Checkerboarding - Are They Going Backwards?

Right, so we're back again with another update from the checkerboarded colony. I've not been in there for 3 weeks and the bees have gone through a little bit of a June gap in that period. I'm really excited to see how they've expanded during that time, how— Ah, that was a very apt moment because what I was about to tell you next was I was going to talk about how the colony had expanded during the June gap, how they've managed their stores, but also the temperament of this colony of bees in the checkerboard colony is not good. And how do I know that bee there was one from the checkerboard colony? Okay, I don't, but I was here filming last night at about 9 o'clock, and the only colony that was active was the checkerboard colony. And they were active in a really, really aggressive kind of way, and they full-out attacked me. I got about 10 stings to the face and the arms, all from the checkerboard colony, and I had done nothing wrong at all. All I did was walk past at about half 8, 9 o'clock at night. With no bee suit on, and they fully attacked me. So I will be requeening this colony at some point, probably sooner rather than later. Is that anything to do with the fact that I'm putting stress on the colony through checkerboarding? Probably not. Is it just due to poor genetics of that queen? Maybe. I really don't know though. All I know is this is a big, strong colony of bees. We found the queen last time. Let's get ah. That's 2 stings. I've not even got through the intro. We found the queen last time. I'm gonna get my bee suit on, stop myself getting stung, and I'm gonna go over there and give you an update on the checkerboarded colony. Right, so we're back here at the checkerboard hive. Just gonna give you a little closeup now of the entrance of this hive. So if you look around the apiary, all of the other colonies have gone to bed. This one here knows that I'm here and it is just intent on stinging me. Really, really nasty genetics and they shouldn't be this way. There's a decent flow on at the moment, but they are intent coming out and getting me. Something not right with this colony. Now, as I said, I'm not suggesting that the checkerboarding is causing them to behave this way. It's clearly genetics, but it really has helped me identify what colony I need to requeen in this apiary. I'm not going to do it just yet because I don't want to ruin this series. I want to try and get that queen through, and I'm interested to see if they supersede her. If they supersede her, I will kill the queen, take down the cells, and I'll requeen at the same point. Let's get inside though, see how the bees are getting on, and see how much progress they've made. Right, so very random, we've just got a queen excluder at the top that's just being stored there. Also, that is my new light, and there's my camera over there. So I've gone full out here and invested in a proper lighting setup, but as I said, I have no idea how to use it. So bees all the way to the top, which is only a good thing. Little close-up of some of the bees there. The smell of propolis coming out of this hive is sensational. Really, really love that smell. Breaking the propolis seals, it doesn't get any better than that. So we're still not using a queen Excluder other than this one I'm just storing at the top. I'm gonna go through every single box, just have a little peek in, see if we can find the queen and see where the brood is hanging out as well. So no brood up here, but some very, very nice frames of honey. Really, really packed that box full, capping it over and out. These are 2 very heavy frames of honey, so I'm happy with that. Good to see the top box has got lots of honey in it. Next box down is still just a box of foundation, so we definitely put too many boxes on. I'm gonna leave it on though. I'm not gonna take it off 'cause there's a big strong colony honey. They can manage that space, and we're in the middle of a flow at the moment. Same with this box here. This is another empty box, so the bees haven't really moved on a huge amount in like 2 or 3 weeks. These 2 boxes were empty, they're still empty. There's a lot of summer left though. We've still got like 6 or 7 weeks, maybe 8 weeks up at this apiary because you get a bit of heather up here as well. So plenty of time for these boxes to be filled, but they have done nothing for the first 3 weeks of June. So now we're into the 3 brood boxes. I know they're all effectively brood boxes because we've not got a queen excluder. Got one national deep, 2 national deeps, and a 14 by 12. They're not as nice, the bees, are they? I'm gonna have to flash back to a previous video, just have a look and see what they were like. Maybe a little bit unfair because it is later in the evening, but they took me by surprise yesterday. These came out, absolutely battered me, and they're not behaving very nicely again now. Well, they're very busy though because there's lots and lots of honey in these top boxes. Really gone to town with producing that honey, and that is incredibly heavy. So I'm going and put these down now. Just on a completely unrelated note, this is so funny. Someone rung me up the other day and said, is that Lawrence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey? And I said, yeah. And they said, really? Because the person on the videos has got a much higher voice. And I kind of realized and said, yeah, I've actually— you know what, I put on a voice when I do the videos. Why do I do that? And then I realized that when I go back to this voice, this is my YouTube voice. And then my normal voice is kind of like this, and I just talk normally, and I've got a much deeper voice. So why, when I do my videos, do I go up like an octave? And then why, when I talk normally, do I just talk in a really low, monotonous tone? Very odd and an interesting side note. Maybe I'll go somewhere in the middle. I don't know how to talk now. This is so difficult. Right, another frame, another frame, another frame, another frame of honey. Little bit of brood on there as well. Oh, very nice. We found the queen. He says in a very high-pitched voice. So there we go, queen's on there, same queen. Really happy that we managed to find that queen in the end and get her marked. Very unique colouring, so there is no denying that is the same queen. I'll get a cage out and I'll just keep her caged just so she's safe during this inspection. Always feel better when a queen is caged like that, makes the inspection so much easier. So another really nice heavy frame of honey, bit of drone brood in it. Now on there we've got a nice frame of brood, brood in all stages. Lots of nectar came out there when I shook that one off. But good brood in all stages, just play cups at the bottom. I've checked those, nothing to worry about there. That is where the swarm cells will go though when this colony does eventually try and swarm. Another frame with brood in all stages, another frame mostly nectar, a bit of drone brood. Again, lots of drone brood, lots of drone brood in this colony here. And then another nice heavy frame of honey to finish it off. Right, so I'm not going to go through all these frames, I'll just give you a little snapshot. Lots of brood, lots of eggs, lots of brood, lots of brood. Really huge amounts of brood in this colony. Another nice frame of brood. So many drones on these frames. You can kind of see where I'm going. Another nice frame of brood. Gotta be upwards of 20 frames of brood in this colony. Another frame of brood, another frame of brood in my normal voice. And then final one in there. Actually, I've got a couple more in there. A drone brood with lots of nectar. And then the final one is lots of eggs, lots of nectar. Right, so this is fun. This is kind of just like one of my evenings at the moment. It's about half 8 in the evening and I'm out here doing bees and getting really battered by them, but it is good fun. Final one, final box. We're going to go down now, have a look in the 14 by 12 brood box. This colony is huge, but I don't think they've come that far in the last 3 weeks. They've kind of just maintained themselves. However, if they get going in the next 4 to 6 weeks, we could still see a really, really good amount of honey here. Right, so lots of angry bees, really very, very angry, but a full brood box down at the bottom. All the bees on the lens there as well. Let's get inside, see what they've done in the bottom brood box. See, it's very interesting what they've done down there. Absolutely nothing. No nectar, no pollen, no brood, no worker brood, no drone brood, nothing. Empty frames. This colony has definitely gone backwards because previously there was a lot of brood down here. Tiny little bit of stores, but really nothing else on that frame. Again, maybe 20% stores. Decent amount of brood on that one. I'll give you a little close-up. So there is some brood down there still. Nice worker brood. And again, frame that definitely needs to be cycled out, but still some good worker brood on it. And then kind of more frames of nothing down there. So if this was one of my colonies at the moment, do you know what I would do with it? I would put the queen back downstairs in this brood box. I would put a queen excluder on, I'd put all the empty supers on, stack them up, and I would locate all the brood at the very top. Effectively do a Demarais split. I'm not going to do that though, because that is not the checkerboarding method, and I kind of want to follow the method and see how the bees store that honey and arrange the brood nest themselves going into winter. So it's just going to be a free-for-all. They're going to have free run of all of the boxes, no queen excluders. I'm going to put it all back together again and I'm going to go home. One more video to do. I'm doing my Zest Hive update and I'm doing a bit of checkerboarding on that Zest Hive behind me. First though, I'm going to put everything back together again and just get away from these very angry bees. So that's the frame with my queen in. What I like to do when I'm putting a single frame like that back in is just pick up the queen and drop her in, watch her go down, and then shake the bees off. Dave's trying to put a frame into the last frame slot with a queen on it, never goes well that. Right, so there you go, that's another checkerboard update for The bees are angry with me, but what I find really interesting with this colony here is that compared to my other colonies in the apiary where I've done my Demarée splits, I'd kind of say it's about average. It's not that far ahead and it's not that far behind. The benefit that you're supposed to get with a checkerboarded colony like this is that you don't need to go in and do your inspections, but obviously I've been going in because I'm so curious. But they're really not far behind. Very Yeah, they're not far behind. happy. I do not know what's going on with this colony. They definitely weren't this bad earlier on in the year, and the flow is here at the moment, so they really should kind of be acting a little bit better than this. Lots and lots of angry bees. Make sure you hit the subscribe button though, because this series is going to go all the way to the very end, and you never know, I might even change my voice back at the end of the year as well.