I Marked The Queen... Then She Stopped Moving

Bees pretty much on every single frame. These are very heavy frames, maybe about three to four pounds each. You need to take action for wasps now. Right, so I'm not going to lie, Zane. I have been back up here and I'm going to ruin the fun for everyone. The queen is definitely. She's fainted. What's that? Keep on filming there. She pretends to faint. It is absolutely roasting hot here in North Wales, but these bees are very happy. I've got a good feeling about today. So we started off by saying it is too hot. It is way, way too hot to be doing inspections, but there's some good news inside this beehive. So today we're gonna give you the 5-minute rundown of Zane's nuc. Let's get this one back on track. So as I take all of this stuff off here, Zane, I have been back in. I have found your queen. She is out of the cage. She is laying eggs.

Yeah.

There's honey in the supers. The sun is out.

So it's all good news.

Nothing more can go wrong.

That's what you think. Should that—

That's it, just say what you see.

The same as last week.

What's in there?

Nothing.

Nothing. Empty super, that's fine.

Okay, this one, this one looks busier. If I remember, there was only 4 and then 4— yeah, 4 full, 4 empty. Nice. And then a few spares.

So look at this here, Zane, this is looking good. We've still got a couple of frames with not that much on, but the way they're drawing out those combs there, when you lift the box, like the weight in it, some of these frames here definitely going to be full of honey. So some really nice heavy honey frames. Look at that, Zane. You can see the bees capping all of that over now. These are very heavy frames, maybe about 3 to 4 pounds each.

It's That's looking good, isn't it?

It is looking very good in that super. So give it a lift. I know we went, we had a little lift, didn't we, of the Demare top box over there. What was it like?

That was silly.

Yeah.

That was silly.

But now you've calibrated it. Go on, what are you thinking of this one here? Let me get the super. You've got the Queen Excalibur, sorry. Here we go. What are you thinking?

That's still, still got a lot of weight. That's 15 kilos?

Yeah.

10, 15?

Yeah, so I reckon like a full one of these, it is, a full one of these is like 20, 25 pounds. Not quite full, that's maybe 20 pounds, but that's still like, that's a huge improvement on last week.

I'll put my veil up now just—

Okay.

Just to be sure. It's too hot for a veil.

It's really very hot today, so I'm not going to put my veil on. But before we go in, should we have a little top-down on the camera, show just how many frames and stuff? So it doesn't look like a huge amount of action in the brood box, but you can see as I go across the top there, there's bees pretty much on every single frame. Let's pull them out, Zayn, and see if that queen has been successfully released out of the cage and see Right, so I'm not gonna lie, Zane, I have been back up here and I'm gonna ruin the fun for everyone. The queen is definitely out, but you can see the cage there, so she's been released. Fondant tab has been eaten through.

Oh, what's that? Oh, I think it was a wasp.

Oh, a wasp going in. Yeah, there we go. There's loads of wasps at the moment. If you need your wasp survival kit, I'll stick it in the links at the bottom of this video. You need to take action for wasps now. They are becoming a major problem. let's find this queen. We also need to mark this queen, don't we?

Yes.

Right, so I'm going very slowly through your brood box now. Last thing we want to do is roll another queen.

Was that you admitting to killing the queen potentially? That sounded like a confession.

Zane trying to apportion blame to Team Reader. I love it. We can say it was me if you want to say it was me. No, I'm joking.

I'm definitely the newbie here, so it's More than likely me.

I just want to see this queen again now. That would be embarrassing if she wasn't here. There we go, saved my blushes there. Jeez. Right, so we've got eggs. Let's have a look, Zane. Be super careful. If you have a look down kind of some of the middle ones there.

Oh, there's a worker bee coming out there.

Yeah, we've got a little bee emerging. Could be here for days filming that though. They take a couple of hours, I'd say, to get through it all.

Okay, so we've got eggs, that's good.

Yeah, but have a look at that, Zane. Can you see, like, fully laid up with eggs, the whole frame? Like every cell you look at.

Do you know what, it doesn't matter how many times I see eggs, I still can't believe how small they are.

They're tiny.

They're tiny.

So the queen is not marked, so— oh, there she is. See her? Right now, Zane, I'm going to give you a very important job here. Don't lose the queen while I go get a pen.

Okay.

I got the crimp card, good work. I do that sometimes, put the finger there. So you know how to mark a queen, Zane?

I've seen you do it, yeah.

Right, so get as much paint out. You can see where I've done it before. You're wiping off the excess, yeah?

Okay.

You can do a couple of plunges, but then you just have to wipe off all the excess again and again and again. Are you keeping an eye on the queen at the same time?

Nope.

You see where she's gone? She's legged it.

No, she's there.

Okay, there she is. And then you know the way that I like to do it. I'll try and do it so you can see it on camera. I'll come in from behind like that. And just like one single blob on the back and then let her go. She's fainted. Watch that, keep on filming there. She pretends to faint. You see how she pretended there?

Yeah.

Watch out, you don't want the bees on her back there.

Yeah, she definitely did faint then. Is that them just playing dead type of thing?

They play dead, the queens, yeah. So there we go.

I don't think I would have ever forgiven you if you killed Imagine that. After all this success, finally.

You see that one bee just kind of went over and smudged it on her wing. Not the end of the world, but not ideal.

Okay.

But what I like to do when I mark them like that though, Zane, yeah, you want to, you want them to kind of just walk around and let it dry. See how when it went over it, it just smudged it. It's a little bit annoying. Let's get that queen back in. Where's she gone? There she is. All right, so queen back in there. Bees are chill today as well, aren't they?

Yeah.

That is all we needed to see. We've got the queen. Queen's back on track, even if I kind of got a bit of paint on her wing. And you've got eggs, got brood in all stages, there were larvae there, you've got all this honey coming in, you've got honey upstairs.

We know we don't need to add another super because that one's still got loads of space in that.

What's your bet for next week, what we're going to see upstairs in the top super?

I reckon 5 frames basically full and the rest drawn out.

Okay.

What do you think?

So I hate to be like, yeah, pessimistic. So, you know, we've just got the queen back on track here.

Yeah.

So there's not going to be any brood emerging for like 3 weeks. So this is week 1.

Yeah.

So you shouldn't really see a massive impact. But even though we've got good weather, we're seeing it. Week 2, probably not going to see that impact. But week 3, The brood will start emerging. They'll start going up. They'll start filling the supers. So don't be like saddened if next week there's nothing there. But the week after, it'll be all good. What is it, Zane?

That's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

As long as there's progress.

There is definitely progress. Like compared to last week where it was all doom and gloom and I was in a right mood. Yeah. Mr. Happy Louse today, isn't it?

Yes. You weren't a happy guy last year.

I was not a happy guy, but I am a happy guy this week. So we're going to finish it there. It is way too hot. There's definitely been a lot of bloopers today. So, Zane. Bold of Lucas. That is the craziest tripod.

Can we get an ice cream?

Yeah, come on, let's go. You doing it again?

Yeah.

Is he doing it?

Ready to go. Ready to go home.

Yeah, okay.

Unlucky for some.

Number 13. Right, Zane. Right, it is— where do we start? How does it start?

Do the smoke after. Okay. Da da da da.

Right, right, let's do it. I'll do it, you'll get something out of that. Yeah.