Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees with Laurence Edwards - Episode 47

Good evening everyone and welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Bees. We are up to episode 47 and I know I said I was changing over to doing it once a month, uh, it's only been 3 weeks since my last live stream, but I'm going away next weekend so I can't do next weekend, so I thought I'd bring it forward one week. And loads has happened again, isn't it? It's been a very, very busy time in the bee world, so I've not got my whiteboard today because I'm, I'm having a clear out of cameras So I'm in between the whiteboard camera. So people who enjoy the podcast side of it, the actual me just talking and blabbing on about bees, will enjoy this one a bit more. There's going to be no whiteboard today, and there's no public service announcements either because we're kind of out of the beekeeping season now. So at least I've not written anything down. So we have sold all of the queens, all of the queens have gone. Getting quite a lot of emails from people saying, have you got any queens left? And I've definitely not got any queens left, I'm afraid. So 2025 will be the next time we start sending queens out. It's quite nice to have a little bit of a break. The, the other thing to talk about, and this, this is, I guess, a public service announcement, uh, nucs. If you're thinking about getting nucs, get your orders in quickly, especially if you are looking to get Langstroth nucs. I'm not going to do the hard sell, but if you want Langstroth nucs for next year, there is not that many left. So we'll be sold out, I reckon, by the middle of October. So if you want a Langstroth nuc, get in contact very, very soon. But that's it, I've not got any other announcements, so I'll jump straight into it and let's do some questions and some answers. So we'll jump straight in with Robert, channel member. He said, thanks for the, the advice last weekend, mate. It looks like those hives will be hopefully okay, but lost 2 hives this week as they were not going up to the feeders to get feed. Looks like the feeders I had didn't have enough room for them to get over the top into the feeder. I'll have to buy new feeders, I think. That's, that's, it's an odd one that. I've never seen any feeders that don't have enough room to get over the top, but what I like to do on all of my kind of like Ashforth feeders or Miller feeders is, is to take the plastic or take the metal bit out and just let the bees go in and put the— I always, I always call it the wrong thing. I always call it hay. It's not hay, it's straw. So what I use is straw. If you're going down the shop to buy it, it's not hay that you want. It is, it is straw. It is the correct thing that you actually want. And I just— You can do it either way, but you can either put the straw in first and like drizzle the syrup over the top, or you can put the syrup in first and just chuck the hay over the top. Both, both ways work very, very well. It's, uh, it's funny, I've been posting a lot more on Facebook and posting like native videos onto Facebook. Just been trying that out for the past kind of few months and, uh, seeing how it, how it's going and getting a lot of, a lot of comments, a lot of abuse. It's brilliant on people on Facebook saying Oh man, that's totally wrong. You're feeding bees fake food. You're inciting robbing. And it's just like, well, I've just taken all their honey. And they say you shouldn't take all the bees' honey. You should— the bee— you need to leave the honey for the bees. That's, that's the way to do it. And I'm like, it's not, it's not really how it works though, is it? If you're farming bees, it doesn't really work like that. But hey ho, uh, the videos are getting good engagement, which is, which is always nice to see. Uh, next question is from Thomas Lindsay. He says, evening. Tonight's goal— it's not a question, this one— tonight's goal as the first of the offseason chats is to finish your cuppa. So I'm doing well because I sat down here at half 8 and I kind of thought I got the times wrong, I'm half an hour early. And I was trying to upload a video that I can see that some people are already, um, commenting on further down. I'm trying to upload videos. So what I'm doing at the moment, I've got the channel membership options on YouTube, but I've also started like promoting on Facebook as well. So you can become a channel member on YouTube, or you can be a channel member on Facebook, and the benefits are very, very similar. So I'm just at the moment trying to upload the behind-the-scenes video at Manchester to the Facebook one, and it's on like— it's just so slow. It's on 98.8%, and it's, it's trying to upload in the background. So I'm hoping that it's not buffering. Uh, but I just— I've seen, I've seen some of the comments there about, yeah, not, uh, not eating the bees. It was, it was quite It was quite good fun, a little bit out there, wasn't it? I really enjoyed it though. And it leads me on to another point as well, which is I did a video the other day saying like, don't do this in September, and it was talking about there's no real need to go and open your hives in September, and like if you open them, there's a risk that the bees might start robbing. So that's just like kind of factual information, but it's not like hard and fast rules. It's not to say thou shalt not ever open your hive in September, it's just saying, you know, Like if you open your hive in September, there's a risk that there'll be like bees sniffing around for robbing. But if you get towards like the end of September, there's an ivy flow, there probably won't be as much of a risk of robbing. So you just need to take each, like take the videos with a pinch of salt. It's never meant to be like a kind of dictatorship in you have to do this, you have to do that. It's just trying to give heads up to people who may not have experienced that before. You know, if you're in your first year, you might not know that if you start kind of just opening your hive up and leaving it open in September, you might have major issues with robbing. And then, you know, I was in Manchester 2 days ago just opening the hives up, and the guy Chris was like leaving the supers out, and there was a bit of robbing going on, but it wasn't— it's not horrific robbing. It wasn't as bad as I've seen because it was 8 stories up in the air. So it's not— yeah, it's not like— it's not strict. Don't need to take it so kind of literally, I think. It's just me trying to give Give like advice if I if I know something that's maybe happened to me or and and in that instance of that video there it was a case of I was doing another video I was doing a video about splodge and I'd rested up this frame against I didn't like smudge or smear any kind of literally just rested up a frame against the beehive and then closed it back up again and then noticed I was like oh my god like that is me putting that frame there and that smell just going on and then the bees being able to kind of kind of sensed it. I don't think bees can smell, but they, they go like kind of just like sniffing around for it, and then they find it, and then it's the reaction of the bees to the other bees is what kind of causes that crazy robbing that goes on. And it happened, it happened within minutes, and it was just a case of just putting one frame up against the hive. So I thought I'd do a video on that, because if, if you've got like one or two hives in your apiary, if you've got 10 hives in your apiary and you didn't know that and you're in your first year, I'd kind of want to know it. And you know YouTube, if I think somebody else commented, say, why didn't you just say, um, why didn't you make the title of the video, don't open your hives in September because it might cause robbing, and then I wouldn't have had to watch the video? And it's like, well, that's not, that's not really how YouTube works, is it? Okay, I want people to watch the videos. That's kind of half the, half the battle. But anyway, I won't, I won't continue with my moaning about YouTube and social media. Good evening, Laurence. I saw in one of your videos you used 2 different electric smokers. Which do you prefer in the end, and do you prefer over the traditional smoker? So first thing I would say is I tend to not use smokers anymore, just ever. Like, I used to always have a smoker on hand because the bees were— you saw my old bees, they were like pretty vicious and pretty aggressive. And you'd get to a point you're like, whoa, like I'm getting stung badly here, like either on the normal bee suit or the ultra bee suit, and you couldn't get them on your hands. You think, well, I need a smoker here to kind of like sort things out a little bit and for clearing them when you're putting the boxes back on. But like my bees are really, really chilled out now. So I generally, genuinely even, don't like the smoker anymore. So it is like the smoker's lit a bit for social media because it does look really nice in the videos. And that's me just being honest with you, like I'll put them out there because it's quite nice to get like the little slow motions of smokers and stuff. Especially the video yesterday in Manchester, I thought the smoker up that high was very, very nice. And it was funny because I said to Chris, You're gonna, you're gonna light the smoker? And he said, I don't really bother lighting the smoker, they're pretty chilled out. And I said, you could, could light it though because it might look nice. And he was like, yeah, sure, we'll light it. So a lot, a bit of that is for show. But then if there was an instance where I did want a smoker, I would want a proper fire smoker, like a real genuine one. The, the— and if I was to choose out of the 2 electric ones, I prefer the Ano one because I find it's a little bit more like reliable, and if it breaks, you can use it as like a conventional smoker as well. So you can just burn normal stuff in there, and I quite like the combination of the, the pine pads and like something else. Gives you like a nice smoke, and I love the smell of the pine ones. So if I was going to choose, I'd go with the Ano one, but I'd probably just go with like a standard smoker and, and just keep it, keep it kind of like smouldering away in the background. Richard Atkins says, would like to say thank you to Lawrence, great service and customer service. The replacement queen for a drone layer was very quick. Fondant or syrup for a buffer feed? So no problem, Richard, thank you very— it's very kind of you to say. Uh, for a buffer feed, I, I just— I, I really don't think it makes a massive difference. For a buffer feed, probably fondant, I would say. Fondant has a lot of benefits at this time of year. One, it doesn't start anywhere near as much robbing because it's very difficult to— for them to sense it, and it's very difficult for them to get like quick access into it if they make their way past the first line of defense, and it's obviously quite difficult to drop it and spill it. Uh, and then also with fondant is that they'll see it as like a reserve of stores, so you don't necessarily— they don't like take it down in the same way that fondant is taken down. If it's, if it's been buffering this video, the other, the other video is uploaded now, so I've just turned that off, so we're good. So I would say it doesn't, it doesn't make a massive difference. What I would say, and I've said this to, to channel members at the moment, is that I have switched now So where I've been kind of building up like back end of August, early September using 1:1, knowing that the bees aren't going to store it, they're just going to turn it into bees. And if you give them 2:1, they're just going to go and forage water and break it, break the 2:1 down to kind of like a liquid state so they can eat it anyway. So I'm not wasting my money putting invert in there. I have switched over to invert now. And then you look at the weather that's coming in and you think, ah, you just can't second-guess what's going on with the bees and with the weather. But I'd prefer for them to be in that situation now where there's more stores and they can kind of maintain it on the ivy, as opposed to like pushing them far without any stores and saying, well, we'll wait for the ivy to see what happens. I think the bees, they need a bit of a backup at that point in the year, or they do, they start to dip. And, and if you've seen my videos before, like what my bees look like going into winter, they're big strong colonies like bubbling over. Lots and lots of bees just about fitting in. And then when they're coming out of spring, like into spring, they're the same. And if you push it too far and don't feed properly around this point in the year, kind of back end of August or early September, only if you need to, like if there's a normal flow going on, don't feed at all. But if there isn't, to supplement it at that point, that's how you ensure that you've got sufficient bees to kind of go through the winter and be nice and strong. Honeybees says good evening. Hi Steve, same to Tony and Liz. Hello. From Pink It's Honey says good evening, look forward to this as I've missed the last few Sunday evenings. I think work for a lot of people. Says evening all, I'm on time tonight. Better than me, I was a couple of minutes late. And, and he said, Lawrence, I was glad to see you didn't scoop a bee into your mouth at lunch. Yeah, I came, came close and took, took a couple of stings. It looked worse, it looked worse on the video, I have to say. Chunky says, hi Lawrence, thanks for your advice as always. Please can you talk us through your feeding regime for the winter? What to feed and when? So I kind of touched on it a little bit before then, and it's probably one of the most difficult areas of like YouTube for me, telling people like what to feed and when, because what, what's working for me in North Wales can be so different to someone down in Shrewsbury, you know, 50 miles away. It can be completely different microclimate and a different forage available. So it's one of these things that you do need to kind of gauge for yourself, and I know that's difficult to say. Like someone messaged me saying, like, how do I gauge it? And I say, well, you know, if it feels light, it's probably too light, and if it feels too heavy, you need to go back and say, yeah, but I don't know what average is. So it is difficult to explain it, but what I would say is let's use an average example here. Say you've got a colony that's that's got 3 supers on and a single brood box, and you take all of that honey off, then so immediately I put my Apivar strips in, I put my feeder on, and I'm ready to feed. And at that point, that's like middle of August, what I would do at that point is I would do like a visual. I'd go in and have a look in the brood frames and say, well, I've taken all of their food away, and if I'm going in and I'm seeing like 10 frames of brood and no stores, I'm gonna feed, and I'm gonna give them like a good 2 or 3 liters of feed depending on what the weather's like. So in August, you can, you can do, you can just make a visual assessment based upon what's in the brood box, just have a look. If you're not comfortable with just lifting up the box to see what the weight is, get in there and have a look. Be careful not to squish your queen, but back end of August you still get replacement queens quite easily. And then it gives you, it calibrates your ability to heft at that point as well. So if you're, if you kind of lift up your, you've got your roof and your feeder on, no feed in it, and your brood box and your queen excluder, ratchet strap it all together and kind of lift it up. If you know that there's no stores in there whatsoever, then that's kind of like, well, if it's anything lighter than that, they're basically dead. So that gives you your, your kind of calibrated zero. And then what you could do is give them— let's use that example. So there's no, there's no stores in there whatsoever, like they're basically at the point of starvation. I'd give them 5 liters of 1:1. So I'd be feeding 1:1 at that point, knowing that they're just, they're going to eat that. So there's no point giving them 2:1. 2:1 at that point gives them more work because they can't process 2:1 without going out and foraging water, bringing it back and breaking it down. So give them, yeah, 5 liters of 1:1, and then I'd come back next week and I'd see what the situation's like again. And what you probably see at that point is you might have like 1.5, 2 frames of stores in there. And then what you can do is you can put the roof back on, strap it back up and lift it and say, okay, well, that's a little bit heavier. And then I'd probably give them another litre or 2 at that point because I'd like to keep between middle of August and say middle of September, I'd like to keep a buffer of between 2 to 4 frames of stores, some somewhere around that. And it'd be different, different for different colonies, different for different sizes. If you've got 14 by 12, only 2 frames for me, 2 frames of full stores is going to be fine. If you're on national brood, probably going to want like maybe 3 stores, something like that. But the whole time you're doing that, calibrate yourself, calibrate like when you're lifting so you know. And then as you get towards September and you're thinking, well, I don't want to be going in and kind of looking, but you know what light feels like. So at that point, if it's sunny outside, and if you want, you know, get luggage scales and do this, be a bit more scientific about it if you like, just like weigh it. The difference between bees in terms of like emerged brood and the brood is like negligible. It's probably going to be like a few, couple of hundred grams more or something like that. It's really not that much. I wouldn't worry about thinking, well, they would— it was brood at that point and I'm talking about emerged bees now. So you can just, you could lift it and just kind of luggage scales it and get the weight there. And then if it's nice weather, you know, well, I know what they weigh, I know there's 3 frames of stores in there and it's nice weather, I can see them coming in, they're bringing in pollen, So you'd probably like leave it for a bit, and then, and then you're just going into hefting. And then what I said, it was normally around middle of September I'll switch to 2:1, so I'll just be going in and hefting. But the idea for me between middle of August and kind of like mid to back end of September is I'm just, I'm ticking them over. I'm not building up that stores. I'm not getting them to a point where I'm lifting up and I'm like, oh my God, that's so heavy. Like, that's, that's a, that's like a 40-kilo hive. You don't want that early September. because then you do get issues and you'll get a massive dramatic reduction in the number of bees that are there because you've just filled all the cells with stores and then the queen's like, well, where do I lay? And then you just get this big drop. So you don't want that. And then towards kind of middle of September, I moved a little bit earlier this year because it got cold. It was like 9, 10 degrees here and the bees were thinking, well, what's going on here? So I moved to 2:1 about the 8th or 9th of September this year and then gave them a good first hit. And that first hit, again, I'd go in with like 6 liters. Something like that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't kind of brim the, brim the feeder and go with like 12 liters of syrup in one hit because there's no, there's no benefit to doing that. Go for 6 liters and then I'll probably go back and give another 6 liters. So all in all, you're only talking maybe like 15 to 20 liters of syrup per colony-ish, something like that. And then hoping that you're going to get like a little bit of a top-up with the ivy as well. And I know having done that for like a few years now It gives the bees enough space, it gives the queen enough space to lay, it means you're not blocking them out with syrup, and it means once they get to the point that they finished off on the ivy, and you see it, like you can track the ivy flow with the pollen coming in, and then once the ivy flow's finished, I'll go around and I'll lift them, and you can tell, you're like, well, that definitely doesn't need feeding, that doesn't need feeding, okay, that one probably needs a good another 6 liters, and at that point— you can't really overfeed. So if you're going in back end of September, early October, very, very difficult to overfeed then because you've either got lots of brood, winter bees, and you're just kind of putting the stores around the brood, or all of the winter bees have emerged and they don't need that space for a couple of months while they're just kind of going to sit there and just try and get through the winter. So that's like, that's my feeding regime, but it's— you need to take each and every hive kind of that advice with a pinch of salt and do what is right for your colonies and your situation and your specific climate. There we go. Right, Aidan, how you doing? Hi, John. My TV or my desktop monitor is about to turn itself off, so let's fix that. Oh, that's not fixed it. Here we go. Arctic Beekeeping, hello from northern Norway. Hello. I'm thinking about going to Apimondia next year, 2025, which is across— I think it's Norway, Sweden, and Denmark— being held in Copenhagen. And my sister, my sister lives in Copenhagen city center, so I'm thinking about going out there and, and seeing what it's about. That would be pretty cool. Evening, Jay. Julian Lawley, oh no, why not whiteboard? Your alliteration is renowned worldwide. Thank you very much. Okay, I get what you mean. I think illustration, but I know what you meant. The hotels go for rooftop apiaries for an extra green tick against their score sheet. It's becoming quite the thing in Europe, and of course fresh honey too. Yeah, it's a great idea. Like, if I was going to go for food, I was so happy sitting up on that that rooftop terrace. It was cool. I, I spoke to Chris about how, how much the rent was as well. I won't, I won't say. It was, it was not cheap. Greetings from the Caribbean. I wish I was in the Caribbean. Actually, wait, is it, is it like tornado season or hurricane season over there? I always get it confused. Hi Lawrence, thanks for the queens. Arrived safe and sound. Split and requeening done in both, fingers crossed. Things crossed. Scout About says, do stores need to be capped before winter? Oh, what is that? Winter boar bear open. Okay, so I think, I think it says, do stores need to be capped before winter, or are they okay? Or are open stores okay? So if it basically— open stores are okay, it's not the end of the world. If, if anything is low moisture content, they'll just consume it quite quickly. And, and if you're feeding invert, invert just, it doesn't need to be capped at all. And you'll find that bees don't bother capping invert a lot of the time. It's strange. So you feed it late on and it's just too cold for them to cap it. Uh, so, oh, have I missed— I've missed loads of comments there. Sorry about that. I'll jump back up. I don't know how I've done that. That's very odd. Lots and lots. I've like jumped down to the bottom. Sorry. So no, they don't need to be open, but let me go back up to the top. I've missed loads of comments. I don't know I've done that. Right, where do we get to? Beekeeping with a Smile in Amherst, Ohio. Sorry if I've said that wrong. Advice please, have fed my bees 2:1 syrup and they have filled all the space available and queens can't lay. What do I do? Yeah, so awkward that one. The only thing you can do, there's only really one thing you can do there, is remove some of the frames and put in frames of foundation. And frames of foundation at this point in the year are fine, they'll just draw them out really, really quickly. and lay them nicely and you'll get 100% worker brood. So it's not— don't worry about doing that, that's fine. If you've got, say you've got 12 frames in your hive, take out like 4 frames, 3 or 4 frames of stores, and then put frames of foundation. Let's see, I wish I had my whiteboard now. So you need a frame of foundation and then like 2 frames of stores sandwiching it. So you've got stores and then foundation in the middle like that. And you can do that with like 3 or 4 frames at once, and then they will, they will draw them out super quick. And then once they've drawn them all out, condense them all down to the middle so you've got all of the 4 with Brood all together, and then you'll be fine. Says, evening all, listening to the stream on YouTube and watching the darts. Cheers for the speedy response through WhatsApp, great customer service. Oh, no problem at all. Lots of people message me on WhatsApp and they're always amazed that I get back quite quickly, but it's just it's one of my rules, which is if if something takes less than two minutes to do, you have to do it straight away and not spend the time planning to do it. There we go. I it sounds like I kind of quite well organize and plan my life well. I definitely don't. I'm so disorganized, but I I'm good at getting back to people. John Hayes, channel member, says evening Lawrence. Should we be on two two on syrup now? This week set for twenties in Kent. So it's that hmm. If when I gave the advice to go to 2:1, like, this is, this is North Wales. There's no, there's no damage to feeding 2:1 now because I just think it's a— I'm doing it less on the weather but more on like the length of the day as to when the winter bees are going to be created. So what I would say though for the next 2 weeks is you shouldn't have to feed. Like, if the weather's— if the weather looks like it's going to be and the ivy comes out And that's the important bit, like it doesn't matter what the weather's doing, it's only really going to be the ivy and the Himalayan balsam, if you've got it near you, that's yielding anything now. But if you're near balsam and the ivy's out and you can see that, like you can, I can see the ivy starting to come in now, and we get those 2 weeks of weather, then just don't feed anything. Just don't feed it, don't feed a drop, the bees will take care of themselves, and then once you see that flow tail off, then top them up. Accordingly, Gary Wheeler says, "Hi Lawrence, went into my hive yesterday after a few weeks and disaster. Frames are welded solid with propolis. Why? Why can I? Oh, why? Why can I do broke three frames trying to get in? Never happens before." So yeah, they do at this time of year. They stick everything together because they don't. They don't want people going in. My challenge back, Gary, would be: What did you need to go in for? There's very few reasons at this point in the year. why you need to go in to see what's going on. And one of them could be you want to like check for stores, but once you've done that once, you should roughly know and be able to like lift and heft. And checking to make sure that there's queens in there should have been done kind of like 6 weeks ago. Apivar strips are— there's no need to go in because you should be kind of like halfway through the treatment, roughly like that, something now. So you've got another 4 weeks left before you need to take them out, and then when you take them out, you don't need to take any frames out, you just pop pop the strips out. So I, I, yeah, I, I don't— I'm not going into a single colony apart from, you know, if I'm doing like YouTube video, I want to show, show people what's going on. I'm not going into any at the moment. Uh, Robert Thomas says, come on all, it takes a second to thumbs up the stream, do it now, then just sit back, enjoy. Very nice. Couldn't see my thumbs up there, but it was a thumbs up. Thank you, Robert. Stealth says, I say requeening done, not complete, popped in the hives with tabs still intact. Well, that's, that's the difficult bit done. Hopefully you go back and all is good. Mem is sunning himself in sunny Cyprus. Very nice. Hope you're having a nice time out there, Mem. Steve H says, love the videos. I'm only at beekeeping a year. You're really helping a lot. We have black bees here in Ireland, but was wondering, do you post your Buckfast bees to Ireland? Thanks. Uh, so no, unfortunately we do, we do not post to Ireland. Uh, it's outside of the UK, so we, we can't post there. And I think I'd get lynched if I post the Buckfast bees to Ireland as well. Hi Lawrence, hope you're well. That cheap Newcastle one just drowns bees in the feeder. Ah, use straw, they just want to swim, they can get through to the main feeder. Yeah, it's not the best, that one, is it? The other thing I noticed about that nuc, I'm okay with it, you know, in terms of feeding, because I've read a few people saying that the fondant plug, the silicone plug, sorry, silicone plug leaks, and I didn't have that issue with my one, it didn't leak. And then I've not had an issue with them, with them getting up into the feeder. The one, the one issue that I have had with it though, and I realize why they say now you don't need to paint the EPP hives— oh, it doesn't need to be painted— is because you can't paint them. The paint doesn't stick to them. And I remember as I was painting, I was thinking, it's not, it's not drying the way it kind of going like streaky. It's almost like, I don't know what, you know, if you paint like a waxed box, that's exactly what I'm trying to think of. If you paint like a wax box and the paint just sits on the surface and you don't get doesn't suck in at all. And on EPS, so expanded polystyrene, you paint it with masonry paint, you can feel like it sticks, sucks in a little bit. And then with EPP, expanded polypropylene, it just sat there and the paint's just flaking off all over the place now. So you can't paint them, which is— which again, like, you can see they're promoting that as a positive to say they don't need to be painted. But I, I like to paint the boxes. I do think they look nicer painted. Obviously, when we're selling nucs, we don't paint them because people are not going to want my, like, wacky paint jobs, and it's quite time-consuming painting, so we wouldn't just paint them to send them out. The branch that fell on my hives had damaged a nuc I had at the apiary for storage. Would you do a video on repairing a nuc with filler? Oh, this would be a John Beagrie job. I have done one previously in the past, so we use When we're— Sorry, John, I don't, I don't expect that you have to do that, but I know, I know you are very good at finding old videos, but better than I am probably. But with any sort of polyhive, it's really, really easy to fill it. So you can use— there's 2, 2 things, 2 things that you can use. One is like exterior-grade wood filler, so make sure it's exterior-grade wood filler, and then you can use like bamboo sticks as reinforcement. But that's not my favorite one. My favorite one is to if you get like, um, have a sacrificial poly hive. So if you've got a poly hive like you've broken or something— everyone's got one, haven't they? Like you've broken a poly hive, it's just snapped in half and it's not repairable. And then you can cut out bits of that and then stick it in with polyurethane glue and then use the bamboo sticks to like hold it in place. And you can do that and then leave like a 5mm gap on the top and then go over the top with an external grade wood filler. And that was kind of the video that I did, and it— that way it works really, really well, rock solid. And then you can, if it depending on how it's broken, you can use screws as well. So if you're like screwing two bits together, coat it loads of polyurethane glue, screw it all together, and then I wait for the polyurethane to foam out and leave it to properly set. And then you like chip it off with a little chisel. I've done that one. You should be able to find that video somewhere. Caden, I think it is saying, looking to start my first hives in the spring and going for the twelve frame Abello poly. When is best to get them? Do a bellow, do winter sales. So yeah, they do. They do what they call the Great Polyhive Sale, which I think is kind of like early October. It's coming up very soon. So if you if you like subscribe to their web list or something, I'm sure they'll they'll send it out. I I do their social media as well, so I'll stick it on their social media page. But it is. I think it's a kind of like early yeah early October, middle of October. Excellent. John confirmed there was no buffering. That was good. Uh, John Hayes says, what temp do you run your, uh, what temp do you run your honey warmer at? So we'll go for like, it's about 43, I think I'd put mine at. But sometimes you can go— you— my honey warmer goes up to 55, and you can, you can run it at 55 just for a shorter amount of time, so it's kind of like go a bit quicker. They've got a curve showing the HMF, so it's not a case of like lower temperatures are better for HMF. Because lower temperature, like you're trying to get to a point which is you're trying to liquidize, liquefy the honey. So you've got a kind of like this physical endpoint, a tangible endpoint, and you can get there in many different ways. You can get there really, really high temperature for a short amount of time or really, really low temperature for a long amount of time. And they did tests kind of showing the increase in HMF, which is like a toxic chemical that is produced in honey when it's heated. And they were showing that it's actually like not a huge amount of difference, I don't think, in terms of those 2, those 2 different ways of doing it. So I prefer to go a little bit hotter, a bit quicker, get it done. Hi Lawrence, have you ever had it when the bees eat the insulation in the roof? If so, what would be the reason for this? So if it's like Celotex, they're just a nightmare. Like anything like Celotex or Kingspan insulation, they just— I don't know why they do it. They're just annoying. I'd say they're little gits. Uh, what you need to do is when you, when you make the board, you need to use like— they got like, I'll say aluminum, but it's not aluminum, is it? Aluminum tape. And you tape all of the edges up, and any little tiny nick that you've got, just cover it with this aluminum tape which they sell, and then it fixes it. And they can't get through the aluminum, and they can't get through the, the aluminum, like the, the, the metal backing board, whatever it is. They can't get through that. It's where there's like a little tiny bit of an opening, and then they get in. Uh, Michael would have appreciated my aluminum work. That was, that was especially for you there, Michael. But hello, good afternoon from New Hampshire, USA. Evening everyone. Good evening, hope you're well. This is the first time I've taken honey off 2 sites. Do I need to keep them separate from each other and have different batch numbers, or can I just mix it all in? So in terms of batch numbers, you can do whatever you want. You could, you could do it frame by frame, you could do it hive by hive, you can do it site by site. The batch numbers is just kind of like a mechanism for you to ensure that you have some sort of control over everything. But just the bigger your batch number, the bigger risk you've got if something does go wrong. So if somebody finds something in something, you've got everything's just one batch, then you've got to return everything like that. But I don't, I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference, just as long as you're writing everything down and you've got good records. Either of those would be fine. Uh, Putting my wet supers back onto clean— geez, that was a mistake during the day. Horrendous robbing. Yeah, it doesn't get much— it doesn't get much worse than that. They find it— even the smell from outside the boxes, even if they can't get in, they can just sense that there's stuff there. They go, go for it. Hello from Colorado. Hello to you too. It was a question from last time asking about storing supers over winter. It's only because with my job it's full-on, so I don't have much time to extract it there and then. Uh, okay, so you were saying about why would you, why would you want to store like a full super over winter? Okay, it's, uh, yeah, I, I still wouldn't do it though because you'd go back to extract it next year and it's, um, yeah, my, my full-time job's pretty full-on as well, but you just got, you gotta make time for honey extraction, whether that's, uh, working late into the night or taking time off work. Honey extraction, you've got to do it. Get it in the buckets, let it, uh, crystallize there, and then you can work from it. Shell's Shed channel member says, "I can't watch this live tonight. We'll be catching up later or tomorrow, but wanted to say I've loved these sessions this year. So informative." Thanks, Shell. I hope you have a nice evening and you'll catch up with this tomorrow. So hello for tomorrow, Ludette Arnoud. I butcher people's names. I do apologize. That's it said with no finesse whatsoever. But I try my best. He says, "Hi, watching your videos here from France. Very educative." I just, I can't even say it. Sorry, I know what you mean. Thanks for the good job. Thank you very much. I'll stop, I'll stop just saying rubbish stuff now. Here we go, I'll have a cup of tea. There we go, I've got a nice mint tea today. Oh right, stop offending everyone. Steve's Honeybee says, with your reference to robbing, we've lost a couple of hives to this. Came across a nuc this morning being robbed, so closed it up straight away and moved it to a new location 2 miles away. Was this right? Pretty much perfect. That's exactly what I would advise if you can do that. Take it away, get it out. Best thing you can do. Scout About says, what sort of rith should a Payne's National nuc be going into winter? What sort of weights? Okay, it's like a fun game guessing, guessing what the word is. What sort of weight? Um, I need to do, I need to do a video on this. I definitely did a video on this before, John, if you can find it. It— I, I did weights of different hives. But I want to say about like about that, about that heavy, you know. But no, it's not going to work, is it? So let's, let's work it out roughly. I think the nucs probably are like a few kilos, the bees are probably a couple of kilos, and then store. So I reckon I'm taking a punt in the dark here, between 10 to 12 kilos. I'll go and weigh a couple of my Payne's nucs and see roughly what they're like. I think a useful video would be to show like a light nuc, what a light nuc weighs and what a heavy nuc weighs, and then you can kind of take it from there. I'm due to take Formic Pro off after the 2 weeks. Are you saying in the video not to open in September due to robbing? Just joined, so I may have missed this. So, so no, exactly, exactly not that, which is if you've got no reason to open your hives in September, don't open them because there is a risk of robbing. If you've got reason to open your hives in September, just do it as quick as you can. Like, if you need to get in to take Formic Pro off, get in there and take the Formic Pro off. Just be aware that as you open it up, there'll be some bees around trying to rob. And if you see any robbing, close the entrances down just to kind of like a single bee space, and then the bees will be able to sort it out pretty quickly. Hi everyone, I physically watched a queen hatch, but after 4 weeks, no eggs or queen. So introduce a mated queen. 1 week later, she was out but no sign. 3 weeks later, no no queen or eggs. It's on 12 frames full of bees and stores. What should I do? I have another 12 hives in that apiary. So these are always the awkward ones at this point in the year because normally I would say, you know, you need to get another queen in there if it's, if it's that long. They should, they should be laying at this point in the year unless they're like bone dry and they've not had any stores in there. If it's been like you say 3 weeks there, it could like on the cusp be coming back in, but the problem that you have is that a lot of hives at this time of the year will just— like, the queens don't lay. So you could have a perfectly good hive that was 10 frames of brood 4 weeks ago, and then you go back in and there's just like the queen's there and there's not a single egg and there's no capped brood and there's nothing. And that's just normal for this point of year. So just because you introduced a new queen, it doesn't mean that the queen's like— it doesn't mean that the queen's a dud. So it's got— you've got 12 frames, you say you've got 12 frames of bees, or is it— Yeah, it's on 12 frames full of bees. So you've got plenty of time to kind of like see what's going on before anything bad happens in terms of the number of bees that you've got, but you've not got much time left in terms of queens that are available. So what I would do if it was my colony is I'd just give them— I'd give them a few more weeks, and when I go to take my Apivar strips out, I'd just be very carefully looking to see if there's anything in there. And, and hopefully you go back and see that there'll be eggs and brood in there. And if not, at that point I'll just merge them with another colony, just like a newspaper combine. That's what I would be doing. Not gonna, uh, click on the cheat viewers from Twitch. Uh, channel member says, evening Lawrence, hit the like button everyone. Thank you, David. channel member says, thank you for letting me cancel my recent queen. The split I had made to put her in did die out, robbing I believe. Try again next season. That's no problem, Mike. We're always happy to let people cancel their orders. Uh, John says it was buffering a bit now when answering Chunky's question. It is showing as a little bit low. Hmm, not sure why that's happening. Julian says, where did you find the, the clear plastic instead of crown board, please? Um, in terms of like the thick Perspex stuff that I use, or like the thinner stuff? Because the, the like, Payne's comes with— like, a lot of them do, like Payne's, Maysmore, BS Honeybees. They all come with their own thin plasticky polycarbonate boards. And then I bought loads of 6mm thick Perspex and made some boards out of those, and they're nice. I do, I do like the big thick ones, but they do— they scratch, and then once they scratch, they're not quite as— not quite as nice. I think that's what you meant though. The Brave, brilliant name, says, overwintered nuc ordered and looking forward to dipping my toes into the beekeeping world and hopefully make my first honey harvest. I get as excited as you probably are just for other people because it's such a great hobby to get involved in, and the feeling of, you know, having your own bees and then getting to the end of the season and thinking they've done quite well, we've got quite a lot of honey, and it's just nice, you know. You've gone from one colony, you'll probably be at 3 colonies at the end of next year, you've caught a couple of swarms, and you'll be designing your labels, and yeah, it's good fun. Beekeeping is brilliant. Buzz Stings and Bee Juice says, I left a super on a hive at an out apiary that I can't get to for a while but have treated with Apitraz. Can I no longer extract from these, or will they be okay to extract from next year? So no, you can never extract from a frame that has been in a hive when you use Apivar or Apitraz. Same, same thing. It's Amitraz, the chemical. I don't know why I did that with my hands, uh, but yeah, it's a bit— it's just a bit annoying. The reason is because the way it works is that the strips are impregnated with Amitraz, and then the bees walk over them with all their little feet, and then they spread the chemical all the way around. So all of the wax that's in the hive at that moment is contaminated with the chemical, so you can never extract out of it again. That's why they say to not use it when you have the supers on. So probably just cut the wax out and re-wax the frames is what I would do. Robert Pritchard, channel member, says, after removing— and sorry, after removing supers and applying apiary, still had lots of bees on the outside of the hive even when cold. Hive is full inside, would you just leave it? So I had a few, a few people have messaged me about this saying I condensed my bees down, there's just nowhere near enough room for them. So my, my suggestion is— there's 2 suggestions. One is you double brood if they're like— there's double the amount of bees, just, just make it easy, just go double brood, and then you can fix it next year or change it round. A lot of people don't like to do that, so, so the other suggestion— and, and this is, it can be a bit of a messy suggestion, this one— is put the queen excluder back on, put an empty super back on, and just leave the bees like that. And, and what they'll do is they'll just, they'll just all go up and they'll just cluster up there. And then what happens is if you get this weather like we're going to get now, 20 20 degrees for a couple of weeks, they're probably going to start building wild comb up there. But because you've got the queen excluder on, it's quite, it's quite an easy fix just to kind of take all the honey out. It's messy, you don't really want to be doing it, but it's just, it's just a nuance of, of using Apivar that you, you sacrifice all of that honey. Because what you could do is put another super on, just like store the honey, but it's— you can't, you can't do that when you have your Apivar strips in there. So that, that would be my suggestion, is, uh, yeah, double brood or empty super with a queen excluder. And, and you find a lot, if you didn't get, if you don't get really, really nice weather, the super with the queen excluder is quite, it is quite a good little technique because they just go up there, cluster up, and then before you know it, they're just, they're like condensing down. And then before you get into winter, like when you go to take your Apivar strips out, you can just remove the super. And then they're just about fit. Scoutabout says, are the capped brood we are seeing now the winter bees? So yeah, very, very likely. There might be some winter bees that have emerged already, but the capped brood that you're seeing now is almost certainly going to be winter bees because there's no, there's no real work for those bees to do. They're never going to leave the hive. Well, they might, you know, they might leave the hive a little bit, but they'll be, they'll be very young. They won't have done much difficult work by the time the winter comes. Devil's Honey says, smash the like button. I do, I do like people saying that, so thank you, much appreciated. Hi Lawrence, I have 15 commercial hives, all a minimum of 2 supers that will be removed at the end of this week. How much feed would you recommend giving to them? So if you're taking away all of their honey, I just, I'd get the, I'd get your feeders on and give them like 2 or 3 litres, something like that, just to be like, right, that's base level, get them to a point where they're not going to starve. And then you've got a couple of weeks of nice weather, so I'd see, see where you go with a couple of weeks of nice weather. and then go heavy feeding, 2:1, to get them up to weight. Do you have any caps for sale? So no, I got, I got myself, sorry, into a massive mess with, with caps. I've got loads of caps here actually, um, but I don't know, I don't have any for sale. I've got a few left and I'm just keeping them for competition prizes. Cub Rider is, is definitely getting one because his video's got 371,000 views for the honey frame uncapping. So I think that competition's as good as over. So might as well send you that one now if you want. I don't think anyone else is beating that one. But then I've got, I think, got 3 caps left and I'm not, I'm not getting any more made. Sorry. It's, it, it all kicked off previously with, I, I pay like £30 each including the VAT for these hats because they're like quite expensive. You can see they're like, like 3D printed. I don't know if you can see that on there. Oh, it's gonna not focus on me. This is what I did before, uh, and I was, I was selling them for £30. I wasn't like making any money, but I still had to package them up and send them out. And, and people were kicking off saying, that's ridiculous, like, how can you sell a hat for £30? And I was like, that's what it costs me, that's what it costs me. So it— I just decided to not sell hats and not make any money on them and, uh, give them away to people who do fun things in competitions. So, so that become quite exclusive. So sorry, Steve. Julian Lawley says, damn, I haven't fed enough. My problem is I feed early I feed in the early evening, then next day I have bad robbing problems. Shouldn't have robbing problems feeding. If you feed all of the colonies in the apiary, then they all should just be quite busy taking their own feed, so they're kind of not inclined to rob, unless you're near to other people who are not feeding, and then it might be triggering them some way. But like, the hive should be completely secure. I only laugh because of Griff's video and the comments on Griff's video about black, black bin bags and stuff. But your hive should be secure, like you shouldn't have gaps in your hives. So if you're feeding them, they shouldn't be able to get in other than the entrance. So just reduce the entrance right down, don't spill any syrup when you're putting the stores in, when you're putting the feed in, and then you shouldn't— it shouldn't trigger, uh, robbing. So there's something, there's something going on there, I reckon. Not sure what. Uh, Matt Burrows says also, when in the year would you say it's better to put baker's fondant? So this question comes up a lot in terms of like, what's the time that you switch from fondant— sorry, from syrup to fondant, and when's the best time to do it? And all I would say is just if you can get away without feeding fondant, brilliant. That should be your target. Feed your bees correctly in the winter— kind of, sorry, like now, late summer, early autumn, so that they just get through all the way until April, and then you've not got to feed them. That's, that's the target. That's what everyone should be aiming for. And then fondant should be if you get through to kind of like February, early March, and you're like, you're going and hefting, you're like, whoa, that is seriously light. And you look inside and there's just, it's no stores, obviously not pulling out frames, but you can kind of see. That's the point that I'd put fondant on, put a big 6-kilogram slug— slug, not a slug— a big slab of fondant on at that point as like an emergency winter feed. So that's that's it. There's no like time to put it on. It's just a case of make sure you feed them well, get them sorted, and if if if they need it, then give them fondant. Scout about says, "Do stores need to be capped before winter board bed open?" Is the same thing again. So I answered it before, but no, they don't need to be. They don't need to be. Julian Julian can't smell a smell. That's that was the perfect Freudian slip there. Julian can't spell, and I can't read. There we go. Chunky says, awesome, thanks for your advice on feeding earlier. Please can you explain to a newbie what is your thought process when deciding which feed to use, i.e., 1:1, 2:1, or fondant? Thanks again. So you get— you hear a lot of this, and the textbook gets— I didn't say the textbook gets this one wrong, but people get way too bogged down in syrup strengths, I think. So what the textbooks say is In spring, you use 1:1 because it simulates a nectar flow and it stimulates the queen to lay. If you feed the bees 2:1 in spring, it does exactly the same, but why waste your money? All comes down to economics for me. It's like, use the one that costs the least amount of money at the correct time of the year. So that's what they say, early in the spring, stimulative feeding, you should use 1:1. but feel free to use 2:1, makes no difference to the bees whatsoever. Early feeding, so kind of August onwards, so early winter feeding or late summer feeding, when you know all the bees are going to do with that stores is turn it into bees, feed 1:1 because it's cheaper and again stimulates the queen to lay and it simulates a flow, which for me is what I want. I want to build the colonies kind of as much as I can at that time of year and get them big. But again, feed 2:1. They're just gonna— they're gonna do the same with it. It gives them a little bit more work because they need to go and feed, they need to go and collect the water to break it down. And then the only time where, like, there's— I'd say it's a hard and fast rule— is when you go back in back end of September, early October, 2:1. That's the time to feed 2:1. And swapping that out to 1:1 at that point is not a good idea, and you'll cause real issues for your bees. So that's like the easiest way to remember it is at all times of the year you can feed either and it doesn't make a massive difference apart from at the back end of the year you can only feed 2:1. And then chucking fondant into that equation as well, you can feed fondant at literally any point in the year. So in the spring you can feed them fondant and they'll take it down. In late summer, like middle of August onwards, you can, you can feed them fondant, they'll take it down, they'll store fondant. they'll liquefy it and store it. I've fed colonies up only on fondant. I'm doing it again this year, and they'll take it down. And then in the middle of winter, you can feed fondant as well. So the only real, the only real time to not feed 1:1 is from like end of September through to middle of March, something like that. And then everything, everything else goes apart from that. Just another question, when storing supers, I normally wrap them in black shrimp wrap. Is it correct if I have any bits of, I guess, pollen in the frames? Will they go rotten? Cheers for the information. So if you are storing them wet, so if the bees haven't cleaned up the frames and you've got pollen in them, they will go a bit moldy. But if it's just a little bit, the bees will clean them out, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you're storing them dry and they've got pollen in, you'll get pollen mites in there. And what they do is the pollen mites kind of like— they don't eat the pollen. I guess they are taking the nutrients out of the pollen. But they kind of leave behind like this dust, and then you, you just shake it out early on in the year. So it's a much neater method for it. But either way, it's not, it's not the end of the world. If you've got lots and lots of pollen in your supers, you're much better off storing it dry and letting the bees from that respective super or that hive clear them back up before storing them, because otherwise they will go mouldy, and then you'll have to toss a lot of them out. Uh, Stuart Williamson says thanks. No problem. Don't forget to hit the like button. I love it. Excellent, thank you very much. Says, hi Lawrence, John from County Durham. Do you overwinter with closed floors on hives? Good question. So it's another one where I don't think it makes a massive difference. I, I, on my overwintered ones, I, I don't even have boards. I don't have monitoring boards in there because I never monitor for varroa. I just treat. So all of my overwintered colonies, full-size colonies, just have open mesh floor the whole way through the winter. And same with my nucs, I don't put like any boards or anything in like that. So, so I kind of leave mine open throughout the whole of the winter. But all of my locations are not like that, they're pretty well enclosed. They're not, you know, they're not getting battered, they're not like on a moor, or they're not like somewhere where the wind's going to really get in and cause any issues. Richard hates open mesh floors, and he, he's got some open mesh floors and he's covered them all in, filled them all in, and now runs everything on solid. And he seems to think they do a lot better on solid. So I think it's, I think it's location dependent. So I think County Durham could be like, depending on where you are, could be quite windy, could be quite exposed. They might do better with solid floors. A lot of, a lot of bee farmers moving back back over to solid floors, which is, which is interesting. But I'm quite happy with the open mesh floors they've been doing. They've been doing good. Uh, Robert Bergin— Bergin is Robert. I know we chat, but I always get your surname wrong. Evening all, he says. Have you heard if anyone's taken over Pains? Was hoping to get a load of extension boxes. Um, so, so no, no one will be taking over Pains in terms of like the name. Pains will no longer exist. I think someone is likely going to take over the moulds, all of the moulds, so I hear. Um, I was hoping to get a load of extension boxes. Is it National extension boxes that you wanted, uh, or Langstroth ones? Let me know. Not like I can do a huge amount about it, just, just interested. Uh, but I, I— so, so I think if you're, if you're thinking about getting— is Jasper in the background? Any kind of pains equipment, it's going to be, it's going to be ages, I think, until anyone's ramped up to the point that they've got like stock. I just can't see it happening anytime soon. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I just can't see it happening anytime soon. Been following your YouTube channel for 2 years now and finally ordered my nucs from you, I'm guessing, and look forward to restarting this hobby after a 40-year hiatus. Newly retired former beekeeper. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for trusting us with your nucs. I hope you, uh, I hope you do well with them. And, uh, yeah, thanks for your support, much appreciated. Hi Lawrence, in July I was given a swarm which I put into my Flow Hive. A few weeks ago I checked, they only had 5 frames drawn out and full of brood and stores. Is there more? There is more. Uh, so they hadn't drawn the other frame out, so I used some dried drawn foundation from, I'm guessing, a nuc. Do you think that will help them get through winter? Um, so yeah, I just get to get them fed up, they should be fine. Sorry, that's a cop-out answer. I, I think, I think they will be fine. It's just a swarm, you know, you know what they say about late swarms, they build up. But swarms are— oh, I just, I've got no, I've got no time for swarms. I really don't. I know, I know they're good fun and I would like to do more videos on them, but disease risk a big one. But also, oh, you just put so much effort into swarms and then they swarm again and you just think, well, like, I knew they were going to do that. Get the swarm 6 frames, build up to 9 frames, you think, right, a couple more weeks and we can get a super on. You go to put the super on, they're swarmed. You just think, bees. But yeah, get them fed up. Hi Lawrence, just ordered my Langstroth nuc. Thank you for all your help. No problem at all. Thank you for your support, Mia. Uh, Ian Davies says, do you still vape api-bioxyl mid-December? So that is interesting because no, I don't. Uh, I tend to go— it's like mid to back end of November now, I find, for us is roughly the broodless period. And I know that only from going into colonies and having a look and seeing like if they are actually broodless. And the last 2 times I did that, they were broodless middle of November. And then when I went in mid-December, because like historically past few years they said around Christmas, and I was like, I swear Christmas is too late, and looked in some colonies at Christmas and they all had brood, like every single one of them. So I do think it's like shifting, everything's shifting to the left a bit. I spray painted my castle hive with rattle cans. Oh, that, that'd be interesting to see if the, if the oil, the oil-based paint from like a spray paint has kind of melted it a bit and stuck. Better. That'd be interesting. I want to see. You need to— it's the roof that where it's coming off on mine, where the water's sitting on it. But it's like, you know, it's even— I've used, I've used that masonry paint that I use, that Valspar, for like 8 years now, and it doesn't come off. It sticks well. So it's definitely like some sort of chemical bonding issue. Maybe it works better with spray paint. So I'll be interested to see if that works for you. John Hayes says, I tried to soft set my Runny Honey, just a mixer, but it wouldn't thicken at all. Is there a way to get soft set without having to do the dice method. So not, not in like a reliable, you know, if you wanted to like sell it, or if you want to keep the jars as soft set, the dice method is, is the way forward. The dice method is pretty easy though. You don't need any, like, real, really any specialist equipment for the dice method. You could do it with a, like, a hand whisk if you wanted to, and a bucket. Or if you want to upgrade it slightly, get like a stainless steel paddle, which is about like £30 or £40, and just put it on your drill. if you've got a drill. And then you can build, you can build the dice method up really, really quickly. You just do that one jar of honey and mix it with like one jar of like soft-set seed honey. Get good soft-set seed, don't just use my all-seed rape honey that I put in the creamer. The dice method is different from kind of like creamed soft-set honey, which would be like a little bit coarser. I'm looking at you here. I have changed my formula, so we will compete again. But it's really, really quick to do. I do some of it in— this is my own personal use, yeah, obviously we use the creamer— but you know, like big gherkin jars? Yeah, clean them out, disinfect them, put them in the dishwasher a couple of times. I use them as like my water. I've not got any cups here, but like just drinking water, I drink out of old jars. And, um, but you can do it in that. So you just get like a jar of seed honey Pour it all into the bottom of the gherkin jar, clean, and then pour your liquid honey in. And then just like mix it with the back of like a wooden spoon and put it like somewhere coolish. 14 degrees apparently optimum. And then just stir it every day. And then you've got like big gherkin jars. And then a gherkin jar is like big enough seed for like a whole bucket of honey. So then just like warm up a bucket of honey, 30 pounds, tip a bit of it out, put the seed back in, and then just stir that every day. for like a couple of weeks. Um, you start it with a, with a metal spoon or something, but then if you've got the drill bit, it makes it a lot easier. And then you've got— it's done. It's really, really easy and quick. And once you've got buckets of seed, it becomes, becomes even easier. Oh, I should have drank that before. Excuse me. Do you have a video on introducing the queens that come in the different queen cages with the yellow tape Is there anything different I should have done? I didn't realize there wasn't a tab to break. So sorry, I did. I did intend to email people. I completely forgot about that. So so no, the the only difference is they shouldn't be able to get through the tape, but they they might start chewing through it. So it's a case of the tape should stop them. The tape is your tab, and then you go back in and you should be able to take the tape off, and then they eat through the fondant. But I think. with, uh, like, I should, I should use plastic tape really as opposed to masking tape. I think they start to like nibble through the masking tape. So no, I didn't, but I will do one, and that was my fault. Sorry. Do you still keep in touch with Carl Lockyer? So no, I don't keep in touch with Carl. I had a few issues, a lot of issues with Carl's queens, and I had a lot of people saying, I want to go, I want to buy queens from Carl, like, can you recommend them? And I said, well, No, I can't, because I've had 6 artificially inseminated queens from him, and every single one had died within a month of being introduced. And, um, and, and Carl said that was my fault, apparently. And I was like, I'm pretty sure it's not my fault, Carl. Like, I know how to introduce queens, and they were introduced and they were laying eggs, and then they just killed them, like 6 in a row. So I just— no, so I don't, I don't keep in touch with Carl anymore. I'm not falling out with him. I've just not— I've not spoken to him for a while. Evening, Laurence, thank you so much for all the advice and help. You have already answered the question on winter feeding that I was going to ask you. Thank you, Billy. No problem, that's good, 2 for the price of one. Hi, Laurence, do you think that just treating Apivar now and not treat in December with a vape okay for the bees? So yeah, I do. I think, I think it's fine. It's belt and braces what I do, just to keep the mites down as low as possible, but I think with Apivar now as long as you've got it in early. If you get Apivar in early, um, yeah, like mid— middle of April onwards, then you're— then you're good to go. Hey bud, managed to bag 10 nucs from Payne's closing sale. They oversold solid lids, stuck with travel lids. Want to swap? Just wait it out and see who takes the molds and buys the solid lids. I, I use like— most of my nucs have just— I just use travel screens. Like, we don't buy solid ones for the nucs that we sell. We just buy them all with screens and just put a bit of insulation over the top. It's fine. My one Twitch viewer is brilliant. Like, you are the only person who watches on Twitch, so I doff my cap to you. Sophia Dem says, good evening, don't forget your tea. So thank you very much to my one Twitch viewer, it's brilliant. And you've also got a question. You say, why is it okay for bees to take honey out of tainted frames but it's not okay for central fuel reform to do the same? Brilliant question. It's, it, it's very, very strange that— and it's true, you're just like, the, the manufacturers write the rules, and the rules state that you cannot extract honey from wax frames that have been in contact with Amitraz. Can't extract the honey out of them. And what they're saying is you can't extract the honey out of them. It's not saying that the honey is contaminated. Because I think if they said that, then you couldn't use the product, could you? You just say, well, look, if your, if your Apivar or Amitraz is tainting all of the honey that's coming in because it's tainted the wax, then it's a non-usable product. Because why would anyone want tainted honey? So they're saying that through their testing, it's not The honey that is being contaminated is the wax. So what I guess they're saying is, if you're putting a frame of tainted wax into a centrifuge like an extractor, then you're potentially going to get like bits of wax breaking off, or you're going to like taint the extractor, and then you're going to get that— that amatraz is going to end up in your honey. But I'm the same as you. I'm like, well, I Surely it's just the same as it being tainted on the frame. I, I can't quite get my head around the logic, but I know the advice that I give, which is you can remove the honey, you can get the bees to remove the honey from the tainted frames and put it into another frame and then extract that honey, and the honey is not contaminated. Apparently that's like what the tests have shown, but I don't know like if that's true. But yeah, I guess you have to, you have to just believe that it is true. Otherwise, we've all got apivar tainted honey, and I don't think the VMD would allow that. Like, the tests are pretty stringent, like the Veterinary Medicine Directorate. So we just, we just got to believe that it is, it is genuine. But it is a good question. Uh, PJ Morgan says, I've been beekeeping for 2 years now. I come to the opinion that a single national brood box is not big enough for a strong colony. Now I'm running double brood in my hives. I'd fully agree with you on that one, especially for Buckfast. Sophia Dem says, I'm also thinking of moving from National to Langstroth. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the matter. So I would say whenever people are thinking of making that move, like, what's the move for and how does it impact on, like, your overall kind of, like, beekeeping strategy? Because I've not really like properly moved and like not, not doing nationals anymore. Like, I started to build up Langstroth in order to, to be able to sell Langstroth nucs. That was the only reason. It wasn't a case of, oh, I think my bees will do better on Langstroth. Coincidentally, I do think bees would do better on Langstroth just because of the, the size of the boxes and the simplicity for the beekeeper as well. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't make— if I was just in it for the honey I wouldn't make that jump. I wouldn't say, right, I'm going to move from Nationals to Langstroth, because it's very expensive to, to make a jump like that. Even if you say you've got like 10 hives and everything's set up, it's just, it's a lot of expense to move over just for the sake of it. So yeah, it comes down to what, what's your, what's your aim really? What's the reason for the move? Is it just to kind of fancy a change, or you're thinking of selling some Langstroth nucs? or you think it'd be better for the bees, or you think it'd make beekeeping easier, or you might be able to like make your own equipment because Langstroth loads simpler to make, and then I think there's reasons for the move, there's justification, but it depends, it does depend kind of on your individual circumstances. So put it down further on if you want to say like why you're thinking about it, and then I'll have a look. I've used a 6-frame poly nuc with times 2 6-frame supers this year to produce honey as I ran out of full-size hives. I've taken the honey off Will there be enough room in the single poly nuc, no supers, for all the bees to overwinter, or should I use the nuc and one super? Um, I, I think you'll be fine with, um, with just the one super. And I, as I was reading that, I knew I was going to say it wrong. I think you'll just be fine just with the nuc box, just the 6 frames, because it's kind of similar to a beehive, isn't it? If you've got a nuc and then 2 supers on top, it's the same as having like a brood box with 2 supers on. So I would just condense them all down. I think it'd be fine. Uh, we've done that one. Uh, Cub Rider says, obviously had to go through that queenless hive today, but it was raining so hardly any bees flying. Perfect to stop, avoid robbing. Might be a tip for someone. Yeah, very good point. If you're going to do it, go in there when it's hammering it down. Steve's Honeybees has been a member for 30 months. Um, congratulations. Thanks, Steve. That's great, great, uh, great support. Much appreciated. He says, I acquired some old secondhand kit today including frames of drawn comb. Is it best to burn the frames or just to cut out the comb and steam the frames? So yeah, just— I wouldn't burn the frames. If I say that, I might burn the frames, but if you've got the time, just, just steam them. You don't even need to cut it out if you've got like a wax melter steamer kind of thing. If, if you haven't, then yeah, cut out the comb, burn that, and then steam the frames and reuse them. Should be good. Uh, Aidan found the video on repairing the polyhives. Excellent, I wasn't just making that up. Says, I put my large square rapid feeder on my wood hive, the other hives Robello, in prep for feeding. When I went to feed last week, there were lots of dead, almost dead bees in the feeder. Any ideas? So they, they get through. So the, um, on the, the little cone on the top— I've done this before— on the little cone on the top, there's like a little gap And basically the bees can like squeeze through. They're trying to get through it and they can just squeeze through it, and they can't get back in the other way. So they, they get through and then they're just like, shouldn't have done that, because they can't actually get back into the hive. And then they just starve, which I shouldn't laugh because it's a bit sad, but that's, um, that's what happens. Hi, I've been buying Maysmoor Rock Bottom hives. I've been thinking of getting poly, but the equivalent is an extra £100. Do you think the extra insulation will make up the difference in costs? So interesting to know how much the Maysmore Rock Bottom hives are now. Maysmore used to be so cheap, like it was— you'd look at the Maysmore sale and be like, right, I'm gonna stock up here. I remember the last time— no, not the last time because I bought them after that, but, but one of the times that I bought loads of nucs, I think I bought like 100 nucs, they were £20 each including the VAT, like a full 6-frame Maysmore nuc, and they're like £90 now. I don't know, I don't know who in their right mind— sorry, I shouldn't, I shouldn't, I'm not like slagging off Maysmore, I quite like the Maysmore nucs— but, um, who in their right mind would pay £93 or whatever it is for a Maysmore 6-frame nuc? Bonkers prices. Um, but have a— let me know. So I don't know, I don't know how much the Rock Bottom Hive prices are, so it kind of gives, gives like a comparison. But if you're saying I've— you'd be thinking of getting the equivalent poly But if it's if it's mason or poly, wild prices. So you could probably get cheaper and better poly hives from somewhere else for less than £100, and and then it might it might make that kind of cost benefit analysis a little bit more palatable. So put it in the comments and I'll have a look. Cub Rider says, "I do worry about combining two hives just in case there is a queen that isn't laying and she kills the queen." queen, right? Hive's queen. Uh, yeah, so if you're going to combine them, if you're going to combine them, definitely find the queen that's not laying first and kill her. Oh, 100%. I didn't— I would— I didn't mean just put, put the 2 together. So if you're going to combine them, I would kill the queen that's not laying, find the queen in the other hive that is laying, cage her, put tape over the thing, combine them, and then like reintroduce the queen. You should be good. That's, that's how I always do combines now. I thought you can only feed syrup if 15-degree temp or above. Below 15 degrees, got to use fondant mite. So it's just the beekeeping myths are brilliant, and they do, they become like more elaborate each year, and the, the temperature differences change. So I, I've, I've got bees in polyhives that will take down syrup 2 to 1 in like 8 degrees because it's 8 degrees outside, but in the feeder it's like roasting hot, like 25 degrees, and the bees are just up there just like, yeah, it's cool, happy in here, nice and insulated. So the bees will, the bees will take syrup down way late into the year. There's a guy, a brilliant chap, really friendly, never met anyone nicer. Um, I can't even say it now because I've done, I've done it so badly that it was obvious that he's not a nice friendly guy, so I can't say his name because then he'll realize I don't I'm liking. I'm digging myself a massive hole there, so I just, I'm going to stop talking. So I won't say, I won't even say what I was going to say because you probably identify who it was from what I was about to say. So you can feed syrup really late in the year and you can feed syrup really early on in the year and the bees will take it down. And if you use invert syrup, then you can put it in the feeder with safe in the knowledge that it's never going to go mouldy. and then when the bees do get a nice day, they'll go up and feed, and then if they cluster back down again, it just stays up there with the straw in it, doesn't go mouldy, and the bees can kind of like cluster down downstairs, so all is good. After feeding 2:1, we found all of the hives in the apiary instantly started flying a lot. Any ideas what this is? Don't think it's robbing. Were they searching for water or maybe cleansing flights? So it is probably going out and getting water. Breaking it down a little bit. But it can also be that they kind of get a little bit confused, so like all of the bees down in the brood box are like, whoa, what's all this? Where's that come from? Right, we're gonna go out and we'll go out and have a look. What I always find is when you start feeding, the temperament of the whole apiary is really, really good, like it just instantly turns around and the bees are just like, yeah, we're properly chilled again now, this is nice. A very alternative method for stopping robbing, and I've seen this before, is— and it's a little not quite related to this question here, but what if you've got like a whole apiary going like crazy robbing? What I've seen people do is they just take the roof off every single hive, and the idea is that all of the robbing bees have to go back and defend their own home because it's like, whoa, we're open to robbing as well now. And apparently it calms it down. I've never had to do it myself, but I have heard that sometimes needs to be done. I said it wrong. 67 says, hi Lawrence, if I leave a super of honey for my bees to overwinter, do I need to take the queen excluder out? Some argument about this at my local club. Love the channel. Wow, that's— it's really interesting that there is argument about that because 100% you need to take the super out. Like, even if you, if you put it above the brood box, you need to take the super out. put it below the brood box. You need to take the super out. Never leave this— never leave the queen excluder on if you've got more than one box. If you've got one box, it doesn't really make a massive difference because they can't pass through it. But yeah, definitely, definitely take the queen excluder out. What is meant by wet and dry? So in terms of like frames, so if you've got a frame of stores with honey in and you've extracted it, so you've taken the cappings off and spun of the honey out. That frame is then called like wet. That's a wet frame. So it's a frame that's had honey in that you've spun it out. You know, the frame's kind of like sticky and wet and stuff. And then if you take that frame, put it back in the box, give it back to the bees for like 24 hours, 48 hours, they'll go up and like lick it all clean and clean it and dry it. And then that's a dry frame. So you've got a wet frame and a dry frame, and they, they're stored in kind of like slightly different ways. and give you different results. Cub Rider says, a huge thank you because you've been such a help throughout the year. Being a member has so many benefits. Again, thank you for your fast responses to WhatsApp, taking the time to do these Q&As. Oh, thank you very much, it's very kind. I did— I, I— isn't it quite a nice, nice feeling for you to say that? It's a nice story because, you know, we met at the beekeeping show and you, you told me your story about like how you had your bees originally and then what happened to them and then trying to get back into them and then trying to build up and then became a channel member and then bought nucs and queens. And, you know, things— some things went well, some things didn't go well, and we, we fixed them. And, you know, yeah, it's good that you're, you're a happy, happy customer. So I like it. So thanks for that good feedback. PJ Morgans, that's a great shout. Have a sip of tea. Do you know what's really weird I found? And I'm sorry for Brit— I, I shouldn't say something like this because all you're going to be able to notice now is what I'm going to say. But like, I, I always get itchy nose. Whenever I do live streams, and I don't normally have an itchy nose. I don't I don't just do that normally. But whenever I watch, whenever I do a live stream, get really itchy nose. And you know what? I bet you I know what it is. It's like I don't really talk that much normally. It's like people come round and they say the two things that people always say to me are, "Oh, you're bigger than you look in the in the videos." Like you're taller than you look. And I and I say I take that as a compliment. And then if they're brave enough, they say, "Bloody miserable." though. Like, you seem, you seem like quite upbeat in your videos, and then I answer the door and I'm like, hello, right, what do you want? They're like miserable. Um, but so I don't talk that much, and I think it's like the vibrations in my nose make it like itchy, for anyone that's interested in that. I'm gonna have a sip of tea. Here we go. Hello Lawrence, do you have any experience with Carniolan bees? Before I answered that question. It's only because your surname is Bayern and it's just reminded me of football. So just, I'm really happy about the football today. So yes, go on Arsenal. Um, so limited experience with Carniolan bees. Like, I, I've kept Carniolan bees for like a few years and I've never— I don't want to say like I'm not a fan of them because I, I am a fan of them and I find they do quite well in certain situations. I like, I like them up on the heather. I find that's probably like where they perform best for me. I I can't control them as much as the Buckfast bees though in terms of swarming. It's the only thing that I don't like about them. And what is noticeable as well is like going into winter, they look very similar to Buckfast bees, like big strong colonies and bubbling and boiling over. And then kind of coming out of winter, like the difference couldn't be more stark. You've just got like Buckfast, like yeah, which is big and bold and brash and boiling over. And the Carniolans are just on like 3 frames or 4 frames and just like, yeah. It's like, winter, what are you doing? And then they catch up quite quickly, but then it's that rapid buildup if you don't kind of give them enough space. And even if you do give them enough space, like, they almost trick themselves into swarming. So I just, I've struggled a bit to keep them without swarming that much, but I know a lot of people, like, really think highly of them, and obviously better beekeeper than me managed to do it. Mike Moore says BS Honeybees need to start stocking extension boxes or they will lose the market for their nucs. Uh, it's interesting that, like, I know that they do have the moulds made for their extension boxes, and the only reason that they didn't, um, they don't get them made is just due to, well, a couple of things. One, they don't want to have to store all the boxes, and 2, the Maysmore ones fit. And I know that they're slightly different bee space and they need a modification, but they do, they do fit okay if you've got like all BS Honeybees nucs and you buy loads of Maysmoor extension boxes, then, uh, you just cut the runners off and turn them into top bee space. I always forget. Yeah, it's top bee space, so they're compatible with the top bee space BS Honeybees nuc, and then, and then all is good. But again, the extension boxes used to be dead cheap and they're not from Maysmoor anymore, which is a bit of a shame. Uh, Cub Rider says, what do you think of the drawn-out comb that you can buy in the States? I I've been interested on that one. I, I'm— I, I've not really got a massive opinion because I've not seen it, but it's one of those things that you don't see many people really using it. It's quite expensive. I can imagine like the shipping on it would be a nightmare trying to kind of get it to you like that without it breaking, and then wonder what the bees like, what the bees make of it. But like, I would reserve judgment because I've not got experience of it. And again, I always, I always like innovation, so I never want to like say, oh, what are you thinking? That's just, that's crazy. Bees won't like that. I would definitely try it if someone had it over here. I would give it a good go, open-minded, and see, and see what happened and like do some tests and see, you know, if it made a difference with honey production versus foundation, because that's, that's, I guess that's their main selling point. in terms of yields. Langstroth, what do you mean simplicity for the beekeeper versus National? Just in terms of making the boxes. So if you, like, in, in the UK we buy a lot of stuff like flat pack, don't we? Putting together a National box is way more difficult than putting together a Langstroth box. But then even more than that, if you, if you can, if you've got like access to your own lumber Making a National is like quite a tricky one to make. It's not, it's not like the— you've got to have like the, the sidebars with 4 different sidebars, and you'd have to put them through all these different like routers and jigs and stuff to get the profiling right. Whereas a Langstroth, it's just, you just need like a— I always forget, it's like a finger joint, finger joint on one side, and then just like one router just to put the frame rest in. That's it, it's done. And then a lot of them you just put handles on, but you can— you've got the little— where the radial arm saw to put the handles on. So it's really, really easy to make and really cheap to make. So that was— that's all it was. Hi from Finland, my first time here. Paradise Hive box mad, not far— uh, sorry, made not far from where I am, and I have a few hives in a wooden box. Do you think is good in poly or wood for our winter? So I just think even in the UK, the bees do so much better in poly in winter, like noticeably better. And the UK weather, the UK winter's like very mild. It really is. Like, we don't get harsh winters here. You occasionally get where it goes down to -4 or something, you know, you get the odd night, don't you, where it's -16 or something, but you don't get long extended periods where it's properly cold like that. Whereas in Finland you do. So it's yeah, no-brainer for me. Poly makes a massive difference over there. Oh, I thought I got to the bottom there. I hadn't though. Mia says, "I love my Langstroth hives. The colonies are all stronger versus my national. I wish I'd built my 86 national long hive as a Langstroth, but the deep langs are so heavy I can't lift them." That's Dad's job. Oh, that's good. Keeps him involved. Chris Lambert says, "New to beekeeping and was hoping to get set up next year. What's your back catalog?" on switching to 14x12 and why you regret moving, and now I'm more confused if to go for a national or 14x12. So sorry if I've confused you on that one. If you said to me, should I go for a 14x12 or a national, I'll just— I won't even— I've got to stop swearing on live streams, but double brood national is, is the easiest way. It's much easier. I, I made the decision to go to 14x12 because I thought it's going to be cheaper for me to have one box of 14x12 than 2 boxes of National. That was the only reason why, and it was a bad decision, and it made my beekeeping loads more difficult. Here we go. Scout About says, loads of questions for me tonight, thanks for answering, it's much appreciated. So it's all my pleasure. Says, Maysmore Rock Bottom Langstroth is about £150 before postage for 2 deep, 2 supers, floor, roof, etc. I was comparing to Honey report around £250 for a similar setup. So I think if you— let's have a look at the Abello, what's the— what the Abello one's at at the moment. Um, so I just— I'm gonna flick through. So National Poly Roof. So you can get a National Poly Roof with a deep roof, not painted. And I always recommend with the— I, I prefer the not painted ones with the Abello. I just— not, not— I don't like their paint. I just, I I'm not a fan of the color scheme, so I like to paint them on my own. You get that for £175, so it's £25 more. So like, for me, that's no-brainer. Maysmore Rock Bottom Langstroth, um, is £175, and then the Honey Pour is £250. So I've not looked at the— I looked at the national one for Abella. Let me just quickly look at the Langstroth one. It's gonna take me ages to find it now, innit? I need someone else doing this for me. Here we go. Langstroth poly hive. So it's the same, so it's £175 for 2 supers. So floor, roof, 2 supers, brood box, everything. So it's £25 more for a really, really good— I, I've got the Lyson Langstroth poly and they're brilliant, and they come flat back as well. They're solid, rock solid. You'd be very happy with them. So the, the cost-benefit analysis, is it worth it for the extra £25? Oh yeah, it's so like, it's Take you about 10 minutes to put together the hive for a Langstroth poly, and like probably take you 3 hours, I think, to put together— um, maybe a couple of hours to put together all the wood for the Maysmore rock bottom. Uh, so you're already saving a huge amount of time on the poly one, and then you'll get much better performance out of it as well. Thomas says, hi Lawrence, I have 2 nucs that are on 3 frames. They have brood and stores and the queen is there. Is this normal for this time of year? I'm currently feeding 2:1 at the moment. Should I go to 1:1? So it, it's not, it's not a case of it not being normal. It's all, it's all relative to how big they were when you, when you put them together. So if you made kind of like a couple, like a 2-frame split 4 weeks ago, then that's probably about right. So I would— I'd keep on feeding, keep on feeding 2:1, entrance down as low as it will go, just like one single bee space entrance, and just keep them, keep them nice and insulated, and hopefully they should grow. If you've got, uh, if you've got other hives, I would give them a frame of brood, give them one frame of emerging brood each, put it in the middle, and that will make a huge difference if you can do that. That's what I would do. SimBobCraft says Anil hives are for similar money but Langstroth only. So that's, that's a, that's a good point. Yeah, the Anil ones as well. I do, I have to say, I, I don't think there's much comparison between like the, the Abello poly ones and, and the Anil. I think the Abello ones are a lot better. That's my personal opinion. I'm just not, I'm not a fan of like the plastic finish on the Anil ones. I do, I do have an Anil hive and I do use it, and I'm not— I think it's fine. I think the bees do bees do well in it, but I just, I'm not, I'm not entirely sold on kind of like the look, um, and, and yeah, I don't know, they're cheap, they're really good price, so you kind of, you pays your money, you know. She says, hi Lawrence, great show as always. Thank you, JK. With an Abello polyashworth feeder, do you put a queen excluder underneath it at this time of year? I found the feeder I found the feeder rams in the feeder side the other day and had to bash out the feeder like mad to ensure the queen wasn't in there after suspected swarming. So, so I don't put a queen excluder underneath, but you, you could put a queen excluder underneath. The BS Honeybees nucs have little queen excluder holes to stop her going up, but I've never had— I can't remember ever having a queen go up inside the, uh, the poly feeder. And for me, if I just take the plastic bit out and fill it all with hay— not hay, why do I say it every time? It's not hay, it's straw. Fill it with straw, then the queen can just go up and then she can get back down if she wants. So I don't, I don't think it's a major issue. My mum always jokes about getting you tissues for your live streams. I don't know why it is. Isn't it weird? I'm sorry, because people probably didn't notice it before and I've just, I've said it. It's like I'm allergic to live streams and you see I get all red and stuff. that as well. Hi Lawrence, are the plastic crown boards worse for condensation? So I don't think they are worse for condensation. I think it shows the condensation a lot worse. So the condensation is probably there just as much in the wooden hives, but it, it gets sucked in. Evening buddy, just wondering, have you ever crossed— sorry, ever come across a honey poor hive with the 2 4-framed nuc boxes on a hive. So no, I've not, I've not seen that. They have some strange configurations, Honey Paw. I quite like, I quite like some of the Honey Paw Langstroth hives, like they're big, solid, chunky Langstroth. Um, but I've not, I've not come across that one. Sorry about that. Uh, David says, my partner Paula and I love your live shows. You are the only YouTuber that answers every question. Thank you for all your replies and advice. By the way, I'm a Spurs fan, so canceling my membership. Oh no, sorry, David. It's yeah, it was a good game. I didn't think we were going to win, but that's that's that's a bit awkward, isn't it? Sorry about that. Don't cancel your membership. I'll um, but you won't you won't ever catch me in a Spurs shirt. Let's put it that way. Sim Bob Craft says, okay, so cool. I want to look. He's wanted Langstroths. Mia says the drawn out comb is made in Hungary. Dad tried buying. Is it? There we go. Drawn-out comb is made in Hungary. Dad tried buying a pallet of it, but we can't import it to the UK. It's called Hexacomb, synthetic beeswax, very difficult to ship. Too hot melts, too cold breaks. It's kind of what I thought, but, um, thanks, thanks for saying that. That's good. Um, and then Happens When You Know How says Hexacomb is £70 for 10, so it's expensive, isn't it? Hi Lawrence, I won't make the move over to plastic frames and foundation. What is your thoughts on how and when you would do it. Sorry, you're saying I want to? Oh, don't do it. Simple as that. I just, I just wouldn't do it. I like to, I like to have an open mind, and I won't judge something until I've had good experience with it. And I've had good experience now with plastic frames and foundation, and I really don't like it. And I wish I hadn't tried it. I wish everything was wooden and wax again. So that would be my advice, is don't do it. Why, why do you want to do it if you put it down there? And we can, we can continue. Thomas Lindsay says, after the most recent issue with the full plastic frames, do you think you're totally done with them, or will you keep using them just because you have them? That's, that's a, that's a more interesting question. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to remove them out. Oh, I don't know, I've got a lot of hate on that video, people saying can't just blame it on the frames, and it's like, well, Like, I, I can, I can definitely blame it on the frames. It's not to say that I couldn't have done anything. I could probably fed them more, but the fact that, that they shouldn't be starving on those frames in the middle of the season like that. And it's clearly a case that the bees are saying that the bees use— used a lot more energy to maintain those frames versus wood versus wax, and then they wouldn't move on to the next frame because it was plastic. And they didn't want to expand, so they were just kind of left in like this limbo. And then when they were deciding what to do, they starved. And like, that's that's the frame's fault, isn't it? You could argue that I should have intervened earlier and noticed that. And I kind of did. Like, I got I got them. I didn't get them. I didn't get to them, and they were all dead. Like, they were fifty percent dead, and I got to them and managed to save a lot of them. But it like it happened three times in the season. for the first time ever. And I would feed— like, it's not like I didn't feed them. I fed them so much syrup, like gallons and gallons of syrup, and they just used it to try and draw out some of the frames. They didn't really make a huge amount of progress. But then the colony next door was all plastic frames as well, and they didn't die. So I can see the arguments, like, well, they didn't die, but the ones next door did. So it's just— There's obviously more going on there. There. And it's not just a straightforward, or just blame the frames and not— there's nothing else happening. But they weren't poisoned, they weren't— there wasn't any like foul play or anything. It was a case of the frames did something to that colony, or the colony didn't like the frames for some reason. And then as a result of that, they decided to not draw them out, and they decided to starve. Decide to starve— they did starve. But sorry, I digress. So will I use them? No. So I probably will still keep them in the colonies that are there, and I think I'll just up the feeding on those colonies. So if I'm going around and doing like some emergency feeding, and I'll give like a couple of liters to the ones that are on like wooden frames, I'll give like 6 liters to the ones that are on plastic and just like massively overfeed them, knowing that they need like more to maintain them. I'm just going to chuck them away. I've got loads of them. I've got loads that I haven't used either because I was supposed to use them up on the heather. And I've not gone up for 2 years, so you you will still see them. They'll still be there. I'm not going to chuck them away unless anyone wants to buy them. They're brilliant, by the way. Really like ten out of ten. I shouldn't joke, but if you want, I'll do you a good deal. Happens when you know how. Just just on that, they are. I've got loads on fourteen by twelve that have never been used. So if you want them, you can have them. Happens when you know how says hex comb is pre-built comb. Yep, so it's pre kind of like light light white, isn't it? Scout about says had to laugh about the Queen excluded debate at the association. I just read some of the BBK exams. One question was who invented the smoker? Is it really important to know compared to basics like Queen excluded in winter? This is this is the reason that I don't get involved in doing exams for for a few reasons. One because some of the questions are a bit stupid like that one. Two I can't stand. Exams and learning. Like, it's fine. I could do it. I could probably learn the stuff. But but then the third one is that if I did it, like if I just went, if someone just handed me an exam, said there you go, there's an exam. Like I definitely fail. Like now I'd have to revise and like learn the information because I just don't think you need to know that information off by heart. Like why why do you need to know how long it takes an egg? To emerge. Why do you need to know that? Like, obviously you do need to know stuff like that, but if I needed to know it, I just look at the little diagram, be like, okay, whatever it is, 13 days for a queen, whatever. I don't— they might be right, I don't know. Uh, but I don't think you need to memorize it. I don't think you need to know it at the back of your head. And like, some, some of the questions, like maybe like when it's talking about, can you give some examples of like swarm management? Okay, you, you probably need to know that that, you wouldn't just say, right, I need to do some swarm management, I'm going to go and read it from a book. But I just— it's just not— it's not one for me. But, but I appreciate some people do, like, quite enjoy that kind of thing, like knowing about it. Aaron Cornish, I'm looking at you. And, and people, like, you know, like to do well at it and get distinctions and go get the levels up and get the badges. It's fine, it's like Scouts, isn't it? You want to— you want to get your first badge, and then you want to get your next badge, and your next badge, and want— when you've got like 3 badges, you're like, I want to go for like 6 badges or master badge or whatever it is. So I can understand why people do it at the beginning, and then I can understand why people kind of like get a buzz— shocking pun, not deliberate— and then, and then want to do more. And I don't think, I don't think it's bad. I don't think like learning's bad. I think it's, it's good, but just not for me. Given your hive losses on plastic supers, are you going to persevere with them phase them out or completely get rid. So I will— a little bit of all 3, but I'm not going to chuck away any of the brood boxes that I've got. I probably will try and sell the ones that I've not already used, with, with full transparency and honesty. Hi, me again. I have double brood national but want to reduce down to one. Should I wait till spring and do the split? So definitely wait. So if I had my, um, if I had my whiteboard here, I'd draw you the diagram again. But what you will find is come, come the winter— so come the spring, they'll just all be in the top box and the bottom box will just be empty, and you can just take the bottom box away. And it's, it's so easy to do that in the spring. Uh, Paul Lewis says Richard Noel has white plastic comb which is drawn out French, I think. Okay, interesting, interesting. PJ Morgan says, Lawrence, did you hear the recording I made of a piping queen? It got played on a BBC Four Radio Four show a few weeks ago. I did, I did not hear that. No, I'm not, I'm not a massive radio person, to be honest. I don't, um, I don't ever listen to the radio. I'm not really like every— yeah, I'm always like doing stuff, so I didn't hear that one. No, sorry about that. Lloyd Harper says, I need to start keeping some decent records, probably starting next year. Any advice? Oh, I wish I'd got that out now. I, I got sent the, um, I don't even know what they're called, like little pin cards. Someone sent me them, UK distributor, and they got sent, and I thought, oh, that's a really— I like that, that's a brilliant idea. And they're just super simple, like card about, about nay length. My brother, yeah, you know, we know it's yay length, but he says nay length. Um, but it's just like a little pin board like that, and it's got all this different information on it. You just have these pins and you can just like take them and put them in different places, and it gives you like a snapshot of the really important information of the hive. And I thought, that's such a good idea. That's so simple and nice and like tangible. Yeah, it's like you're doing it, you know what you're doing, and it's like physical. And it's— oh yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. I've got to do a video on that, which I forgot I had to do. Um, but in terms of, in terms of decent records, like something like that is pretty good because you're like, you could keep the, the records that I see some people keep. I think, why do you need to know? Why do you need to know that level of detail? And I see some people who— I think, I think it might have been, I think it might have been you, John, saying about like voice notes and like recording voice notes of what's going on and then going home and like transcribing it into some sort of spreadsheet. And I was just like, oh my God, sounds like my, my personal hell. I just— so for me, what I do is I just get a pen just right on the back of the hive, just like, yeah, superseded, if I need to know it. A lot of the time you don't, you don't need to know stuff, so I don't keep huge amounts of records. The only decent records that I keep are the VMD records once a year with the, with the batch numbers and stuff of the treatments that we use. Hi Lawrence, hope all is well with you. Just wondering how I should be storing my wet supers. I put the Apivar in when taking the supers off. Thanks for the info as always. So, so wet supers, I like to just kind of get a roof, upturned roof, like crown board, and then 4 supers, and then another crown board and a roof, and then ratchet strap all together. And that's it, simple as that. You can, you can wrap it in kind of like food-grade wrap as well, but you don't, you don't have to. And then I just leave them outside undercover. With the hope that they will get frozen at some point and it will kill all stages of wax moth. If you do that, if you live down south and you don't get it cold, you, you want to get it into a freezer at some point. I know you're not probably going to have much space in the freezer, but it is, it is worth getting. I've got a chest freezer, just get like a big chest freezer, and you only need to put them in there kind of like around Christmasy time, something like that, for 24 hours just to freeze them. take them back out again, and then that will, that will stop all, all forms of wax moth. But I, I don't do that, I just leave them outside and they get, they get plenty cold up here in North Wales. Is Ivy still beekeeping? So she's not done any more beekeeping since the last video. I've asked her a couple of times, did you fancy, um, do you fancy going do the bees? And she's like, just busy in it, playing with my dolls. So she can do what she wants, I'm not, I'm not pushing her into beekeeping at all. I want if she wants to get into it, I will gladly facilitate it. But I'm not, I'm not going to be pushing her into it. So Richard says, has she been stung yet? So no, she's been stung by a bee, but not, not whilst beekeeping. So she's not allergic, which is good. Harry, hello, how you doing? Mark, not going to try. Sorry, not going to try your surname because I'll just get it wrong. So we'll just say Mark. What advice would you give me? I have two hives that are weak, and winter is around the corner. Corner. So define weak first. I'd identify what that is. Is there a proper mated queen in there? Is there brood in all stages? Is there worker brood? Is there like a viable colony somewhere in the midst of this weak hive, or is it a lost cause? Is it a case that there's loads of drones, laying workers, no queen? And then Depending on what side you sit there. If it is a viable hive, I'd look at condensing it right down. If you've only got like 3 or 4 frames in there, I'd potentially look at either dummying it down with an insulated dummy board, which can just be as simple as a bit of wood strapped to some insulation and just basically limiting the size that the bees can get through to, or taking out the good frames with all the bees and putting it into a little mini nuc, like a little 6-frame nuc. And trying to kind of get them through, keep them fed, keep the entrances as small as possible to stop robbing, don't spill any syrup. And then if it's on the other side where they are a lost cause, don't throw any additional money at it. If you've got a colony that's been a laying worker for a few weeks or months now, there's no way you're going to get that colony through even by adding a mated queen in. So you just gotta kind of scrap it and start again. But I'd be interested to see where you sit kind of on that spectrum. Member for 9 months, he says, I hope you're well. My hives are stuffed with bees following your general beekeeping advice. Member for 9 months, very good. I'm glad. Thanks for the support. Member for 9 months, that's excellent. And glad, glad that you're doing well. I look forward to hearing how many nucs you sell this year. Be hundreds. Hi Lawrence, do your nucs come with marked queens? queens. So yes, all of our nucs come with marked queens. All of the overwintered ones will come with a green marked queen, green for 2024. How is Ivy's nuc doing? We look forward to her beekeeping journey. She is a credit to you. Bright future ahead for her. So thank you very much, David. Her nuc is doing very, very well. We have missed out a video, so she didn't get around to picking her own queen because she was playing with her LOL dolls. Forever, it seems like. And so I picked her cook queen, and it's huge, absolutely huge. So it's doing really well. Cup Rider says, "I have a good memory." I do have a good memory. I do. I don't. I definitely don't forget meeting people and stuff. And I remember at the shows, like someone will say, someone will say their their first name. They'll say, "Oh, hi, I'm so and so," and I'll say, "Oh, is it?" Is that your surname? And they're just like, how on earth do you know my surname? It's like, we bought a queen a couple of years back. And they're just like, that's ridiculous, stalker. Uh, PK says, hi Lawrence, how's it going? JSCFB— I have to— I, I don't know why I can't say that quicker. JSCFB says, what about the Paradise Honey Poly Hive? One deep, two— uh, sorry, one deep brood, two medium supers. So I'm Not a fan of the Paradise polyhives, I'm afraid. They have a mixed bee space which I've never, I've never got on with, and I don't like the entrances. Uh, the feeder's okay, the roof's okay, and just not a fan of the entrances, not a fan of the floor, and I really don't like the mixed, um, what's it called, mixed bee space. So you basically have like one box has half a bee space, so if you were to put like a crown board, a flat crown board board on it, the bees would stick it all together because only half a bee space. And it's not compatible with any other hive because of that bee space issue. So if it didn't have that bee space issue, I think it would be compatible with like a National Hive. Because they split it like that, it's not. So you can't put a wooden super on. So it's not my, um, not my favorite. Um, Syme says, looking for my first hives, a bellow charge— I guess it means £80 more for frames and foundation Is that good value? So, got to be honest in it. No, it's not. Get get it get it somewhere else. You can buy bulk batches. So I shouldn't I shouldn't say that if you're listening. If Damien's listening, shouldn't say that. But when you're buying the frames individually for a hive like that, then it's probably about there there or thereabouts. But what I always say is just buy buy the frames and buy the foundation in. Bulk, they never go off. So just buy them in the sales. It is annoying me how much they're putting up the price of frames though every year. Like this year it's gone up, so thorns have gone up from £30. So for 50 DN4 seconds in the sales, it's going up this year from £30 last year to £32. That's like a 7% increase. And then last year was a 10% increase, and the year before that was a 10% increase, and it does annoy me. Beekeeping companies like constantly putting the prices of things up. On that note, our nucs for next year are the same price as this year, albeit they started off at quite a high price, and our queens for this year are going to be the same price next year. So we're not putting our prices up at all in 2025. Uh, MK, going to call you MK, he says, I'm very new to beekeeping from Iraq. I caught a small hive, it was just one frame in July and now it's 5 frames. Would it survive the winter? So should, should be good. My beekeeping experience in from like Iraq is, is obviously going to be very limited, um, but I, I think it should. That's quite a good, a good rate of buildup from 1 frame when they're very small like that, like 1-frame hives. They take so— like from go to go from 1, 1 frame to 5 frame, that's like a 400% increase. So that's like a big, big expansion. So I think it should be fine. You should be good. Keep it well fed, and I'm guessing that it will just continue growing and growing and growing, and the winter there doesn't really knock it back that much. I don't know. I'm not 100% up to speed on the climate in Iraq. I'm guessing it gets cold at night, like cold, but then not that cold through the winter during the day. I don't know. It should be okay. Should be good. Jean says, good evening, are you feeding the bees in September already? Thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us, much appreciated. So yes, I've been feeding for a good few weeks now, like just that little bit here and there. I've, I've done one big round of like ramped up feeding, so I've gone around and given basically everything, like 6 liters, and that was about a week, maybe a week and a half ago. And now I'm not, I'm not feeding now until probably gonna be the end of September. I'll let this little warm stretch, go see what happens, go and heft, might weigh a couple, might open up a couple for a video, and then I'll do one, one more round of probably another 6 liters each, then we should be done. Channel member says, hi Lawrence, are you a fan of wrapping hives for winter? My hives are sited in a frost pocket in the winter and can, and can be fairly damp at times next to the canal. Many thanks. So this is one of the areas where I, I I think people can do way more damage to their bees by trying to do what's best for the bees and wrapping them than doing nothing. I think wrapping bees can cause you all sorts of issues, and if I had my whiteboard here, I would draw you the picture again. So inside a beehive, it's going to be way hotter and warmer and moister than outside a beehive, so you're going to get condensation somewhere in that beehive. It's going to happen. It's the same as, you know, if you're in a you know when you breathe in the winter and you get like the mist, there's all condensation there. So all of these beads— bees are breathing and, and doing that like on a much, much smaller scale, and that condensation has to condense somewhere. And what I always say to people is where the last place you want it to condense is above the cluster. So if the bees are like this, they're all like huddled up, and then the least insulated part is above the cluster, what happens is you just get drips on the cluster, and it, it really not good for bees. Like, bees like to be dry. They don't mind being cold. Cold is not an issue for bees. Bees will be quite happy in their beehive down to like -30 or something like that. They won't do anything. They'll just be like huddled up, not moving. But they're pretty good at just maintaining the temperature that they need for that queen. to survive and for the bees to survive. So what I say to people is get a polyashphalt feeder, or if you don't want a polyashphalt feeder, get a really well-insulated roof and just make the top of that cluster the best insulated part of the beehive. Don't worry about the walls, because if you start messing around with the walls— so what you want is that top bit to be insulated, the walls to not be insulated, so then when the moisture is like, right, where are we going to condense? They go for the coldest bit, And it's the walls, and then all the water just tracks down the walls and out of the bottom of the beehive and never touches the cluster. That's like ideal, that's what you want. If you start wrapping the beehive, you, you bring in 2 major issues. One is airflow, so it can, it can impact the airflow and kind of like lock that moisture in. But the second one, and potentially the more damaging one, is that you can increase the insulation value of the walls of the beehive and not on the top. So what? So that moisture is going to condense. It's looking around. It's not. It's not looking around, but it's it finds the coolest spot to condense. So if you wrap the walls and then you've not insulated the roof, the coolest place to condense is directly above the cluster. That moisture is always there, and then you just get it dripping on the cluster. And and I've seen people kill their colonies by doing that. They think they're doing the best. They're thinking I'm wrapping. I'm I'm wrapping up my hive and. Getting it all nice and toasty, and it's like, no, you're just insulating the wrong part. So the best thing you can do for your bees is Apivar early in the season, get them treated for mites, get them fed nice and early, make sure they've got a well-mated queen, get yourself a Polly Ashworth feeder, nice big insulated feeder directly on the top of the hives, and they will do very, very well going through winter. PK says, I have overbought ambrosia syrup for this year and it's expiry date is the end of March 2025. Can I still use it in March, April '25, but not really next autumn? What would you do? It will be fine to use next autumn. It does not go off. It takes years to go off. They have to legally put the date on it, but it is— I've, I think I've got like a 3-year-old Happy Invert knocking around that I would still use. I wouldn't worry about that. He says, person, all I can read on that now is /SpursFan. Says, personally, I think trying to make bees use plastic is like trying to make a dog vegetarian. Nature works for a reason and creatures use materials they evolved to use. Yeah, I'm not gonna disagree. Some people say that exact same point with far more aggression on Facebook, so thanks for saying it a bit nicer. It's interesting about the vegetarian dog as well. We know this lady who was a vegan And we used to go around to her house, and she had this big boxer dog. I forget the dog's name. Big boxer dog, and she and the dog was vegan. It was a vegan dog, and like obviously not through choice. And she said, "No, no, no." It's like he would choose to be vegan, and it's like, "How do you know that the dog would choose to be vegan?" She's like, "Well, I feed him on all this vegan food, and he doesn't like you know he never wants any meat," and it's like. How'd you know that? And I didn't deliberately do this here, but it just so happened that like the next time or the time after that that we were around there, I brought around some KFC, just as you do. And you should have seen this dog, the look in its eyes. It was like, what is that? The drool on the floor, like puddles, like a boxer in it. He's just like drooly anyway. But I felt, I felt a bit bad not giving him any of my KFC. That's how much he wanted it. And, um, yeah, it was a bit awkward. Uh, Ricky Sharp says, cheers, Lawrence. I was considering plastic frames because some of the videos you had done with plastic frames, easier to clean, longevity of the frames, and spotting eggs being easier. So spotting eggs being easier, definitely yes, that is one big benefit. They are way easier to see. Easier to clean. I've not had to clean any of them yet. From what I hear, it's, it's a bit tricky. Longevity of the frames, yeah, maybe they could, they could last a little bit longer. But I think all of those things, they were based upon the fact that, like, the functionality of the frame was going to be fine, that they were going to work just as well as the wooden and wax frames, and they didn't. Like, they took I estimate they took between 3 and 4 times longer to get drawn out, and between 3 and 4 times more energy to get drawn out. So like you have to feed them that much more. They didn't draw them down all the way down to the bottom. They left big gaps. They've got big holes in the way that the mold is for like wax moth and varroa to go and hide. I know varroa probably not going to hide, but wax moth definitely do. The way that the mold are set up, they're like— the B-space isn't correct, so they brace comb everything up because the B-space is sitting at about like 11 or 12 mil when it should be 8 mil. So every time you open it up, it needs to be— you need to de-brace everything. Um, you're saying definitely reconsidering it. If you said to me, should I do it, I would say do not do it. Not a good idea. Uh, Syme says, I like the sage green and gray Abello color scheme. They charge £80 extra for foundation and framing included. Is that good value? £303 all in for the brood box, 2 supers. So I, I do— I like that. I like the sage green and gray. I do like that color scheme. The, the sage green is particularly nice. Um, they charge £80 extra for foundation and frames. I think, like I said, if you're just getting one hive, that's probably about like ballpark what you're going to charge— what you're going to pay elsewhere. Not far off. If you're gonna buy 10 hives, just but buy the frames and foundation separately. Laurence, do you put entrance reducers on for winter, and how do you protect your hives from raining weather? Really itchy nose. Oh right, let's have a sip of tea. So no, I don't put entrance reducers in. So for underfloor entrances, you don't need to, and you don't need to put mouse guards on either. And my tea is cold. And then from raining weather, I don't, I don't do anything. There's no, there's no real need to protect it from raining weather. The bees have propolised everything together and the roof should shed the water away from the hive, so it's all good. Jasper just moved in the background there. I've got a little story to share about Jasper. So Jasper is the most loving, calm, friendly dog in the world, and he bit me yesterday. He properly got aggressive and like bit me. And what happened was like, he chills out on the sofa there, and normally what I say to him is I say like, Jazz, Jazz, should we go for a walk? Like that. And he'll put his head up. Should we go for a walk? Come on then, we'll go. And he was just like, no, not going for a walk. So what I do is I kind of go and get like my hand just down his back and just like, just like lever him off the sofa. And I've been doing that for years. And like, he's like, yeah, all right, whatever. And yesterday he went, and I was like, what are you doing? Why? Come on, we go for a walk. Because just taking him for a wee before bed. And, um, so I did it again. He went like that, and I was like, whoa, that's like— what are you doing? And then foolishly, for the third time— I should know, I should have realized that I shouldn't have done it, but I thought, he's just, he's just like being really weird— I went to get any— and go and get him, and he went— and I didn't bite me, like, not like draw blood or anything, and didn't like properly get his teeth around me, but he You know when dogs go like that, and I don't know something's like spooked him. I don't know what it is, and like obviously tonight I've got to get him downstairs. I'm just curious to see if he's going to be okay. Jazz, all right, quick, quick. He seems he seems in better spirits today. Hopefully it's just a short-term thing. Simon Coates says hexacomb seventy pound for ten. You can get auto frames from China for that sort of money. Yeah, you can. It's, uh, it's very expensive. Uh, I found using full plastic frames the bees eat for England. I'm thinking heat does not transfer between both sides of the foundation unlike a wax sheet and costs more in feed, although through heat loss. Yeah, that's a really good shout. I've not thought of that. It could be something like that, and, and that would make sense for like the drawing out of it as well, in that Yeah, like you say, if it doesn't transfer through the plastic and it has to kind of go down and up and around it, then it's like one frame at a time, isn't it? As opposed to if it transferred through, you could do like multiple frames. Bet you it is something like that. That's a really clever analysis of it. Nice. AAA says, thank you, bro. Yes, winter in Finland is not winter, it's something else. The other thing I like to ask is that my queen's wings look like they've been cut or eaten. Why? I don't know why they do that. I, I just— it's, it's a bit weird that sometimes they do nibble Queen's wings, and they'll do it like if you introduce a queen and they don't like her, they nibble her wings a bit, and then just like, yeah, just happy to leave you alone now. So yeah, it's—I'm not sure why they do it. PJ Morgan says sixteen days for a queen. I was—I was saying from egg, from emergence of the egg to emergence. Someone's got someone's got to work out what this is now. From the emergence of the egg, so basically the day that the egg turns into a larva, to emergence, to like it comes out. So I thought that that was day 4. So that day 3 to day 4, and then it comes out on day 17, doesn't it? I think should know that one. Um, but I just— I've got a little wheel that I always look at, a little wheel, and it's— I don't memorize that kind of stuff. I memorize stuff that you've just got like a little wheel for. Don't know. Attack says, "I'm very new to beekeeping from." Oh, we've done that one. Yeah, that'd be good. Happens when you know how, says. Wouldn't wooden frames be easier for bees to walk on? Hence the reluctant choice to build on plastic. Yep, could be that as well. Samuel Crowley. I've got a friend from school, good friend called Samuel Crowley. But I'm guessing this isn't the same Samuel Crowley. He says, "Can I modify and convert clay pots and plastic industrial plastic?" buckets into beehives in a closed apiary? Samuel Kenya. I guess so, and I'd love to see it. Like, I'd love to see it done. I love stuff like that. I've said before, I got, um, I'm doing, I'm doing a cool— I'm not doing a cool video, I'm being part of a cool video that's going on. But one of the things is, you know, like the ApiInvert containers, I want them to design something where you can convert it to a little mini mating nuc. How cool would that be? So you buy your 14 kilograms of syrup, use it, and then do something to it, and it turns it into like a little mini mating hive. I love conversions, things like that. So definitely, yeah, and I want to see, I want to see how you do it. You can send me, send me an email, and I'll post a reel or something. John Stewart says, hi Lawrence, are the Carniolan queens you sell mated to Carniolan or Buckfast drones to reduce swarm instinct. No, so all of them are kept in apiaries to try and keep the lines separate, except where, um, it's stated that they're not. So for example, there were some Caucasians that were mated in the Carniolan apiary, so it's like a Caucasian/Carniolan cross. And there were some Carniolan/Buckfast crosses as well. So they're generally— they generally try to mate them to the same drone unless it's said. Yeah, it's just I made a mistake and bought a queen and felt bad and made a split in August. Okay, so that's fine. So I would just, I would just add another frame of brood in. I don't think it's a mistake, you just need to make it slightly bigger next year. Um, okay, sorry, so, so that was the— okay, so you got, you got 2 that are weak. So one— yeah, so that's fine. So just reduce that one down. Keep it in a nuc. And then you say the other, the other one I tried queen rearing and made it successful, but a farmer did pesticides and now they're not doing good. That doesn't sound too good. But again, if, if there is a queen in there and she is laying, I would just look to condense it down as best as possible. Uh, Simon Coates says regarding record keeping, Anil have a decent app website for keeping records using RFID tags. Anil hives have inbuilt tags and you can buy new tags for £2.50 for existing hives. I've seen a couple of people talking about them very positively, which is good. Hi Lawrence, from the first day of beehive colonization, how long should I take to prepare honey for honey harvest? So that, that's a— like, how long is a piece of string, that one. It depends how big the hives are when you put them in, depends on kind of like the flows that you're going to get in Kenya. And I think, I think you— I'm pretty sure Kenya gets like 2 2 seasons. Um, but it's one of those ones that you probably need to like experiment with for a little bit and work out just like what, how it works in your part of the world. Uh, and then yeah, I can't, I can't give you a fixed answer for that one, sorry. Uh, MK says, but the 5 hives are doing splendid and we're in the same area. Okay, well that's good. You're fine with poisoning, that it will generally be, it'll wipe out most things. In the area. PJ Morgan says, I bought a honey refractometer and tested on my 3 extractions. They measured 16.5%, 17%, and 9% water content. I know 17% or below is ideal. How long do you think the 19% batch will store? Um, it's, it's borderline, the 19%. Do you know what I would do with the 19% one? Get, get it in like a room, clean room, a bathroom or something like that, clean clean the room first with like whatever you need. I'm, you know, do whatever you need to do to make it hygienic. And then open the buckets and close the door and put a humidifier on in the room. And just every kind of like, you can put, you can put like a cloth or something, put like a muslin over if you don't want things to be going in. And then like 2 or 3 times a day, just stir the honey, give it a good stir. Do that for like 2 or 3 days and you'll get it down to 16.5% easy. Works really, really well, that does. Uh, David says, what are your thoughts on heated decapping knives? My daughter bought one for me, but I found the honey on it caramelized, making decapping awkward. What are the best tools to use? So yeah, you don't necessarily need a heated one. I— Richard is the best example of this. Richard uncaps honey For 300 production hives using a really good quality sharp bread knife. That's all you need to do. And I think what here's the the real trick is use castellations on your supers, castellations at nines, so nine nine castellations, and you just end up with these big fat chunky frames. You just go just like super simple. You don't need to be like trying to kind of get in and. like waggle the knife around or do anything like that. It's just nice and sharp, cut it, and then have like some hot water nearby so you can dip the knife in the hot water and then have a rag to clean it off. And then do that like whenever it needs it. You don't need to do it every time, but whenever the knife starts getting like sticky, you can just clean off the knife like that. And, um, it's super quick, like £20 for it. Get a good knife though, get a good knife, because you'll find that You're putting quite a lot of stress into that knife, so they can't. I've had cheaper knives snap because you're putting, you know, you're constantly sawing with them. But yeah, that's all I would do. Julian says Julian wants a whiteboard. There we go. I could have had something really bad written on the back of there. I didn't realize there was anything on there, just my phone number. There we go. Got the whiteboard there if we need to. If we need to draw anything down, I. I'll draw it. People do like the whiteboard though. Drop that there. Richie Richie says, hi Lawrence, the queen you sent me is doing amazingly. Great stream, keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Glad the queen is doing well. Like to hear that. Happens When You Know How says, is insulation still good on top of the feeder box? So if you've got an insulated feeder, an insulated feeder, you don't need insulation on top of that, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter if it's up there. It's not going to do any damage. Would you put bees on an apiary with lots of fruit trees where the fruits don't get harvested, or will this have negative effects on the honeybees when the bees make honey out of the fruits on the ground? So no, so it definitely won't have a negative effect on them. Bees will only do that if there is nothing else around, like in a real starvation situation. They'll start kind of trying to get sugar from blackberries and apples and rotting fruits that they'll just go for They'll go for nectar if it's there, and then in an emergency situation they might take something from it. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about it. Should be good. Uh, Simon says regarding syrup longevity, most syrup has a small amount of potassium sorbate, E202, and will preserve the syrup for years. Um, so, so invert syrup is very, very good, but like making up your own syrup, like if you make up 1:1 syrup, it goes moldy within like a few weeks. Obviously it hasn't— that doesn't have potassium sorbate. I think what you're saying is like the, the proprietary mixes of invert syrup or 2:1 syrup will have that potassium sorbate in, which will preserve it. Okay, so that, that's good. And, um, yeah, and I find it stays fresh for, for, like you say, a very long time. Black foundation is okay in wooden frames but not molded frames and foundation? I've not tried just the foundation, plastic foundation on its own. I just thought I'd go with the molded one, but I'm guessing it's like pretty similar. Uh, David says, for me it's a no-brainer regarding plastic foundation. With wax foundation, they have something they can use as a starter. With plastic, they don't have that starter, so it takes more energy and resource and effort. The idea is, you know, you do, you do cover the plastic foundation with wax, but it's— they still don't seem to take to it very good. Uh, would you be able to do a video on foulbrood and show how it looks? I hope to God I never— I'm never able to do that video again. And also, when— do you remember when I did those couple of cases of EFB? I was so concerned about like not contaminating stuff. So I'm not gonna like video— like, my camera's contaminated with bacteria from EFB now. So I don't want to do that video again. What I have asked though is, and they've not got back to me on this, is if the NBU give me some footage, I'll do a video on it. And they've not given me the footage, but I would like to do the video. I think it would be a useful, I think very useful video for people to kind of show what EFB and AFB look like, but probably more importantly to show some of the other brood disorders that aren't EFB and AFB, and just to get some real like good close-up. videos and footage of some of these diseases. I think it'd be a very useful video. But yeah, so I'd like to do it, but I hope, I hope I don't have the ability to do it. Many thank you, many thanks for your Langstroth nuc that I picked up in early June. Into the Flow Hive they went. The queen is awesome. I have harvested 4 Langstroth frames and 18 1.36 pickle jars of perfect nectar. Excellent, I'm glad to hear that, Lee. Oh, 1.36 kilogram jars, wow, that's, that's quite a lot of Honey, nice. Pretty happy with that. Aaron Paris says in Canada we can't leave honey; it will crystallize and it's not good for them. We also take all honey and backfill everything with sugar water just so people know some honey is bad for them to winter on. Preaching to the converted there, but you you do see it on Facebook all the time. People saying, "I can't believe you take all the honey," and it's like they say honey is better for them, and it's got this and that, and it's like yeah, but not all. Not all honeys are equal, and some honey is not the best for them to overwinter on. Like ivy honey, it's not really like that good for the bees and can cause issues and crystallize. Like, they'll process it, but you know what they're going to go to first? They're going to go to the invert sugar syrup because it's just like there, just accessible, ready, not crystallized, right density, and it doesn't give them the runs. Not that ivy does, but some honey can kind of cause dysentery in bees. Um, but you know, some people are never— you can't, you can't argue with some people because they're just looking for an argument. Uh, Christ— it can't be right— Christ876 says, hi Lawrence, my only full-size hive now has failed. Queenless with a high varroa load, deformed wing virus, etc. Luckily I have 3 nucs with your Buckfast mated queens in them. Oh, that's not good. I, I, I glad that you've got the 3 nucs, and that's good to have good backups. I would make sure you get some good treatments into the high varroa load one though. You never know, you might be able to recover it. People just want to be negative to you, bro. Don't take them, uh, don't take them people personal. Most people understand what you mean. Good advice, friend. Thank you very much. Cheers, Aaron. Uh, yes, 13 is correct. I succeed as a beekeeper. Amazing. Thanks, Paul. I, I, that is what I meant as well. Uh, Aaron says, I don't know, I think they can smell. Very good. Says, I like that question. I had 19% and I left the jar open with a cheesecloth, and afterwards it was 17.6%. So yeah, it is, it is quite easy to get the, um, the, the moisture content of honey down as long as it's not like 23%. You know, you'll struggle if it's like super high, but if it's, it's 19 or 20%, you can, you can work with it. Do you have any thoughts about people putting bananas in the hives? I just, you know, do it if you want to put bananas in the hives. I don't think there's any real scientific backup to say that it's doing anything decent. And some people say, well, it's like, it's a— the way that the bananas kind of like break down and decompose, it's a readily accessible sugar. And I'd be like, well, it might be, but I bet you it's not as readily accessible as just like pure White granulated sugar, and they say no, no, no, we need just like we'll just put pure white granulated sugar in because it's cheaper. Why are you putting bananas in? Odd person. Sorry, sorry if I've offended anyone who's put bananas in their beehives, but it's not for me that one. Tapestry of Souls Baker says Lawrence, I bought a national full hive before I ordered my nuc from you in early May. It cost me 350. I'm pretty handy at making things, so after catching the swarm I had this year and it growing. Um, trying to find the rest of it. I thought I'd make a full national. It turned out really good and they are doing really well in it. Excellent to hear. That's good, good fun to make things yourself. Uh, I've got someone else on, someone else on Twitch. Hello, second Twitch viewer! Hello, brother. Uh, Simon says, @SamuelCrowley, search for Philippe Salbani. I think he says about— he does a lot of work for African beekeeping. I'm sure he will help you. Good luck. Good advice. We like, we like knowledge sharing. Hi Lawrence, I've been out trying wooden frames with wax-coated plastic foundation this year. I noticed bees are slower building out but not so bad when the weather is hot, so guessing plastic takes more heat. Yeah, and that's something I've definitely noticed is that, you know, in America it's like quite— it's very common in America, plastic, like wooden frames, plastic foundation, and that's just, that's the done thing and it works fine out there. And I think it is a heat thing, isn't it? Because it doesn't— they don't seem to have any issue with it out there. And I think in the UK, just, it's not— you probably get a couple of weeks of the year where it's good. And I found that if you get the bees like on the perfect flow, right density, they do, they start drawing out the frames and everything's fine. But that, you know, we only get 2 weeks of summer. Scout About says, can you use castellations on SN4 frames? You certainly can, and that's how I like to do it, is keep— start them off on SN4 All bunched together at the correct spacing. Get them drawn, get them to start drawing them out, start to collect honey in them, and then widen them out to castellations. But they fit in the slot perfectly. Hello, Lawrence, says British Beekeeper. Hello to you too. That was some question. So we did that one. British Beekeeper says, "Do you sell queen cells?" Obviously in the new year. So no, we've never we've never sold queen cells. Like I could I can do queen cells for people. if they want to kind of come and collect them. Um, but it's, uh, no, we don't. You need to give me advance warning and stuff, but we don't, uh, we don't sell them. Never really had that. Tried selling them before and didn't have any interest. Tried selling virgins, didn't have any interest. I think, I think it's personally, I think it's easier and safer just to buy the mated queens. But we can do it, definitely do them. Hiya, out from Out two hives, we've got 87 pounds of honey. The difference in flavor is so different from my Spurs fan father David. All the Spurs fans coming out tonight. Excellent. Well, I'm glad you got a decent amount of honey. That's really, really good yield. Oddly Specific says pure sugar sounds a bit easier than a rotting banana. Indeed. Simon Coates says the Bush Bee Man's video on AFB was truly heartbreaking. Yeah, I hate to see people getting diseases like that. But I like to— I like watching it when people take it seriously though, because I do think it is serious. Says, I have a lot of ants, I would never do that. He also wants to know what my Twitch is. Gonna be 3rd Twitch viewer. I think it's just Black Mountain Honey. Um, oh, never mind, found you. There we go. Uh, says, you make anything with your wax? So no, we don't do anything with our wax apart from trade it in for foundation because we get through Ridiculous amount of foundation because we sell a lot of nucs, and obviously each nuc needs six frames of foundation. We sell a lot, so that all goes back into that. Rednificent another oh my god! Everyone is watching on Twitch. There's about six people watching on Twitch. So hello to the six people watching on Twitch. Fresh new channel. What is just me talking about bees? Sometimes crack out a whiteboard as well. You know, it's like. Crazy, crazy things. Crazy times. Mr. Garth Nielsen says, "Thanks, Lawrence. Got your four queens yesterday to add to the nucs. I hope they go all well." Mr. Garth Nielsen. And then Chris says, "It's just Chris." Chris, I guess. Is it Chris T eight seven six? Is his username. So I just I read it as Christ. Sorry. But you have a question. He says, "How would you go about trying to bring back the hive with no?" Queen and the varroa issue. I missed your last dispatch due to discovering it was on the last day of dispatch. I'm sorry about that. So if it's got— you need a queen, you need to find a queen from somewhere. If you can't find a queen, then the varroa issue doesn't really make a difference either way because the colony is going to die, which is a bit harsh. But maybe speak around. I think other people might still have some queens. I'm not going to say their name because give them free advertising. in, but you probably guess who they are. Bush Bee Man has given up beekeeping. He did maybe— has he given up beekeeping now? He definitely threat— he definitely threatened to give up his channel, didn't he, a few years back? Because I think his son wouldn't, wouldn't film it. I really, I really liked him. I really do like him. He's such a nice, genuine guy. I had great, great fun when I did a live stream with him and, uh, my battery died in my camera and it was the funniest thing ever. And he was like, oh, I'm on my own. What's going on here, mate? I'm on my own. And he just didn't know what to do, and he held it all together really well. He's brilliant. I really enjoyed that. We did it at silly o'clock as well, so it was like midnight for me and like half 6 or something in the morning for him, but it was very funny. Uh, David Bisco says Michael Maz daisies are one of the late flowering plants. Michaela's Michaela Daisies are one of the late flowering plants that bees can take advantage of before the winter, worth planting in and around aprils. That's a nice tip, I'm not, I'm not seeing that. Says, I'm oddly not many beekeepers on here. Happy to see it, setting the trend for beekeeping on Twitch amongst the many, many gaming streams. Says, who do you trade your wax in with? So it all goes to thorns. Says, I'm new to this, so I thought that leaving my bees a super Honey would be a nice thing to do. Sounds like you don't agree. Not starting an argument, just learning from your excellent channel. So, so as, as with all of these things, it's never a case of starting an argument. I, I'd hate for it to ever be confrontational like that. And, and you've done— you've left a super on with the very best intentions, and there's nothing to say that you shouldn't leave a super on. Like, I know loads of people that leave supers on and, and don't treat. They just— they're not treatment— they like to go treatment-free and they leave supers on, and it's all It's all about working out what works for you and trying to keep like an open mind and listening to other people and not being afraid to try things and see what works and see what doesn't work and just develop something that you're happy with. So you'll never, yeah, you'll never get me into arguments about like, oh, you should do it this way. It's like, no, just do what you think is right for your bees, and I'm sure you'll do a good job for them. Thank— hi Lawrence, thanks so much for answering my question. I really appreciate it. It's my second year doing it. I started with 3 hives, now I have 7. I'm really nervous about going into winter. So I think the key things for me going into winter: check your queens early, make sure you've got good quality mated queens in there, take your honey off early. Aaron Cornish doesn't agree, but I like it. Take your honey off early, get your treatments in early, keep them trickle feed them, keep them ticking over until you get to the point where you feed them big heavy syrup. And do that and you won't lose more than 10%, might be 5%. And if you've got 7, there's nothing to say that you won't get all 7 through. Uh, he says, and explaining everything really helps. So yeah, my pleasure. Says they should just make black foundation to help egg spotting instead of the plastic frames. It's a good shout, you know, Thorns do loads of Dyed foundation. They just take beeswax and just mix in a dye. It's strange, isn't it? Because you'd think that's a really simple fix. Just make it black. Why don't they do that? MK says because the farmer never warned me, and I'm worried to lose these hives. Fingers crossed it's not poisoning. You should be good. Stuart Henderson says hi. One of our hives has no brood or eggs, but the queen is there. Hive super. Busy with bees after supers removed, why should she not be laying? Too busy. So it's a very, very normal time of the year for the bees to take a break, for the queen to take a break, and just to not lay any brood. So they'll go through kind of like peaks and troughs of laying, and once they've laid up all of their winter bees, and like you get a big spurt, loads of winter bees is laid, all of those winter bees emerge, and then the colony's at like the right density, and the queen's just like, well, I'm just gonna take, take a few weeks off. Perfectly normal. I've got loads of colonies that don't have any, any brood, any brooding at all. Um, what's the smallest size colony you've successfully overwintered? So I, I've done 2 frames, 2 frame splits. It's about the best ones I've had, like, reasonable success. Tried some mini mating nucs, didn't, didn't get on well with overwintering mini mating nucs. AAA says someone asked you about weak or small colony from Iraq. Just to let you know that for North Iraq is cold And it snows. It's not hot there in winter. I've seen 2 meters snow in Kurdistan. Okay, so there goes— shows my geography is very, very bad. So I think cold though is like good for bees. It's one of those weird ones we think, really, but a cold winter is easier to navigate than like a warm winter because the bees just like cluster, just stop. And then because it's cold, they have brood breaks so they can combat varroa a lot more effectively. So you'll find like in the warmer regions it's actually more, a bit more difficult to, to manage the bees through the winter if, if you do have varroa there. I started the year with 3 hives, I now have 26, about 14 are nucs with your F1 queens. I'm so excited to see how they're going to do in the spring. Oh wow, I'm, I'm excited for you as well, that sounds really good. Started with 3 hives, now you have 26, wow, that is, that is some going, well done. Um, Tapestry of Souls Baker says, before you finish, Lawrence, it would be nice if everyone that hasn't clicked the like button— oh, that's true, click the like button— but it says, thank you for another brilliant live, Lawrence. Until the next one, nighty night, everyone sleep well. Good night to you too, thanks for joining. MK says, can you explain how you got the 2-frame nucs over winter? Just wondering. So very well insulated, that's the key. Just super well insulated, small entrances, well fed. And, um, just— I didn't get them all through, but I got most of them through. I think about like 80% of them through. Um, but it's, it's the insulation is the one you just need to get them really, really well insulated. Hi, I put a clearer board in under 4 full supers, left it a week, but they don't go down. A lot of dead bees and some still up there. It was a white plastic type with the metal prongs in. So that's called a Porter Bee Escape, and it is the work of the devil. It's rubbish. Sorry. It's it's it's one of those annoying things though. Yeah, it's like you buy a beehive and they have the portabeescape shapes cut with portabeescapes in. It's just like, all right, they they are rubbish. But why do you why do you just insist on selling them? They're really really bad. So all that happens is you have these two prongs and they're supposed to be like let a bee through like this, like that. So the bee goes through and it comes back. Bee goes through and it comes back. And what happens is drone goes through and just gets stuck, and then nothing happens. So they're really, really not very good. So I would just take them, chuck them in the bin, and then like an effective clearing board, like a good like Canadian clearer board or a rhombus escape clearer board, should clear a hive during a flow in 24 hours. After 24 hours, they work it out. And so, but make sure you've got enough space underneath. So if you've got like a— say you've got a brood box with 4 supers on, You can't just put a clearer board in between the 4 supers and the brood box because there's not enough space for the bees. I know I say to cram them in, but when you're trying to clear them through a board, they just won't go down. And then, um, I was going to say— I completely lost track there. I don't normally lose track. It's tired, isn't it? It's time, 10 to 11. Um, I was gonna say is I'm not, I'm not a fan of clearer boards. I blow the bees out. It's so much easier blowing bees out. Shallow boxes, so like national shallows, supers, um, castellations, little mini blower, big blower if you want to get some grunt, just blow the bees out. Just turn up on the day, just blow them all out and take the box away. It's so much better. Love a blower. Uh, David says, I know the solstice is the catalyst for the queen to slow down, but given that it tends to be warmer, would that change for the queen's laying— would that change the queen's laying behavior? So, so no, I don't think it does. I, I really don't think it does. I think that, that late season flourish is all about like bringing stuff in, preparing the colony, pollen frames, bringing in stores. There might be some negligible impact on the queen's laying behavior, and you might, you might see it. You might kind of be like, well, got loads of brood in there now. So it's like anecdotal or coincidental, but I don't think it's— I think it is to do with the state of the colony, the amount of bees in the colony, the length of the day, and maybe the temperatures as well, but not so much like— I said the temperatures as well, but like the nighttime temperatures, but I think more like it, like kind of in that order. So that's what I think, but I did— that is anecdotal from my part as well, so I have no evidence to back that up. Happens When You Know How says you are a great mentor. Thank you. My pleasure, happy to help where I can. Uh, says, I'm a pest controller, so summer swarms. Oh nice, been busy on those. says, where the 2 frames overwintered nucs, poly or wooden? So I did them in a queen castle. I made my own queen castle, so I just turned a brood box into kind of all of these splits. They were kind of like next to each other, and then I clad the outside with, uh, insulation to like Celotex. Julian is still a fan of the whiteboard. That's really interesting, thanks for sharing. Not sure which bit apart, but I'm glad, I'm glad that it was good. The colder the winter, the better. Invertebrates' metabolism slips right down in the winter. That means less activity, less energy spent, longevity of the individuals. Exactly that. It is very true and completely relevant. You know, you've got invertebrates, but completely relevant to bees. I think I got that right. A bee is a vertebrate, no? Am I butchering the biology of the bee? I don't know. It's too late, David, it's too late. I'm guessing it's the same for both either way though, isn't it? But you're right, the longer— like, all the winter bees do, and I'm simplifying this, but they just like stay warm to keep the queen warm. That's their job. And the less work they do, the longer they live, which makes it easier for that, that crossover date when the queen started laying again and the bees are just like hanging on. The longer that they can hang on, the more brood that queen can lay to get that transfer into the spring bees, and that's how you get big bubbling colonies in spring. Would love to— would love a video on how to overwinter a small nuc colony. That's a good shout, so I'll do that. I'll do that next year. Rednificent says, mine is laying like crazy right now. It's good. I love seeing it when they start going and laying, the winter bees. It is, it is a very good sight. You are the best. Thank you very much. Bees don't have spines. Yeah, I guess maybe you're right. What do they have then? I guess they have like a hard exterior, which is an invertebrate, isn't it? So this is why I don't take beekeeping exams. Does a bee have a spine? Yep. Yes, spine. Oh yeah, no, it doesn't. No, it's invertebrate, isn't it? Of course. So it says it has like an exoskeleton. This is— I was just— this is showing my ignorance, isn't it? But there we go. I, I think if you'd have asked me that at 8 o'clock this evening, I'd have still got it wrong. So there we go. But I'll blame— I'll blame the timings. Uh, says you are the best times too. Thank you very much. David says bees are invertebrates. We are finishing with a bang here. So bees are definitely invertebrates. we're covering some real complex anatomy and biology and I'm getting things badly wrong. Regarding overwintering mating nucs, did you have a super and a feeder on top of the box? So no, I just tried to do it in a little Mini Plus and it was not a good idea. Laugh out loud, spiders cowards. Exoskeleton was correct. I, I— these comments weren't there a second ago. Nice job on the new wooden sign, well done. Uh, really good show again. Thanks very much. Thank you. I hope I'm glad you enjoyed the sign. Liam Jennings says my mite count is low. Would you not treat or oxalic acid later instead? Sorry, crap spelling. I I'm not one for counting on mite counts unless they're incredibly reliable, and and and I like to treat when I've got the chance to treat. But you can you could do that if you so some people don't treat because they've got a low count, and then you can oxalic acid later. That's that's probably a good plan. And the final word goes to David. He says thanks, Lawrence. You are a star. So I'm going to duck out before any. any more comments come in. 2 hours and 24 minutes that live stream was, and I don't think I got out of breath or a breath that often. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna duck out now. On Twitch also says rock on, have a good one. So thank you very much for watching. The next one will be in 4 weeks' time. I'll stick it in my calendar now, and I'll probably put it up and, and pencil it in early so people can come back. But I hope you've all got your bees all set up well for winter. I hope your honey harvests are doing very well. Stacked up in your honey extraction room, and I wish you all the very best of luck over the next 4 weeks. So I'll see you all soon.