Laurence Edwards visits Richard's apiary to learn why equipment hygiene is the first thing Richard notices in beekeeping. Bacterial buildup causes more problems than visible issues, so Richard cleans every piece between bee lots using bleach dips, steam cleaning, and caustic-soda treatments. When a nuc fails, he quarantines the box, melts down the frames, and dips them in caustic soda to recover the wax.
Right, I'm back in Richard's apiary today, and the first thing I always notice when I come into Richard's apiary is just how nice and clean and new all of the equipment is. In this video, we're going to talk about why it's really, really important to clean all of your equipment on a regular basis to stop the spread of disease. So Richard, tell me about the different things you've got in this apiary and why you think it's so important to keep things clean.
Well, the main, main reason for cleaning everything is because there is the problems you can see, but the problems you can't see are probably a bigger problem, which we know a lot about beekeeping, but we don't know everything. So my policy is that everything gets cleaned between every lot of bees within that box. So once the nucs go out in the spring, everything that's left to start that season will be put through a bleach dip and steam cleaned off, and then it comes back to the apiary. I mean, there is a mixture here of new and old, so these 2 are probably 3 or 4 years old. The BS honeybee box in front is a year old. And it is something, it is a massive chore. It takes up a lot of time, but it is something I believe That will get your beekeeping to a better standard.
So if you're wondering why we're looking at this nuc over here, you've closed the entrance, haven't you? There's loads of wasps hovering around the front. There's a bit of a wasp issue going on at the moment, isn't there? Right, so say for example this nuc here straight in front of us, it's a little bit battered, you've closed the entrance, there's loads of wasps going into it. Say you come back in a couple of weeks and it's dead and everything's gone, what would you do? Would you kind of make another split, or would you quarantine that and take it away for cleaning?
No, so I, I would take that box back. There'll be 6 Frames in there, I'd melt the frames down. Frames will then be dipped in a caustic soda mix and steam cleaned off, and they'll be prepared for next season. Everything basically is a dead out or is no good, is shook out, and everything is cleaned. And I mean everything.
So that's what I really like with Richard and his bees, is that he leaves no stone unturned. Like I said, here you've got a nuc that's clearly struggling a little bit due to wasp damage. No signs of disease, probably relatively new combs in there as well. But there's no kind of even discussion around it. If it fails, takes it away, he cleans it, he dips it in a solution to clean all of the poly, jet washes everything off so it's nice and clean, but then he doesn't even use the frames, melts down all of the frames, caustic soda solution. Richard is a serial wax hoarder. You should see the amount of wax that Richard's got in his store, tons and tons of the stuff. And that's what you get, isn't it, when you're constantly melting down these frames, you get a huge amount of wax.
You do, yes, but it, but it is invaluable in exchanging for foundation.
So in terms of your recommendations, do you think everybody should follow kind of like a similar process to that? Are there any exceptions where you wouldn't clean something or melt them down, or is it absolutely everything goes through that process?
I do everything, but for me it is easier at a commercial base because I do have sheds where nobody can get in, so I have time to store stuff and then I have time to do a day's cleaning. To actually do little things one-off is very difficult. So it is not one thing fits all. I mean, but the higher you can keep your level of hygiene, the less problems you will probably encounter. And as I said before, my view is it's not the problems you can see that are the real problems. It's what builds up in bacterial form that then just seems to just hold them bees back from really coming to their head.
Let's go back to the example of this nuc here then. So say, for example, the wasps do get in, and I'm guessing they're probably going to get in there. There's so many wasps there. There's 3 or 4 frames of brood in there. What would you do? Would you go away and individually clean that, or do you kind of do it at certain times throughout the year? Do you have a safe place to bring them? Just talk us through the process of, imagine you're going through your apiary today and there's a few duds, there's a few dead-outs, how do you get them to a point where they're clean in your storage facility?
So with that box there, I mean, I know what the problem is with that box there, probably the queen cell that I put in there is probably a failure, it's getting very late in the season. But actually with that box, I would seal it up, probably shake everything out first, seal it up, take it back to the safe shed, and then I'd wait until there's a batch of say 10 10 or 15, and then I would start with the wax melting. I would dip the whole poly box, and then I would get the caustic soda tank going and dip all the frames, and at which point we'd be ready then for rewaxing. It'd probably be next spring.
So there we go, that is how Richard keeps his apiary so incredibly clean. I've learned so much from Richard over the years, and I'm bringing that into my apiaries now as well. So you'll see cleaning out all of my boxes, never reusing frames, never reusing boxes without them going through either a scorching treatment or a bleaching treatment. And I have to say, I'm starting to see the benefit of it as well, but nowhere near as much as Richard's seeing it in his apiaries.
