Laurence Edwards demonstrates why the pull-out integrated feeder on Payne's 6-frame poly Langstroth nuc is essential. The removable feeder creates extra workspace for inspections without crushing bees or the queen, especially useful when colonies are heavily propolised or under robbing pressure. Edwards calls it his favorite feature and urges Payne's to adopt the design more widely.
In this video, I'm going to tell you how Paynes turned my least favourite feature of their poly boxes into by far and away my favourite feature in the new poly Langstroth nuc. Now, I previously did a video talking about all of the new features of the Paynes Langstroth nucleus boxes, and I spoke quite a bit about the removable feeder and the options that that gives you. And it's only through working these colonies— and I've been working these poly Langstroth nucs really well over the past 3 or 4 weeks It's only through working them that I found this feature that really is an absolute game changer for me, especially late into the season, especially early into the season. In this video, I'm going to show you this one thing that I really have fallen in love with. So here we've got a 6-frame poly Langstroth nuc, and you can see there that we've got the integrated feeder. However, it's a pull-out integrated feeder, and what I didn't like about the old Payne's boxes for my own beekeeping Was that I had to open up the nuc if I wanted to feed them. I subsequently learned how to do it properly, where you just crack the crown board open a little bit and pop the container in, but it really wasn't one of my favorite features, and it was something that I actively didn't like. Now, this removable feeder is great because it means that you can dummy down colonies, but my favorite thing, and where it really comes into its own, is late in the season and early in the season when it comes to doing the last and first inspections. So whether it's late in the season or early in the season, I'm always really cautious about squishing bees and squishing the queen. And I find that I'm kind of like levering frames and I'm pulling frames out, and I break a lot of frames at that point in the season because they're so well propolised together. If you're wondering what these bees are about, we've just got serious robbing here at the moment. This hive actually, it was stacked up, had a crack in it, and I've got lots of robbing bees. So I'm going to do this video as quick as possible. So previously what I would do is I'd go in and I'd kind of get my hive tool and I'd start to like wiggle it around a bit and try and get that frame out there, and it would always be a little bit of a challenge. What I do now is the easiest thing in the world. All I do is I just prise the feeder out like that. It is brilliant. I take it out completely, shake the bees off like that, and I pop it down to one side. What that immediately gives me is a Huge amount of space to work. You see people do this, they'll take a couple of frames out and they'll put them somewhere to give themselves a little bit of space to work. I don't need to do that now on the Payne's Langstroth nucs because the feeder comes out and it gives me all of that space to work with. So all I do once I've taken that feeder out, I can just go straight onto the first frame, take a look at it like that, pull it up, look where that frame is, see if there's anything on it. And then all I'll do is I'll just pop that frame back down on this side over here. I can then move on to the next frame, and because I've got so much space, so easy just to lever that frame out. Coming in, I'm checking, I'm seeing that I've got eggs, everything is good. Checking for wasps coming in, tons of wasps at the moment. That's a nice frame just to have a look at, real winter frame there, condensing brood, stores around the edges, and I managed to get that frame out so easily because I didn't have to Definitely worth having a look at that one as well. I've told you, this is a colony to remember. Buckfast breeder queen, German breeder queen number 11. She is very, very special indeed. So then it's even simpler putting it all back together. I just shift everything back over. I've managed to keep it all in exactly the same order because I've got so much room to work with. Pop the feeder back in. That is by far and away my favorite feature of the poly Langstroth nuc. And Pains, if you are watching this, please, please, please bring it to the national nuke because it really is a game changer.
