered, right on the top of a hill. Shall we be insulating both on the sides or will 150mm in the roof be sufficient? So I I'm always with just top insulation. I don't think you need to be insulating the sides of colonies, especially not if they're polyhives. If they're polyhives, definitely not. If they're wooden hives, like, maybe. It can't hurt insulating the sides of the beehive if, like, you've got the time and the inclination to do it. Just whatever you do, don't insulate the sides more than the roof. Like, that's— and I see you've kind of got that in there anyway. But for anybody thinking, I'll just stick insulation all over, you can do way more problems— have— you can have way more problems setting it up like that. So I would either just leave it 150mm in the roof, and as long as you're— as long as your hive is watertight, then that should be enough to keep them warm. And if you want to insulate the sides, I would just go like 50mm or 25mm on the sides. And then I see the wraps as well. I don't know, I'm not a massive fan of the wraps. I just think— I think it should I think you should be able to breathe, same way that you'd get a house if you just wrapped it all up and the air couldn't kind of come in and get out. And we're talking like little tiny cracks of air, but it does— the wood or the poly just needs to be able to breathe so you're not getting like dampness and mould inside. But bees are very resilient, like they keep the, they keep the temperature very consistent in a hive regardless of what it's made out of. Noticed that my bees have started out on the fondant. It's my first winter, so how do I know when to stop giving it? Will they stop taking it in the spring or what? So yeah, so do you— like, for me, just keep the fondant on. Never ever take the fondant off until you get to a point where they're nearly filling the box. So if you can imagine you've got like a hive as a square, and if your cluster is over like 6 or 7 frames and they're just— and they're taking fondant, then fine. as soon as you get to the point where they're— 80% is my rule. When the bees are— when you're looking down on the cluster and that cluster is over 80% of the frames, if it's a 10-frame box, if they're over 8 frames, that is the point where I would take all the fondant off and clean everything up, scrape it down, put your queen excluder on and get your super on. They don't— I know people say they don't store fondant. They do store fondant because I've seen them storing fondant, but they don't store it in any great quantity whatsoever. And especially at that point of the year, they just eat it. They'll just go out, get water, break down the fondant, and just eat it. So there's no, there's no kind of risk of contamination. So I would just leave it on for as long as possible, and definitely don't get caught out by like any cold snaps or any false starts in spring. The time when they need the fondant most is in March, so make sure that you keep it topped up if they are using it kind of at a rate of knots. Simon, Simon confirming what I thought. I know, I kind of thought I, I got to stop saying things like live and then I got to double-check it, but it is, it's very close, isn't it? So I'm pretty sure that Buckfast Bees would do all right in Dartmoor. But Ben, you're right, yeah, the forage there might not be particularly good, but believe me, they, they will do pretty much— they will do well pretty much anywhere, these Uh, so Jim says, over the last 12 to 18 months, I've seen a lot more interest in Langstroth hives. Will you be increasing Langstroth nucs in 2024 and beyond? So yeah, um, we've got— I'm always reluctant to go into numbers. You nearly got me there, Jim. Um, yes, we will. We'll sell more Langstroth nucs, and we did last year. We produced a lot more than we did the previous year, and they're selling well. Any chance you could pop some more videos out about Asian hornet or include literature when you send out orders? It's been a mission raising awareness. Thanks. So I'm happy, I'm happy to do whatever. And I've said this to anybody, and I've spoken to various people, uh, with regard to Asian hornet. Like, I'm happy to do whatever people want me to do. If you've got some literature, Joe, that you can send me, I'll send it out with every single queen order, every single honey order, every single nuc order. I'm more than happy to to send stuff out, but I just, I can't be— I can't like pretend— I can't pretend I'm the expert on it because I'm not. Like, I literally am— I'm in the same situation as you, which is I, I see the, the press releases, I see what people are posting on YouTube, I see what the NBU is telling people and DEFRA, but I don't have any experience of them myself. So I don't want to give the wrong information. I don't want to say use this type of trap, it's great, because I don't know it's great. So I— but if you've got like some information that's being cascaded out by like the NBU or DEFRA and you just want me to help cascade that information, more than happy to, to do whatever I can. Also, I think because they're specialized, I think if you're bringing a different strain, they'll make a new strain and flood the area with drones. Yeah, they will do that. I'm only I'm only sighing then because it's just it's a long and drawn out argument between some people who like dark bees and some people who don't like dark bees, and it's always the non-dark bees who are kind of like the baddies, which is oh you've brought these ginger bees in and then the next generation are angry. So let's blame let's blame the ginger bees, and it's like a little bit like. Maybe it's not the ginger bees that are the problem, maybe it's the other bees that are the problem. But, and the other, the frustrating thing that I see is when you get AMM queens, and I'm not saying necessarily it's that the Specialized Bee in Dartmoor is AMM, but it probably is, that's what they're looking at, like as close to AMM as possible, is that when you see people breeding for it, it all, it's like a like a colour contest. They'll just, they just measure the colour and say, right, that's the, that's the closest to AMM because it's the darkest. Just don't look at, don't look at the chalk brood. Don't, don't tell anyone about the chalk brood. Chalk brood is fine. And it's just, I don't, I don't like the breeding philosophy of let's just focus in on a couple of characteristics that we like because that means it's as pure a bee as possible. And, and what I also don't like about it is that It's kind of like it's gone. You can't save a bee that's already been hybridized. Like, it's— if you find, oh, it's 96% AMM, you're never going to get to 100% AMM because that's an impossibility, because you can't breed back to pureness without everybody getting back to basics and using artificial insemination. And then in the areas where I've got like lots and lots of Buckfast bees, I mean, like huge amounts of Buckfast bees, and we do queen rearing there. You can go down to like F2, F3, F4, and they're dead calm. Like, they're calm all the way down because of the amount of good quality Buckfast drones that are in the air, as opposed to it being flooded out by like local mongrel stock, which are— when they do cross with Buckfast, they get quite aggressive, and then it's the Buckfast that get the bad name. So I don't know, it's a touchy subject then. I, I don't want you going and getting into any arguments with anyone yet. If I were you and I was a leaven, I would just nod my head and say, yeah, whatever, just want some bees. Just do, do whatever keeps the local people happy. And I'm sure, I'm sure they'll be fine, they'll be good. So on to the next question. Cheers, Joe. Will I be trying again with the AMM queens? So yeah, I will give them another go because I think like my, my data set of one was maybe a little bit unfair. but they were coming from like a very renowned AMM breeder and they lasted, what, 9 months, 10 months and covered in chalk brood. So it didn't go off to the best start. But also like my experience, like I kept like local Mongols around here for years before I moved into Buckfast. So I've got like reasonable experience with bees that are quite close to AMM and my experience was far from a positive one. Like they just didn't, they didn't do very well. They weren't prolific. They didn't give me any honey. They were aggressive. They stung me loads. They were very disease-ridden. Loads of chalk brood. They swarmed loads. I could probably go on with these fantastic traits of these AMMBs, but like you'll see from the videos, like Bugfast, it transformed my bees, like for the positive. So I'll do some comparison videos again, and people will say that the videos are askewed because I sell Buckfast bees, but people can believe what they want. I wouldn't lie in the videos, like what you see is what is actually happening. And I think you'll see from like the feedback we get as well with people saying, I had local mongrels and they were horrible and they stung me and I didn't get any honey, and then now I've got more honey than I need, my bees are really friendly. And I just think, well, that's like, that's kind of where I was, and I'm glad that that can, can help other people. Uh, Paul says, are you and would it be a good idea to register with BeeBase? Had 10 queens from you last summer, looking forward to see how they do next year. See you at the bee show. Uh, so see you, definitely see you at the bee show, and I hope your 10 queens do well. I like, you know, my favorite thing with the queens is, is that like when you put them in, it's nice, you get like an immediate reaction in the first year, but it's the second year where they really come into their own. And it's when you see like the build-up and they're like 100% of the genetics are the buckfast, so you get very prolific colonies. And it's generally like the bumper year is the second year, so make sure you give them enough space. Never let them hit the walls, never let them hit the ceiling. Am I registered on BeeBase? 100% yes, I am, and I keep it up to date as well. And I like— it's a no-brainer. Everyone should register on BeeBase. Why would you not want to register on BeeBase? Like, if you've got bees in an area and someone 2 miles away or 3 kilometers or whatever away from you gets American foulbrood, like, I'd want— I'd want to know that someone near me has got American foulbrood, definitely, because I would— I would be able to look for it myself and be like, right, there's American foulbrood in the area, I can go and look for it and see— see if there's anything in my colonies. And then you might— you might nip it in the bud, you might find like one one cell in your apiary and be like, right, I've got a colony that's got American foulbrood, so I'm going to kill that, and then everything else, you get the all clear and you've saved all of the rest of your colonies from AFB. And then the other option is you don't register on BeeBase and you don't know about that, and then you continue with like poor beekeeping practices, maybe, obviously not saying you do that, Paul, and then you kind of realize that something's not right, and then you realize that all of your colonies have got AFB. So I'd much prefer to know and be able to take like proactive measures. Definitely, Ben, we will continue the conversation and I look forward to seeing how you get on with your bees at the Honey Show. It says 39 Fahrenheit, what's that, it's like kind of like 2 or 3 degrees and wet, so that's pretty cold, it's like double digits over here. Which I know doesn't mean anything to people in, uh, like America. I don't know what's going on with my light. I think it's because I've got like a big light in the background. Maybe I'll turn that off in a bit. Uh, Brian, yes, I'm going to the bee expo in Kentucky. It's exciting, isn't it? Uh, Robert says he much prefers wax foundation. The bees don't seem to like it. They don't, they don't like the wax foundation. That's strange. Are you getting good quality wax foundation or are you getting like Chinese stuff? My bees love wax foundation, absolutely love it. Adam, I like questions like this. What would be my number one lesson for someone looking at starting a small business as a beekeeper? So I would— so don't jump into it. I'm going to give you loads of lessons here. Don't jump into anything and invest any money in anything. Like, just, it's got to be organic. So don't say, right, I'm going to invest 10 grand into one of these beehives and honey extraction equipment because I'm going to be able to sell my honey at the end of it, and then realize you can't sell the honey. So I would just do it the other way, which is just really slowly, incrementally build the business up using whatever money you make from your honey. And if you're not going to do that and you do want to invest it, like, invest really small and incrementally and organically because the honey market's not kind of what it used to be. And then the other one is diversify as much as you possibly can. So don't focus on just selling honey. You got to do honey, you got to do beeswax candles, you've got to do nucs, you've got to do queens, you've got to do beeswax wraps. You just do as much as you possibly can and like see what sticks, see what works. I'd say, I'd say they're probably like the biggest 2. I could, I could go on for ages if people want me to talk more about this. Ask another question, I might, I might give you like number 3 and number 4. Um, it's, it's a difficult one. It's a difficult market to, to break into now. I think it's like we've noticed it's become so competitive for it, for everything, for nucs, for queens, but more more importantly for honey, like trying to sell honey anything other than like your local area is very difficult. And I think even in local areas it's very, very difficult now. You might have like 3 or 4 people selling honey in like a local shop, and then you get people like undercutting you, and then they're not too fussed because like someone might be retired and they might have like 20 hives. And we have this very, very close to us, like retired people and they've got probably like decent pension. And for them, they're thinking, well, you know what, as long as I sell my honey to like cover my costs, and I don't really want to make a profit because I don't want to have to pay the tax on the profit. And that's a whole other aspect of it as well, is what are people declaring on their like tax returns? Like for us, we declare every single penny in and out because we're VAT registered and we have to. But I know a lot of our competitors aren't. and then they can undercut you. But so you just need to go into it with the view that somebody's gonna not sabotage your business, but undercut you massively. And don't get caught up in the maths, just get caught up in the actual facts and the stats of what your business can and has done. And then it should be all right. So Joe, yeah, we did this one before. Yeah, bees going through fondant really, really fast, which is fine. I'm not, I'm not dead against them going through the fondant because I'll just put more on, but I don't want, I don't want it to get cold in February. Uh, Peter says, good evening, what companies provide insurance for commercial beekeepers? Who do you use, if you don't mind me asking? So we don't, we don't actually use anyone to insure because it's trying to find someone to insure what the operation that we've got is very, very— it's very difficult to find a level of insurance. If you do find a level of insurance, it's just prohibitively expensive, and it just makes it, you know, we'd have to pass the cost on because it is a lot of money to try and insure what we've got. So we, we, we are not insured for that, so please don't come and ruin everything. So Holloway Store says, hoping for a cold snap soon, just need to move hives to a new apiary, which it's only a quarter of a mile away. So yeah, that's a good point. You do need to wait for a good couple of weeks cold snap before doing that, but it's a great time to move the bees around. Joe says, have you ever used Thymovar and do you find it effective? So I have used it. I did a video on Thymovar. Not sure of the efficacy of it because I didn't really test it that much, but I'm not a massive fan of thymol-based products. Like, I used Apiguard for a good few years And I did the— we still, we just had issues with the deformed wing virus kind of very shortly after it, and the bees really didn't like the Apivar. They used to clean it out really quickly, which I know is kind of what they're supposed to do. They clean it out, they get it on themselves, and then that's the active ingredient to try and kill the mites. But since we moved over to Apivar, it's been so much better, and the bees have been so much healthier, and the process is so much easier. Like, I just don't like the smell of it. It says, I think, in the guidance— I've not, I've not read it for a while— for Thymivar or, uh, um, what's it called, Apiguard, is that you can take— once you take the containers out, you can put the supers on straight away. And I'm just like, you definitely can't do that. Like, it stinks and it gets into all the wax. I just, I really don't like the smell of it. It's very pungent and very not a nice smell to have kind of anywhere near your honey. So for me, it's another reason that I wouldn't really like to use it. Um, so, so wooden, wooden nucs are fine in the summer, absolutely no problem using wooden nucs in the summer, but over winter they are much, much better. The poly ones are loads better, and it is, uh, very, very apparent how much bigger they go into winter, how much bigger they come out of winter, how active they are throughout winter, which are not, not like flying active, but like inside of the hive, they're really active. So I wouldn't use wooden ones, I wouldn't buy wooden ones. So yeah, Joe, that sounds good, just drop me an email if there's stuff in there that I can help with, that makes— that's good. Richard Nunnell did a great session at the National Honey Show, don't know if it was recorded. Yeah, so I saw snips of that, Richard's obviously got lots of experience with Asian hornets. Thanks, Rick. I'm going to get another light done with my new logo soon. This logo here, it's going to be like that. You see if we can get it in, like, be like glowing in the background. Oh, so if anyone wants to— so if anyone wants to buy that light, that's for sale as well. This light here, it's cool, that light. It was made by a guy in Ukraine. It is a nice light, um, but I don't need 2 lights. Uh, so, so, Joe, yeah, people do not realize the impact that the Asian hornet is going to have. It is potentially catastrophic to beekeeping within the UK. And you're right, like, Asian hornets will just hawk outside the front of hives and no bees can get out, let alone queens going out to mate, because they'll just get eaten. But it's the timing of that. And I think like for us in North Wales, I'm just hoping that we— it's the— it's like later on in the season where it's going to become really, really difficult. So it's the kind of maybe June, but more like July to September where you're trying to get queens mated from July to September is going to be very, very difficult. So I think people are going to have to learn to adapt and transition to different ways of working and trying to get queens mated a lot earlier and trying to do it en masse. And trying to get like all of your queens mated for all of your nucs in, in like back end of April, but definitely like all the way throughout May and early June before the Asian hornets become a problem. And then it's just learning how to give the bees what they need without them really leaving the hive from July to September, which is going to be difficult and it's going to be challenging, it's going to be time-consuming, but that will— yeah, that will definitely impact matings from kind of that later point in the season. Richie Mouse says, I want to move my hives in the garden during the winter. They currently face south but will face north in the new position. Will this be a problem? So no, it's definitely better for beehives to face south because they get sun on the entrance and it means that they probably fly a little bit more, but it's like negligible. I always say to people, if you're putting bees in your garden The one thing that you should focus on is making it suitable for the people in the garden, and the bees will just work it out. So if you just kind of preferably don't keep them in the garden, like get them on someone else's land in an out apiary. But appreciate some people do like to keep bees in their garden. But yeah, just, just work out where is best to keep them out of the way of any humans, and then that's the best place for them regardless of orientation. Uh, Buckfast bees were bred on Dartmoor. The breeding site still exists and is run by, run by Exmoor Bees. Would love to see a video with Exmoor Bees and beehives. So, so would I. I'd love to go down there. My— I don't want to like bombard people with invitations to say I want to come down and film because I don't get much of a response from people, but I would. I'd go, I'd go anywhere, and particularly would like to go down to, to see Exmoor Bees. and the little family, that'd be great. First year beekeeper, one of my hives is a dead out already with lots of stores. It was my strongest hive going into winter with no signs of problems or disease. What should I do with the frames of stores? So I have like a zero, I forget what it's called now, but for me we just melt that down straight away. Melt it down if you can use it. If it's still liquid, it will be fine for human consumption as long as you've not put any miticide in there. But do not give them back to the bees because it is a disease risk, because you don't know what the bees died from. And if there's— could be EFB, could be AFB. If there's— if you've got a dead out and it's just lots of dead bits, generally poor mating is what I find it is. Um, or varroa. It's like 99% of the time it's varroa or poor mating, but that 1%, I don't like that 1%. So I would just melt it down and definitely wouldn't just put it back into another beehive. Uh, Joe says, hope you had a good Christmas. Love the new style videos coming out with other beekeepers and businesses. Great work. Thanks, Joe. It's surprising they're not doing very well. I thought going to Thorns was going to be great and people were going to love those videos, um, but they've really not done very well. So I'll have to evaluate how they do in the longer term. The videos that seem to do well are just ones that are really dead focused on bees. So I'll just split a beehive, how to rear queens— they're the ones that, that do really, really well. But I really enjoy going and do the ones with other beekeepers, and I, and I like the ones with other businesses as well. Like I had great time at Thorns. It was great fun. They made me a sausage sandwich when I got there, and it was really nice. And then watched how they made a beehive from. They just have like big massive sleepers. This video has not even been. I've not even edited this video yet because it's it's quite a lot of work. But it was yeah, they did like basically a massive tree, like planks of cedar all the way through the process into turning it into a beehive, and it was cool. And then the same with the smoker, like watching the guys make the smokers I thought was cool, but it's not done very well on YouTube unfortunately. Uh, yeah, AMMBs died within like 9 months, so they turned drone laying and had tons of chalk brood rubbish. Jim saying, got to admit there was a massive difference in going from AMM to Buckfast, so much better temperature, temperament, and production. Uh, so my, my daughter doesn't. I know she's the apprentice, but she's, uh, she didn't do anything. She's a slacker. Uh, but my wife does. My wife does like absolutely loads behind the scenes. Like, she does pretty much everything. I just, I just potter, do some videos, and she does everything. It's great. Uh, so Paul, you're registered with BBase. That's good. I'm glad people are saying they're registered on Beebase. I'm getting— I'm working my way down. Uh, Peter says definitely recommend start doing beeswax candles like 2 months before Christmas or doing some gift pack candles and honey. Earn a good amount doing that. It really— like, anybody who sells honey and gift packs and candles, like, you'd make 90% of your turnover in November and December. That's, that's when you make your money in honey. Uh, Ben's saying, do you need to get a license or anything like that to sell candles from your beeswax? Because I've started making candles and really want to be able to use my own wax. So, so definitely not for candles, but for any like cosmetics you would. It's not, it's not even a license, you just need to go and get them tested. And you'll probably need some sort of like food and safety hygiene, but the equivalent for cosmetics. I'm not even sure you need that, in fact. Um, but you definitely do need— for any cosmetics you do need to get them like batch tested if you want to use your own wax. So we looked at this and they're saying if you want— if you, if you can give them the data sheets of all of the different products, then they just produce you a certificate and then I don't think you need to get it so rigorously batch tested. I think you can do it once a year or something like that. Whereas if you're using your own beeswax, you need to get every single batch that you make batch tested, which becomes really expensive. So, so it's not something that we've, that we've looked at doing. Okay, I, I did, I did think you got that wrong, right? You got it wrong. They meant to say the light wax, not the plastic. Okay, yeah, that's, that's exactly what I found as well. Um, so, so Peter's saying about being registered on the BBKA, so, so that's, yeah, for your, your public liability insurance, that would That would be good. Jose California Beekeeper, hello. Good morning or good evening to you, Lawrence. So it's kind of like in the middle. Will you be? You will be at the North American Honeybee Expo. What am I most excited for? So obviously meeting all the cool YouTubers there. So I will meet you there, Jose. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting people. That's that's probably the biggest one. So so other YouTubers, but also just like. People who watch the channel and, and just like the general public talking bees. I'm excited for that. I, I'm very excited to see the scale of it because I don't think, I don't think I'm quite prepared for the scale. I, I'm like a simple man. I get excited about really stupid things. I'm quite excited about the food, um, but it doesn't take much for me to get excited about food. But I am quite excited about the food, you know, just Like burger and chips, and just I've only ever I've never been to America, so I've transited through America. I've been I've been to I've been to North America. I've never been to the States. Let's put it that way. So I'm excited just to kind of be there and spend some time there. I'm I'm really excited about like it's it's little things. So I saw a product that someone had that that was it's like a little clip on thing that goes on a car. So on your steering wheel of your car, steering wheel of your car. And then you just like screw it in and then you can rest a frame on it and it's like a frame rest for grafting. I was just like, oh my God, where's this? Where has this been all my life? Because I was just like, rest it on my leg and it's really annoying. And I've always thought I need to like make something to rest this frame on and somebody else has had the idea and it's there and they're not even that expensive. So I'm really looking forward to like seeing different products for things that are not available in the, the, um, in America, in the UK. I'm— I've got like quite a decent luggage allowance coming over there, so I've got like 2 23-kilogram like checked-in bags and then like hand luggage. So I'm tempted to just bring 2 empty suitcases with me and just fill it up with loads of bee stuff. Um, why not? Like, it'd be fun. There's loads of things that I want to buy. And then the final thing that I'm excited for is seeing like the American-made manufacturing equipment. Not manufacturing, sorry, extraction equipment. So the stuff that's actually made in America, because you don't get— well, you don't get any UK-made extraction equipment, and you get a range of different stuff from like the EU, which is good. Like the licensed stuff's good, the stuff that I've seen, and the stuff coming out of Germany is really good. And obviously you've got Swenty stuff is very good, and then you've got the Chinese stuff, which is like garbage. A lot of the Chinese stuff's really bad, but I've never seen the American stuff, and I know a lot of the American stuff's really good. So I'm really excited to see all of that there. Like, I've seen pictures of previous conferences where you see it all lined up, so I'm really excited about going and going and seeing all those things. But I will— I'll see you there. I'm very excited. I'll just put your thing back up as well. Sorry, Jose. So David said, do you have people come to your apiaries for beekeeping lessons? So no, and I did start to do that this year, so I put some dates up there and they were fast filling up, and then I've had to change things around. So my wife, so Helen, is pregnant and she is due to give birth like first week of June, so I had scheduled to do them in April and May, and then I just thought I can't, the timing of that is just terrible. I can't kind of commit to doing stuff in April and May at the weekends because she's— she might not be able to like walk around and stuff. So I canned it for the time being. So I might do them later on in the year, but still probably not going to be ideal with a young baby. But I might do them next year. So it's definitely something that I will do in the future. Like, the demand's definitely there, but not this year. So Adam says, is it too late in the season for use of an oxalic acid vaporizer in the UK? So, so no, it's fine to use it, but you might not have broodless period anymore. If you're gonna, if you're gonna do it regardless, just do it as soon as possible and maybe give, maybe even 2 vapes 5 days apart just to make it a bit more effective. Ben says, what paint do you use on your beehives, and do any paints harm bees? Can't really find any info on it. So the one that they definitely— the one that definitely doesn't harm bees is like Cuprinol Colors or Cuprinol Natural Shades. I forget what it's called. There's a Cuprinol one that is like advertised as being safe for bees, but pretty much any paint, like once it's dry, it becomes basically inert once it's dry. So as long as you're not like slapping it on while the bees are like living in the hive, it should be fine. Uh, David says, given that the European hornets are larger than the Asian hornets, I would have thought that the Europeans would predate on the Asian. Nah, the Asian ones are vicious. Like, the European hornets are just like pretty chilled. You kind of— it's like the same argument between like bumblebees and honeybees. Just like, just because the bumblebees are bigger doesn't mean they're going to predate on the littler ones. But the Asian hornets, you see them, they're vicious, and they can move in like a kind of crazy way. So no, they definitely don't predate on them. Um, I'm, I'm really nervous about, uh, Asian hornets. It's got potential to be really bad. I've got one person, got one offer for the light already. It's not, it's not cheap, Ian. It wasn't cheap light. Uh, so I've never had AFB. So I have had, I have had one case of EFB It's probably like 2 years ago now. 2 years ago, one case, and I went way over the top when I got it and killed loads of colonies that I probably shouldn't have killed. But I'm really glad that I did that and just took a crazy approach to limiting what was a very minor case on a single colony. And then since then, I've had 3 Or 4, I think it's 4 now, 4 full inspections of every single colony, every single apiary by the NVU. So since that one case of EFB, every single beehive has been inspected 4 times, and they've not so much as found a single cell worthy of testing. And, and every single colony has been shook swarmed as well. So I think I nipped it in the bud. I'm quite happy with the way that we dealt with it. Tim from Southwest Ohio Bees, good morning, afternoon. Like I say, it is like slap bang in the middle here. It's about quarter past four, and my wife is due back. She's due back any minute. I'm surprised I've done an hour and eleven minutes. I've done quite well. I thought she was going to be back at four. I'll keep going. Flower Street Farm Bees, hello from Colorado. See you at Nabi. I will see you there. Peter, channel member. Thanks, Peter. Says love the thorn video on how they make. Made the smokers, proper classic manufacturing, and great to see it was totally British components. It really was like— I'll go back to the fact I'm a very, very simple human being, and I watch like really basic things like how it's made, and I watch how it's made just like all the time because I love just like watching how things are made. So to go to Thorn and watch them how to do it, it was like my own— it was like my own very personal live how it's made, and it was great. Like the, the machinery that they've got there is so cool. And not cool as in like, oh, it's like space age. The complete opposite, in that it is very, very old but works. So why would you change it if it, if it still works? But I was really amazed by the amount of manual involvement of not only the smoker, like everything there. Really, really crazy. But, but then also they have invested in expensive space age stuff as well, so you'll see it on I'm doing I'm doing the video on how they make the beehives, and it will take ages to edit it. But they've got like this these bits of machinery for like where they make the frames. So these bits of wood go in and they just go, and it just chucks out the other side, and it's done all of the little bits in seconds. Is really cool. I'm a bit gutted that it's so far away because I said to Rebecca, I could spend I could do a month here. I could film them like every single day for a month. and do like 10 videos a day and not run out of decent content that would interest me. But I live 4 hours away. So I know in America, 4 hours away is not that far, is it? But in the UK, 4 hours away is quite far. So it's like an 8-hour round trip. So to do it as a day trip, and that's what I did, I drove down there in the morning, left here at half 4 in the morning, got there at about 8, had a sandwich, started filming, and then left at 4. and didn't get back to 8, so I was knackered. He used Sadelin Superdeck. That's good. I use Sadelin for my fence panels, and it is— the Sadelin stuff's really good. Uh, David, did you buy that weird observation hive from Thorns? So no, it was just in their apiary, but I'm very tempted to, to ring them up and see if they will make me one, like just make me an exact copy of that because they've got the wood to do it and they've got the skills to do it. It— I think it'd be cool, wouldn't it? I'd love to have that. Do you know what I really want to do in my house? I've still not managed to convince my wife that it's a good idea. I can't really turn you the cam— if I put it up there in my house, I want to have like a big glass box in the house like with wild comb and bees inside it, and then the bees can come in and come out. And I know like I shouldn't do it because it's Bad for disease and stuff, isn't it? How are you going to inspect the bees and know if there's anything wrong? But I really want to do it because I think it'd be really cool. But my wife's still not on board with that one. I don't know why. I don't know why she's not on board. Southwether High Bees Tim says, going to miss you at Hive Life. Yeah, it's a shame that they're on the same weekend. I understand the reasons why. Maybe though, maybe they will switch it up next time. Uh, Louisville. Oh, Louisville is known for bourbon. I recommend signing up for a bourbon tour if you like it. Oh, that would be cool. I'm not a massive drinker, but I would, I would be interested to see how that works. Unfortunately, I've got literally no time. Like, I get in on the day the conference starts and then I fly out the following day. like the, the day after the conference. I do have no— I don't have any spare time. Oh, says we'll see you there, friend. You will love it, man. It's going to be so much fun. We will see you there. I know Cayman and all the VIPs will be going out to dinner. That would be a hoot of a time. I'm very excited. It's going to be really cool, isn't it? We're all going to be there like filming ourselves for our respective channels. But yeah, definitely, that'd be good. I look forward to it. See you there. David says congratulations. Thank you very much, David. Charles says if you join the BFA, you will get your bees insured. So I am a member of the BFA and you don't get your bees insured. There is insurance that comes with the BFA, but not for what? Like not for theft. Someone goes and steals my bees, there's no insurance in place. I think the insurance is like, is similar to the BBKA insurance, isn't it? In that you're covered for like your product liability, your public liability. You get good insurance and good cover for all of those things. There's probably disease insurance cover in there as well. I know there was one where if you had a single case of EFB and then you shook swarmed the entire apiary, there's cover for, I think, maybe some cover towards the cost of cleaning, but definitely cover towards the cost of like replacement frames and replacement wax. But as far as I'm aware, unless I've misinterpreted the literature, I'm pretty sure you're not covered for any sort of theft or any sort of like fire damage or like arson or vandalism or anything like that on the beehives. You might be covered under some of those things in terms of property and premises. I'm gonna have to go and read the legislation or the whatever it's called. the documentation that comes with the BFA insurance, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't cover theft. Hi Lawrence, how much fondant would you expect a nuc to take down, as I have 2 and I'm trying to get through the winter? So it's a difficult one to answer that, but my advice would just be just give them more than they need. You can't overfeed a nuc or any colony on fondant. Impossible to overfeed them. Whereas with syrup, obviously late in the season you can really easily overfeed them, but with nucs, just keep on giving it to them. If you fed them well for the winter and they're up to weight, I'd be surprised if a nuc took down more than like 4 or 5 kilograms, maybe maximum like 6 kilograms each. It should be considerably less than that. Uh, Ben, are pine hives any good? Because Bee Equipment is having a sale and they're really cheap. So I've said this many times, do not ever buy pine beehives. It's just a false economy. And I appreciate, like, people in America, you can get away with pine beehives in America because it's a very different climate in, in some states than it is over here, much drier. But over it, over here, like the UK, it is so wet. And pine hives do not do well in wet conditions. Like, even if you paint them, and you will have to paint them every single year, they won't last anywhere near as long as a cedar beehive. So the cost difference between pine and cedar is just so worth paying the premium. If you want, if you want a good tip, how much, how much— I'll scroll down to the bottom, Ben. Tell me how much they're putting the pine beehives on for for bee equipment in the sale, and when you do that, I'll give you a much, much better alternative. Oh, sorry, I've done that one, done that one already. Hi, first time catching your live. When do you send out your nucs? Uh, so the nucs, we start sending the nucs out kind of like first week of April if we get— if it doesn't get cold and it just stays warm all the way throughout the winter. try to send them out like kind of middle, back end of March, but it is fully dependent on the weather. So it could— the start could be anywhere from the middle of March through to the middle of April. We will try— if you've ordered, um, if you ordered the National Nuc, you'll all— and you've already ordered them, you will almost certainly get it in April at some point depending on the weather. If you've ordered Langstroth Nuc, it might be a little bit later than that because they're bigger and they have to build up a bit it, so probably be May, early May for the Langstroth ones. Simon is right, yep, pine is heavy and doesn't last compared to Western red cedar. Right, so £70 for one single brood and the frames, I don't even think that's that good a deal, to be honest, because you don't get any supers with that, so you're gonna have to add on, you have to add on a couple of supers onto that as well. It is good in it to have the frames in there as well. I almost kind of like want to have a look. Have you got a link? You've got a link to it, Ben? Let me just quickly look what they're actually offering like as the full package. But also with that one, you have to make it yourself, so you need to factor in like the time and the expense of like putting it together. And I'm pretty sure the Bee Equipment don't even give you the nails. You have to buy the nails for it. The one, the one that I'll recommend is— I'll just quickly get the link. I'll put the link up for people because this is an absolutely brilliant deal. And I do, like, disclaimer, I do, I, I do the social media for Abello, but this is a really good deal. Here we go. So I posted that there. So yeah, I think it will, I think it will let me— yeah, it does let me put links. So that one there, that is a National Hive from Abello. So that's the roof, the, the crown board, 2 supers, the brood box, and the floor for £145, made out of Western red cedar. It is seconds, but like seconds just means there'll be a couple of knots and stuff in it. It doesn't— it's like cosmetic. But the big thing is it's fully assembled, which if you're like— I can't stand assembling beehives, it's laborious and it takes ages. And the big thing is that if you've not, um— Oh, is he saying it's out of stock? Oh, it's out of stock. It is out of stock, you're right. They've absolutely hammered it. That wasn't out of stock this morning. Got it. I'll speak to Damien, he might have some more of those. If you see that deal go back up again, it's the best deal ever, because especially if you want to buy like 10 of them, like it takes ages to assemble beehives. And if you— when you're starting out, it's so easy to assemble them wrong. I've got so many ones that I started, um, assembling when I started beekeeping. I assembled them and they're just still wrong. And they're not square and the bee space is wrong. Like, it's not— the National is not an easy hive to put together, so I would look for that. Um, but, but also at the moment though, so, so not going with Abello, go with someone else. Let's go with Thorn. You can make up a really cheap beehive by just searching for seconds equipment. So if you look, go to Thorn and look for like seconds quality cedar brood boxes. And as I said, seconds only means that there's just— they don't look as nice. There's no— it's just cosmetic. There's nothing kind of wrong with them. There's no cracks, there's no damage. It's just a few knots in there. And you add up how much it costs for seconds quality cedar, like a brood box and a floor and a roof and stuff, you, you won't spend that much more than you would for a pine one, and they'll probably last you like 5 times as long. It really is— makes a massive difference. Difference. Ben saying spent ages making the WBC and it was the first time you used wood glue. Is that okay? So yeah, WBC is an absolute nightmare. I tried. I was with someone when they made one actually. I wasn't doing it myself. It's a very difficult beehive to construct, but wood glue is fine. Yeah, I use Titebond. What one do I use? I use Titebond 2 or Titebond 3. I forget which one it is because I've got some I use. I make chopping boards As well, I used to make them, and then one of them is like food grade. But I'm pretty sure you can use two or three. Whatever it is, type one is very good glue. Bree, I think it is says recommend buying a brad nailer if you're assembling hives frames. It's worth every penny and time. So yeah, I do like my brad nailer. I've got I've got a few different ones. I've got an 18 gauge brad Makita nailer, which is good. Uh, which I use for frames. And then I've also got like a gimp pin nailer, like a headless gimp pin nailer, which I really like that for frames as well. Um, I'm not sure I'd use either of them assembling my hive though, because I just— I don't think the one that I've got is like powerful enough. I've seen that if I was gonna— if I was going like commercial and making hives, I'd go for one of the Paslode ones, you know, the gas-powered, big massive 16-gauge and, and then use stainless nails in them. They are rock solid. That would work really well. I, I think that is probably the best that you could do. No nails, waterproof glue, and stainless screws on cedar is literally the way forward. The only— the reason I don't like doing that is that I just don't have the time to do it. It takes a long time, doesn't it, using the screws, because you've got to Pilot hole, pilot drill them all. But that is really, that is about as good as you can get. No nails, waterproof glue, Type 1-3, stainless screws, and they will just, they'll just last forever, won't they? Okay, if you've not done it already, please do hit the like button. I'm gonna, I've got like a couple of minutes left. I've not drank my tea. I've got a cold tea here, so I'm gonna have a quick sip of that. If you've got any last burning questions, I will, I will ask, I will answer them. them if they do come through in the last second. Yep, takes time, but the bees are worth it. I hope you've all had a nice Christmas though. I certainly have had a nice Christmas. I will quickly do Ben's question first. So plan to, in a good, maybe a couple of years, moving some bees onto my friend's dairy farm. I sometimes help out there, so that would be good. Get your bees out of your garden if they are already in your garden. Good shout. But good to see people as young as you, Ben, Uh, getting interested in beekeeping. It's good, really, really good to see. So as I said, I hope you all had a really nice Christmas. I hope you all have a very good New Year. I will try and do as many live streams as I possibly can. They will be ad hoc, I just don't know when they're coming, but I'll try and do kind of like, what, 1 or 2 a month maybe. Um, if you have any good ideas for what you would like to see on the website, drop me a message anywhere, kind of like social media, or drop me an email. I've had some really good ideas come through just for different things that we could do on the website. But yeah, if you don't ask, you don't get. I might be able to do some of them and some of them I won't. But until then, I hope you all have a very kind of happy new year and I'll see you soon. Thank you.