👉 What Happens If You Can't Inspect Your Bees?

Welcome to episode 4 of Zane's First Nuc, but I've got some bad news because Zane is not here today and I completely forgot to do this video. So I've come back up here, it's 8 days since episode 3, and I've got to come up and fill in the gaps because I think they're just about running out of food and they're getting to the point where they might need a super. They definitely need an inspection. If you're watching this and thinking, what do I do if I can't go and inspect my bees? Get a beekeeping friend to go and inspect them for you. Zane will hopefully be able to watch this one at home with Chrissy. I'm just going to go in though. I'm going to pull out every single frame. And Zane's going to laugh because not only did I bring the wrong microphones with me, I also brought them and they were not charged up. So filming on the iPhone, let's get inside, see how the bees are getting on. So decent amount of feed taken down. I would say they've taken over half that feed down there. And then when you go in and have a look through there, you can still see the little heads coming through. So the bees are actively feeding, which is really good. And one dead bee. Okay, that's not ideal, but better than seeing lots of dead bees in there. Always nice when the bees are feeding. I think it's a very important thing to do, which is to get them to feed, see that they're feeding, and everything does become a little bit easier then. So here we go. I always think this is a really useful view looking in this way because we spoke last week about the expansion and we did that little bit of checkerboarding, and it's going to be interesting to see what the bees have done. I can see that red frame there, they've not moved over to that one. But I think there might be a little bit of movement just on this one here where the bees are coming over to it. And then if they're on that one as well, even if just half of it, that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So it might be going up to kind of 8 frames, 7.5 frames of bees looking down from the top. Really nice to see how chilled they are because it is very, very cold here today. It is not ideal bee weather, but I didn't want to let everyone down and not come out and do this video and give you an update on Zane's nuc. So I've removed all of the frames there that are definitely empty. There was a foundation frame and a couple of wax frames in there, but this is it now. This is the 8 frames that the bees are on, and okay, they're not filling up over this side, but the bees are definitely there, and there's stores in that frame there. So that side is complete. But then you can see on this side, that additional frame is foundation on that side. So I'm hoping that they've drawn it out on the other side. And then all we'll do is we'll just switch this frame around and put that foundation face facing inwards. And then we should be up to 8 frames by the time Zane is back. So although not a huge, huge amount of work going on, they have started. That's the most important bit there, which is they've got on there, they're drawing the wax out. And it is a straightforward manipulation when I see drawn out foundation on one side and then just foundation on the other one, which is I'm just going to place that back in the other way around now. But then let's take a look at the frames. So lovely frame of stores, not full of bees, but definitely full of nectar and stores there. That is a very, very heavy frame. So bees have got no issue at all when it comes to weight. Lots of nectar coming in. This is really good to see. Okay, I'm thinking back to last time and I'm thinking the brood's definitely expanded here. That brood there is taking up maybe 80% of that frame. The bees are covering it, keeping it warm. This is where the growth really comes in. As soon as this brood here emerges, we're going to be in supers territory. I'm close to calling it this week already for you, Zane, but I have to say, I really can see the growth from last week to this Again, the queen has done a fantastic job here of laying that all up. These are full frames now. Before, where they were 50 or 60% covered in bees and covered in brood, they're full now, 100% full. And the bees will start expanding outwards quickly. If I just show you on that frame there, you can see a few bees doing the waggle dance, which is very, very cool. Telling all of their sisters where to go out and get that forage. So a very similar story here, another full frame of brood, and you can just see the expansion. Zane, you're going to be blown away when you see this one here. This is a different nuc to last week. And I do think it sometimes catches people out because they see the colony growing a bit, but they don't really get that once you get the brood like this and get the bees to this state, The expansion takes place over just a few days. You can come back and the colony has doubled in size, and it's your job to try and stay just one step ahead. So there we go, got my queen. And although there is a tiny little bit of space towards the edge of this frame, I would say now that is 90% capped. And this is probably more indicative of the frames that come out when you're buying an overwintered nuc from us. They're not going to be completely dripping with bees because you'd never get them through the post like that, but they'll have a decent amount of brood, maybe 60-70% brood in it like this, and the bees will be covering all of it. And as you can see, that is the key to growing the colonies, is getting that brood covered and then getting it to expand, and then that is how you get the boost in colony numbers. So the expansion is a little bit slower on On this frame here, you've still got a tiny bit of foundation around the edge, but a lot of that space there not actually being used by the bees. This was the frame that we checkerboarded last week, the one that we brought just inside, and the bees have developed it quite a bit. As you can see on that side there, there's plenty of space for the bees to grow and plenty of space for the queen to get in there and lay. So then the final frame, still got the remnants of brood on that one there, and the queen has been back in and laid some of that up as well. But a little bit more dead space towards this side of the colony, and I reckon, Zane, when you come back here next week, they would have probably filled all of that up. Everything looking good though. I'm really happy with the progress on this colony. I'm going to put it all back together again, and I'm going to show you how I'll set it up to get it through until next week. So this is the setup that we've got now, and I wouldn't say that's a full 8 frames of bees, probably 7 frames of bees when you actually average them all up like that, but you can see that the bees are now working on 8 frames. We switched that side frame around there. So where it was foundation facing out before, that is now the drawn comb facing out. And the inside face of that frame is going to be foundation. So a little bit of checkerboarding taking place. But I'm just going to do one final bit of checkerboarding here, and I'll tell you why once I put this phone back on the stand. So I'm kind of in two minds as to whether to super this colony or not. I don't want to do it without Zane being here, but my advice to everyone is if you're not sure about whether to put a super on and it is anything past the middle of April, Just go ahead and put the super on. It really doesn't make a massive difference at this time of the year because it's so nice and warm in the day and so nice and warm overnight, kind of comparatively to what it's like in winter, that putting a super on a week early does negligible damage. Putting a super on a week late and your colony's swarmed and you've lost half of your investment, and that's definitely not what you want. With that in mind, I'm very confident that this colony is not going to swarm within the next week. What I'm going to do is I'm going to do an additional bit of more aggressive checkerboarding. In lieu of adding the super on. So I'm looking at the colony and saying, I don't think that you're going to swarm in the next week. I think you have sufficient space. But just to make sure of that, now that you're a little bit bigger, I'm just going to put one sheet of foundation slap bang in the middle. The bees hate it. They really don't like it. They will get to work drawing that out. They'll shun the side frames and they'll get to work drawing that one out. And it's a really good swarm suppression tool if you're not giving the bees space elsewhere. Super simple. I'll show you how to do it now. So I do love a simple manipulation. All you do is you just split it directly in half like that. Take your frame of foundation, place that in, squeeze it back up again. Easiest manipulation in the world. So now I've built that back up again. This one here is foundation. This is the one that I turned around, so the foundation's facing inwards. We've got stores, brood, brood, brand new foundation frame, brood, brood, brood, stores, foundation. I'm very confident with 3 and a half frames full of foundation that these bees are not going to swarm next week for you, Zane. But almost certainly when you come back, so episode 5, I reckon we'll be in here adding a super. So there we go. That was nowhere near as fun without Zane. It really wasn't. It was a bit boring. It was a bit dull. And I kept on going back into YouTube mode. There's not even going to be any outtakes. I couldn't bang anything or do anything fun at all. So, Zane, I look forward to you coming back. Chrissy, I look forward to you coming back as well. I hope you're well, and I'll see you all in episode 5.