AdAgrA 2022: Sharing the Blessings

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Beekeeping Track

Rob Norris

Advanced Beekeeping

Let's start our advanced beekeeping class with a word of prayer, shall we?

Lord, most Holy Father in heaven, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to be inspired, to hear from your word, words of hope, encouragement that we would faint not, that we would go home with a new desire, a new submission to you to work in our hearts in the plan that you have for us.

How many of you are at this class and you haven't been to any of the other beekeeping classes?

So, we're gonna do something a little bit different in this class, the advanced beekeeping.

I'm not going to get into a lot of really nitty gritty details because I have a bunch of things that I just want to like seeds to sow in your brain for you to just kind of ruminate on.

So if you're going to get into beekeeping, these are things that you just kind of want on the back burner just to think about, read about and learn about for a few years down the road when you're comfortable with your own bees, you're able to get them through the winter, and start developing a little bit of, okay, I think I understand a little bit about what's going on here.

And now let's take some baby steps into some more maybe advanced techniques and various things.

So I'm going to go through a whole bunch of different, just completely unrelated ideas.

And then at the end, let's save our questions for the end and we'll try to do that all in 1 fell swoop.

So, the first subject that as an advanced beekeeper you really need to learn how to do and that is grafting and cell building.

Grafting is a method of being able to reproduce queens.

So when you want to expand your apiary, there's 2 ways of doing it.

You could expand your apiary by letting your hives go into swarming mode.

And then you could harvest those swarm cells, if you were here in the other classes, harvest those swarm cells.

Remember I mentioned about splitting hives?

So you get 3 or 4 frames in 1 hive that has a swarm cell.

All you need is actually 1, although it's nice to have about 2.

Take out 1 of those frames that has a swarm cell on it, and another couple of frames with some brood and some honey, and make those its own little hive and build it up from there.

The problem with doing this apiary expansion with swarm cells, you're inadvertently selecting genetics that are swarmy.

There are some races of honeybees that tend to be more swarmy than others.

And you don't want your bees all just flying off everywhere all the time.

So you kind of want to breed that trait out of them so you don't expand your apiary by selecting that process.

So what we want to look for is as we get a few hives in our apiary, we want to look for especially the 1 that overwinters well, the 1 that builds up well, the 1 that produces well, and it would be nice if it had a nice temperament.

Like I said, I've had 1 really ornery hive quite a number of years ago back in the days when I just had like a dozen or so hives and I would name them and the mean hive I named Jezebel and I took it up to my in-laws and I put another hive right next to it and after a season or so that other hive got cranky too.

And that was fine with me because I didn't want to reproduce that genetics.

You can, if you've got a mean hive, you can take the queen out of that hive and squish her and introduce a queen into that hive with good genetics and she will start laying those good genetic eggs and the temperament over the hive over the course of a few months will completely change.

But you still have the drones from that cranky queen that are going to go out and pollinate.

The other queen's out there and they're going to come back and so they're going to kind of keep that, that ornery gene alive.

But what we want to be able to do is approach this reproduction thing of developing more hives a little more systematically.

And 1 of the best videos that I've found on this grafting process and producing queens is Bob Binney's YouTube channel on how we produce queens.

Really a good straightforward very simple method of doing queens and essentially what we're doing when we graft is we're making queen cells.

Some people use make little wax cups, some people you can buy these little tiny plastic cups and put them in a specialized frame.

And then you're taking a little tool and you're getting down, you gotta have really good magnifier glasses to do this.

You're basically, in a nutshell, taking a little tool and you're going down and you're scooping up a 1 day old larvae.

Now remember from the picture yesterday how big those are.

They're very, very tiny but you get down in there and just scoop up that larvae, a regular fertilized worker bee larvae at 1 day old.

We're scooping that up and we're putting it in the queen cell.

And we're going to do like 40 of those queen cells on this specialized frame.

And we're going to put it in a beehive that we've manipulated and managed.

So it's got just overcrowded with worker, young worker bees.

The young worker bees are the ones that are the nurse bees.

And so we're doing several things at once.

We're freaking them out because they have no queen and they scream and yell, but then they look over here and there's like, okay, angel music.

And so they start taking care of them all and developing them all into queens.

So they will feed them a whole bunch of royal jelly which will develop them into queens and they'll seal those cells and when those cells are sealed it's very like clockwork.

It's very predictable the time when you you'd graft them to the time that they're going to hatch out.

So you raise them to like about a day or 2 before they hatch out and then you harvest them you pull them out and separate them all and put them in small nuke box hives that you've already separated all your hives into these small units without queens.

And then you put the queen cell in there.

So what you've created is you've taken a bunch of full hives, cut them down into just a few frames, put them off by their self.

They start chewing their fingernails up their elbows and they, you know, they're because they're panicking.

They don't have eggs to lay a queen, but then all of a sudden a queen cell shows up and they're like a queen cell baby and take care of it until she hatches which is like the next day or the day after and then there they've got their queen.

So grafting and cell building there's quite a process to it don't don't do it you know as a beginner but it's just something to think about and watch videos on so you kind of know what's coming.

I talked a little bit about this last time.

So disease and wax moth control of stored equipment.

So There's a wax moth and it's about twice as big as a regular pantry moth.

You know, the little guys that get in your, in the stuff in your pantry and just kind of ruin everything.

A wax moth is much bigger and it will get into the foundation, the drawn comb foundation of your stored equipment, and it'll just eat it all up to bits and pieces and completely ruin it.

And that can be a lot of money over time, and especially when you've got this much equipment.

So 1 of the best ways to control the wax moth is by freezing your equipment.

Well, you know, none of us have a walk-in freezer that we can store.

How many of you right now could fit 1 of these single deep boxes in your freezer?

But that's usually the best way to, as far as I've found, because I don't want to use mothballs in my stored equipment.

I just think that's wrong because that's pretty toxic organic chemistry going on there with paradichlorobenzene.

So what I'll do is during the winter when the prediction is there's going to be less than freezing weather for several days or at least several nights.

So this picture here is is all my honey supers, the shallower boxes that go on top, And there are some there are some deeps in there too that Just I don't have Beehives for so I will stack it Kind of crisscross so a lot of air can get through there And I'll just leave it out for a couple of days in the really cold weather, and it's gonna freeze any of those larvae, the pupae of the wax moth or the actual wax moth or the worm.

So it's just gonna freeze it and then I can bring it all back in and I know okay now I'm pretty much clean.

And that has really helped as far as controlling the wax moth.

How long do you have to leave them in freezing?

So the question is, how long do you have to freeze those?

At minimum, as long as it's thoroughly frozen to the core just overnight.

You know, how long do you need to freeze up basil before you ruin it?

1 tiny little frost is all it takes, and it's dead, gone forever.

So that's something to keep in mind about storing equipment.

Also we have found in beekeeping that freezing your equipment where you have a die-out, maybe it's a die-out because of chalk brood or sac brood or maybe what's the other 1?

Nosema, which is a disease they often get in the wintertime, basically causes dysentery in the bees, and then they just, they don't do well after that.

But freezing your equipment for several days often will reduce the bacterial load so that when you reuse that hive, you may even have to clean up all the wax, take all the old wax up and put new wax foundation in and bring it back into service and put new bees in it.

It helps to have had that hive frozen for a day or 2 and it really reduces the disease load.

So you can put it back into service and the bees will do okay.

They will clean it up inside and go from there.

Another thing that I've worked towards, So you can, and this was a question from yesterday, how many hives can you have in any 1 given area?

It depends on what is the landscape out there around you.

What is there for beef forage out in your landscape?

If you live in the middle of 9, 000 acres of alfalfa, let's say, There is going to be a short window of time when that alfalfa is blooming and they're going to go crazy and be able to feed on that alfalfa but once it's done then there's nothing except maybe a few roadside dandelions.

Basic Beekeeping Part 1

This is our beginning beekeeping presentation number 1 for Ad Agra 2022.

Lord, most holy Father, please give us your insight, your purpose, and your reason for life.

Come help us understand and to be able to see truly your hand of wonder as it has created the world around us.

So I'd like to start on this beekeeping series and go through the seasons.

And since we're starting off as beginners here, we're going to start with really our first winner.

Because winner for the beekeeper is our downtime.

And since most of you don't have your bees yet, this is where we're gonna start.

And really you wanna start by educating yourself.

Find books, beginner books, watch videos, beginner videos on YouTube or wherever else.

And also see if there's a local bee club.

There's lots of resources that are out there that you can expose yourself to.

You know, maybe you have friends or neighbors in your area that keep bees that can kind of take you under their wing as well.

It's always good to have somebody that you can call up and talk to.

And before you actually start spending money on bees, you want a really good idea as to what you're getting into.

You, like anything else, whether it's gardening or any other project, you don't want to spend a bunch of money, throw bees in a box, walk away thinking that they're just going to produce hundreds of pounds of honey for you because it'd be just like throwing a handful of bean seeds at the ground and expecting this huge crop to come out of that and it's just not going to happen.

More beekeepers fail because they think it's just going to be this magical process and like anything else it takes a lot of work, It takes a lot of education to really kind of understand what's going on.

Do what you can to get a pretty good grasp as to what you're getting into.

So what I want to start with is looking at equipment, looking at what's actually in that hive when your bees are in there and going.

So first of all, Let's start with the beekeepers equipment.

Your equipment is going to be composed of a, possibly a bee suit, which is a full set of coveralls, with a with a either a velcroed or a zippered on hood that covers your whole head.

Those full body suits are a little bit more expensive.

But all of these things are basically your protective gear.

And it's really probably a good idea to start with protective gear so that you get comfortable with working with the bees without having to worry about getting stung so much.

As you learn about the bees, ankle straps, Velcro ankle straps really do help.

The first time I actually got stung was I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing.

I had a bee crawl up my pant leg and sting me and I Was trying to be really careful, but I had just forgot about tucking my pant legs into my socks I mean that's simplest way to do things but after I got stung that 1 time, I kind of had an epiphany and that is, you know what, you keep bees.

You kind of get stung sooner or later, so kind of get over it.

Also Other than your protective gear, a smoker, a hive tool, which is essentially a glorified paint scraper and kind of a prying tool to get your frames out of the boxes.

And then also a bee brush is a very light, long bristled brush used for brushing bees off of the frames that, frames of honey that you might be taking from the hive later on in the season.

Accessories to your equipment will be fuel for your smoker, camera, small container maybe for putting burr comb.

Burr comb is is beeswax comb that the bees will often put in obnoxious places in your hive that you want to scrape off so that the frames just don't get all glomped together.

And you know, maybe a bucket or something to keep all your gear in.

When talking about equipment, so as time goes on, you'll find out that you'll get more and more familiar with bees and you can actually be a better beekeeper if you're not wearing a lot of protective gear.

So 1 of the very first things that I encourage people to lose is the gloves.

Now this does expose your hands But with exposed hands you'll learn to work through that hive much more careful.

And you'll be able to feel the bees on those frames as you're picking them up.

And you'll be able to kind of brush them out of the way.

So getting rid of the gloves you can become a much better beekeeper.

And also you know over time if you've got good bees there's really no need to be keeping yourself locked up into this great big suit or whatever.

There are times when I still use my veil.

Various seasons that the bees are a little bit more aggressive, but by and large I really have a lot of nice bees and I rarely have to wear any sort of protective gear with my bees.

I think I'm running about 40 to 50 colonies right now and as I started out I bought 2 Italian packages of bees and all the bees that I have now are from swarms and from cutouts for wild bees that have just been living out on their own in the land.

So looking forward down the road, what you will be considering is starting off with the equipment.

But over time, you're going to relax a little bit.

You're going to start getting to know the personality of your bees.

There's actually evidence that shows that bees can recognize faces, actually.

So if you treat your bees nicely, you know, perhaps over time they will get used to you working them.

They will know your smell, they will they will know who you are.

But again, it just depends on the temperament of the bees.

As far as equipment for the bees go, the 1 thing that the bees want is a nice happy home, which is a full hive consisting of a base, a couple of deep boxes, and over top of our standard 2 deep boxes are what we call supers.

These can be, I should say, these can be shorter boxes.

We have boxes that are called mediums that are about 6 or so inches deep.

And then there are shallows, which are about 5, in the 5 inch range deep.

Typically, we use medium boxes to collect our honey in, for the reason being that a deep box, in the olden days, they just had these heavy deep boxes.

And a full deep box full of honey could weigh 80 or 90 pounds, which is just, that's too much really to be moving around without hurting your back.

So by using shallower boxes that when it's full of honey may only weigh 40 pounds, you know that's somewhat reasonable.

There are also shallow boxes, like I said.

Typically these really shallow boxes I will use, I've got a few of them, and I just use them for producing comb honey.

So that's what I think quite a few people will use the shallow boxes for, is producing good comb honey.

Another piece of equipment for the bees would be a queen excluder, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Basically a queen excluder is just exactly what it says it is.

It's like a wire mesh that keeps the queen from going from 1 side of that excluder to the other.

So typically we will put it on the hive when we want to exclude the queen from laying eggs in the upper boxes where we want them to put the honey.

And then on top our supers we have an inner and outer cover that fits over the top.

As far as accessories to this happy little home that we're making for the bees, we've got feeders.

Bees, at some point in time, are probably going to need to be fed.

If they're a late swarm, if they just haven't been able to gather enough nectar for the winter, you're going to have to feed them.

Or the other option is just to combine them with another hive.

So, and as far as feeding goes, The best thing really to feed them is the pure cane sugar rather than beet sugar.

We've got pollen patty substitutes which are a substitute protein, Plant-based proteins that will feed the bees.

We've got entrance reducers and screens to keep the mice out as we're preparing our hives for the winter.

Tar paper works fairly good for wrapping the hive in the winter to keep the weather out.

And then also 1 other accessory will be mite treatment.

There is something else that I want to discuss as we're looking at our bee equipment here.

So the frames that are inside of a beehive have a foundation in them.

So in your standard equipment, there are 10 wooden frames in each hive box.

And in that frame, there are what we call a piece of wax foundation is 1 option.

This wax foundation, as you can see, has the honeycomb embossed, the pattern printed on it, and just pressed right into it.

And you notice there are wires in that wax to hold it so that it doesn't melt out or disfigure or misshape itself.

So the bees really do like the pure beeswax foundation.

The disadvantage of regular, just plain beeswax foundation, whether it's wired or not, is over time, it does get old.

If you get mice in a hive, they can chew great big holes in it.

And also wax moths, which are usually a problem when you're storing empty hive equipment.

And these wax moths are like really big pantry moths.

They will get in there and they'll just eat that wax all to just dull to bits and ruin it.

But like I said the bees really prefer that wax foundation so if you are just planning on having a few hives, I would definitely suggest using this wax foundation.

Basic Beekeeping Part 2

The actual layout is actually really good.

And you see the pollen pattern, the pollen arc, and the honey in the corner.

But seeing how spotty and you've got old brood and young brood and capped pupae, it's just blah, blah, blah.

My guess, what's happening here is this colony is about ready to collapse from parasitic mite syndrome.

That's what's a, you haven't been taking care of the mites and there's a gazillion mites in there and they're about ready to kill the colony because there's so many.

Now think about this, A mite to a bee is about the same as having a teacup saucer sized tick attached to you.

So Imagine a tick about that big around and about that flat stuck to your back or abdomen somewhere.

That's about the size proportion to the bee with the little varroa mites.

So you see this kind of thing, these guys are in trouble.

And we'll talk about treatment in a little bit here.

So I want to talk about these queen cells.

1 is called a supersedure cell and typically a supersedure cell is on the top third.

Usually it's going to be like inside up here, the top third of your frame.

The supersedure cell is the bees deciding they want to replace their queen.

The interesting relationship is the queen really sets the personality of the hive.

If she's got nasty genetics, they will all be, I mean the whole hive will be just mean.

If she's got good genetics, everybody will be happy.

If she's young and she's vivacious and vigorous, it's like all the bees are vigorous and just boom, boom, boom.

If she's older and she's slowing down in life, it's like you can see it in the front of the hive.

You can watch them come and go, and it's kind of like, whatever.

So a queen cell, like that little peanut looking cell, hanging down, if it's in this part of the frame, the top third, it's a supersedure cell.

They don't like their queen for some reason.

She's not productive or something's wrong.

Compare that with, okay, before we compare that with, often times there will always be these queen cups along the bottom or somewhere on the frame.

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Series

Beekeeping Track

Basic Beekeeping Part 3

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Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

Advanced Beekeeping

1h 1m

Basic Beekeeping Part 1

48m

Basic Beekeeping Part 2

25m