Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees with Laurence Edwards - Episode 28
Laurence Edwards answers rapid-fire beekeeping questions on bee season, equipment priorities, and hive management. He advises against expensive uncapping machines, explains National Hive bee-space construction, and shares tax guidance for sole traders. Topics include feeding strategies, swarm control through demaree splits, and why Asian hornet muzzles have limited utility.
Chapters
So the last time I did a live stream, I promised that I would do as many live streams as possible, and I promised I would give you as much— no, as much notice as I possibly could. However, my wife's just gone to collect my dog. I've been away this week at Center Parcs, so I've got like 35-45 minutes, and I thought I can either do an impromptu stream or I can just not do one. So I kind of thought maybe people would appreciate a quick impromptu stream, and I'm looking at the number of people watching it and it's like zero people watching. So it's kind of me just talking to myself at the moment, but people can watch it back. I can talk about bees literally all day, and I'm so, so excited. I came back home this evening and we went through an incredible storm. Like, it was just a crazy, crazy storm. And then as we drove back into Wales, it was like the reverse of what normally happens, which is we drove out of a storm into the sunshine. and it was 15 degrees Celsius in the car, like outside on the way back. And all I was thinking was, the bees will be loving it at the moment. Like, the snowdrops are out and the bees are definitely going out and collecting pollen. Really, really busy from the bees. And it's good timing as well because like our nucs are selling like absolutely crazy. I've never seen anything quite like it. So you might get the emails, and sorry if the emails are a bit too much, but I just kind of want to give people the upfront notice that that's it, they're gone, they're sold out as of midnight on Sunday. They are completely gone, and that's not a hard sell, like they're selling anyway. So I see we've got a few people on the chat already, which is— it's nice, but we've got maybe half an hour, 40 minutes of me talk. So I'm back on StreamYard, as you may notice with the little icon in the right-hand corner, which means that I can put people's questions up on the screen, which was a big bit of feedback that I received from the last one that I did. I think people really missed that, so we will go back to, uh, go back to StreamYard, which means that I can do stuff like this. Robert Bone says hi, Lawrence. Hi, Robert, how you doing? Got a few people in actually. So we've got, we've got Harry at Wildways Farm, we've got Aaron. How's it going, Aaron? Hope you're making some cool pizzas. Got Bee Folk, channel member. Hiya, uh, Ivan. Hi from Nottingham. David McDowell. This is great, the impromptu ones. We could just go, go through and say hello to everyone. Got Jay there. Hi, Lawrence. Harry's saying he's had a bit of a storm. Um, I won't, I won't keep on going down. I know I'll put that one up though. So what happened to letting us know when you're live streaming? I know. So the problem is though is that I can arrange it. So in 2 weeks' time I'm going to do another live stream, probably like middle of February. But if I have the opportunity to do an impromptu one Like I'll just jump in and do an impromptu one. Otherwise, you don't get one at all. So Harry says, "I don't know if you've heard of this one, but we have soya, maize, and wheat ground up cow food, and my bees were loving it and collecting it like pollen. Any thoughts?" So it's exactly that. Yeah, they go for it. It's the protein content in there. So at the moment, it's like a similar mix—not not exactly like that, but a similar one in terms of the soya. That is generally what is put in the pollen substitute. They use a lot of soy flour in there, so it's high in protein. The bees will go for it on the basis that they think it's high in protein, they think it's similar to pollen, but there's nothing wrong with them going for it. They'll just take it, take what they want. So you'll be giving them a nice kind of pollen substitute boost, so they will love it. I'm really sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to meeting you, but that's really, really sad. So my best wishes to you. Oh, I don't know where to go from that one now. That's really sad. I'm so sorry. I'll get back into it. Do I still work full-time? So yes, I do still work full-time. I'm on leave this week. I've been at Center Parcs And as the, uh, the lady said, as I was checking out at Center Parcs, just like getting some food for the way home, she said, are you going home for a rest? And I thought, too bloody right I'm going home for a rest. I'm absolutely knackered. Center Parcs is good fun, but it is seriously hard work. Like, I, I'm like natural cheapskate, so it didn't pay to like pick where my cabin was, thinking, you know what, it's like the back end of January, who's going to be at Center Parcs in the back end of January? apparently everyone. It was round and we were just on like the furthest cabin away from the site, which meant that we just had to cycle everywhere. And of course I had to do the numerous trips back and forth, oh, taking the car back and stuff like that. So I probably cycled about 3,000 miles this week, it feels like. But no, I do still work full-time. When starting a new bee-orientated business, what pieces of equipment would you buy first and why? That's a brilliant question, and I think it's a question that's not been answered before, so that's a really good one. So let me tell you, I'll start off that question by answering some of the things that I definitely wouldn't buy. So frivolous pieces of kit that I bought, like a massive uncapping machine, definitely wouldn't buy that. I would say that out of all of the equipment that I've still got, the uncapping machine is the piece of equipment that I use the least. And it's not to say that it doesn't get used, like it gets used during honey extraction and it's good and I like it, But it sits there kind of like for a huge amount of time, and then even sometimes I have to like top it up with the knife a little bit. And I think for the amount of money that it cost, would I buy that again, or would I kind of stick to a knife? And I think I'd probably stick to a knife for a good few years more. I would put as much money as you can afford into like the best, best extractor that you can afford. And kind of having had a few extractors now, what I would always say is it's a difficult one because you don't want to keep like a massive extractor somewhere because it's awkward to keep. But if you've got space, go for the biggest possible extractor that you can get in terms of like diameter. And the reason I say that is I find that the bigger ones, you need a smaller motor to be able to get kind of like the same power output. Didn't really make sense, but in terms of the actual centrifugal force that it's creating, the bigger drums will like fire out more honey. But then also the bigger drums are way more stable in terms of the ability for it to not like topple all over the place. And then I like the long ones, the wide ones where the weight is kept down towards the bottom. So there's nothing on the top, everything's kept towards the bottom, keeps the center of gravity much lower and stops them wobbling around. The one that I've got at the moment, which is absolutely brilliant, it is— I bought it with a heated base. So it's got a water-jacketed heated base. And you might kind of think, what do you need a heated base for in terms of the extractor? And I didn't buy it for the actual heating of any of the frames. I bought it because I just wanted the ballast sitting at the bottom. I wanted to put as much weight in the bottom of the extractor as possible, stop it bouncing around the room, which means that you can turn it on and it spins and you can just leave it and it just does its job without you having to like hold it down, which the other one needed a little bit of persuasion occasionally. So what else would I buy? Buy a really good extractor. Obviously if you can get a secondhand one, even better. But I would just say try and like go maybe 1 or 2 steps above where you actually are at the moment, put your money into a good extractor. And then I would really just try and keep everything else simple. The one— the next thing that I would buy after that is I would buy like a Meliflow or an Api Melter. Or if you're in the US and you don't know what either of those are, it's just like a big heated box. And then I would keep the extraction super simple, which is I would just uncap with a knife directly into the Api Melter or the Meliflow. Um, and then like tap the honey coming off the cappings, and then just keep on doing that, keep on doing that, extract the honey out, put it into the buckets. And then at the end of the year, you can just heat all of that wax up and just reclaim all of the wax. You should get the majority of the honey out just through gravity. And then the final piece of kit that I would add is a really good quality tank, a good quality tank for you to kind of like put your honey into for you to jar out of. The premium one from Abello is amazing. Like, I do the social media for Abello, so take it with a pinch of salt, but I have used that and I can vouch for it. And the reason that it's so good is that it's got a conical bottom. So if you can imagine like a normal metal tank, you get down to 90% of the way and then you're just like left with loads of honey at the bottom and you're tilting the tank to try and get everything out. With the premium one from Abello, it's conical at the bottom, so like when you get to the bottom, there's literally nothing left in it. They are the 3 things that I would buy, and then like the next things I'd probably look at getting, like a creamer if you do a lot of creamed honey. Um, but they, they're the 3 things that I would start off with. Good question. Uh, how do I turn that off? Wow, lots of people piling in. So yeah, sorry for not doing, uh, not giving you a heads up. Okay, so Lucas says, I don't— I know you don't agree with their pricing, but can you review the ApiMai hives? So I, I might, I might do. I'll try and get one, see if I can get one slightly discounted. I feel like it's a difficult one to do because I don't want to— I don't want an ApiMai hive. I want to try and keep all of my hives standardized in the same type. I don't particularly want to pay like £400 just to do the review. So let me speak to them. I'll try and speak to them again and see if they'll let me do a review, um, and then maybe like give it away or something. That, that could be a way of doing it. I'll buy it and then give it away as a competition prize. Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to bring today's chat competition prize up here. That's annoying. To save that for the next one, right? Let's run some more questions on here. So Dan Brooks, channel member, says, my Buckfast queen from last year is looking strong. Looking forward to getting over my overwintered nuc. Good stuff, Daniel. Early on the list. Danielle says, good to finally join a live stream. Normally follow from the Caribbean. Very nice. Is it Daniel? Daniel or Danielle? Hi, Daniel. Lots of different people coming in from all over the world. I love it. It's great. Hello, everyone who's joined. Ivan says, when cleaning boxes with oxalic acid, will it get rid of eggs from the pests? Thanks. So get myself in trouble with this one. So cleaning boxes with oxalic acid is what very naughty people say they are doing when they're quite clearly treating for varroa. That's, that's what happens in the UK, is you have to say that you're, you're cleaning your boxes when they're quite clearly treating for varroa. What you should be doing is using apimioxal, single treatment once allowed per season, and that is a way to use oxalic acid to legally treat for varroa. But when cleaning boxes, I don't know, I don't think it will. So oxalic acid is a brilliant cleaner. It's used on like cleaning boats in terms of like a wood bleach. So it is very powerful, but I wouldn't say it would get rid of any of the eggs. I would still be looking at scorching. Good, good. Get a roofer's torch, and I doubt there'll be any eggs left over from a roofer's torch. Or you can also dip caustic soda, but read the instructions because it's horrible stuff, very alkaline. And I don't think they'd get through that treatment either. With regard to equipment for bee businesses, he agrees knives are best for uncapping. A normal bread knife for my operation works great, cheap and quick. Yeah, I agree. The majority of people should get away with a knife. Richard Stevens, who does kind of the nucs with me, He, um, he has like 400 or 500 colonies, production colonies, and he uses a knife into a napper melter. He just, he does like probably 3,000 or 4,000 supers a year with a knife. And I've said to him, do you want to borrow the uncapper? And he's like, nope, quite happy with the knife. And I've seen him, he's pretty good with a knife as well, pretty quick. Hi Brian, how's it going? I've still got your video to do. Brian very unfortunately caught me on like minute zero of the beekeeping conference video. So I messed up everybody else's videos, which I know I said a lot about, but I properly messed up Brian's part of the video. And but I'm hoping that I do have a recovery method to get your, your brilliant innovation, which won— I think it's a gold prize, isn't it? But whatever it was, top prize at the Bee Expo. Brilliant. Uh, right, I'm gonna jump down, see if there are any more questions. Lots of comments though, it's great. I love people having all the comments going off. So here we go. Nathan McKenzie, do you have any advice for starting as a sole trader to offset buying equipment against a full-time job's tax? Um, good question again. So I, I like this, it's a really, really good thing. So the first thing is that, like, get a good accountant. Get yourself a good accountant. It will pay for itself very, very quickly. And sole trader accounts are nowhere near as expensive as limited accounts. So you probably get someone to do your sole trader accounts for like £200 or £300, maybe something like that. Get, get a recommendation though, because there are some absolutely shocking accountants out there. Um, but get a good recommendation, get a good accountant, and you can ask them questions. So I'll caveat this advice, Nathan, with me saying I'm not giving you tax advice here, so ignore everything that I said. It's not tax advice. Get some tax advice from an accountant or speak directly to HMRC. But It's really, really good. Like, you can basically offset everything that you spend your money on. And what I would say is that if you can, if you can get yourself VAT registered early on, that really helps. But if you can't get yourself VAT registered, and they don't just accept everyone, make sure you keep your receipts. Keep really, really good copies of your receipts. Um, a lot of the tax, like, stuff now, you need to have, like, an online accounting system. So you can't do, you can't do manual accounts anymore. So you'll need something like QuickBooks, uh, which, which is what I use, which is brilliant, to make sure that you keep all of your receipts. Because if you do become VAT registered, you can reclaim your VAT for up to 3 years previously. So if you're spending like 10, 20 grand buying all of this stuff and claiming about the tax, or offsetting your tax against your income, which are— which I'll speak about in a second, keep the money for the VAT as well, because the VAT's like probably even more valuable to most people depending on which tax bracket you are. But my advice is just be completely open and honest with HMRC. Don't try anything dodgy, because my view, personal view, is that like beekeepers do quite well when it comes to tax. Every single thing that we buy pretty much has VAT on it, apart from maybe like with the odd exception of like bee feed or something like that. So it means that every single thing you buy, you get to claim back whatever it is, like 17-point-something percent, whatever it is, the VAT, you claim it back. And then everything you sell is zero-rated, so you don't need to give any money back. So it works very well from a VAT perspective. But then from an offsetting perspective, particularly if you are in the higher tax bracket, it means that for every £100 you spend— and again, I'll caveat it, I'm not an accountant, so the numbers might not be exactly right— But pretty much for every £100 that you spend on equipment, if you're in the higher tax bracket, you can claim about 42%-ish. The 40% pay-as-you-earn tax, income tax, and then whatever it is, the 2% National Insurance. And it does— it depends which tax bracket you're in. But then on the kind of before that, you can claim the VAT as well. So just make sure you keep really, really, really good records and make sure that anything that you are buying is like wholly or exclusively for for the use of the company. Um, and then as long as you're kind of following those rules and getting the advice from the accountant, then it is well, well worth trying to offset as much as you possibly can. And the final thing I'll say is that you need to genuinely be running a business. You can't do it to subsidize your hobby, and I think they would really, really frown upon that. So I just think, like, for beekeepers, the tax system currently works quite well. So be as honest as you possibly can be and work it within the rules and just keep, keep all of your records. But good question and good luck with it. Dominican Beekeeper says, what does your beekeeping schedule look like at this time of year? Are you building frames, fixing boxes, etc.? So exactly that. Like, the big rush at the moment is to try and, try and build, build as many frames as possible for when all of the nucs go out, because once all of the nucs go out, it's straight into splitting, building colonies up. And if you don't have all your frames and all your boxes and everything like that, at that point you are in serious trouble. So that probably starts middle of April, and I need to have everything in place for when that starts. So yeah, it's crazy, absolutely crazy, and it's going to come around really, really quick. But it's good though. I love this time of year. What I absolutely love at this time of the year is the fact that it gets like a little bit lighter every day. think it's, it's 20 to 6 now. It's only really just got like properly dark outside. If I was outside, I could still just about be doing stuff in the garden now, so it's nice. I love spring, it's brilliant. My strongest colonies have increased hive weight over winter. They're on brood and a half. How should I clear the full super in the spring, which was built up on heavy syrup in the autumn? That's that is very very interesting. I don't think I've ever had a colony that's increased weight over winter. The only thing that I can be thinking of is that they're robbing something or getting access to something somehow, and then the only other thing is that like the scales are wrong. That I'll be really interested to see kind of how much how much have they increased in weight? That is very odd. because if they're rearing any sort of brood, it's going to be depleting those stores. But the question, if you've got a heavy hive, how should I clear the full super in the spring which was built up on heavy syrup in the autumn? Really simple, you just nadir it, N-A-D-I-R. So take the super off. I'm assuming that— I'm assuming you've not got a queen excluder in there, so take the super off, shake all of the bees back in to make sure that you're shaking the queen back into the brood box. So effectively taking away an empty super, make sure the queen is not in there, and then take out the frames, bruise the frames with a hive tool, which means you just get your hive tool and you just kind of like smudge the wax cappings to make it easier for the bees, and then you put it underneath the brood box. If you do that in the spring, they'll just kind of munch straight through it, and within maybe like 2 or 3 weeks it will be empty, and then you can just remove it. Next question from David Lawrence. Am I assuming right that the UK use a national hive versus a layens? Yeah, so some people will use like very few will use a layens, but it is a national hive. It's standard in the UK. Brian, it was a blue ribbon. It's weird. I did. I got the colors well mixed up, but blue ribbon. Well done. Great accolade. David says— sorry if I'm rushing things, I'm properly getting into it. I need to stop and sip my chamomile tea, take a chill pill. So David says, with all the OA treatment done, would you bother putting in Apivar strips in a couple of weeks' time in case of any missed mites? So you can put Apivar in, you can put Apitraz in as well. It's worthwhile noting that those are exactly the same treatment. using exactly the same product, which is Amitraz, which is the miticide. But yeah, spring treatment for Amitraz is, I think, going to start getting used more and more. And we're coming up to the point where you want to start putting that in now because you need 8-week treatment period, and then you can't put the supers on while it's on. But as long as you take it out, um, before spring, before you put the supers on, then it's a really, really effective treatment. I wouldn't, I wouldn't just go like blindly throwing Money. I wouldn't put chemical treatments in if I didn't need to put chemical treatments in. Like, I find with my bees that they respond really well to Apivar or Apitraz late on in the season, and then like an oxalic acid base treatment over winter. And then I find that my bees don't really show any signs until like August, maybe like back end of July. You start seeing like a tiny bit of deformed wing, or you'll start seeing like Varroa mites on your bees, and then, and then you're nipping it in the bud. So you're treating early. So I find as long as you're treating early in the autumn, around kind of mid to back end of August, then I wouldn't, um, do a spring Apivar treatment. However, if you're someone who's going up to the heather and you're, you're not fetching your bees back down from the heather until, say, the back end of September, something like that, and then you put your Apivar treatment in, I would suggest then it's probably a out to do a spring treatment as well, give them a really good drop and get them ready for the season. Uh, Peter, channel member, says, looking forward to getting my first nuc and starting keeping this year. Watched your starting keeping video the other week and thought, and though fun, assembling hives was hard work and more complex than expected. It really is, isn't it? And that, that is a nuance of the National Hive. National Hive is a complicated hive. It doesn't look it from the outside, does it? And you do, you get used to it when you, when you've put together like a few, you kind of get used to what you're supposed to do. But it's the bee space that throws everyone out, and it's the fact that it's a bottom bee space hive. So people think, oh, it's a bottom bee space, so like the space should be at the bottom, which is correct, but it is really, really hard to get your head around, which means that at the top there's no space. So the frames are supposed to lie flat. And I think they're the 2 things that people get wrong. One is that the interlocking bars on the outside, I always see them going the wrong way, which means that it holds water on them, which will degrade them a little bit quicker. And then I would say the number one issue I see with ones that are made incorrectly is that people put the spacing on the top so that you have a top B space as opposed to a bottom B space. But once you get used to it, it does make it a lot easier. The tip that I found when I was putting them together was make up some frames and then have a couple of frames that are made up. And then when you're putting the boxes together, like, use the frames as a little bit of a guide. And instead of trying to, like, use the measurements and not really being able to figure it out, if you have all of the frames ready to go and then you use this as your guide, which is all of the frames should be flush with all of the top of the box. And then if you do that, like, you get— that means you get the bee space correct. And then obviously measuring corner to corner, you should— it should be equal measurements. So it's a 460 by 460 box, but if you measure the diagonals, they should equal each other, which means that it's perfectly square. And then the outside, the wood should be arranged to shed water, so as to not hold water. But it is a complex box, and believe me, I've messed up a good few before. I worked out how to do it. What were the results of your hive when using Hive Alive fondant? So nothing really. Like, I do, I do like Hive Alive, but I don't, I don't think it necessarily does a huge amount, especially not in the fondant form, other than giving them a good feed and kind of gives them like some nice vitamins and promotes the gut healthiness that it's supposed to promote. I don't know that It's anecdotal for me, like they liked it, they ate it, I liked it, I ate it as well, it tastes nice, but there were no hard results. I don't use it, I use standard cheapo fondant. Do you ever look at box material of construction for cleanability, porosity, etc., as it contributes to hive hygiene? When looking at wood, foam, plastic, etc., wouldn't a non-porous surface be better? Better. So yeah, definitely. I would say I looked at— when I was at the Bee Expo, they had a hive there called the Propola Hive, and it was designed to do the complete opposite of that, which was simulate the inside cavity of a tree. So to give you like loads of surface area and keep it nice and rough, which means that the bees can fill it with propolis, and like it's supposed to be good and healthy for the bees. And I did, I liked it, I thought it was a really good idea, but first immediate thought was, God, just imagine trying to like scrape that down. It would just be— it would be impossible to try and scrape it down. So I think wooden hives, like cedar hives in particular, are very, very good. And I know they're slightly porous, but they're— I find once you get the proper lachine on it, it gives you the ability to kind of scrape. It's not that porous at all. And then the porosity, I think when you're scorching with a blowtorch it doesn't really make a huge amount of difference because you're burning like that top layer of wood down so much that any disease would be fine in terms of like you'd kill any disease that was there. But I find with the difference between my Suyenti polyboxes and my Abello polyboxes, the difference in density of those materials kind of also relates to the difference in porosity of them. And the Suyenti one, it's got slightly more air in it and traps more gunk, which means that when they come out of the dipping— so they come out of like a, a washing soda dip and then a sodium hypochlorite dip— the Abello ones, they come out like they're perfectly clean, and I'm assuming they're perfectly sterile, but they're not like sparkling clean. Um, whereas the Abello ones, which are harder and like more dense and less porous, they come out really, really clean. So it's like, I'm guessing like the gunk can't get in. So I do think, yeah, I think that's a great shout. But there's only really wood and poly I think that I would be looking at. Obviously plastic, the other one you've got in there, would be probably the best in terms of cleanliness and hygiene. You wouldn't really need to scrape it. I think you could just disinfect directly on it, and because it's not porous, like you just wipe it clean and there'd be nothing there. But I'm not sure, like, I think you need the plastic with the insulation behind it for that to work, otherwise you've got a really cold surface inside the hive and you might have issues with condensation and mould. It's an interesting one to look at in terms of like what's best for the beekeeper and what's best for the bees. Hi buddy, I started feeding with fondant and noticed when we get the odd warmish day it's turned into a liquid which is then running back into the hive. Do I need to worry about this? So I don't want to worry you unnecessarily yet, but I find with with big strong colonies, when's that when that happens, they just deal with it like the bees deal with it themselves. So much so that you don't really even notice that it's happening. But I find if I've got like a weak colony or a struggling colony, and I go inside and I've got fondant on like that and see and I can see that it's all leaking down and the bees aren't cleaning it up, then it's potentially like some other. issue there. So it might not, it might not be that. Like I said, I don't want to worry you unnecessarily. What I would suggest is if that is happening, you can just take it off, put a crown board on, and then put it on top of the crown board. So put the fondant on top of the crown board, maybe in like a takeaway container, invert it in the takeaway container and put it on. Another way of doing it— I'm just getting my phone out because my wife's texting me in a minute to say she's coming home. not going to be a long live stream, uh, is the other way of doing it is get a queen excluder and put a queen excluder on your brood box, and then you put the fondant on top, and then that should, that should really help. Um, uh, not trying to do 2 things at once there, just turning the sound off my phone. It will stop the fondant dripping down. And then I see that you've put this, this next bit here. So also just notice you said no queen excluder in winter. I only asked because my mentor said keep it on so they are used to it when going into spring. So the no queen excluder in winter means no queen excluder between any boxes. That's the rule, because otherwise the bees will move between the boxes and the queen can get left behind. You can put a queen excluder at the very, very top of the very top box because there's nowhere for them to go. So if you're feeding fondant, fondant's always at the top. You can have a queen excluder directly below the fondant and then your bees underneath it. And that will stop it dripping down. Uh, Harry says, do you often get people asking for nucs in March and April? So I would say March and April are probably the busiest months in terms of people asking for nucs. March, April, and even May. Um, it gets, it gets very, very busy. Why do you ask? Why do you ask that, Harry? Just, you've got, you've got nucs to sell. But yeah, that is the time to do it. Dominican Beekeeper says, I noticed that you usually build very huge colonies. Do you have a maximum box height, and what is usually the average harvest per colony? So I do. They do get, they do get pretty big. It's the demerays that make them super big. So don't really have a maximum box height, but I don't like, I don't like doing them when they're, when I can't can't reach them. That's my rule. If I can't reach them, then it's, it's good. Things are good. Uh, but I don't, I don't have like a maximum height that I go to. I guess, I guess that is the maximum height. I won't put them on if I can't reach to put them on. I don't mess around with like ladders or stepladders or anything like that. But I keep my, I keep my hives quite a lot higher than normal. So I use 3 pallets high. So my, my stands are basically like 500 I don't even know what that is in inches, maybe like 20-odd inches, something like that, which means— and that's for my back, so when I'm going in and doing my inspections in the brood boxes, I'm not breaking my back. Average harvest per colony? We don't get massive harvests in North Wales, and driving back again today, I'm always looking at the scenery and thinking, like, I'm a bit gutted other places have got it loads better than us. But we probably get like £60 maybe average over the years. It's not a huge amount, but what we do is we put those bees to good use and we make lots of splits and we sell the nucs as well. But I think like you could get loads more out of your colonies than that, especially if you take a spring crop and a summer crop, or if you're down south where they get like serious arable crops and oilseed rape and beans and borage and all the good fun stuff down there. How often do you inspect each of these huge hives and how do you stop them from swarming? So I do weekly inspections and then I use Demaray. Demaray is the method that makes them so big and that is the method that stops them from swarming. It's an interesting one because all that made me think there is how often do you inspect each of these huge hives and it is a bit of a pain, like going through. You have these hives that have got like a brood box and then maybe like 4 supers and then another brood box at the top. And then when you want to do your inspection, you've got to take off that top brood box and 4 supers and put them somewhere before you do your inspection. And I just like— there's a hive that they are sending me, which is brilliant, so-called the Keeper's Hive, which I saw at the Bee Expo. And anyone who went to the Bee Expo would have also seen it there, which is just The most brilliant innovation, um, because it gives you the ability to take frames out of your brood box without taking the supers off. And you just think, on a, on a commercial scale, the time that that will save me if, if all of my hives had that ability for me to go in and take out all of the frames from my brood box, every single one, without actually taking a single super off. It's just like glorious. It's like the dream. So I'm getting one. He's sending me one through. He said he's got to work out to get like a, a wood inspection certificate, but they're going to take care of it and they're going to send it over, and I am going to test it this season. Hopefully it is a Langstroth hive, but it's really, really good. I love it. And then I think it's going on— is, uh, they're going through crowdfunding with it as well. So as soon as I get any details of that, I will share it, and hopefully they do them in the UK. It'd be brilliant. If not and you're in the US, It's just a great idea. I love it. Absolutely love it. This is a live stream, believe it or not. I'm sorry there was no advance warning whatsoever, but this is very much live. The boiled sugar syrup is toxic to bees or it's not good. What do you think about fondant? The manufacturing process involves boiling the sugar syrup. So that's not— See where you're coming from. It's not strictly true, like, uh, but boiling sugar syrup creates what's called HMF, which is toxic to bees. Um, but you can make sugar syrup with cold water, like 1:1 sugar syrup. So 1 kilogram— so 1 kilogram sugar to 1 liter water mixed cold will just— you'll dissolve all of that into a syrup, a completely pure syrup with like negligible HMF in there, so you don't need to boil it. You can actually do it with 2:1 as well if you agitate it. If you build like a big thing that's going to constantly spin it around— wouldn't try and do it with a pump, you need some sort of like spinning agitator to do it. This is what Richard does. I know Richard tells me everything. He has got this big IBC machine that he built which he puts— he makes 2:1 syrup cold, so There is a way to do it, and fondant is fondant's made pretty pretty similar. They make a sugar syrup first, and then they add whatever they need to add to make it into a fondant. So sugar syrup is definitely not toxic to bees. If you if you boil sugar syrup, so it's like constantly boiled and then goes yellow, then it then it is toxic to bees. So don't do that. Peter, channel member, says a friend who's also starting. is looking at a new apiary site in a valley that is dry but it's probably a frost trap. Is that an issue or is it really about dampness? So I would just say in the UK, I just wouldn't worry about that. Like, especially in Wales, I do not worry about dampness or dryness or anything like that in Wales. If you're kind of like in Southern America, then you might have an issue, but I just don't think we have too, too much of an issue in the UK with something that's going to be that dry. Frost trap is just not an issue at all, like bees are well suited to kind of frosty conditions, it's not, they just hunker down if it's frosty, they don't come out. What I would say is more of a concern is where it's overly like damp and the conditions that you're letting your bees live in, so if you've got somewhere that's like really maybe like in some like woodland that's really like dark and dank, and I don't think bees do particularly well in that location. And you can get a lot of brood disorders coming out, so you can get like a bit of chalk brood, stuff like that, you get the fungal growth. But bees are pretty resilient. I would just say try and keep it as open as possible, try and face them south, um, in as much sun as they can possibly get. And then I wouldn't worry about the apiary site being, being too dry. Like, they'll fly 3 to 5 miles So if you do like pi r squared, it's like 30-odd square miles they'll fly to go and find some good nectar sources. And it's, it's a very interesting one though, because what I do find in relation to dryness is that the best sites that I've ever had have been close to rivers. And the reason that I think they do well there is that you get lots of trees that are just basically got an unlimited supply of water. So they're constantly yielding nectar. And then you also get Himalayan balsam along most rivers in the UK now, which is just like brilliant for bees. Bees absolutely love Himalayan balsam. And then what's really bad about it is that you get flooding there as well. So it's kind of like these like, um, maverick beekeepers who flirt with danger by going close to the rivers, um, for the promise of bumper honey crops. And you do, like, I've definitely noticed it the closer to the rivers you are, the more honey you get. So there is, there is probably something in that, but I would just say, like, on a micro scale, if you're looking at something that's like, oh, it's a bit dry here, and then a couple of miles down the road it's not too bad, I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that. Cup Rider says, do you make up your own frames? Because it's my biggest bugbear. It is a pain, isn't it? I do both. So my Langstroth ones I make myself, and my national ones I buy in ready waxed, which is even better. I tried to convince Richard— I actually did convince Richard last year and said that this is madness, you're making up 10,000 frames in the winter, like, let's just buy them. And I convinced him last year that it was a good idea, so we bought them and he said this is the best thing ever, like, it's just freed up so much time. And then this year He said, no, I'm going to make them this year. And I said, why are you making them? He said, I can make them better than the people where we're buying them from. And they were good, they were good frames, but he's a perfectionist, Richard is. He wants the right nails in there and he wants the nails going in at the right angle and he wants the right number of nails in there. And he wants— it's the big one— is that he doesn't want to put the wax in until the very end. So if we, if we buy all of the frames made up and waxed, and we buy them kind of like when I say we buy them in December, they've got to sit there from December until April, and he doesn't like leaving the wax that long. So what he does is he's made up 10,000 frames and they're sitting there unwaxed at the moment. And then what he does is that when he needs them, he'll go in and put like 500 sheets of foundation in like a night. Uh, I've never seen anyone move so fast with the frame. Absolutely incredible. But he likes it going in, so literally the wax comes straight from Thorns and then he puts it in like the same day that it comes, and then they get put straight into the colonies the next day. And he thinks like the freshness of the wax is a good thing. I don't know whether it is, uh, but he seems to know what he's doing. So, uh, David said he's pre-ordering a Yolanda queen for me. What can I hope to expect from her? So first off, they won't arrive till kind of June. June is when they tend to start being available mated in the UK. They don't do the early season Yolantas anymore, so it is just the UK mated ones. What can you expect from her? So it depends. Like, this is the thing with the Yolanta queens. They're not— it's not like you're buying a Buckfast queen or you're buying like a Carniolan queen where you've got like known characteristics. So you could end up with one with more of like a Buckfast bias, or you could end up with one with more of a Carniolan bias. What, what you are getting is very good queens, very good pedigree queens from people who know what they're doing. Um, what, what you'll almost certainly get— this is the thing— is these queens aren't designed for backyard beekeepers. That's not to say that they're not suitable for backyard beekeepers, but I'm just— these are, these are Murray's queens. Murray McGregor, biggest bee farm in the UK, and it's his queen rearing unit, and they're designing queens for his beekeeping operation. That is what they do. So they have traits that they're breeding for that are not necessarily the traits that you might want in your back garden. Like, I'm making— I'm like, that's the worst salesman pitch in the world. I'm saying that he's breeding in bad traits. He's not. What it is is that for him, like, calmness might not be number one on his trait list. They're generally very calm bees, though, Yolanta ones. But what I find is that they're, they're like perfectly designed for his beekeeping operation. So what I find with them is that they don't necessarily overwinter like huge, huge like clusters of bees. Like if you see my bees, like Buckfast bees going into winter, and they're boiling over the top, and then you open them up— like if I opened up some of my colonies now, they'd be boiling over the top with bees— whereas the Yolanta ones Like the Carniolans especially are just a bit smaller and nice and compact, and maybe on like 6 or 7 or 8 frames, but like quite low down, not boiling over. And you look at them, you kind of think, yeah, they look okay. But then when spring hits, like, they take off and they, they probably overtake the Buckfast like quite early on in terms of the size. And this is where people say about like the Carniolans being a bit like swarmy. It can be a little bit swarmy, but it's due— I don't think— I think it's more operator error in terms of why they're swarmy. I think it's the fact that they build up so quick that people don't expect that they're going to hit the ceiling, and then they hit the ceiling and they go and swarm. But if you can manage that, then what you end up getting is bumper, bumper colonies of bees, like huge, huge colonies of bees. And this is what I found with the Elantra ones, which is they start off small and they build up quick and they just do not stop building up. And then you get them to a point where they hit the heather and like, they're just, you've never seen so many bees. You could have a stack of 10 boxes and they're just full from top to bottom with bees. And then I kind of think, well, that's what he wants out of them, which is he's building them up for late in the season to then go and get himself a nice bumper heather crop. But they are—they're great greens. You will definitely like them. I know that was a shocking sales pitch, but they are really, really good. Pink It's Honey, channel member. Hi, Stein. He says hi. A nice surprise for the live stream. A great start to the bank holiday weekend here in Ireland. Oh, gutted. We don't got bank holiday. Feel shortchanged yet again. Good to hear from you, though. Harry says. So this is in relation to the nucs. No, I've had a couple of people ask me on YouTube and was wondering if I should sell a few just locally. 100%, you should sell some nucs, Harry. Go for it, you'll be really, really good. It's great. Like I said, the most difficult thing in beekeeping in the world is taking 10 colonies into winter, 10 colonies through into spring, and then the following winter going in with 10 colonies. It really is quite quite difficult, as you— as everyone who's watching this is probably aware. Um, the best form of swarm management is to make up a few nucs, and if you can sell those nucs and like fund a new extractor or fund, um, a holiday or whatever it is, make sure you declare everything to HMRC, of course. But you should definitely sell them, without a doubt. Tim says, to reduce the weight, have you considered smaller boxes like supers for your Demeray? Um, so yeah, we do, we use shallows. Um, I've moved— so, so for the Demeray, we obviously need to use the same size brood frames that are in the brood box, so we're shifting it up, going up to the top. Um, my standard setup now is like, it's similar to Langstroth really. We have deeps and shallows, so I have deep nationals and shallow nationals, and I'll use the deep boxes for the brood and then the shallow boxes for the supers. And it does, it makes lifting a whole lot easier. I did one season Demerang 14x12s, which are like jumbo Langstroth, and lifting them up from the top and putting like a 60-pound box of honey to the top is really, really difficult. But I've been told, and I think it's good advice, never ever complain about a heavy of honey, because then you probably get paid back like what happened last year with just no honey, just rain. Love the name. She says, hello, was wondering what are your thoughts on putting an upper entrance on a top super to allow bees to bring back nectar straight to the super? So I would say yeah, it's fine. I don't think it makes, I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference, to be honest. But definitely don't keep it open in the winter. But I think, yeah, it's nice, it's nice to do in, in the season if you want to add it on. The Abello supers are great for that because they come with the little ventilated holes already there. You just take the little bung out and then the bees can fly in and out. Sorry, Alan, I'm really sorry, I've not been up there at all. I've been away, I've been at Center Parcs this week, so I've taken a Last minute holiday to Center Parks, but it is on my list. I need to get up there when it's not raining. If anyone else is wondering what I'm talking about, I've sold some hives to Alan, but I need to go and get them. So I've been busy. Sorry, I'll text you. Lorenzo, that what cool name Lorenzo? I love that people call me Lorenzo. Hey Lawrence, working on building hives for the new season. Also copied your underfloor entrance design, which is great. Been a great help with learning. I love your approach. Thanks, Lorenzo. As much as I would love to take full credit for the underfloor entrance, it is, it is just a design that I copied and championed. I definitely championed it, but it's not my design. But I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you like the video. Who is doing some blogging for me, doing an amazing, amazing job of blogging. He posted the other day a post about these insulated spacer Which is which is great. Like I've used similar things like that for a while, but I've never done never done a blog on it. There is there is videos on it. But he posted his blog on insulated spacer frames, and it's gone a little bit wild. It's gone absolutely wild. Two hundred fifty thousand people have seen it on Facebook. So I'm really proud, really proud of Adam. Why is why have I brought Adam into this? Oh yes, underfloor entrances. So he's doing one at the moment. underfloor entrances, which is like how you can make them basically like for free. Go like skip diving, get some stuff, and make the underfloor entrances. Like, they are super, super easy to make, uh, really, really cheap. And like, you can basically make them for free minus the cost of— or adding the cost of a little bit of mesh. But I'm glad, I'm glad you found them useful. I hope they do well for you. Uh, Lee says, what do you do with a super frame that has been attacked by wax moth over the winter. So I would just stick it back in. I honestly would just stick it back in, in a super frame. They will just fix it. Wouldn't worry about that at all. Um, they will, they will fix it, and if there's any larvae or eggs in there, they'll just clean them out as well. And there's not really much for them to eat, I'd say, with a super frame. It's nowhere near as bad as a brood frame. So I would just, I'd stick it back in. Uh, Mud Song says, I was taught that top ventilation was crucial to winter survival, but it seems that condensing hives are becoming more popular these days. What is your take/experience on these 2 methods? So I think it's really, really important here to like establish where you are in the world. So a lot of the stuff that I show on the channel is like, it's fully usable like pretty much anywhere, but there's certain things like top entrances or top ventilation, maybe more More crucially, that only really works in certain places. So for top, I'll do top entrances first. For top entrances, I think a lot of people use top entrances in like seriously snowy places in order that the bees can get in and out if you get like loads and loads of snow. So in the UK, don't get that, so you just never need top entrances. But for your question there on top ventilation, It again, it comes down to kind of where you are in the world. But so in the UK, it's very wet, and if you, if you like have top ventilation in there and you're trying to drive the moisture out through top ventilation, like, it can go really badly wrong in the UK. And then you, you get the condensation, which is inevitable within a beehive, in the wrong place, and you get it dripping on the bees, and you basically create like a horrible place for them. You create a place where they're getting dripped on, and you create a place that's got a wind tunnel. So it's just what you've effectively created is an air conditioning unit, something that's going to keep them really cold because the water dripping on it, and then you've got a wind tunnel effect that's evaporating that moisture. So the bees are just like, it's freezing, it's freezing in here, like, can someone turn thermostat up a little bit? So that's how it was explained to me, which is, why would you want to do that? Like, Like surely, would you want that in your house? Which is like ventilation at the top and then like moisture coming in, and it's just like no. Be really cold because all the heat would just go out at the top, and then when the heat goes out the top, it sucks it in from the bottom. So the other way that I do it now—the condensing hives method—it's not it's not just about the condensing hives; it's about the setup in terms of making it as nice for the bees as possible. So the ventilated floor, ventilated bottom is kind of, you don't really, really need that. Like, I think a solid floor or a ventilated floor are fine, but the most important thing in that method is having what is directly above the bees as being the most insulated thing within the beehive. And in that way, all you're doing there is you're guaranteeing that that surface that sits directly above the bees is going to be the place where condensation is least likely to form, which means that keeping your bees dry. And then as long as you're keeping your bees dry, then if you've got an open mesh floor, then any condensation that forms is likely to form on the walls. It's the only other place that it can form. And then if you've got an open mesh floor, the condensation forms on the walls and then it drips out. So you're just keeping your bees as dry as possible. And that's how it was explained to me, and I've not tested kind of either methods, but all I know is that in the UK condensing them down and stuffing them in a box like that with top insulation and bottom ventilation. Like, bees do really, really well. Bees do like that, and I've not had any issues with it. Lucas says, what's the maximum time you can recommend to have the hive entrance closed in case of transport or other— sorry, start that again. What's the maximum time you recommend to have the hive entrance closed in the case of transport or other circumstances where closing up the hive is needed? So I'd say, like, it's kind of like, how long is a piece of string, that one. What I would say is if you, if you've not got any bottom ventilation and you've not got any top ventilation and then you close the entrance and it's a really warm day, you could melt a colony in 15 minutes really, really easily, like in the back of a car on a warm day. But if you do it like at night and you put a top ventilation board on, which I would recommend everyone get, they are brilliant, really, really good. Like, if you only save one colony, it's paid for itself like 30 times over. And then have ventilated, a ventilated floor on it as well. So you're ventilating at the top, ventilating at the bottom, and then you're doing it at night. You could probably keep them in there for like 2 days. If you wanted to, like, they're pretty fine. And then what you can do is if it's hot, you seem to spray them through the top as well, and then you're getting that kind of air conditioning effect again, which is they can, they can use that as a wind tunnel and evaporate off that moisture to keep them cool. The risk that you've got there is that they overheat. So, so anywhere in the middle. So it's not, it's not a case of so much of like how long can you keep them closed up for, but it's a case of what can you do to stop them overheating. And if you do top ventilation, bottom ventilation, and then use a sprayer and do it at night, you'll give them a real good chance of not overheating. Uh, Peter— hi Peter, channel member— says, hi Lawrence, just joined, so you may have answered this. Are you doing comb honey this year? If so, what method? The Hog Half Frames look great, but I think only available in the States. Um, so I still got a huge amount of Ross rounds left. I bought like loads off a guy and they've been in the freezer, which is the place to keep kind of any section honey. I bought loads. This guy was a serious Ross round enthusiast, so they've been there for like 9 months or so now. So I might do some more Ross rounds just for fun. I'm not a massive fan of section honey, like, but personally from an eating perspective, I just prefer like normal honey in a jar. But then also doing it, it's a bit— the bees can be a little bit temperamental on it. I do like the challenge of it. I think if I was going to do more though, I would do like the English sections. I think they're called English sections. The ones that I did last year, like the wooden ones with the balsa wood, however you say it, they were pretty good. And I just like the fact that there's no plastic in them. And even like the packaging is like quite low plastic. There's a little tiny bit of plastic in, but compared to the Ross Rounds, which is just like the most energy-intensive plastic that goes into that— huge amounts of plastic— so I definitely won't be doing any more Ross Rounds. Um, but I might have a go. I'll have a look at the Hog Half ones. I have heard of them. I, I, I'm pretty sure from recollection that there is someone in the UK that does something like that or something similar. Um, but I will— I'll try, I'll try something new. We'll give it a go. Mark James says, any advice on a good labeling company? So we use a company called Printed Easy, and they're pretty good. They're one of the companies that, like, small amounts of labels are quite expensive, and like proofs are quite expensive. But then when you start ordering like a few more, they become pretty competitive. They've got good customer service, which is why I always I always go back to them. I think they hate me. There's always like issues, but it's niggly issues and they're good. They fix the issues. So I always go back. We spend a decent amount of money with them. Thanks, man. Uh, thoughts about swarm control? So, uh, if there's a few techniques for swarm control, but I would just say that the number one piece of advice is just do something reactively. Sorry, take that back, the complete opposite. Do something proactively, don't be reactive with it. And I think a lot of the textbooks teach you this, which is we're going in doing weekly inspections, and until you see any swarm cells, everything's fine. And then when you find some swarm cells, this is what you need to do. And I just really don't like that mantra. I think work out when the bees are going to swarm, like when's the risky period. And for me, the risky period is from Like, you— it's always— you're always going to get this bell curve, which is you're going to get some, some that swarm in March, and you're going to get some that swarm in September. But the vast majority are going to swarm between May and June. They're going to swarm in May and June. That's the, that's the real hot spot. So I would say, like, first week of May, it's probably a good time to do it if your bees are strong and looking good and not trying to swarm already. Do something. So either do a preemptive demeray or make a split or make up a nuc or cage your queen. Like, not the best method of swarm control, but it's something that you could do to try and stop them building up and swarming. Or I've seen people do this. This is a good way of doing it, is you get like an Apidea or like a little mini mating nuc, and you— there's a number of different ways of doing it, but basically as the bees are building up, you work out a way way that you can put this mini mating nuc into your, your super. So you can do that in a number of different ways, I won't go into the detail. Or you can just shake loads of bees into the super and get the bees to draw it out. What you're trying to do there is just get the bees to draw out the wax foundation in that little mini mating nuc, and then once they've drawn it out, take your queen out and put that in the mini mating nuc and just leave it for like, I don't know, a couple of weeks. And then the bees will create the swarm cells. And what you can do is just take the swarm cells down once they've made them. They won't be swarm cells, they'll be emergency queen cells. Take all of the emergency queen cells down and then just put the original queen back in. And you'll need to go through like the full introduction process. I know someone that does that, and that's their swarm management technique. And it's like, costs maybe like a tenner or £15 for one of these. He has one on the top of each hive, and then he could— and you can use it later on if of the season to kind of like try and rear some queen cells as well. It's, uh, I'm not sure it's like foolproof or bombproof, uh, I've not tried it, but he seems to reckon that it does work quite well. And what it does is it gives you that relief, like the most difficult part of the season, which for him is kind of like maybe like middle of May. But I would just do something, do something proactively, make sure that you're not just waiting for swarm cells to appear, because even when the swarm cells appear, like the artificial swarms aren't completely bombproof, things can go wrong with them. And then what happens is you always end up having to make a split. So if you, if you leave it to be reactively, then you're constantly splitting your hives, whereas if you do it proactively, you can keep the hive numbers that you've got, and I think that's really important. Hi Lawrence, do you have any thoughts on the Asian hornet muzzle? I've been asked to make some, but I'm not sure if it's worth the time and effort. So I'm not gonna ever put any Asian hornet muzzles on because I— we've got 10 minutes left, by the way. That is the 10-minute warning that my wife's coming home and I've got to go make dinner. Um, because I just don't see what the point of them is. Like, the idea is that the Asian hornets can't get in and get into the hive, but they're just going to hawk. They're just going to stand outside, fly outside the entrance, hawk and just taking them off. And then that's going to basically do the vast majority of the damage, and that's going to create a situation where the bees aren't going to fly. So the damage is done. I don't, I don't see the need for them. I could see why someone's made them, because they'll probably think we could sell a few of these, but I don't— it's not something that I will, I will buy, and it's not something that I'll review because I just don't think there's a need. Um, Pink It's Honey channel member says, is it possible to send your queens to Ireland? Bank holidays are new. 1% Bridget's Day, who knew? So unfortunately no, it's not possible with the Brexit going on at the moment. Although I do need to look at the new Northern Ireland protocol because I do, I do think that there's maybe some something in there that might allow queens going out to Northern Ireland. I don't know where that stands with Republic I will, I'll have a look, but the stance at the moment is no, can't go to Northern Ireland, can't go to Ireland. Uh, yeah, she is due home, um, and I said whatever happens— she's texted me, she gave me a 10-minute warning. So basically what I'm going to do in 10 minutes is be like, right, that's it, see you later, bye, and then just run off. But I'll keep on talking until she gets back, um, and, and dinner's basically ready, so we're good. Lorenzo says, was listening to one of your older live streams talking about hygiene in the apiary. Would you consider doing a dedicated video about how and what to do and keep in mind? Yes, I will do. That's a good one. I'll add that to the list. Apiary hygiene, really, really good one. Very important. Right, so I'm flicking through just to see if there's any more questions. Here we go. One from Harry: How long would you expect a queen to live roughly? She's a brilliant queen and would hate to lose her, but this will be her 3rd year. Um, I, I think we've had this conversation before, haven't we? So, so I think chances of getting her through the 3rd year are good. Anything more than that and it's a bit like, yeah, I don't think they're going to be— I don't think she's going to be like in her peak. Um, but there's not a huge amount that you can do with this. It is, it is a little bit frustrating when you get like a good queen like that because as soon as you move down to the next generation, you're not even really doing much with the drones. So this was— this is the thing. So if you have an F— if you have a pure Buckfast breeder queen, like an F0 breeder queen, and you're using that colony, the drones from that colony are pure Buckfast drones. So all of the drones are going out and mating and doing wonderful things and spreading their good genetics. I can feel the wincing from people who don't like Buckfast bees, but I do. But then the beauty of it is that the F1 Buckfast queens, the colonies that they produce, are the daughters and the drones. The drones that are mothered by F1 Buckfast queens are also pure Buckfast drones, which is like strange, you know. You think surely that's not right, but they are. So they're exactly the same as the drones that come from the pure Buckfast breeder queen. So if you've got a Buckfast breeder queen and you create like 30 daughters daughters from her, F1 daughters, and then have all of those colonies lined up in your apiary, every single one of those colonies producing pure Buckfast drones. So you're getting this really amazing effect in the apiary in that you're flooding the apiary with pure Buckfast drones, which means you're getting the good genetics into all of your queens. But then when you go down to F2, you're not— I can't remember what it is, whether it's 50% or 25%, but you're diluting genetics. So we don't, we don't go any further than that. But that whole time that you've got that F1 daughter there, she is contributing to kind of like the health— or not so much the health, but the, the good genetics within that apiary. Um, but it is, yeah, it's a bit of a, bit of a pain when you lose a queen like that. I'm not suggesting you do this, but what you can do at that point is if you wanted to, you could hire someone to come and do some artificial insemination take the drones from that line. Like, if you had an exceptional line, take the drones from that line and then cross it with something else, so like another Buckfast queen, and then you would at least preserve 50% of those genetics. Um, it's not that expensive to— I'm not suggesting you do it, Harry, but like, if you've got like a cooperation or like a beekeeping association together that wanted to do it, it's not that expensive. Like, mobile, um, artificially insemination, artificial insemination units. So Northumberland Honey do that, um, and they need your help to do it, but I think it works out about like £600 a day, and they come down and do it. And what they say is if you do, if you do it for the 2 days, costs like £1,200, but then if you provide all of the virgins and you provide all of the drones yourself, they said you can get like 30 or 40 queens out of that, and all of those queens are artificially inseminated queens. Now whether you're going to get all of those through, I don't know, it's maybe another question. But like 40 queens for £1,200 is a lot of money, like cheaper than we sell them. But it's, it's worth, it's worth doing if you have like particularly good lines, uh, and I, I might have a go at doing that this year. I said to them last year that I was going to do something like that, um, but I think it'd be a good video, so maybe I'll do that this year. Swarming starts here in South Portsmouth mid-April onwards. So yeah, definitely regional variations. Like, we, we, we don't tend to get swarming, um, in April, but like hits in, in May. But yeah, I think in the UK, mid-April, if your colonies are big and strong, mid-April is the time to start looking at it. Will you be retiring the checkerboard no swarm experiment again if that was a a good series. I really like that series and I really want to do it. And every time, like, I kind of get ready for the beekeeping season and think, right, I'm going to do that, and then I look at my calendar and think I missed the opportunity to do it. So like, I've already missed the opportunity to do it by like a good month. Um, but I really like the idea. I should have done it with more. I want to do it on like 10 colonies, maybe like a full apiary, and see if they genuinely don't swarm. But it was cool, it was a good series. I've got a few ideas for some, for some new series, but we'll have to keep those until next one. Good idea, but that price is a lot. Probably just hope to get another good one from you. So yeah, you can, you can do that. Um, I've got to the— I've got to the bottom, so I might make a sneaky exit before my wife comes home, like be downstairs and just be like all prepared as opposed to rushing. But I'll leave it with the fact that the nucs are selling very, very quickly. And this isn't like— so there we go, just looking at my phone. In, in that, in that time, we just sold like 4 nucs. So it is absolute deadline is Sunday midnight, they're gone. Um, queen dates are now on the website, so you can order your queens across all of the different lines now. Put dates in for all of those. So if you want to Order your queens in advance. You can do that. We start shipping first week in April after the Easter bank holiday, which would be good. Um, just put a last one up. Chunky says, hi Lawrence, thanks for all your brilliant videos. How would you perform a demeray split on a WBC? How would you do this on your own scape? I wish I hadn't clicked that one up. That was— I was just doing my outro. Um, but I think it— I don't know. The honest answer is I don't know. I'll have to look into that. Uh, because I've never done it on a WBC before. I think it would be very difficult. I think you would need like a huge amount of lifts, maybe more lifts than you would get in like a standard WBC setup. I want to get a WBC because they just look really nice and cool. Uh, but before she comes back, the other thing that I was going to say— I, I'll have to, I'll have to kind of reflect on that one, Chunky, uh, and do it next time. But what I was going to say is I've been in contact with Osmo. So if anyone uses like, like wooden stuff like oak and you're treating it with like Osmo oil, people might have heard of that. I've been speaking to them and I'm doing a, a collaboration with them. So they've got some nice oils and nice paints and stuff, and they reckon they've got some nice things that you can put on cedar beehives. So I'm gonna have a go at doing that. If anybody has any other ideas in terms of like collaborations that I can do with people that maybe would like sit outside of Beekeeping. Give me a shout. I'm always up for doing like different things. I'm going to do one with a company called the Green Gardener as well, who sells solitary bees and like bee hotels and things like that. I'm going to try and widen it out a little bit because I just thought that would be pretty cool. Have it in the garden. Marie says, "Hi, would you recommend long hives? About to order a Nucci." Oh, so that's really cool. So That Nucchi Hive got a lot of hate, and I don't like to get into arguments with people online, but like, the Nucchi Hive is literally just out there, so I see it every morning and it's beautiful. Absolutely like brilliant. And what I love about it is it just looks so cool. It looks really, really nice. Um, but if you, if you do go down the Nucchi Hive route, I would go— I would like plump up the extra money and go for the nuc version because the nuc version is so flexible. Gives you like loads of ability to have like little nucs in there and big colonies at the same time. And as I'm saying that, I, I've heard my wife just coming back in, so I'm going to make a really, really quick exit. Definitely recommend the Nucia Hive. It's really cool. You will love it. It looks cool and it's very functional and it will last forever. But I'm sorry that I didn't give anyone pre-warning of the live stream. We've done an hour and 7 minutes and I'm gonna go now because my wife is Downstairs and she is calling me. I'm gonna go have my dinner, so I'll see you all soon. I'll give you much more warning for the next stream.
