Surviving Cancer By Keeping Bees

One of my customers, Keith, is a cancer survivor. Today we're going to take a look inside his apiary. So Keith's apiary is in a beautiful spot in North Wales. Keith occasionally comes to me and buys queens, but he has a wide mix of different genetics and different queens in the apiary site here. The site is stunning, absolutely amazing. It's a really nice mature garden, and then it goes down a bank and you can see the river, and there's There's Himalayan balsam whether you like it or not. There's a bit of Japanese knotweed down there as well, but there's ivy, and then the whole of the garden is a fully mature, like, cottage garden. So you've got fruit trees and lime trees and hazel, and then it just breaks out into this incredible woodland over there. I can't believe I forgot my drone. I'm a little bit gutted that I forgot it because it would have been the best video ever. But what we're going to do today is we're just going to go and take a look at Keith's bees, see if he's got any honey, see how the bees are getting on, and we'll take a little look around the garden as well. Well, let's get my veil up and let's get to it. So Keith, thanks for having me on. We'll shake hands first. How you doing? Tell me about your bees and tell me about your story.

Right, well, 4 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and I was sitting at home absolutely bored to death, and then I started looking up on the internet about bees. Yeah, I kept them when I was in school with the head teacher, Mr. Williams, and I always meant to keep bees, but I never got the chance, and I wish I'd taken the chance. years and years ago.

Yeah.

Because I absolutely love it, and it pulled me through the cancer. It was good therapy, and I'd recommend it for therapy anyway, even if they don't keep bees, to go and help somebody with bees.

Yeah.

And I got in touch with Laurence about buying some bees, and he arranged for me to pick them up in the, in the spring. And I bought 2 hives first, and that's when I started. And everything you see in my apiary Plus I've got another 6 out as well.

Wow.

It's all from Laurence's bees. It's, um, I'm proud for one swarm, like.

It's, it's, it's really nice story to hear. Like, I remember you, you coming to my house and you didn't, you didn't look very well at that point, you know, that was at the, the height of it. But you're, you're through that now, aren't you?

Yeah, we're all clear now. I go for my last, last treatment tomorrow just to make sure everything's, uh, is all clear.

Yeah.

And then hopefully onwards and upwards.

Well, fingers crossed, but it sounds so good. And massive congratulations for getting through it. So tell me about these bees then, what ones are these?

This is my very first hive I had.

Very first hive?

Yeah, this one and the one in the corner, they were from Lawrence, and this one here was on a Jolante and she died at the beginning of the year, but there was cells in there, supersedure cells, and I just left them be.

Nice.

And now it has, they have requeened themselves.

Yeah, so you've got a few in here that are kind of like next generation and next generation from that.

Yeah, so what they crossed with, I wouldn't know. They probably crossed with the Buckfast.

Yeah, maybe the Buckfast, maybe like local mongrels. Yeah, they're not too bad, are they?

They're not a bad bee. They're not— some days they have the, the moments, but I think it depends what time of the day you go in.

Yeah, definitely.

Most of the times I go in is mid-afternoon when I've come home from work early.

Okay.

I don't work all day, like, so. But, um, a little bit of honey in there.

So go on, you're going through some of the frames now. Tell me about, like, what, what do you aim to get out of your bees?

Are they here just for fun, or do you want to get honey out of them? They're here because I enjoy— well, honey's a bit of a benefit on it, yeah, but I just like keeping the bees. I just find it's a nice A nice hobby really. It relaxes me, and while I'm here I don't think about anything else whatsoever. I was suffering from anxiety, but I don't suffer from anxiety now because I'm too busy with the bees.

It's good, isn't it? It's very mindful, I find, with the bees. Like, all you think about is what's going on with the bees.

Yeah, you can't concentrate on anything else. You've just got to concentrate on the job in hand.

And do you inspect your bees every week? Do you come down here every week?

Every week, yeah, every week. Normally on a Monday, but this Monday we were out, so—

Well, you can see that queen is very— I know the queen's not on there, but you can see she's very, very well mated, isn't she?

Yeah, she is.

Beautiful brood pattern.

Yeah.

I'd be quite happy with that. You think that they superseded or swarmed?

I think they superseded. They didn't swarm because I found the queen dead. She was on the bottom of the thing, and then that's where I noticed the swarm cell. Well, not a swarm cell, A superseder cell. And, um, yeah, I thought, well, I'll leave it and have a look. I've not bothered with it before, so I thought I'll give it a go. I'm glad I did, really, because as you can see, it's really, really busy.

It's a really, really good mated queen. You got eggs in there?

Uh, no, not in that one.

Let's have a quick look. Yeah, I can see eggs. Yeah, it's difficult. It's like dappled light here, so it's quite difficult to see stuff.

What I normally do is that— oh yeah, I can see them now.

Yeah, you can see them.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, that's all good. Like I said, it's a couple of lovely frames of brood there.

Yeah.

So this colony here set up on, it's like a brood and a half in reverse. Any reason for that?

Well, like it was empty, so I switched it to the bottom.

Empty last week?

Yeah. There wasn't a single thing on it. So rather than storing honey in it, I just dropped it to the bottom.

And is it still empty now?

Yeah, I haven't touched it.

Okay.

Oops, be careful, Laurence.

It is a little bit staged here. I nearly fell off there. That would have been funny, wouldn't it?

I never work that way.

Brilliant.

But we find because of the badgers in the wood, they don't come up much further than this.

No, it is perfect. You can see there we have got a big massive step all the way around there and I just completely fell off that.

And they never come up past that one there. But yeah, you can see there is lots of brood on there. Unusual pattern because it is all on one end and not in the centre.

Yeah, nice pattern.

For some reason, yeah, it's a good pattern on it. There is, yeah, there is eggs in there and a bit of—

And what I can see, just show me that frame again. What I can see is lots of ghost bees.

Yes.

See that one there?

Yeah, the Himalayan balsam. There's one down the bottom there. Yeah, what intrigued me is how they make another entrance on the bottom.

Yeah, they do that sometimes. Like a straight down.

Foundation.

Yeah, you've got like—

It's really good.

All different ones there.

Lots of pollen in the top, honey. Yeah, really, I think they've been quite busy on that one.

So what's the plan for this hive here for winter? So you've got it kind of brood and a half, nothing on the bottom, not a huge amount of honey at the top. What's your—

Yeah, well, my plan is, well, next weekend I'll take the brood box off the top. I'll remove the half a brood off the bottom because hopefully it should stay empty. It'll be hunkering down ready for the winter, and I'll do my treatments. Yeah, when I've taken the honey off it, I'll stick me varroa treatment on it.

What varroa treatment do you use?

Yeah, I use the Apivar.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, really good treatment. Yeah, I found this worked. Like, I do try to have a good look at the bees with a looking glass to have a look if I can see any on them. I don't really see much.

Yeah.

I don't put the boards in the bottom because I found it was producing a lot of slugs.

Okay.

I don't know if it's because I think they tend to get the slugs on there where they was foraging off the bits and bobs. I don't know. Yeah, but I've stopped that and I don't get so many slugs in now.

Yeah, I think a lot of the varroa, they sit on like the underside of the bees. It's quite difficult to see. I'd say what you're looking for more is like small holes in cappings. Yeah, irregular holes.

I'll do that.

Yeah, and then a bit of a deformed wing virus, but yeah, you can't see any of that. No, it looks really nice.

I've seen a bit of deformed wing virus in some of them before, but yeah, not a great deal. Look at that, that's a lovely frame. That's a nice frame.

Do you mind if I hold that one for the camera?

Yeah, of course you can.

So you can see their 2nd or 3rd generation Yolanta queen there, and they're still pretty calm. Lots of, lots of nice eggs in there, beautiful brood pattern. Like, the matings are obviously superb. Interesting to see up here, decent amount of propolis. So I'd say that they are, well, they're going out and getting a really good amount, whether that's the, the local influence of the bees or potentially the Carniolan of the Yolanta. But I quite like a bit of propolis. I have to say I like a bit of propolis in, in my beehives to stick everything together.

Yeah, they do stick everything together.

I just gotta watch out for this huge drop down there. It nearly fell down it again there, but it's nice, isn't it?

It keeps the badgers and the foxes away. There's a nice rim of honey.

So, so your plan will be like this box here, to me looks like a really nice box of wintering bees.

Yeah.

Taking the shallow off.

I'll take the shallow off.

Would you take some honey out of here, do you think?

I don't think I'd take any honey off because These boxes have been treated.

Okay.

So I tend to stay clear of using that.

And is there any honey in the top boxes?

I haven't looked yet. I never go in the top boxes until I've done the bottom.

Okay, yeah, nice.

I find it's not a bad method because you're not upsetting the bees too much. Once I start putting it back together, I find once I get that queen excluder on, they tend to calm down a little bit. There's a little bit of weight in that. This was a treatment box, but it's been torched.

Yeah, yeah.

And then it's been put back on, and I've used it as a honey thing just to try it.

Look at that wonderful frame of honey.

Yeah, just to give it a go, to see what it— I did test my extractor first, be careful, Laurence. Look at that one there.

Beautiful frames of capped honey on brand new frames, new foundation. We're on a DN4, but no risk of any contamination with Apivar, so that can just be extracted. Looks like a really nicely capped frame. If you're seeing frames like that, you can definitely extract them.

Now, I changed a lot of the frames in here. I took them out because I didn't— they were a bit dark, so I put some new ones in on my last inspection. And that's since my last inspection, they started drawing it out already.

Really nice.

They're amazing how quickly they can draw it out, isn't it?

Oh yeah, very quick. Yeah, they're drawing that out, aren't they?

Yeah, we didn't get any spring honey. No, I don't think anyone did. Very, very poor. But as long as they had enough in there, I left these 2 full ones in there. Oh, look at that. Oh dear.

Yeah, it's a nice big frame of honey there. Nice big full frame of honey there. So there's a good few frames here. Like I say, 4 or 5 pounds easy from a big heavy DN4 like that. So then go on, what's in the rest of the boxes? Because you've got a few extra boxes on there.

Yeah, nothing in that one.

Nothing in that one?

No, nothing in that one. A lot of drawn-out comb in here. I'm drawing it out. This is what I stored from last year, and I added it on last week because we hadn't had the weather, and I thought, you know what, I'll stick them on. But they've done nothing whatsoever with that one. That's completely empty. I'll probably take that off next week. A little better than this one, I think, but there was quite a lot of bad weather here.

Yeah.

So I don't think we've been too blessed with the weather, but they can stick anything down, that's certain.

Yeah, they're very sticky bees. I, I do like it. I know some people are really not keen on propolis, but— and, and my bees have very, very little propolis, but I do miss it a bit.

Yeah, I quite like it on the boxes because when they're stuck together, there's less chance of it sliding. Yeah, and there's, uh, Nothing in that one. I think they've stored it down below. There's quite a lot of honey in that one.

Yeah, it's strange, isn't it, how they're doing it kind of a bit haphazard. And that is what they do when they have a bit too much space to go at.

I often worry about having too many here, but for some reason there's some deadness on that one.

I don't think too many hives here, I think that's fine. What I would do, if you wanted my advice, Keith, I'd remove the bottom box. Yeah, just get that out straight away, keep them on a single brood. Yeah, and then just basically remove all of the other boxes apart from that national deep.

Yeah.

As, like, as soon as possible really, because what—

Look at that one.

If you had— yeah, so you've got honey up kind of all— let's show that one up there.

Yeah.

So it's an interesting one, like this frame here, that's the very top of the box, and you've got half a capped frame and then some open nectar, and then on that side you've got the open nectar. And this is what will happen if there's not really enough bees to manage that entire space. So if you want to condense it down a bit, you'll find that they'll cap the frames over a bit better. But that is what I would recommend doing, that kind of as soon as you can.

Yeah, okay. And, um, well, I'll do that one on me inspection on the weekend.

Yeah, you'll have a couple more weeks then for them to finish that box properly.

Yeah.

And then you might get like one nice—

So you've got to be careful you don't miss the treatment, haven't you? Because, yeah, really getting into the You know, getting into the winter, like.

But I think that looks awesome. Like, they're really nice, calm bees. You're obviously doing something good.

Yeah.

And I love the location. It's brilliant. Should we have a look in another hive?

Yeah, can do.

Let's take a look in this one then. So this is a split from the one—

That's a split from that one there.

Okay, right. So that explains why it's maybe not kind of—

Yeah, I took it off when it was queenless just to give them a bit of a chance, really, like, because they were a bit mad on there.

Okay.

As soon as I've taken these off, they did seem to calm down, calm themselves down a bit, you know.

Yeah, when they're, when they're big like that, they, they can, they can go a bit aggressive. But it's really interesting to see on the entrances here, I can see loads of ghost bees coming in.

Yeah, I do like to give them a little bit of a smoke.

Yeah.

I don't like flinging them off when you take this thing off.

It's, um, I don't, I don't often use a smoker, but the smell of the smoker is just so good.

Cedarwood.

Cedarwood. Wow, it's really nice. Yeah, look at that propolis there.

Look at that in there. What, what do you tend to do with the propolis when you—

So I don't get propolis anywhere near anything like that, but that is, that's very nice pure clean propolis. So I'd be scraping that off and I'd have like a separate propolis bucket, I think.

Right, and what would you do with that?

Um, you can render it down, put it in like some alcohol, and then make a tincture out of it.

All right, okay.

So this one here is a split of the one next door. And the split's doing really well as well. Lovely amount of honey on that. It's a beautiful capped frame.

I've not been in this one for about 3 weeks now, this one.

Okay.

But I tend to leave them on how they are when I go in there.

Yeah.

But this has come up a lot since I was in here, well, 3 weeks ago.

So when you split this one, is this one of the cells that they created in the other one? So this is like—

No, this was requeened as well.

Oh, it was requeened as well.

There was eggs in it, that's why I I thought I'd have a go of doing the 2 of them the same time. Yeah, yeah. And as you can see, they have been, they have been successful in mating.

Very, very dark again, aren't they? Yeah, yeah.

But these are original from the Jolante and that one again.

Yeah, so like an F2 Jolante, you think?

Yeah, so they're probably— I don't know if they do all cross within their own apiary with the drones, but that's nice.

Probably just a mix of of local drones in there as well, I would suspect.

Yeah.

Because they're very well mated.

But there's bees kept just over there. There's a man keeps them over there.

Okay.

And the next-door neighbor, when I started keeping bees, he started 2 years later.

Oh, nice.

Not none of my bees.

Yeah.

I didn't know he had the bees at the time until his shed was infested in them one day. And I thought, well, mine are dead calm. So I come back down here and looked.

Yeah.

Nothing. Went back up there and there was thousands of them in there.

Angry.

No, just foraging around, and they'd come next door. I think they'd smelt a bit of the honey.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think they'd come robbing anyway. Then I discovered that Carl next door, he's, uh, actually beekeeping as well. That's, uh, a little bit of brood in there. When I first started, I couldn't see the eggs, but now I know what I'm actually looking for. Yeah, there's eggs in there. I can spot them. There is eggs on the other side. Yeah, nice brood pattern on there. Yeah.

Just see there, you know that? Yeah, see where it's a tiny little bit of brood?

Yeah.

And when they're in a straight line like that, yeah, probably a wax moth under there.

Ah, right, okay.

Nothing to worry about.

Yeah, just chewing on it. I do look quite often on it. You think the bees would manage that?

Yeah, yeah, they'll manage that. It's only one, just a single wax moth. Just something to note.

Lots of honey and pollen in there.

Yeah, these are like, for me, perfect looking winter frames. You've got maybe 2/3 brood, 1/3 stores. Nice cap stores, so the bees are going to be really happy with that. And these are just on a single national brood.

These are on the single national above, haven't you? Yeah, I only put the super on 3 weeks ago. Okay. But we haven't had— well, I say we haven't had the weather. Last week and this week has been lovely here.

It's been incredible.

But the week before that, I was like worried about them, you know. I tend to leave them alone if the weather's not too good, so it saves messing them about a bit. Oh, there's lots of Brood in there.

Oh yeah, lots of nice open brood, loads of eggs.

Open brood.

Very dark bees, aren't they?

They are very dark bees, yeah. Lots of brood in there. If you move the light around, you can see them all. There's young ones in there, very, very young, growing up on there. So again, plan for this one is leave it as it is, really, and just take the super off it.

Yeah, I think you're on the ball with With the varroa treatments though, because a lot of people might look at this and think, well, you know, leave it for 6 more weeks and we can get a decent amount of honey on it.

But yeah, I'm not, not too bothered about the honey, but it is nice to get a bit of honey. Yeah, uh, because got lots of people ringing all the time. Have you got any honey? Have you got any honey?

But, but nice healthy bees. Just, just flick that one back over. I was just going to say you get your varroa treatments on early, but look at that. Yeah, it's a pretty— like I say, it's a perfect winter frame. Stores loads of pollen, beautiful brood pattern. You know the queen's going to be well mated.

Would you be tempted to put the varroa treatment on, on my next inspection?

I don't think you need to rush it. I always say middle of August for me, but as long as it's by the end of August. But what I would say with this colony here is you're very unlikely to get a super full of honey out of it.

No, I won't.

So when you're kind of considering that, you can put your varroa treatment And the earlier the better for the bees. It's quite full, but really, really good-looking frames. I'm very, very impressed, Keith. They look like very happy bees. Yeah, not attacking us.

And they all fly around, but I think that's expected.

I don't— I really don't think they do like that. It's just bees flying. There's no aggression at all.

No, they're not bumping. You can feel them bumping you, can't you? You know, you can feel them almost deadbutting you. Nice, another nice frame again.

Lovely frame.

Lots of pollen in there.

Beautiful.

Lots of orange pollen in there.

This is the thing, like, you did this split. Maybe if you hadn't have done the split, you'd have like a good 2 or 3 supers on it.

Yeah.

But you've ended up with 2 bees— sorry, 2 colonies of bees that for next year will be—

I was just worried about them swarming because I'd done a Demerara split on this one.

Yeah.

And because That one there was always wanting to swarm, always wanting to swarm.

Really?

I see there's lots of that, like—

Nice, loving that. Cool, so if you want to put that one back together, I was going to take a quick look at the propolis again once you put that last frame in before you put the queen excluder on, because that is brilliant propolis in there.

You can't really slide them on this stuff either.

No.

It's— didn't see the queen at all, I know she's there, so yeah, I'm never too I'm never too keen as long as I see the the brood and the capped over and young.

Yeah, if you wanted just a little tip there, and I know you're moving it just to get that frame back in, but I would I'd shake that frame off, Keith. Yeah, and then move the frames with two hands.

All right.

Yeah, if you just notice, they've just gone a little bit a little touchy, a little bit touchy. I think because they've been been a bit like. Don't know, back around a tiny bit there.

Yeah, that is hard, isn't it?

Yeah, but that propolis there is lovely, and especially with that bit of sun. I love that. Wow. Yeah, and you can see them just, just change that temperament a bit just from that handling. You get the smoke around.

If you—

I know, I know you've probably done that for the camera, but if you put the frame down, shake it off, put the frame down, and then move them back a bit gentler, I think they'll be a bit more chilled.

Yeah. I'm changing the roof on that to a flat one because I always find the flat roofs handy for storing, stacking them on.

Yeah, you can see all these bees now coming back to go into the entrance.

Yeah.

Got the entrance reduced down on that one, which I think is a wise move.

Yeah.

Single brood.

But to be honest, I've not seen that many wasps this year.

No, it's been very, very quiet, honestly. Yeah, it was a bad, bad year for queens. Good year for beekeepers when it got sunny again. Right, so this one's the original one.

This is the original one.

Red Queen, did you say?

That must— it's got to be 3 and a half years old.

And do you think— how many times do you think this has superseded, this one, or swarmed?

It's never swarmed.

Yeah.

That one swarmed, but this has never swarmed because I've done the Demerare split on it.

So it's still got a 3 and a half year old queen in it?

Yeah, no, no, no, I requeened this on a red queen.

Oh, you requeened it on a red queen, okay.

Was that not last year, the year before?

Last year, yeah.

Yeah, the year before.

Uh, or is it last year? I think it's last year actually. Yeah, maybe early last year.

I thought it was pink last year.

Uh, it goes yellow, red, green, I think.

Yeah, well, this is a red one, but it's got a bald patch on the red now.

If that's wrong, I should definitely get punished for that, because I sell a lot of queens. Definitely green this year and definitely yellow the year before last. I think it's red, so it'll be a 2023 queen. Yeah, it's, it's really interesting, isn't it? There's obviously like— we've seen it down there, and I'll show the viewers In a little bit like the woods and everything that you've got here.

Yeah, but there's a pine forest, see?

Yeah, it must be the pine forest.

I'm convinced it's off the pine, Mike. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

But did you know what this really is? Music to my ears, this one, because this is a— this is an F1 Buckfast queen from Black Mountain Honey, and we've already got a heavy box over there, another heavy box, another heavy box. This one's huge and full of bees and looks like it's got a lot of honey in it as well. So I hear Keith mumbling in the background saying, feel the weight of that one. Brilliant, I'm very happy with this. This, this sounds like it's been set up, doesn't it, Keith?

Yeah, it hasn't though, I assure you.

It honestly hasn't. 3 really good supers there, probably just looking at them, maybe like 70-80% full, all of them. And then the brood box here looking ram-packed full of bees as well. A bit of smoke going on. Now that's not as stuck as much as So it's interesting what I'm seeing here because I expected that to be like packed to the brim with bees, and I guess you have just smoked them down a bit. Yeah, there is a shallow on the bottom box there as well. What was the reason for that shallow? Same again?

It's the same again. I was running them on a brood and a half because they're so prolific. I don't think they'd want to swarm all the time. See, even on the first one, there's brood there, capped over frames, and there's eggs. larvae in there. I did used to use the frame hanger on the end, but the first time I used it— well, the second time I used it, they fell off, so I never used it again.

It's so interesting seeing what people do with the first frame that they take out. Everyone's got a different way of doing it. Yeah, I, I like to shake the first frame.

Yeah.

And put it on, just rest it up somewhere.

Yeah.

Richard, you know Richard who I do the nucs with?

Yes.

He likes to take the first frame out and just places it down with all the bees on it.

Yeah.

Doesn't even check for the queen, and I'm always like, oh, I'm worried about that.

Yeah, I, I, I do tend to follow, uh, yours more than, uh, anything really, because it's, you know, you've— the, the films that you put out are full of information.

Oh, but I think it's about just finding what works for you. Yeah, you rest that frame there and that's nice. Wow, look at that! Okay, that is incredible.

That is amazing. Look at that, right to the ends nearly. Well, yeah, there's larvae in the end there.

That is stunning frame of brood. F1 Buckfast from Black Mountain Honey.

Yeah, yep, look at that.

Oh, Keith, wow, that is superb.

Yeah, I'm really, really happy. Looks like he's got a drone there. Yeah, I think he's got a rucksack on, I think.

So cool.

Yeah, I noticed the drones are dwindling down a little bit now.

Drones are really going down now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is a bit of drone brood here and there, drawn in there.

Another really nice frame, but yeah, not many drones left, is there?

No, there's a couple coming on there, but—

Oh, that's, that's interesting. You've still got a decent amount that are left to come out though, so good patch of drone brood there. Yeah, a few drones knocking around on there. That's like a quarter drone brood.

Yeah, I'd say so. I, I think the bees know what they're doing, don't they? Yeah, you've got to let them, let them do their own thing really, haven't you?

That's such an important point because a lot of people, you see them like uncapping the drone brood to get rid of varroa, and I'm just—

I do have a look now and then, and I do If there's one on the end that's broke off, I do tend to sort of break it apart and have a look. Yeah, I think if I've knocked it open, you know, when I've pulled them up, I think just having a look in one just to see.

Yeah, but, but removing whole frames is not, not something that I'm a fan of. Look at the ghost bees as well.

Yeah, yeah, they're great. I wonder what it was when I first seen it. Yeah, and then, uh, so lots of ghost bees, loads of brood.

Wow.

Do you think there's much chance of them swarming now or not?

There's always a chance of them swarming.

Yeah, look at that again.

I wouldn't be touching that. Like, I think this here is pretty much the perfect colony. Yeah, loads of brood. Yeah, loads of supers on, loads of ghost bees. Yeah, plenty to be working on.

Like, I, I, what I do now, I, I don't look for the queen. I just check these eggs and this brood and stuff like that because I think—

And no swarm cells.

Yeah. I can normally do all this within the hour. I know it's not— that's a pretty thing like, but yeah. So you'd shake these off and you'd stand the frame up like, yeah.

Yeah, that's what— that's the way that I've just always done it. Just take one frame off, just shake it off because I know the queen's not going to run off. Yeah, but Richard does it, just puts it down. Yeah, and then I find it just gives you the way to work. I love what you've done there. You rest it over, which probably calms the bees down a bit, and then you move it for the second half. I think it's a really nice system.

It's just something that I'd seen on the internet before I started keeping the bees. I was looking around, and then I come across yours by accident because I put mountain bees. I was looking for the original Welsh black bee.

Okay.

And then yours come up, Black Mountain Honey, and I started looking through and I thought, oh, this looks good.

Yeah.

And I was ready. Yeah, I was very impressed. Yeah, yeah, impressed. Good service.

It's all about just seeing what works for you. Don't worry about getting it out if it's broken.

Yeah, that's all stores there now.

So you can see how the bees have set themselves up here. You've got brood on one side, stores on the other side, and then I suspect we don't need to go down and look in that shallow down there. But are you going to leave these on brood and a half over winter?

I will not, no. I'll take them off. Yeah, I'll wait till— I think they've all come up. I've been trying to figure it out because sometimes they're up on the top and sometimes They go down.

Yeah.

But I think they tend to seem to want to go up more than anything.

Yeah, I think this one here is of a size that would be fine to winter on brood and a half.

Yeah, you think so?

Yeah, plenty.

I won't take that one off because there's probably not much in the bottom there.

Yeah.

I don't tend to disturb, I, you know, minimize the disturbance on them really. If I'm happy with what I see on the top, I don't normally go into the bottom boxes, and the same with the supers. Tend not to root through the supers very much as well, you know.

Let's have a quick look in a couple of those super frames because there look to be some nice honey in there.

Dear me.

And listen to Keith groan when he takes it over, that's always a good sign.

Yeah, doesn't help when you've got it in you.

That's true, that's not a good sign.

No, sorry. It's all right.

So nice.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah, a good frame of honey there.

Yeah, lots of honey but not capped over yet.

Yeah, and I think that's maybe just one thing, like you've got 3 supers on there, might get away with 2 supers.

Yeah.

And I think you, you can push it a little bit with bees when you, when you realize that there's maybe not enough bees to fill all those frames.

Yeah, they've not capped over, but as you can see, it's—

Oh, you've got a couple of weeks left, so they still do it. But what I would suggest with this one again, Keith, is you've got 3 supers there, take out the best 2 supers worth of frames.

All right.

You take one of the supers off and you find that they finish the frames really— like that one there, is there anything even in it?

Yeah, yeah, it's full. There's lots in there.

Oh, okay, so yeah, there is fresh nectar in that one.

Yeah, but I don't know if— see, I always have the theory thinking they're not capping over because of the weather, and they're waiting for the weather to see what it's doing before they cap them over, because it's a lot of work to cap them over. And see, that's starting to get capped over now.

Really nice, look at that.

I know that none of this was capped over last week. When I went in this one, none of it was.

Yeah, well, you can see like all this, all this bit here with this hole still in it, like that's very, very fresh capping. Yeah, really nice.

Yeah, as I say, when I come to you last week, I knew there was honey on this one, but there wasn't this much honey on it. Yeah, and then I dropped the 3rd box on the top. Oh, look at that, that's heavy. There's a lot of different color bees on that one as well. You see, see that one there?

Yeah, a bit darker, aren't they?

Some of them, some of Orange.

Yeah, we didn't see, we didn't see the queen, did we? So that there might have been a superseder or something. But even so, if there has, then these are F2 Buckfast and they're super chilled.

Yeah, I know that. I know there's a queen in there. Yeah, because I seen her last week. That's how I knew she was— got a bold red dot.

Okay, it sounds like, sounds like the same queen then.

Yeah. Oh, I mean, that's heavy. As I have a grunt. I think there'll be 10 to— yeah, but filling that one up nicely.

Yeah, lovely.

And these, these were nowhere near this much honey in it last week.

Yeah, the last couple of weeks here they've done pretty well.

Yeah, we've had some good weather.

Right, so I think, I think that's probably enough from this hive, Keith. It's really, really good looking, that one. Like I say, I would, I'd maybe adjust that and just give them a couple more weeks to see what they do with the 3 supers, because there is a bit of honey in all of the frames, isn't there? Yeah.

What sort of would be the cutoff date, do you think?

For me, it all comes down to—

Look at this one. You can have a look at this last one as well.

For me, it comes all the way down to the varroa treatments, always.

Yeah.

So that's what dictates my honey crop, not how much forage is coming in, because the bees here, they'll keep on going to October collecting stuff because they've got the Himalayan balsam. But if you didn't treat them until then, You'd get a bit more honey, but the bees would really, really start to suffer.

I treated them with, um, I always get oxalic acid. Yeah, okay. I treated them with that. It was off me car starter. Yeah, and the 2 wires with just the—

Oh yeah, okay, sublimated it.

Yeah, me friend's on about buying one of the proper—

Just jump back to that frame there, that second one with nothing in.

This one here? Yeah.

Do you see what I mean? So those frames there, yeah, you could just go through, take out all of the frames that don't have anything in, yeah, and condense it down to 2 supers, and you'll find that they'll cap over those 2 supers really good. Yeah, it's a good, good time of year to do it. Yeah, I'll do that weekend, then I'll, uh, I would have done the same as you, you know, 2 or 3 weeks ago. I'd have given them more space, made sure that I didn't miss out on any honey, but now it's dwindling down. Yeah, you just want to get it all finished.

Well, that's quite a lot in that one, capping it over.

Nice, very nice. So I'm so impressed Keith's apiary. We're going to go around and take a look at the rest of the garden now, but what fantastic bees in a beautiful North Wales apiary.