okay so happy Friday to everyone today's frequently asked questions about
honeybees for backyard beekeepers and we're gonna talk about a couple of
important things that people have been wondering for a while in this video
we're gonna talk about how to remove your Flo supers for winter how to get
them cleaned up and also we're gonna talk about how to get bees out of those
honey supers so that you can remove them and put them on a robbing station maybe
if that's what you want to do to clean up it's only 49 degrees fahrenheit here
today and I'm also gonna explain to you how I test my honey to verify the water
percentage so what we're looking at right here that is my robbing station
that I put out this year and it is up wind to the west of my apiary and also
we have brought in a lot of honey this year it's been a fantastic year for
honey and this is Flo honey of course comes from the Flo supers and we need to
talk about and how to get those supers off because we don't leave them on for
winter these are my feeder shims so that leads me to another discussion there's a
rapid round feeder in there you may recall if you've been watching any of my
videos that we put vents in them guess what the bees did the bees use propolis
and closed up each and every vent in every single feeder shim that I put on
so bee Weaver bees Sasuke trash bees it didn't make a difference they all sealed
all upper entrances so we're not going to vent the upper boxes for wintertime
this year we're gonna let them use just the bottom entrance now I'm pulling
hives apart so I want to use smoke and on the left here we have a float super
at the top and on the right we're gonna leave that one intact and that's the one
I pull my medium supers off of and use them at the robbing station to keep
these bees under control how do we get the bees out of the super weeds honeybee
gun at least that's what I'm using now there are a lot of different companies
that put out oils that bees don't like and you can use a few board which I'm
going to demonstrate and that will get the bees out of the super so you can
pull it off and you really want to do that
also we're looking at my feet our shim the bottom was rough cut lumber we put
those on this year and look at that all the rough surfaces have propolis on them
and look at the feeder hole they sealed that rapid round right in there and they
built their honeycomb right up and here again we're showing those vents what a
waste of time although if they need venting later they can certainly chew em
open but if we put on vents on the top going into winter they don't have time
to get out there and get the propolis that they need to seal it up if they
want to so if we're looking at the beads behavior and we're seeing how they're
voting they're voting for no upper venting at all so that's what I'm going
with this year and we'll see how that goes and we will of course put those
feeder shims back on now here is a flow super it still has honey in it but we
have to pull it off because this is our opportunity if you wait until it's too
late you'll leave your flow super on and then it will be too cold to pull the
hive apart and expose your bees so we're getting it off and you can't still have
honey in there if you notice some of that honey's not capped it's gonna be
very important to have the bees clean that out for us because we don't want
high water content honey in her frames this is known as a few board it has like
a cottony surface on the interior and we're gonna take the regular hive cover
off and we're gonna take the inner cover off we're gonna spray this down really
good be liberal with this stuff and then we're gonna put that on the honey super
that we want to remove we need to get the bees out of there now this is not
something you use if you're gonna be in a big hurry this is the window on the
side of a flow hive so we can see the bees are all on there and I was thinking
it might be fun to put that fume board on top and watch the bees just scurry
off of those frames but they don't do it they take their sweet time so again pull
off the roof or the outer cover and the inner cover then put the fume board on
and if it's windy like it is today you may want to put a brick or something on
top to help that hold its place I have several of these I think you have
three or four fume boards and that allows
to put them in place and go and do it to several hives at one time don't be in a
hurry it's gonna take about 20 minutes to get these bees out of here now why do
you want to get the bees out let's say you're gonna take this over and put it
in a robbing station what a matter if you left the bees in there yeah would
because then they'd end up having to defend their honey resources and they're
gonna die on the spot now this is one we've showed this is the medium super
that is just under the flow super charcoal block with honey
wall-to-wall capped and the deep box also has capped honey in it so they're
set for winter now when you pull that super off
leave your fume board on that will prevent the bees from chasing it down
and chasing you down as you haul it away the other thing is we want to make sure
to scrape off all of that bur cone that is on top and make sure that the edges
in particular where the box meets the box make sure that that's all clear so
we don't have stuff preventing the cover from making good contact
I also scrape off the bird come and I put it in a bucket this is stainless
steel bucket and I can put that out for a cleanup now here we are with another
vented feeder shim has a rapid round feeder in it the bees can get into that
rapid round feeder but they can't get up into the cavity of the feeder shim then
we're just gonna close it up now if I ever need to feed them I have the feeder
in place and I can do that I'm also putting a polystyrene cover on this one
and I do not need an inner cover because remember the bees don't have access to
that cavity while that feeder is in place the other thing is don't forget to
strap everything down we just had high winds heavy rains use ratchet straps
some people put bricks and things on just make sure all your hives are secure
winter is gonna hit and here we are look the number of bees is reduced and we'll
be able to pull that off I'd much rather deal with 20 or 30 bees and 2 or 300 and
remember that the bees you take with that honey super if you put it on a
feeder station they're gonna think that their hive is under attack when the
other bees show up to feed on that honey and clean those up for you so your bees
could die fighting to defend their resources again I'm showing you this
medium soup that is full while the wall of honey for
winter this is left on for the bees drop that inner cover in there because this
one we're gonna put a cover straight on without a feeder shim this is the flow
hive too so it's got a deep box and an unmatched medium box because this is
from Mann Lake so if you notice it overhangs the flow hive box is a little
bit so you can't use the flow roof on a medium Mann Lake super because it's just
too big so we put a polystyrene cover on here we have an inner cover on this one
and there's lots of honey in here I couldn't lift it so we have at least 47
pounds in the medium super and it felt like there's about another 30 or 40
pounds in the deep so these guys are ready to go for winter we're gonna
follow them through the winter with thermal imaging to see where that
cluster goes the other thing is I'm tipping all my flow hives back to their
forward level position because we're pulling all the supers off there's
another flow super here on the end and if it's full you can still extract by
pulling it off and putting it in your shed or wherever you like to draw honey
from now this one had a queen excluder on and look at the pattern that they
left behind and again there's a solid honey bridge underneath here all of
these frames aren't absolutely full with capped honey and that's great this is
the winter resource that these bees are going to feed on last year we had a
really long hard winter and the bees did not finish all of the honey that they
had stored so they came through grade if you're gonna pull any of this honey off
I recommend you wait until spring to do it that way you know they came through
that they had the resources and they survived again it's a flow hive eight
frame on this one and we have an eighth frame man lake box on top again so now
we have to substitute a different cover for it
and here we are at the feeding station remember that when you put your flow
supers out there here it is in the closed up position but I want you to
pull off that back cover and the upper access cover and I also suggest that you
pull out the little plugs that are in the bottom of each flow frame because
that's the trough where some of the honey will build up
so this little round biscuits there you want to pull those out because sometimes
honey drips in there and if this has a high water content it's going to ferment
in your flow fringe remember we're using the bees to prepare these frames so that
we can just store them so pull out those round plugs let the bees get in there
and clean it up the upper plugs not so important you do want to make sure that
all your flow frames are in the closed position which is the complete cells so
that the bees have full access to it and then if you want to you can pull it
apart and inspect it you can see how clean they are there's a bumble bee in
there now the bees are roaming freely and I want you to notice none of the
bees are fighting and that's because we got the bees out of this super before we
took it to the feeding station and that's very important if you bring
resident bees with it they're gonna be fighting for their lives and there's
gonna be lots of dead bees on the ground underneath the tree robbing station so
this looks good we're gonna clean it up and then what do I do after that I'm
just gonna put them in the shed I'm gonna stack them and I use a thick black
trash bag has a space right in between each hive so they move freely and don't
stick together the other thing is they don't put all the flow supers out at the
same time a ration it so once the bees have cleaned one up really well that's
when I'll put that one in storage and then I take another one out and put it
in its place so the bees can start robbing that one so that way the bees
remember where the robbing station is where the resources are and they're
gonna come out they're gonna clean these up for us I also have the bird home
again in that bucket that's hanging at the end I let them clean that up you can
also take the bird comb and put it in a big bowl and use that as your feeding
station so the bees have something to climb out on so if you're gonna put out
sugar syrup take some of this burr comb some of this beeswax pile that in there
pour your syrup on that and let them clean it up again and then they can
climb out and they don't drown wasps everything have gotten together
here if you notice they're not fighting the bees are kind of in charge of the
cleanup station and you can use them to clean up your wax remnants you can also
put this on hardware cloth or some other screen so you don't have to of course
leave it in the bucket and I'm just be lazy and that's what I did so here we
are you can actually pull the flow super off and then drain the honey inside your
house or inside your shed or wherever you like to keep your honey resources so
if you've pulled off your flow supers and they're heavy you're going to need
to test it to make sure there's not a water content issue so I have this Misco
water percent tester specifically for honey this unit exists just for testing
honey so it's calibrated this is what state
inspectors use food inspectors use so it has the highest tolerance that I could
find is the most accurate refractometer for testing water percentage in honey so
let's find out what we have you can also use this right up there by your flow
heids if you've got a hive and you open up one of those frames and you think is
a little too liquid test it right there and you can stop drawing it off so here
we go we push it it brings it up to an ambient temperature inside that little
saucer area and here we are at sixteen point seven percent water that's perfect
anything under 20 percent is not likely to ferment so this is fantastic and
here's information if you want to check out the company this is model number P a
2-0 1 x made in the United States in the state of Ohio so miss co.com go check
them out see what the tolerances are now here we are remember it's only 49
degrees Fahrenheit we're out of my detached garage and I have flow super
sitting in there and we are draining them out into 1 gallon containers this
looks like it's in slow motion it is not that's not slow the honey is actually
coming out of this thing so people like to see honey coming out of flow hives
and you also because you've pulled the supers off and they're on a rack and
they're tilted to degrees towards the tubes you want to make sure and put a
cake pan or something like that underneath of it because there will be
some drippings going down the side of your flow frames and the bees won't be
in there to clean that up and use that honey so while you're draining this in
your shed or your garage or wherever you collect
your honey you can use your water percent tester I hope today's video
helps you out I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for watching have a fantastic
weekend