Backyard Beekeeping Q&A Episode 346 your bees may be starving, let's fix that.

1:30Hello and welcome. Happy Friday. Today's Friday March the 6th of 2026. This is back here. Be keeping questions and answers. Episode number 346. I'm Frederick Dunn and... So I'm really glad that you're here. By the way, that was the West Virginia B.C.P.R.'s Association. I was at their conference last weekend. What a great group of people. Somebody said they wouldn't do that if I asked them to. And yet they still did, so thankful for that. If you want to know what we're going to talk about today, please go down to the video description. You'll see all the topics listed in order. You'll also see timestamps later that will allow you to skip along through this what's probably going to be a very long Q&A because I'm unsupervised tonight. My wife is off supervising and babysitting the grand monkeys. So I hope that she's surviving. Oh, everything's okay.

2:30So maybe you want to know how you submit a topping for a Friday Q&A. Well, you go to my website, which is the way to be. Or you click on the page mark contact. There's a form there. You fill it out. And you just might end up on one of the Friday Q&A. So I'm grateful for those who do that. And what else? Maybe you've got something on your mind right now. You can't wait. You have to talk to somebody. Maybe you've got a picture and you don't know how to show it on YouTube. You know why you can't show it on YouTube. All you can do is make comments. So if you go to the way to be fellowship, which is on Facebook, you'll find a bunch of people. There are day and night willing to give their opinions. Most of their opinions are good. And that's a, you know, a peer group. So you're going to love it. It's going to be great. And so I know which one to know what's going on outside. Well, let me tell you. It's too late because it's the end of the day. But Friday today is the very best day over the next seven. And where am I located? Northeastern part of the United States. Northwestern part of the state of Pennsylvania.

3:30Know what's known as the snow bell, but the snow is gone. Good riddance. It got all the way up to 67 degrees Fahrenheit today. But the warmest day is tomorrow. So you might think, wow, Saturday, that's going to be great. I'm going to get out there and take care of my bees. Well, the joke's on you because it's going to rain. So let's just do the rundown. At the time of my making this recording, of course, it is 54 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 12.2 degrees Celsius. 7.2 a mile per hour winds. Not bad at all. 11.5 kilometers per hour if you're wondering. And I bet you want to know what the humidity is. The relative humidity is 99% relative humidity because it's been sprinkling on and off. And as I mentioned, it's going to hit 67 degrees Fahrenheit. They're never wrong. It's absolutely going to hit that, which is 19.4 degrees Celsius. You can go outside without your coat on, but listen to me. If you're going in your be yard, don't you go out there without a veil. I know you think that you're going to do something quick. You're just going to check stuff out. The next thing you know, you're stung in the face

4:32and the eye in the nose, in the ear. All the places you don't want to be stung. So please wear a veil. The bees are flying. And before we even get into today's questions, I want to alert you that if you have an opportunity if you're in the Northeast and you have this warm up right now, pollen is coming in, but it's not great. And when the pollen comes in, they need carbohydrates to take care of it. So what does that mean? Why should you care? Well, if they're running out of honey, and you don't put sugar syrup on there or a high-life fondant patty or something like that, they could run out of carbs. What happens when they run out of carbs? They're going to eat their eggs. I know it's a sad story, but they're going to go back in there and they're going to eat the eggs and they're going to eat their open larvae and they're going to have a set back because they can't forage when it's raining and it's going to be raining this weekend. So I told you, if you fail to do it, it's on you. And I also showed some troubling close-ups

5:34in the opening scenario there. You see some bees that were stuck on the edges of the landing board with their tongues out. They're starving. So I don't believe in this Darwinian, let them just die or fly. I take care of them. Sugar syrup is all it takes. Super easy. Put hive alive in the sugar syrup. But if you don't have hive alive syrup to put your sugar syrup, don't hold off. Use sugar syrup on its own. How much should you use? Let's just go ahead and start off with that. Don't fill it up. We're just trying to bridge them through the rainy days ahead because pollen is coming in and nectar soon to follow. So we're just trying to bridge it so they don't turn on themselves so they don't cannibalize things inside the hive when they have low resources. You can do it. It's going to be easy. And I took care of the supervisor's hive, of course. I know he's going to ask. He might be watching right now. So I wanted to know that I did my duty. So anyway, the pollen levels are low. So a lot of things could be sources of pollen

6:34and I'll do a quick run down here. Again, this is related to my area. Your area might be different but Juniper, Cedar and Elm. Those are producing pollen. Juniper and maple trace elements of pollen. So it could be low, mixed trees. And then when we get into Monday and Tuesday and this neck of the woods, dormant, that means no pollen. You know why? It's going to get cold again. And we're going to get a cold snap. And of course, it's going to rain and there's going to be fog and it's going to work against the bees. That's why you as the beekeeper can boost for carbohydrates. Please do it. So by the time we get to Wednesday and Thursday, March the 12th. By the way, let's tie in the calendar dates. We'll have Willow and Poplar trace elements trace bits of protein coming in in the form of pollen. It's going to be great. They're going to do super. And I can't get into all the different colors and stuff. But that's it. I want you to know that now. So it's too late tonight because I'm late today, in fact, very late.

7:37And I just wanted to address those who are pinging me with questions about should I put a pollen sub on? Should I put pollen on for the bees? Should I put pollen patties on for the bees? And I want to point out to you that there's a priority. Water first, bees need water. Well, it's clear that they have that. It's everywhere. So the next thing that they need that they're not getting yet, carbohydrates. What are the carbohydrates in the environment? It's going to be the nectar that comes from the nectar of the flowers. So that's not coming in in the same amounts that the pollen is. So that's where they're at high risk. They're only at high risk if the resources inside the hive have diminished. The good news is with the warm-up, they'll be spreading out inside the hive and getting to those capped honey frames that they haven't been using while they were tightly clustered during wintertime. So if it's in there, if you tip your hive and it's still heavy, they have access to stuff. That's good news. I also want you to watch out for robbing.

8:37How do you know if all that activity at the entrance is robbing or if it's resident bees? Well, it's going to be because if they're bringing in pollen once the pollen flow starts and it has apparently, pollen going in, those aren't robbers. Robbers don't bring groceries, they take them. So you'll know that's going on. If they're cleaning houses, if they're dragging out, bits and pieces of provolescent stuff and wasted comb, that's good too. That shows that they're housekeeping, that they live there and they're residents. So I hope it's all going well. Let's jump right in with question number one, which comes from, this is a cool name, by the way, Paloza party. Random question, when the bees eat pollen patties inside the hive, they're swallowing versus packing baskets, right? Well, that's a good question and it's something that I think about a lot. And so when do the bees derive the proteins from the pollen? Now we know that when your bees fly out

9:38and they visit flowers that have pollen and they get on the pollen anthors and they come back with a pollen, they come in and those foragers scratch off the pollen directly into the cells in the hive. Usually somewhere near the brood, right? And so this time of year, in particular, open cells near and in the brood get pollen. And then the nurse bees go right to work on it and this is the beginnings of what we call bee bread. So what happens there is it goes to a fermentation process, which is why if you go into an observation hive building, such as the one we have here, it smells like something's fermenting. It's bee bread and they're bringing a lot of it in. That observation hive, one in particular, is bringing in a steady stream of pollen. So in about three days, we're gonna smell that. Now, so the question comes up and I've had this question myself, so it's a great one. So when we put in pollen patties, let's just say for example, it's the hive alive, 15% pollen patty. That means there's real pollen in it. Now, did the bees consume that directly?

10:39They do because they can't separate it from the patty and then pack it on their corbicula, their hind legs and take it over and act as if they're foraging for pollen. It's a very different process. So then when do they get the proteins out of the pollen? And this was fun because I just happened to be having breakfast a couple of weeks back with Randy Oliver. I hope you've heard of him. Scientific beekeeping. And so I posed the question to Randy because why not? We have a great resource right there at what point does the pollen actually release its contents to the bees for digestion? And it was pretty quick about that as if you'd had the question before. So the bee bred, let's backtrack, the bee bred in the cells that the nurse bees take care of, they consume it and then they're gonna produce nourishment from their own bodies for the brood. And then other bees also consume and use pollen and proteins. So they consume it directly. What happens is the pollen grains that go in

11:40and they're very tough, by the way. And you may have heard lots of discussion which is why I have curious questions about that for the experts. If the pollen grains go through the humans, mostly untouched. In other words, they come out the way they went in if you know what I'm saying. We don't really get anything out of them. So eating pollen on your salad, what did that do? Basically nothing. But people still buy it and they'll sprinkle it all over their salads and they'll eat it. However, the bee, it's mid-cut. So when the bee eats something, it's got a crop. That's the first chamber. And in that crop, that's where they transport water. If it's a water bee, that's where they transport nectar. If it's a nectar gatherer. And there's a little valve there. It's called the Proventricular. And that opens and closes to allow stuff that's in that crop to progress into the digestive system. So Proventricular, what's next? The ventricular. I'm not going to load you up with a bunch of terms. However, it's the mid-cut where the pollen actually releases its proteins

12:41and becomes adjustable to the honey bee. So they do not have to take it through the fermentation process. And that was great. You imagine just sitting down and having somebody like that just right across the table for me. You just ping them with a whole bunch of questions and then get away clean without saying something wrong. So that worked. It was great, and that's exactly what happens. So I found that very interesting. So they consume the pollen patty. Now here's the thing. Does a pollen patty take the place of, let's say, stored honey? Would they get carbohydrates from it? Not in a meaningful way. So they don't get enough of it to actually warm the brood, which is critical. Diet's one thing, the energy to perform the functions inside the hive and keep it at 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit while they're at it is a carbohydrate hit. That's why I was out there today putting sugar syrup on one-to-one, sugar syrup, by the way, for those who want to know there's one part sugar, one part water. And then I did do the two teaspoons of hive alive liquid.

13:43And I put that on there. Now I can feel good. When it starts raining, it rains all day tomorrow. I'll know that the bees are making it because there was a quick turnaround in a couple of those hives. They were on a thread. So I want to thank Paolo's a party for asking that question because the bees do handle things different. And remember when Randy Oliver smashed the guts of a lot of bees to find out which bees in winter time had consumed proteins and had pollen in their mid-gut, guess what? Every sample that he smashed. So they're all getting it in winter time. Question number two comes from DenB7181 as a YouTube channel name. Good video. All your snow is gone and your hives look good. Our winter is not over. We still have over two feet of snow on the ground. But it was 50 degrees yesterday. And my bees were out doing cleansing flights. I noticed you had a upper entrance on your bee smart insulated intercover and some didn't try something different. Okay, so here's the thing.

14:45And this is interesting. And that's why I intentionally because of this question went out today and focused on that entrance on the one hive that has a bee smart insulated intercover on it with the upper entrance which I never use. Now the problem was, I didn't close it off well. I didn't cover those holes with aluminized tape like I wanted to, the HVAC tape, you know what I'm talking about? This is it right here. Always have a roll of that handy with your kit. So I've fallen behind in that area, but here's the thing. What I wanted to do because some people noticed that in another video and said, oh, that's robbing. That's why they're going through the upper entrance. Nope, remember what I said earlier? If they're bringing in pollen, they're not robbers. And they were bringing in pollen. So don't just rely on my word. Look at the video sequence that shows it. They're bringing in pollen. So what do they do? They chewed through the polystyrene insulated insert in the bee smart intercover. I don't like them to use that,

15:45but once they get started, that's it. And that's that a problem. Just let them go. I mean, they'll just have their breed up there. And then they'll work their way backwards from the brewed into storing honey and everything else and just be inverted. Is that good? No, it's not good. In fact, before sun rise tomorrow, I'm going to mess with their plants. I'm going to go out there and stick a dowel in there, a wooden dowel. Before the sun comes up, before they start flying, you guess what they're going to have to do there? I'm going to have to go downstairs and use that entrance on the landing board. There's a method to my madness. If I leave an entrance open in the top of a high this time of year, they'll be brooding right there. So if I close it off now, while it's early, then they will eventually migrate down to where the ventilation is, which is on the landing board, which is where the entrance reducer is. And then they will all start using that as their only entrance, which is what I want. This is what the management is.

16:45Convincing the bees to do what you want to do until they themselves also want to do it. It's a battle of wits and we can win. You can win it. So I'm closing it up. I don't want them to use that top one. And because that one is damaged, it was an early version, by the way, of the bee smart insulated inner cover. And so I'm going to take it apart and I just have an ever replacement. So I'm going to swap out the entire cover. Once they're, once they move down, not right now, not right away, I'm going to do it later. You'll see, I'm going to win this. And so, but that's the logic behind it. Wherever the entrance is, they're comfortable. Of course, having their brood near the entrance because that's where they have the best control over the air exchange. And that's what we want to do. Multiple entrances are a risk. If you have multiple entrances, which that hive currently does, and it's a big hive, multiple entrances mean that, if you've got predators of your bees, they can get in there.

17:47And so you can, you know what? I don't want to go off an entangent, but I found a pygmy shrew. And it was very interested in that thing. It was in one of our buildings and super tiny. And it was a little concerned that maybe the pygmy shrew can get through a 3-8-inch opening. But rest assured it can't. They're cool to see, though. And that is not a road, and by the way, it's a venomous mammal that goes around and kills other things. It's a little nightmare on four feet. So anyway, we don't want small, high beetles to be able to get in through your hive. So you want a single entrance that your bees are going to defend well, because I don't know where you are, but small, high beetles might be trying to get into your hides already. The other thing is wax moths. Wax moths come through. They deposit their little eggs in different places, crevices and things, and then they force the eggs hatch. And the little waxworms work their way into your hive, limit the number of entrances, hopefully, to one. You'll be helping your bees.

18:48So I think that's about it. So that upper entrance, it was not robbing. They're actually just using it, and they have a negligent beekeeper taking care of it. They didn't fix it, because that was a problem last fall. Why didn't I fix it last fall? Because I knew the colony wasn't going to make it. See, I didn't care. I knew that we're not going to survive winter, and here they are. And that story is playing out over and over in my APRE. The target is 10 colonies. We're out of control here at over 40. Not happy. OK, move it on. Question number three comes from Uncle John, junior 67. So what's the advantage of those big entrance plastic dials that you have? They look to be about six to eight inches in diameter, compared to the smaller 3.75 or 2.75 plastic discs. So where you see these, I wish I had one, so I could show it to you. And here it is.

19:48So these are on my small nucleus hives. And the reason is, because the nucleus hives, most of them do not have a standard landing board with an entrance reducer. In fact, the bottom of that nucleus hive is permanently mounted to the box. It doesn't even come off of that. So then there's a hole in the front of the nucleus hive. And then we've got this control wheel on the front of the hive so we can do all these different things. First of all, I want to tell you where the control wheel comes from, because I know that's going to be the next question. They come from better B. These are actually made by better B. And I have no discount for you, although if you go shopping for one, pass through them. Ask them for the Fred Dunn discount and make them explain why they don't have one of those. OK, move it on. This wheel is fantastic for any front-facing no landing board style entrance. Now, if you go to the way to be.org and you look at the page that has the prints and drawings

20:49that you can get for free, by the way, cost you absolutely nothing. You're going to find that we've arrived at a preferred entrance shape and size. And for long, length's rough hives in particular. We have a 3-8 inch by 3-inch wide entrance. 3-8 inch high, 3-inch wide. So if I had a drawing, it would look like this. And then what you see there is where the entrance would be. So we're going to look at the face of a long length rough hives with the entrance on one side. And that little entrance would be 3-8 inch high, 3 inches long. It would not change throughout the year. And then it shows how this could go over the front of that long length rough hives. And when it's wide open, that full 3-8 by 3-inch entrance would be available. So the question, too, is what are these other configurations for? Well, let's start with the smallest one.

21:50The smallest one is just a screen for ventilation. So that's what that is. It's a screen for ventilation that also doesn't permit what pest. It does not permit the small hives to get in. So there, you have that. The next one would be only workers get through this one here. So only the worker bees, which means what can't get through it. The queen can't get out. So if you hive this worm, let's say, and you didn't want them to get away, but you wanted the foragers to be able to get out and start doing their work, this is the one you set. And with a nice 3-inch wide opening on the face, so you could use a dial like this. You have plenty of room for them to work to come and go through. So then there's a slightly larger one. So let's go here. This is a drone excluder, but it lets the queen through. So it would be blocking your drones, but it also doesn't just block drones. It would block bumble bees from getting in also.

22:50So they, again, workers can get through and you're set. And then you're wide open again. So that's what that's for. You have a lot of control with it. You know what it doesn't have? That I don't like that I want to have. If anybody's listening, there's no complete closed version on this. There's no section here. So since I personally am not going to use the drone part over here, the bumble bee blocker, I think I could put something on that and close it right up. And then if I ever wanted to close it completely, I would be able to do that. If you had multiple entrances on the hive, you wanted to close some up, that would be that. So I hope that explains it. Better be selzum. I think I buy them in packs of five or something like that. Super handy. I highly recommend you get them. Tell them I sent you. Question number four, moving on this comes from Michelle, from Troy Michigan. Is it possible for a queen to cause a disease transmitted

23:52to her eggs or larvae? I know she can be old and run out of sperm or be poorly made initially, but cause sickness in the hive followed by two question marks. Yes, your queen honey bee can pass on diseases inside that. What's one of the biggest concerns? What is a disease that she's most likely to be able to transmit to the root? Deformed wing virus. Sometimes you just see it as DWV disease, deformed wing virus. It doesn't just spread to your own bees, and they can't fly when they have it cause their wings are deformed, they can't fly. So you can find these little bees, workers, and drones in some cases, you even see them, they'll have little thready, twisted, mutated wings. And so they don't go anywhere. So everything happens inside the hive. So these are things that you look for. So you see deformed wing virus. Black queen cell virus. Would you think, well, it kills a queen? Why would it be a virus that the queen would have?

24:53Because sometimes it's sublethal. So they can have it, just not enough to where it kills them. See what I'm saying? So if it doesn't kill them, it's still there, which means they can transmit it, and sacbrewed, which I have had, by the way, at my long length, straw hive. And if you want to see what that stuff looks like, it's pretty disgusting. You can go to my YouTube page, which is Frederick Dunne, look at the little search bar, and type in sacbrewed. It is a long, length, straw hive inspection. I also show you how to do the rope tests, and I also show you how to do a field test for American falbrood and European falbrood. Those tests are no longer available, super annoying. But one of the things that you can look for, for example, is spotty brewed. So if there's a lot of spotty brewed, if things aren't looking good in there, or if you've got stunted larvae, larvae that aren't developing right, there's just something wrong with them. High mite loads. Now, high mite loads indicate a colony that's not doing a very good job at taking care of itself, in spite of all of your perfect efforts.

25:56So if you've got any of those things, that is a colony that's worth re-queining. Now, of course, you don't want to just re-queen an hive that might have American falbrood or something like that, be aware. But if it's just spotty brewed, low brewed, poor pattern, if there's generally just something off, some people even re-queen over chalk brewed, for example. So swapping out your queen. This is the time of year to do that, by the way. Hey, how would you swamp out your queen? Would you go to the queen store and buy one? Jump online, order one through the mail. No, because you have other colonies, I hope, two is one and one is none. So what you would do is, when you're super robust, top performing colony with perfect brewed and everything else, starts to produce queen cells. You pay attention to them. And when they have produced their queen cells, that means they're gonna swarm. They're on their way out. They're driving out the current queen. So you take the current queen

26:57because she's obviously a top performer. You take her in a frame of brewed, caps brewed, and you put her in this hive at the same time that you remove, you serve whatever you want to call it, you displace the current queen. And then you put them in there. How long should you wait? You can give it an hour or two. They will be happy to jump ship and go with a stronger, better, healthier queen, right away. And you're bringing in brewed with her. So that means you're gonna pull a frame out of the brewed area that is the poorest condition. So I'll bring that in. And then you've got your other colony that was gonna replace her anyway. And it's in the springtime, chances of mating are really high. And everything's just gonna go perfect. It's gonna work out. Do what it say. It's gonna work great. Question number five comes from Mark from Chila Coffee, Ohio. That's a funny name. I have to think it's a Native American name. Anyway, I have a hive that I wanna move into different equipment.

27:59Good move, by the way. I'm only moving at less than three feet but into a completely different set of boxes, any advice in the process or gotchas I should look out for. Actually, this makes it very easy because I'm gonna be doing this myself this year. I'm going to move some old equipment. I'm gonna take the frames, the colony that's occupying it and I'm gonna pull them out. I'm gonna put them in brand new equipment. And this is easy. You don't have to move it very far. Here's why. When your bees are moved, so let's talk time of day. Do it in the middle of the day. Okay. And you'll keep it in the same spot just for starters. So you'll take all of your, let's say it's a stack of two boxes, three boxes. Top box, move it over, set it on another hive stand. It's right next to you. That's what I use. Be smart designs. It has these lightweight black plastic hive stands that last forever and ever and ever. And you can put a wooden platform on it and then you bring it with you. When you're doing an inspection, you set your stuff on it.

29:00Don't put your stuff on the ground, please. Because right now, anyway, the ground's all wet. You just don't want to. Plus, you don't want to bend all the way down to the ground. Take the top box. Take the cover, invert it. Put it on that hive stand. Take your top box. As is, set it right on the hive stand. Take your next box down. Take it off, set it on top of that box. And then the bottom box becomes the top box and you see where I'm headed. Now you take your new equipment. So you put the bottom board in and then you put the new brood box in and you transfer the frames, keeping them in the same order that they're in in the hive that you're taking apart. Check that box. Go to the next box, put your new box on. So now we have two boxes assuming that's what the hive that you're taking apart has. And transfer again, all those frames over and match them up again. And then you put the inner cover on, hopefully. It's insulated and you put your outer cover on and then they're set. Now nightfall comes. Close them up. Then you take them to your new spot. The following day, first of all,

30:01they're getting used to a new configuration, a new hive and they can have a new entrance, hopefully. When they do that, they naturally reorient. They start to do the orientation flights like the whoa, what's changed? Why is the front porch different? And they zigzag back and forth, they check it all out and then they'll be coming back to that. So it's the easiest way to move things because it makes you be suspicious and they're in learning mode again. This is why sometimes when people move a hive, they stick a bunch of grass or twigs or something that changes their route to the entrance of the hive, which makes them re-register where the hive entrance is. And this is for, of course, the foragers that are headed out to go and get the resources. But it's very easy to do. And I've not, I used to practice that, you know, hauling them away and bringing them back thing. Stop doing it because it's really easy. I never found orphan bees. Question number six, Diane from War in New Jersey. So it says, so far,

31:04all two of my colonies are still alive, but the weather's challenging. I'm considering providing free choice pollen sub like you do in cardboard egg cartons. That's right, I do. How far away from the apiary do you place them? Is it like honey and you want it some ways away or can I put it nearby? This is a great question and I'm glad we're asking these questions early in the year. Wherever you set up your feeding or robbing station, it should be a consistent location because bees have a pretty decent memory when it comes to, once they've found a resource, they'll fly through inclement weather to locate it again. So if they know, for example, you put out sugar syrup or something like that. And of course sugar syrup, we just want to caution you. It should only be out before you start to put your honey supers on. We don't want sugar syrup in our honey later. So, but remember what it said at the beginning of today's Q&A.

32:04You want to make sure that they're fully loaded with carbohydrate resources before we push any kind of pollen booster on them. And I'll just go right to the top of the scientific chart when it comes to pollen substitutes. Ap23 is outperforming all others. Number two is megabee. Number three is ultra bee. So what do I have that I'm doing experiments with right now, AB 23? I'm not going to tell you my experiments because I want to keep you in suspension. But so when it comes to pollen, see, that's why the pollen by itself doesn't really matter so much. You know, proximate it to your apiary because it's a feeding station. Regardless of what you put out there, pollen sub is generally not something that, for example, kicks off a big robbing frenzy, like sugar syrup can't. But because it's a predictable resource location that we want our scouts to check in on when they're zinging back and forth,

33:06that's where you put your pollen sub. Now, I want to tell you also my favorite practices when it comes to pollen sub. It should be in the sun. I find that the bees go to sunny pollen substitute quicker, earlier, more frequently than they do pollen substitute that's in the shade. And so I also don't bring it out until they're in high pollen hunting mode, which happens when, somewhere afternoon. So prime pollen hunting would happen just before noon to about 3 p.m. And that's right, we're moving our clocks forward this weekend, you're going to lose an hour. So anyway, when the sun is shining, you see the forages checking out your feeding station, take the pollen sub out there. Now, when it gets dark or it's going to rain or something like that, take it inside, put it away. Put in a big ziplock baggy and hold it over until the next sunny day when they're out actively foraging for pollen. And so don't leave it overnight, don't attract pests and things like that.

34:08That's just my suggestion for you. And the cardboard egg cartons are fantastic. I have never found a single dead bee in that. If you're one of these people that likes to put out bottles and segments of PVC pipe, the four inch drain lines, gutters, things like that, you always find deadbeats in them. That's on you, it means you don't care about them. If you don't want to use something recyclable like egg cartons, and if bees die in that all covered with pollen, they can't even see. That's on you, it's your fault, you did it to them. Just didn't listen. All right, question number seven comes from Julius from Irvana, Irvina. Ooh, Irvina O'Leil, is that how you say it? It says, I get your beekeeper. I lost one out of six. I'm positive as due to moisture buildup on the inner cover. You have mentioned a material used for moisture boards. I would like to know what it is or the episode

35:09in which it's mentioned, thanks, Julius. So here's the thing, I've never mentioned moisture boards. So I don't know who I'm being confused with. Better not be you know who. So anyway, I don't have moisture boards because I don't use quilt boxes and things like that. What I do now, because this is my 20th year of keeping bees, just wanna say. So I've done trial and error all this time. And so the insulated inner covers are solid, nothing goes through. There isn't even ventilation that passes through. So I've never had, since I started doing installation and no other entrances, I've not had any condensation form over the center of the cluster of the bees. None, since I started doing that. Because the dew point is not good achieved there. It gets achieved or about the lower third of the cluster of the bees. And these are things that we can even see inside the observation heights, for example. But I've not had this problem. So also the suggestion that there's moisture boards

36:12and things like that, I might be getting confused with another YouTuber. So because I don't know quilt boards, no absorbent material at all above the hive. And so I will say that installation, single entrance down below, no venting, no gaps or openings up above. And you have to have at a very minimum, if you're trying to keep condensation from forming directly above your cluster, you must have an insulated intercover. And I also highly recommend an insulated outer cover. And if you have insulated sidewalls, make sure that the hive top installation exceeds the r-value of all of your sidewalls. So what would you use? Double bubble, reflect tics. Be smart, insulated intercovers. That's about it. Some people make their own, and that's good too. You can get, you know, pink Panther phone board or whatever, and cut a hole in the middle of it.

37:13So you have an opportunity to feed your bees. And that's why the installation is there for the barrier, but your feed's there, so you need more installation over that. And then the bees can get up there while sheltered and protected and access winter carbs and resources. So question number eight is, next this comes from Jen from Charlotte, Mississippi. My husband and I are going through the Heroes to Hives program. It's very rigid in regards to how to test and treat for Varoa. You've said, you have a friend that doesn't treat, and I see in your new video about Rapid Hive, the grid on the bottom. So Rapid Hive, the Rapid, that's a license hive and I did that interview with Dr. David Peck, also at West Virginia. And we talked about their new polystyrene hive system. Now the license hive is not new, it's been around. You had a bunch of screws that you had to put in, they were carbon steel screws. Kind of like the ones used for sheet rock, they weren't even like rust proof for anything.

38:14And it's a different animal right now. So the new license poly hive has a really outstanding bottom board that I like a lot, did not care at all for the previous one. They also have a fantastic hive top feeder. I did not care at all about the previous license hive top feeder, which was always in my way. And this one allows you to feed solids or liquids and it's good to go. So I bought one. But anyway, we're talking about these alternatives for treatment. Do I have a friend that's treatment for, I have a bunch of friends that are treatment-free. And I know that this is a fantastic goal for a lot of people, but I don't know if people understand how much activity is involved in that and what treatment-free really means for these people because they're breeding queens for the most part and they have an enormous resource of colonies of bees to select out those that are managing verodistrictor mites on their own.

39:15And it is a very tiny percentage of the bees that they have from those that are doing that successfully biting the legs, Purdue mites by ankle biters. There are a lot of lines of bees that are designed for treatment-free practices. The thing is that war is never over. It goes on and on and on. And so as I mentioned before, those people that are breeding those, be weaver. So Daniel weaver down in Texas, they do not treat. So they practice Darwinian beekeeping. They get rid of the colonies that do not do well. The queens that do not do well and they breed exclusively from those that are managing verodistrictor mites and that is something they work on every single year, season after season. It never ends. So you would have to do things like, for example, and they do have treatment-free friends who just to be balanced on this,

40:18lost everything last winter. Not this winter now, but the winter before we're trying their hand backyard beekeepers. Usually around the third year they were losing all of their colonies. So what they probably needed to do was constantly, actively replace colonies, swarms, splits, and constantly select for hygienic stock that's also veroa resistant. And it became for me, I just want to explain this. Much easier to keep my stock, not lose the colonies every winter, which is exactly what I was doing. When I was treatment-free for 10 years, lost the stock, felt good about it because now I had survivor stock and I used survivor bees to replace my stock. Every year the same thing. Lose a bunch of bees, replace them through summer. Lose a bunch of bees, replace them through summer. And there's a treatment-free beekeeper that I'm sure you all know. If you're watching me, you may watch Mr. Ed,

41:21Jeff Horchoff, who does not treat, and he says he has losses, but that his losses are no different than the losses that come from those who treat their bees. Therefore, he doesn't treat at all. You would also, if you're paying attention, note that he collects lots of swarms and also restores his colonies that way as well. So there's a lot of ways to replace and restore your losses when you are treatment-free. So for me, it's been an exhalic acid vaporization. This year we're gonna use dribble when the extended release sponges come out from Mike's bees, which is easy ox, then we'll be trying those out because that is an easy treatment that is very safe and is organic. Resistance is not being demonstrated in the Verode Striker mites. So I choose personally to do the treatments as well as constantly monitoring for the stock that's doing well. I just don't breed from and reproduce from

42:23colonies that require a lot of help and not all of my colonies require help. But I'm not at the point where I could be treatment-free across the board, although it would be great if we could do that. So the Lyson hive is a good hive. It's insulated, so I'm bringing a polycyrene hive back into my apiary. I did not have them before, other than the Lyson in the past. And as I mentioned before, I didn't really care for the configuration, but I was impressed by the new one. So there's two polyhives that will be in my apiary this year and they're going to share a stand side by side. And it's the HiveIQ and the Lyson, of course. HiveIQ, I'm not super excited about their Hivetop feeder system. And their bottom board is an open bottom board where the Lyson hive has a bottom board and that's what really, as soon as he showed me the bottom board, I thought, yes, an enclosed screen bottom board,

43:25with a removable tray, as described here with a grid on the bottom for counting for road stricter mites. So it is set up for, even if you've done a treatment, you want to do mit drops. So you want to count the mites that drop after you've done your treatment to prove that you've got some efficacy there. And I'm not a big fan of treating without verifying that you have a mit drop or that you have effective treatment or that the colony even need a treatment to begin with. So that's a really good hive. So the things you can do, let's say you're sitting there, you want to be treatment-free. I might send you to someone like Natalie, Natali, Bee, Natalie, Bee, mindful, Les Crowder, Top Bar Hives. They are a treatment-free organization. So if you want to talk to people that are walking the talk, they would be some people to check in with. So that's what you want to look for. People that are doing it have done it for a long time, large scale,

44:26see how they're managing. When people who are treatment-free won't let you look at their bees, that's troubling for me. So if you're a natural, holistic treatment-free beekeeper, but nobody's allowed to look at your colonies or no, see this time of year is the time you want to see their beards. Because this is unbelievable, but true. Some people claim 100% survivor chip of their bees and they're treatment-free because they've put their reputation out there so strongly that the ego is in the way and they can't bring themselves to admit they have profound losses when they do. And unless you're part of a monitoring program, it's just their word. If they won't show you the apiary. So this is the time of year when you have people that have treatment-free apiaries in the Northeast, can we look at your bees now? Can we see how they're behaving coming out of winter before they get a chance to, let's say they restocked them somehow

45:28or bought in packages and things like that to maintain, to keep, to save face with their organization. So we need people that are wide open, that are transparent about what they're doing and how it is or is not succeeding. And I've had people that told me they lost everything. The study that Penn State did and I know that people get upset about it, but they evaluated organic, raw-destructive mic treatments, treatment-free stock. And then of course, those that were using synthetics. And the organics outperformed the synthetics and at the end of the study, the treatment-free colonies were non-existent. So because it's science and they were completely transparent about it and documented everything. But then the argument could be made that they needed better stock,

46:28they needed better genetics when they set up their treatment-free category for this field testing. And it wasn't one apiary, it wasn't a one-off, it was spread out. So when it's under the microscope, I'm just saying, it has not been a great path forward. And there is something to be said that when you get a colony that is not treated, not monitored, not evaluated, it has the potential to become a mite farm. And then the bees, as I've demonstrated over and over is a backyard beekeeper. The amount of drift that happens in your backyard apiary is immense. So a colony that's collapsing, a colony that is suffering under verodistriker mites and the diseases that they carry, will spread out through the other colonies and make colonies that are doing well on their own, often hit critical health challenges and they will ultimately dial themselves and become vero mite farms.

47:29So you have to actively monitor and be willing to remove colonies that have high verodistriker mites. So people are effective at pulling drones out, whether they're in their caps because that's when verodistriker mites are in their reproducing. Dr. Zachary Lomis has done fantastic work on evaluating that drones, when they emerge out of their cells at the second day or third day of life, they're very attractive to verodistriker mites in spring. So they can actually attract mites away from your nurse piece and then they become mite magnets and you can remove those. So there are non-treatment ways and then somebody else will chime in and say, but that's a treatment. You're treating them differently, therefore you've treated them. Okay, so I don't know what to say to those people. Maybe we can change it to minimal intervention or something, but when someone's brand new

48:32and they just wanna go treatment free, I just wanna know that it's not just about getting genetic, because as soon as they swarm, as soon as your queen flies away and you have a new queen and she gets made and your genetics are altered profoundly right away. So it's not solid. So the people that continually do it that create these breeder queens, which they charge so much money for, is because they've gone through a thousand colonies and gotten maybe three or four that become their breeder colonies. Most pack our beekeepers don't have that kind of resource to do that. So anyway, I just wanna make it clear because I know a lot of people want that. I understand, I wanted it myself. Just when I pull frames and I see two or three foundrous mites in a single cell, I have to do something about it. I don't wanna see them get munched on by these mites. Question number nine comes from Susan, Carter'sville, Georgia. No carpentry skills in the comments section

49:32that says here, could you recommend a company for eight frame observation hive tanks? So as soon as someone says eight frame observation hive, this is what I no longer use. But let's say, I used to have one, the first observation I've I got, which was super expensive by the way, Bontera bees was eight frames. So four high in pairs, two frames, two frames, two frames. And it was great, I learned a lot. Every winter it died. So I'm not a fan, I'm just gonna say that, right off the bat, I'm not a fan of observation hives that have just the single frames stacked over one another. And the argument is, we wanna see the bees, we wanna see what they're doing. Well, you'll eventually see them anyway. I like them in threes, when I went to triples. So that means if you had all deeps, it would be nine deep frames, three, three, three. Glass on each side. When you have that, indoors or out, here's my thinking.

50:33If you have it out in a shed somewhere, which is shelter from the wind, and you insulate those glass panels, they can get through winter, once they're in triples. They're out there right now. So we're walking that talk. I never got hives that were in pairs, even with two inches of rigid foamboard insulation all around the hive. I never got them to survive in that configuration. So we need at least three frames. That's my rule. So the reason I profess with that is, I'm not gonna endorse or recommend an observation hive that's only in pairs. So we would look at the most inexpensive ones that are out there from a company called Little LaRue. And they have nine frames. So they've got the triple deeps, three, three, and three. And then they've got the 12 frame, which are all mediums, but they're in four tiers. That, by the way, does very well, but they're in triples.

51:35And I realize when you have triples, you've got four surfaces you cannot see. And I say, okay, because now you just have to wait until they finish drawing out the comb so then you can see what they're doing on the face frames on the outside and they eventually do get there. And you're gonna see the queen laying, you're gonna see brooding, you're gonna see bee bread, you're gonna see all the things. You just have to wait for it. But it's healthier for the bees. It's more manageable to the bees to have that. So Little LaRue, dirt cheap. I did send the Bontera bees plans to somebody else because it's well designed. They have the swivel hives, tabletop, swing view. They have really good stuff and they will sell you plans too. Because I noticed a lot of stuff is out of stock. They're just not selling them, but $800. And you have to buy the glazing for that too. So what I recommended when I sent those prints to someone else was that they shim it, shim the face of it.

52:36So instead of just in pairs, they can bump it out to add another frame and have it in triples. Now we've got a very durable setup for the bees that has a much better chance of surviving. And you still get to see what's going on with the bees. It's fantastic. And of course, beersvillebees.com, I gave him a sketch of an observation hive. I don't know how many observation hives he's built. They do the ones that you carry to schools and show to people, but a static hive setup. I would go to him because he's a craftsman. He's open to suggestion. And of course, can build suspect. So once you decide that there's something that you want. But little to rue, they ship them with glazing and everything ready to go right out of the box. And because it's inside of building, you don't have to paint it or anything. You could get that thing on Friday afternoon and have bees in it on Sunday. So easy. Plus, they don't precut the hole. I like that.

53:36The entrance hole that goes through the observation hive. It's up to you to cut that and where you're going to put it. So when you mount it on the wall, or if you're mounting it on a tabletop or something like that, I also like that every single one of their hives has a screened bottom board with a removable insert. I get rid of the insert, build an enclosed space underneath, and we put sandwich trays underneath of it. So now you can pull out your rooster structure mites and to try this, you know, propolis bits of wax, whatever's falling in the bottom. And it's a great way to teach kids about what falls through the bottom of the hive and play a little game of what's that. So magnifying glasses, everything. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, no carbonate skills. That's what I recommend. Question number 10 comes from Bill from Charlotte, Mississippi. I've been reading articles about how micro and nanoplastics are possibly affecting the health and wellness of honeybees. These plastics have been discovered in water, soil, air, and plants and in our honeybees and honey as well.

54:41What are your thoughts on this? Okay, so it is a concern. You know what bothers me too, is all the plastic water bottles that people drink out of? It's been proven that microplastics are in those water bottles too, so people are actually drinking microplastics. No way. That's why I have those reusable aluminum or stainless steel drinkers, which by the way are way overpriced. But what I want to say about this is a pay attention to it. Here's why. Always look for the science, always question everything. Whoever made something that's going to be hive, ask about what it is and what's it made out of. If it's a foundation and your piece is going to be drawing out comb on that, we better know that that's really good stuff. We also better know that things like the flow hive just comes up a lot. The flow super, the flow frames are made out of food grade plastic, it doesn't even want those tiny micron bits and pieces of plastic in our honey. So I'm very aware and very interested in any studies

55:45that show that microplastics are showing up in honey, the beeswax, the everything. We don't want it. So so far, those have been clear. Now there's something that comes up frequently and I see it because I go to a lot of conferences and I see this in presentations and I'm never going to be the person that sits in the crowd and raises my hand and says, yeah, you know this putting microplastics into your bees, but I want to tell you so you can help get the word out. I don't have small hibeedals. So I guess I don't have the challenges that a lot of people have, but one of the things that I see which concerns me the most when it comes to microplastics and beehives and this is proven. So the science has discovered this is a fact. And I can't apparently name the company that makes these things, but here's what I want you to imagine in your mind. A tiny pad that's designed to catch dust

56:46and wipe things up and it has little nano or microfilaments in it and then you'll see someone give an electric and they'll be puffing them up and going and you put these in your hive and the small hibeedals get their feet conned and they get stuck and they die. And then, but you understand what your bees are trying to do because it's in the hive. Your bees are working it, they're trying to get it out, trying to get rid of it. It doesn't belong in the hive and it is plastic. It is a synthetic guess where those tiny fibers have ultimately shown up in the bee digestive system? Yes. In the honey in the hive where those are placed? Yes. In the comb in the hive where the bees are, where those little pads are put in there to trap small hibeedals. Yes, the microplastics are going throughout the hive. Please don't put these little pads

57:50with the little tiny fibers in them as a method for trapping small hive beetles. Please don't. All I can guess is that the people that recommend it are just unaware. They just don't know that forcing your bees to contend with that material that it is ultimately finding its way into every aspect of the bee hive and the bees themselves and the honey that you're going to eat, including the honey the bees eat. So it's just an endless loop of it. So for Bill and Charlotte, Mississippi, it is very important to pay attention to these plastics that I realized that it did just mention a polystyrene hive. So my concerns with those are the bees don't really chew them. The bees propelize them. When I see the bees propelizing because they asked Dr. Beck about this when I was looking it over, do they propelize those surfaces? Do they get them sealed up? Well, and they do. So here's the thing.

58:51If they're propelizing it and sealing it up, then that's encapsulating it and keeping the bees and working it and therefore preventing the microplastics from beginning as microplastics in the first place. Now, because the push is for more insulation. So if you can keep your bees off those surfaces, that I think would be good. I don't see evidence or haven't been able to find evidence that the plastic frames like premiere foundations or acorn frames and foundations. I don't have evidence that those are liberating their plastic components into the bees themselves or into the honey or into the comb. So the bees aren't working them and scraping them. Now, it did get to concern sometimes when we're uncapping honey frames that sometimes you can lightly shave the plastic, the top bar of those frames if you're not paying attention.

59:51But there again, that's in the honey processing. So that gets caught in your screen in your filter system for your honey, hopefully before it goes on. But so any place where you're wearing or scraping away at the surfaces of the plastics, I would definitely pay very close attention to that and try to make sure that's not happening. One of the ways that people are avoiding that from happening is using wooden frames for your hives and then just using the premiere or acorn inserts that are heavy wax plastic inserts. That way we're not scraping away when we're uncapping on plastic surfaces instead we're scraping away at the wood. So it is something to pay attention to. It is something to be aware of. And of course, I think about things like American Fowlbrood, which I've never had. When I was going around to the different apuries and photographing honey bees and their maladies and things like that, we went to an apiary that did have American Fowlbrood. All the equipment there was wooden.

1:00:52But I did wonder since they burn it, since they dig a pit and they burn the stuff, what will we do with the polyhives? And I did here an inspector who gave a presentation who said that they would bag those up and they would go to the landfill instead of in the ground or burning them. Because when we burn them, you know, they release a lot of toxins into the air. I didn't hear anyone discuss gamma radiation or anything like that that would be effective in killing American Fowlbrood. So we need something because to deal with the plastics, of course, in the end, these things don't decompose. They go for a long time. Now, something that can make it feel good if we're into polyhives and thinking about what to do with it at the end of useful life. There are companies that want these polysirming remnants. They repurpose them and make other things out of them. The problem generally is that the plants and areas

1:01:53that use and recycle those are not local to the big cities in the Northeast where a lot of this is being generated. So think of the polystyrene solo cups, you know, the little polystyrene coffee cups that are solo. So we have a lot of plastic, I agree. We probably should be looking at ways to reduce that and then we get hit with, but it's lightweight and it's inexpensive to use and it could take on any form and it can keep her bees warm and winter. So that's, I think that's the big selling feature for it. When you pick up a polyhive, it weighs nothing and it is pretty rugged. So I don't know what to say, but pay attention to the science, let's see what it is getting into it and we know for sure for a fact that those little pads are getting into everything. So always look for studies.

1:02:54Look to see where it's showing up, keep it out of your body for sure. Question number 11 comes from Lucky Crown Honey. Backyard bee keeping episode 345. Why can't we call it ferretti phase now? So we don't know what we're talking about and this goes back to Cornell. I was very interested. Cornell was good at updating us on shifts in terms. So if I say ferretti phase, what are we even talking about? We're talking about the verodistructural mite that lives in the hive that feeds on your bees that spreads pathogens. So we want to kill it. So they used to say it's in the dispersal phase. That means it's not protected by a cap which normally happens when you have a bee that's in a pupa state. So that's where they reproduce under those cappings, which protects them from treatments like exhalic acid vaporization. So we don't say ferretti anymore. We say dispersal phase.

1:03:54And so the difference is because they misunderstood what they were doing. Ferretti just means they're not reproducing and they're out riding around on other things. So they're like travelers, right? So just hitching a ride. But when they understood they weren't just hitching a ride on the bees when they were out and about. They were actually up in the segments of their abdomen and they were feeding on the fat stores. They used to think they were feeding on the hemalymph. Now it's the fat stores. Thanks to Dr. Sammy, Samuel Ramsey, who did those studies. Anyway, so they're actually feeding. They're still parasitizing the host. So that's the difference. That's the dispersal phase now because it's actively parasitizing even when it's out of the pupa cell. Where before they thought it was just ferretic just exposed, hooting around, waiting for another opportunity to get into a cell. Where of course another bee would be entering its pupa state.

1:04:55So that's why. That's the difference. It's not that you can't say it. Many people still say they're in the ferretic. They're ferretic mites. But that's so 10 minutes ago because people in the nail is dispersal phase. No, endomologists, they know that stuff. This question comes from Michael Moore. I wish this were the documentarian, the documentary guy. It's not. What is the safest way to buy foundation online? Very worried about AFP and other diseases. Is there a way I can test a foundation before putting it in or on my hives? No, there really isn't. And here's the thing. If American Fowlbrood were being spread that way through commercially available wax coating let's say on foundation or wax foundation that you buy and stuff like that, people are able to capitalize on this a lot because I fell for that. I bought Spanish beeswax

1:05:56because it was coming from areas that were treatment free. Hate a lot for that foundation. But then we have to let's just think about it. When we're getting wax foundation from known sources, good sources, good names, by the way, I think it's very important to go with reputable sellers or local beekeepers that you trust that are telling you the truth about what they're doing. And so the big thing is not so much American Fowlbrood or European Fowlbrood being transmitted in your beeswax that you're using to maybe prime and coat the surfaces of your foundation and things like that. They're coming with pesticides already in them. One of the pesticides that's prevalent it seems in all beeswax whether you treat or don't is cumophos. So it's out there. And I ask veterinarians about it because someone said they think that they're treating other farm animals or farms with it.

1:06:59And so somehow it's showing up where your bees are foraging and they're bringing it back because the complaint has always been that this is from beekeepers who treat with that. And but they haven't treated with it for a long time and it still persists in your beeswax. So this is one of the reasons we don't let beeswax stay in the hive for beyond five years for me personally. Just based on what I know research that I do. So AFB has not been that big a deal but it is exactly why when they find American foul brewed that everything gets destroyed. There's no chance or they're trying to profoundly reduce the chance that it would spread. Of course, I mean it can be on hive tools it can be on the hive equipment, the frames. This is why we burn everything. So if you're in an area this is so I'm trying to bring this into a practical non-fretting situation. If you're in an area where you haven't had American foul brewed

1:08:01for hundreds of miles in every direction of you, get the local beeswax and use that. There's a very good chance that there's no AFB in your beeswax. So the other part is you just have to know, you just have to know as you ascend a chunk of the wax that you just bought at a big conference, you bought big blocks of wax. And now you want to find out if it's got anything in it, it's expensive to test for. So you can look it up, it's worth the money to you and I'm not going to recommend a specific lab for that. And your inspectors can't be played. So if you get your bee inspectors out, say hey, I think I have questions about this wax over here. Maybe send them off to the lab, find out what's going on with it and we just check for AFB while you're at it. Yeah, you know, months later, you get those results by the way. And by then, what are you going to wait months for that? It doesn't work, they don't do it, they don't fall for it, you can't use the government tax all to do it.

1:09:03But if you want to, you can of course go to sources that swear that they are 100% free, but I think they also know you're not going to spend the money to go and have that tested. And if I had fat stacks, if I had unlimited resource, I would buy foundation from a bunch of different prominent suppliers, I would tag it, submit it, get it tested and see what's going on. But I don't have the money, I can't do it. So I'm just going to be trusting for now. That's all I can say. And rest assured, it's us around you aren't getting American foul brewed from the foundation that they have, I think we're pretty safe. The next question comes from Tom's tumble bees, high-fread, do the yellow leg hornets when wintering over? Is it only the queen that winter's over? And when our hornets winter over, is it only the queen would show up on warm house sides and they're easily targeted and fall on early spring, kill the queen, kill them all?

1:10:04First of all, what's with all this killing? What's going on? So this question is highly contingent upon where you live. So I live in the state of Pennsylvania. It gets cold here. And I like to involve the grand monkeys. My supervisor in particular, he loves killing things, little troubling. Anyway, ball-faced hornets, nobody feels bad about those, not a true hornet. Just call that. They're also called bowl hornets, bullet hornets, hornets with baditudes, whatever you want to call them. They're distinctive. Black and pale yellow to white markings. So last fall, because we did exactly that. Hey, queen, get out here. We have a chance to tag them, track them, find their nest, get the nest, relocate the nest. And we did all of that. You would think I'd make a video about it. And I did. Hardly anybody watches it. But it's cool. Because the practices there apply to this.

1:11:07We get the European hornets. I almost feel bad for them, because we don't have a lot of them. They show up. Sometimes they're worried. They aren't very many around. I've never been walking through the woods or the edge of the woods, and all of a sudden been attacked by a European hornet. It has never happened. Our son had a colony of European hornets in the tree in their yard right next to their patio all summer long. And we watch them come and go 20 feet away from us. Nothing ever happened. You wouldn't get away with that with a bald face hornets. They would build up. And when they get to a decent size, they just start attacking everything. So the question is, when are time comes? Yes, they die out. Because we're in an area where it freezes and gets really cold. If you're in an area where it never freezes, they have the potential to continue their nests throughout the year. And that's why in southern states, you end up with monster-sized nests, right? Because they can continue to build. And so for us here, where it gets cold,

1:12:10what is wintering over is, in fact, the queen. So what they do is, at the end of the year, they make a bunch of queens and make a bunch of drones. And the drones mate with the queens. So right in the same colony. And then these queens go off on their own and they survive through winter solitary. Then in spring, every queen. So we're talking about the yellow leg tornet, which is a monster, by the way. Every spring, they come out at each of those yellow leg tornets. We'll be starting its own nest. And they will lay eggs, and they'll feed their larvae, and the larvae will become adults. So go through a pupa state, and they'll emerge, and they'll take over the duties of managing the nest and the queen will no longer have to hunt once she gets her own little hunters. And then she'll stay home and do nothing but lay eggs. And the rest of them will bring food and resources back. And it's the larvae that feed the adults. So the larvae eat meat. And then these adults get big.

1:13:10I wish you had seen, if you haven't already. Penn State had a really good exhibit at the North American honey bee eggs well. And they had a yellow leg tornet nest there. You need to see a yellow leg tornet nest to see the size of the cells and the size of a yellow leg tornet and appreciate what they're like. So of course, my grandson, he's very focused and somewhat narrow in his sinking. He's hoping to get here because he wants me to take him out hunting and killing him. He has suits that he promises to layer up. And when you're a kid, I think you just want to be a hero. You want to do something. But we did get the bald face hornets, by the way. Dental floss, mark them with dental floss. You could have dental floss six inches long and they would trail off with it and go to the nest and get rejected at the entrance because they had dental floss on them. They didn't want them there. And they could climb a ladder

1:14:11and take them down and relocate them and set them up for observation or to use them to keep deer out of a certain area. I heard some people could do something like that, hang them at about high level to a deer and then the deer avoid bald face hornets. Then that short lived because you find out quickly that raccoons attack them head on, tear apart the nest, eat the larvae, eat the adults, eat everything. I didn't know that about raccoons. It was a sad moment. But anyway, the yellow leg tornets, they're the same as the others. They overwinter the same way. Unless again, like I said, you're gonna warm area, big trouble, big trouble. People need to kill them. They're recommending violence. So kill the queen, you're right. Every queen that you kill in spring or fall, if you can get them in fall, all the better. So the way I was pulling in the bald face hornets was they were showing up at my feeding station,

1:15:11which was frames of beeswax hanging out. And so I could go there and collect all the specimens and see all the different vestibule that there were. And if you wanna see what's going on in your area, what kind of species are around? That is the best way to do it. Have an open feeding station like that, frames of honey that you don't want, capped beeswax. And see what comes there. They spend a lot of time there day after day. You can really see what's going on, great educational opportunity. Question number 14 comes from Rainy Acres, 6523. If you see this, Fred, I'm in your area. When would be the earliest we might see a drone flying? I would like to try to time some queen, rearing, whispering, drone population thanks in advance. Okay, the drones are gonna show up at the end of this month, probably on a Tuesday. So here we are in March, first of April, historically. This is why we keep records.

1:16:12That is when we started to see the drones. Now the bees are sharp. That means that long before that, they were producing drone larvae because when we're seeing them hitting landing boards, they're probably 29, 30, they're a month out. So that means your drones are pupating right now. They're in development right now. So in a way, then when you see them, that's when it's a really good time to go ahead and start. If you're gonna send up queens to get mated and stuff, it's a good time for that. So here in this neck of the wood specifically, we're talking about end of this month. Another reason, by the way, to feed them. If you've got colonies you're trying to build from, makes blitz from, colonies that you know are outstanding, you want to get a lot of stock out of them. You want to flood the area with those drones. You've got low-veral mites with those top performers, feed them up. And so what will we do?

1:17:12High-velive fondant, it's coming to the end right now. So, and the weather's warm. So we can put sugar syrup on. One to one sugar syrup and high-velive pollen pass. That will keep them going and building even through the rain and everything else. Because when we rely on them to get their own pollen, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're not trying to do something fantastic with your APR, you can just let nature take its course other than, as I said, in the beginning to keep the sugar syrup on so they don't die out and starve. They can fill an entire frame with pollen. So you can, it takes a full-face frame of pollen to produce a full-face frame of root. So that's a good way, kind of a test to show. And you'll find that they use it up really fast. And the ones that are out, if there's nothing new coming in, do extended rain. And things like that, now they start to drop back and reduce their production. So if you're trying to get great things out of your bees and grow big and fast, that's the combination. The one to one sugar syrup and also drop in your pollen patties.

1:18:19And AP23 can work, megabee can work. Also pollen patties, 15% are superior performing patties for building brood and spring, specifically building brood and spring. But make sure your carbs are there to do that. And I have a couple of hives that I really want to build on. Hype 44, which has a following. I'm a fan, I checked on them today. I really want a great colony out of them. And that's going to be top contender for splitting and advancing my APR this year. Question number 15, last question. I know you're just dying for this to go on and on forever, but we're at the last question. This comes from David Dillow. That's the YouTube channel name. You have a multitude of hives stands. Have you found any of them that have individually adjustable feet to help leveling in hilly, lumpy, pasture land under a hundred dollars per stand? That's the part that I can't stick with

1:19:22under a hundred dollars per stand. So you can build your own. You can use iron tea posts. Hammer those right into the ground. And then I use metal electrical conduit. And I wire that or use U-bolts to bolt that right onto the tea posts. And then I set a plank of wood across that and the hives sit on that. So that's something that's permanent. You hammer it into the ground, it stays there. I've got my original hives stands that were built that way or sell out there doing their thing. Now, the hundred dollar mark. What if we went just this midge over that? Because the license hives stand is my absolute favorite for uneven ground, for picking the height I wanted at, for supporting over 1,100 pounds. And each individual leg is adjustable. Consider the license stand. Now I ordered them because I just got two of them.

1:20:22Two more, they're all over my area. I just got two more because I'm putting my new top bar hive is gonna be on it. And the other one's gonna have the high bike queue and the new license hive for my evaluation. So those are gonna both be out there. I think they're like 110 for the set. So we're over the hundred dollar mark, but they're gonna last forever. These stands will never wear out. You can weed whack around them. It's wide open underneath. They, every individual foot adjusts. It's just a slide and a pin. So if it's too short and needs adjustment later, you can bump them up, easy peasy. They are, in my opinion, the best. And the only ones right now that can handle a long, they're as long as the lumber that you use because you use your own lumber to run the length of them. So they're end braces, so to speak. And the two by four passes right through them. So it extends beyond it.

1:21:23You can build a platform that you can do hive inspections and stage your stuff. And it's endless. The configuration potential for that. So that's it. All I'm gonna say for the flood section because I've said enough today, feed early back off. If you're doing liquid, so if you're using sugar syrup right now, I highly recommend getting that out there tomorrow, even if it's in the rain. Because your, your high top feeders shouldn't expose your hive anyway. You just have reservoirs up there that you can fill up. And then because we're gonna have the rain, then we're gonna return to cold. So we want them to use up that sugar syrup before it gets to the end of next week. So you don't want to continually feed. You want to beef it up. So they have that resource so they can really get going. And then by the end of the week, we want it to taper off when the cold weather returns. And they may be moving some of that inside the hive and into the cells. And when they do that, these open cells are what they consume first. So it becomes a ready carb for the bees. That's what I recommend. And if you need to put on pollen patties

1:22:25or something like that, please make sure they have the carbohydrates first, proteins last. So that's it for today. I want to thank you for watching. If you have questions, please write them down in the comment section below. I want to thank you for being here. I'm Frederick Dunn and this has been the way to be. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.