This Couldn't Be Going Any Worse

We have lost the queen. The queen is dead. We think the queen probably died at the last inspection. Don't you feel bad like you killed it? It could have easily been you that killed it. We have a bit of an issue, Chrissy. Uh, Zane's queen is dead. Zane's First Nuc, episode 9. It is very wet and I'm going to stop talking. What's going on with the weather?

I don't know, mate. This is ridiculous. It's— what are we in, June?

Yeah, June. And I just, I know we go back to like the advice from last week, but we said last week about not adding another super on, didn't we?

Yeah.

It's like vindicated again with the weather. I'm hoping they're still alive. Very, very rare, yeah, that I would ever suggest kind of like putting the super on and then taking the super back off again. I think we might be there today. But let's get inside, have a look. We're going to do it without our bee suits on. Get your hood up, get your veil up like that, your little mini veil, and we're just going to do it quickly. It turns out the queen was in here last week. Someone found it on the frame, yeah. 5 minutes 36. What do you want to get out of your bees? Let's quickly put this back on so it's not raining. This is your beehive. What's your plan for the season?

I think we've already had a bit of a bad start. So for me, it's get them through to summer and see if we can get honey through summer.

Okay.

We're not going to get honey now, surely.

So I think that's really good. Yeah, I think it's really worthwhile for people to sit back and like work that out before you start going in and just blindly pulling out frames and doing stuff. Like, work out what the plan is. I would say yeah, it is a bit behind. We started it quite late, and we started it with a smaller nuc than average, and then we got bad North Wales weather. But it was going quite well. I thought when we put the super on, it was looking pretty good, wasn't it? It looked like you know when you thought we were going to come back and it was going to be all expanded. Yeah. Like if we'd have got good weather, it would have been.

We should have had two or three supers on right now if the sun was out.

We could just switch it over. We just go and grab some and put them on in it. So let's get inside. Let's have a quick look. Do you want to put a do you want to put a V seat on? You go and put V seat on.

Do you think?

Yeah. Oh, Zane has got a new best-fitting suit, huh? You like that one, don't you?

That's nice.

That fits you a treat. Right, so what we're going to do really quick, we're going to take the super off here. Quickest way of getting the super off is just like this, take the super off with the feeder on.

Okay.

Put it down over here, and then we're just gonna have a quick look this week. I might go put my veil on. I can just sense it, like, I'll always do the videos if I can without the veil on, but getting in there now I'm thinking, yeah, you can tell. I'll pull that queen excluder off and I'll get pinged in the face. Here we go, 2 secs. So for some reason, Zane does not like wearing this one. I sent him out a few times in it. You didn't like it, did you?

It just wasn't my style, I think.

It's such a good fit as well. It's the fit that gets me. Look at that. But I actually really like this suit. I think it's pretty cool.

Look at that.

I need to get it taken in a bit, don't I?

Just a touch. Yeah.

There we go, veil up. So let's get the super off, but look at this, Zane, like hold that frame.

Nothing going on there, is there?

They should be drawing that out. If they had food coming in, if there was sunshine, they'd be drawing that out, and then like the same with this one, completely bone dry, isn't it? So pick that one up, Zane, and then just tell me what you think as you pick that one up.

Hmm, it's not There's definitely nectar in there, but it's not that—

It's light, isn't it? Yeah, we'll come back later on, we'll pick that up. That'll be like 4 pounds in weight, 2 kilos. Yeah, not 2 kilos at the moment, is it? Oh, I'll tell you what though, that's worth showing. Sorry to go back and forth. Have a look at— just hold that there, Zane. I just want to show it to the camera here. You can see like we've got a little bit of nectar coming in there today. That's really, really nice to see. And then flip it over for me please, Zane. You can see on this side here how we've not got that. You've just got like lots of brood here and then everything is empty. That to me is a clear warning sign that there is not enough food in the colony. Like, I need to be seeing these buffer frames. They should be stores. If you're going through and just seeing tons of frames like this, which is just brood and bees and not that much else, they are in trouble. Ah, Zane, we have got an issue, my friend.

Did I just see emergency cells? Yeah, yeah, they're definitely emergency cells, aren't they?

Bit of a rubbish one, but that is an emergency cell. So I think they are queenless. We have lost the queen. The queen is dead. We think the queen probably died at the last inspection. So what do we need to do going forward? We need to wait 8 days and take down all the emergency cells and add in a new mated queen. Or we can do what we did with Natasha's one the other day and just take down all the emergency cells and just drop one in.

Okay.

Should we do that?

Give it a go.

Yeah.

Let's give it a go.

Right, let's go through first. So what we need to do now is we're saying, right, the queen's not here, so we need to take down all the emergency cells. The way we're going to do that then is if you hold that, we're going to shake it off like that.

Yeah.

And you just want to finish with the frame there, getting all the bees into that slot.

That's the first time I've actually—

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Big shake.

That's it.

Perfect. And then have a look at the frame. Anything that you think is—

No, I think we're good.

Okay, then we can go back in and then we're just going to work through it one by one. There's no queens here, we're not keeping any of the queen cells, so it doesn't matter about shaking the frames. That's it, yeah, and then have a look at that frame.

All right, those 2 at the top, is that—

No, okay, good spot though, so it's worth showing them there. That's drone brood and that's drone brood over there as well, so you can leave both of those.

Top there, all drone brood?

All drone brood, drone, drone, yep, so that's all good.

All seems good.

All seems good. Okay, yep, nothing on that one.

There was one.

Okay, yeah, so that was the one, the one we took down. So, so anything like that, just get in, make sure there's nothing there, it's all squished down. Yeah, it's all good.

Okay.

Oh God, this is a lovely queen, this one was. So this is the one where we looked at it, wasn't it? And we were thinking, oh, what's this? So there were, there were cells all the way along the bottom here. Let's get those bees out the way. Cells here, you can see we've got a big Queen larva in that one over here as well. And what you want to do is just go in and just need to take all of them down. Need to make sure that they're fully squished like that. You got stung?

No, just all that gunk.

Oh no, I know, isn't like the gunk deal. All good?

Yeah.

So let's just put these— pop these back in and we're gonna go and find a queen. How you feeling about that, Zane?

A bit gutted, I'll be honest.

I'm a bit gutted.

Thought we were doing really well and I thought it was all going a bit Not too well, in all fairness.

Yeah, it's going about as bad as it could go, I would say. It couldn't really be going much worse. We've gone backwards, but it's a useful lesson for people, is all I would say, is a useful lesson. Right, I introduced a couple of queens into these the other day, tiny little splits, 2-frame splits, so there should be a good healthy mated queen walking around, and we can just do, we can do what we did last time. Like out of nowhere.

Just for no reason whatsoever.

Just super close. A little bit. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is if she's in the cage, I'll just take the cage out and we'll do a slow introduction. If she's walking around, um, we'll take her out and get her in. Oh, it is miserable. Yeah, she's not there, so she's definitely out. She's either in here or, uh, or she's not being accepted. Beekeeping is so much more fun in the sun, isn't it, Zane?

They, they really do not like that camera.

It's the sting. Can you see it where like one of— like one sting on it there, and then they don't like it after that. Right, useful lesson. That's a failed introduction. Um, do you want to see why it's a failed introduction, Zane?

Mm-hmm.

See if you can see the virgin on here. And this is why I say to people, you gotta, you gotta get in there and fix it before the virgins emerge, because once they emerge, it does become a bit difficult. So in order to get this colony back on track, I have to kill this virgin. I've had a failed introduction there because I've not found the virgin queen before, and I just put my mated queen in, and there you go, the virgin has killed her. And this colony will die unless I do this. But you go in, you find that virgin, And you just kill her like that. It's horrible. I hate doing it. Worst part of beekeeping, bar none. And then that's the only thing that I ever throw over, like a dead queen, because you want the pheromone to dissipate. So 2 jobs then. We're gonna have to go back and we're gonna have to go and get 2 new queens because Chrissie's packing them all up. So let's go back to home, get 2 queens, one for this one, one for your one. We're gonna do a slow introduction instead. I'm not sure who's killed that queen, so don't you feel bad like you've killed it. It could have easily been me that killed it. It was there last week.

Can it— so can it definitely not be natural causes?

Highly unlikely.

So it's, it's been— she's been crushed then?

Could be natural causes. Let's not dwell on it. Let's fix it. We're home, we've got some mated queens, and it'll be a nice easy fix.

Yeah, let's get it done.

Oh, we have a bit of an issue, Chrissy. Uh, Zane's queen is dead and we need a replacement, please. How have you managed to kill that already?

Technically, we don't know who it was. Could have been anyone.

It could, it could have been anyone. It could have been me as well, but we— yeah, it's got your name on the playlist, so I'm— We feel really bad. If it makes, if it makes you feel any better, Zane, I killed the other one in my nuke, so Zane definitely needs a queen. I need a queen as well. Please don't kill these ones. No, we'll do our best.

Thanks, Chrissie. Thank you, Chrissie.

See you later. Why do I feel like I was in trouble when Chrissie does that?

She plays that part very well, doesn't she?

It's like I'm asking for my ball back.

Yeah, oh, see you then. Can I have some more, please?

Like queens, great place to put them is in like your pocket.

Okay, good to go.

All right, Zane, queen's in hand. Before we sort out your nucs, then we're going to go and fix that other one. So I made a lot of splits in a rush the other day. I had to go and collect my wife, and a few of them, like, you go through trying to find all the cells and find the virgins, and I tried to get every single one. I obviously missed that one, so we need to go and fix this one first, Zane. I'll just show you before I get there. So we've got a nice CDS Buckfast queen, big white mark on her. I've taken the virgin down there, there's no open brood, so I'm just going to pop the tab straight away. Pop both the tabs on these. The queen can actually only get through that one, she can't get through that little gate there, but it lets bees in and then the queen will go out there. This one should work though, so let's get it in. Right, so it's all primed, ready to go. Just going to do very quick because it is miserable, and all I'm going to do is just place that down. In between those 2 frames there. See, the bees are not happy, but hopefully they'll start going over checking her out. We'll check that back next episode, episode 10. We'll come and have a look at this one as well, see how the introduction got on. But let's go back to Zane's first nuc. So I'm just doing the same thing here, Zane, with your one, just popping those tabs. You've got a nice big CDS Buckfast queen, which is a beauty. See, The way you can't see there, see how she's getting stuck in a little bit of the cage there? If you ever have that with a queen, all I ever do is I just go in, push the fondant up, and then slide it back. Quite an easy manipulation, but Zane, can you see how I've just like filled the void there with fondant so now the queen can't get into it, she can't get stuck?

Ah, okay, yeah.

Just a little, little hack that is. Occasionally get stuck in that void if you don't do that, but yeah, nice way to fix it. Okay, we're back, we've got the queen. It feels a little bit Rubbish doing this then, but let's do it as quick as we possibly can. Let's talk through what we're going to do first. We take off the super.

Yeah.

We're gonna take off the queen excluder. We've primed the queen, we're gonna pop her in, close it back up, put the feeder on, get some feed in, drizzle it down, do all that again, cross our fingers. Cool, so first thing is like feel that frame there, Zane. What do you think?

Nothing going on really.

Do you think nothing going on?

Actually, it's half the size, isn't it? So it's going to be a bit lighter.

See, when I'm lifting that, I'm thinking, you know what, there is still a bit of nectar coming in. You can see it like glistening. I think even though there's a little bit of nectar in there, getting a lot of syrup into the brood box is going to pay us back in the longer term. So we'll take this off, we'll shake all of the bees out in a little bit. Let's pop it over here for a sec. That's it. So this bit here is super simple, mate. I'll just pass it over to you and just let you do it if you want.

All right, first time. Yeah, go on. Anywhere in particular?

Just in the middle, I would say.

Yeah, separate a bit of the frame.

Yeah, separate so you can get them through. The important bit when you're doing the queen introduction is the prep, making sure they are hopelessly queenless, which they are here.

Like that? The doors are facing that way, is it better to face them the other way? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh God.

I know, as you were putting it, I was thinking I should have given you better instruction here, but it is It's good, it's really good learning and great for picking it up yourself.

Yeah.

Impressed, right, just, just one sec. Normally I would say we get a bit of smoke in there, but let's just do that just to get them out the way and I go, that's it, good blow, you have to be quick though. See them going?

Yeah, okay, yeah.

But they're kind of buzzy bees though, yeah, so it's a good, it's a good test there, look, watch. I say that, I get bloody stung on, there we go. Um, but I'm not getting stung loads, there's a lot of bees, there's one sting. But this is, this is what happens when you don't have a queen, like the bees do get very, very angry. Oh, you know what? Look at that, that doesn't happen that lot, Zane, look at this. That bee has got away and not died. The sting didn't come out.

Ah, okay.

So I got stung there by that bee, one bee, and it didn't actually sting me. I'm well impressed with that. There we go, see you later, the bee's on her way. You don't see that very often, Zane.

I wonder if that's what happened to me the other week when you And you claim that it didn't actually get stuck in.

It definitely is. Look at the reaction. What do you think of that reaction, Xaine?

Yeah, they're very pleased to see her, aren't they?

Do you think it's good or bad?

I would have said good because they know there's a queen there, but then, well, can they overwhelm the queen? Can they like—

So it sounded like I was going to get you, you were going to be wrong.

No, no.

I wouldn't say it's either. Like, it could be good, it could be bad. The bees aren't going to tell you. They're definitely interested though, aren't they? They definitely want to get into that queen as quick as they can. So it could be they want to get in to kill her, yeah, or it could be that they want to get in to feed her.

Right.

It could be a bit of both. But all I know is that the fondant's there. Yeah, it's going to take a good 24 hours for them to get through the fondant. I think by that time they'd have probably realised that they don't want to kill her.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's it, we're done. We're going to get the queen excluder back on, get the feeder back on, and then we will get some syrup into them. How much syrup?

How much syrup?

This is one tonne of syrup, by the way. About an inch. Okay, yeah, that's why I'd probably go for about an inch.

Yeah, so you don't want to overfeed them.

I reckon I've got a couple of litres there.

Okay.

And then if they take that down in a couple of days, I'd probably go a couple of litres again. Get any bees that go out there. Right, are we done?

No, so we've got to show them where the feed is.

I love it.

So you've got to open the top.

Go on, you show me how to do it, Zane.

With finger or just—

You can do, you can use the hive tool or whatever. Yeah, but Zane is showing the bees where the feed is here. So just pouring syrup down the hole.

A few of them.

Yep, good. And I found with this one as well, you can kind of just all the way along, Zane.

All right.

That's it, give it a good— yeah, nice. So the syrup is going to go all the way, drizzle down here, the bees are going to find it. Final job?

Oh, now you're asking. Final job, okay, so close that?

That is the final job.

Ah, okay.

Make sure you close the hole because otherwise all the bees will just come up and get Right, that's it, lid on. But the first thing is where we're going to put our super.

Super can go on top of the lid? No?

If you grab the super.

Yeah.

Yeah, make sure there's no bees in it.

There's a couple, but—

Right, so if you get a few, you can just kind of— yeah, if you do that, you get most of them out. And then because that's sealed, okay, we've got a little bit of nectar in here and it's a little bit wet on top of the feeder, If you just go and chuck the roof on top of that, I would say that is a perfectly suitable configuration for a week.

Because they can't get up to the super, can they?

Nothing can get into the super. Nothing can rob it. It's going to be a little bit moist, but the bees will fix it the following week. We've got the feeder now in contact with that brood nest. We've got a new queen in there. We didn't think we were going to get a new queen. I think that brood nest is going to look really nice next week. Hopefully we come back and see the queen's accepted.

And this is the reality. Lawrence is now coming back to pick me up. The bigger elephant is this haircut.

I'll have a quick look. We'll see what's going on. Camera's just fallen off. Oh, we'll do a quick my Zane's first nuke.

Yeah.

Right, Zane turned up this morning and I said, "Are you right, Zane?" And I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Oh, Mike, the mic's gone." I hope the barber doesn't watch these videos. Ah, where's it gone?

Oh, Mike's gone as well.

Chrissy, that was awesome.

Was it?

100%, yeah, that was— That can go in your bloopers.