[music]
So we're here this time to talk about working
with bees, how to open up a colony, how to inspect the
colony, to go through it, to remove the frames,
and do everything in a way that keeps the bees
nice and calm and protects the queen.
We always need to be thinking about the queen
when we are opening up a hive and going through
to ensure that we don't damage
her with our manipulations.
So we are working in the spring of the year,
we've got a small colony here, things are a lot
easier than later on when there's bigger
population, more equipment and so on
to work through, so this is a good place to start
at the beginning of the year.
This is an over wintered nucleus colony
that we've just transferred over into a full-sized hive
about a week ago.
We're going to open it up and have a look.
I like when we are working in the
brood chamber, I like to be
sitting down, so either sitting on a bucket
like this that we carry our smoker fuel in
or on a stool like so, but a bucket works
just fine too.
So first thing we'll do is add some smoke
to the colony.
We'll puff a bit of smoke at the entrance
where all the bees are going in and out of the hive.
So we call that the front of the hive or the entrance
and we don't stand or walk at the entrance
that's because we'll be obstructing the bee flow.
We could be standing on bees or stepping on bees
so and the movement of our feet in front of the entrance
we are likely to get stung on the ankles if
we are working in that area, so we just stay away from
the front of the hive, we'll just puff some
smoke there again
and then we'll sit down and take the hive apart.
As much as possible we avoid injuring bees
as we are working through the hive.
They can get crushed in between bits of equipment
and so we try and avoid that.
We puff some smoke as we open the inner cover.
So just peel that inner cover back
and puff a little bit of smoke in
and then we'll lay that inner cover on the ground.
We use a canvas inner cover,
some people use feedsacks
as a fabric cover,
but the most common thing is to have a
wooden inner cover, but just this is our
preference is the fabric cover.
So you can see that that smoke
makes the bees go down inside the hive
and gorge on honey,
so as the bees come up to the surface of the frames
we add a bit more smoke
to move them back down again.
So we do need to add smoke to the hive
periodically and of course the smoke
has to touch the bees for it to be effective,
so on a windy day you have to be a little bit
more focused on how you are directing the smoke.
We don't, however, puff the smoke down in between
the frames because that just gets the bees
running around.
Now we always take the second frame out first.
The first one is often firmly attached to the box,
it's a bit harder to get out without crushing bees.
As we move more towards the middle
the queen is more likely on these frames
and that first frame you pull out there's the
biggest risk of crushing a queen and other bees,
so we'll move back to this second one
and there is less risk involved.
We also want to be working across the box
methodically so we can do a thorough inspection.
So, if you start in the middle
you have to go two directions,
so we'll start with the second frame.
We pry against the third frame,
holding the second frame in position,
and then we pry against over here
and what we've done is we've broken the bond
in between the second and the third frame.
I like to jam my finger in here and then pry up
that with my finger gives a bit of a space
so I can't pry that frame against the next one.
And then we loosen that up there, pinch the frame
with index and thumb on both sides
and then just pull up as straight as possible.
There is a natural tendency to tip towards you
as you are pulling up,
which would mean crushing bees with the
bottom of the frame as it's being pulled up,
so pull it up nice and straight and slowly
and then you can lean a corner of the frame down
and tip it over and have a look at the comb.
We are not going to be focusing
very much this time around
with what we are seeing in the hive,
we are more focusing on the technique
of dismantling the hive.
But that frame will then lean against
the far front corner of the hive
by doing that we are getting it
completely out of the way,
so it doesn't interfere with us taking out other frames.
If the queen happened to be on this frame
and she dropped onto the ground
at least she is near the entrance
and can just run into the hive
and again we are not doing anything in front
of the hive so that is a nice safe area there.
Now we have lots of space to be working with,
we have all this extra space, so from then on
there is less risk of crushing of bees
or even the queen.
A few bees with their heads looking up at me,
so we'll just puff a little bit of smoke
there doesn't take very much,
and then we'll hold the frame with the thumb
and pry it towards me.
We hold onto it as we pry so that it doesn't snap free,
sending vibrations through the hive,
which agitates the bees.
So then we can pull that over
into the middle of the space and then come
straight up and you can see there is
very little risk of crushing bees
now that we have all this space.
To handle the frames and to tip them
from one side to another
we need to move one hand at a time,
so I like to put the frame up vertically
and then rotate the upper hand
and then rotate the bottom hand
to go from one side of the frame to the other.
Easier to do than to describe.
You can tip it
and just move one hand at a time as you are going.
We have a look at that frame and then we can
put it back into the hive,
transfer our fingers back onto the top of the frame,
lower it down where we have all this space
and then just gradually move it over
and snug it up against the next frame
so you maintain all this working space here.
We'll then hold this frame and pry the next one free.
Pry again and then pull the frame up
straight up and then we rotate our hands
around the end
so we can hold it like a book
and then we can transfer it over to the other side
and again look at it like you are holding a book.
I happen to see the queen on this side of the frame
here she is right here surrounded by
her retinue or her court,
all the bees that are feeding
her and cleaning her.
She's busy looking from cell to cell
looking for a place to lay an egg.
Of course her behaviour is altered by
being exposed to sunlight,
occasionally you'll see them laying an egg
even out in the sunlight though.
So we want to take extra special care of her,
so what I am going to do
is lean her against the other frame
that we've set out of the hive
to make sure that we can keep track of where
she is while we do the rest of the colony inspection.
So I will take this frame
and I'll lean it
in a way
that we are not going to crush any bees or the queen.
Now she'll stay in that nice dark spot
in between the two frames there
and we can carry on and inspect
the rest of the colony.
If bees get in your way you just kind of
bop them out of the way
with your hive tool so that you have
room for your hive tool
without pinching any bees.
Pry that one loose,
pinch the frame,
move it over to where we have space
pull it straight up,
rotate our hands around
and tip the frame towards us
so we can inspect the cells.
Now we are going to close the hive back up again.
We transfer our fingers to the top of the frame
move it down, slide it over
I should mention at this point
it's not a good idea
to pry against that end of the frame.
It seems like a natural place to dislodge
the frames, but you are prying against
this weak part of the box,
and if the frame is really stuck
down with wax and propolis,
you'll actually break the box there,
so always pry against the adjacent frame.
Alright, so now we know that the queen
is on one of these frames here.
We are going to pick up this frame
I don't see her on this side -
oh yep there she is right there,
right here, so I am going to protect her
by turning the frame
so that she is on the opposite side
and then give her lots of space
as I am putting this frame down,
and then just slowly move that over
into place.
That means she is safe
over here in between the frames
and we can then
move the frames back to their original positions.
And then the first one we took out
goes back to its original spot,
we gradually lower the frame down.
Now we have a little extra space here,
so we need to just shift the frames around slightly
so that they are nice and evenly spaced
throughout the box.
We are going to apply a bit of smoke now
to get the bees moving down,
so that when we put the inner cover on
there is very little chance of crushing any.
So we'll just set that into position there,
wiggle it around a little bit,
let any bees out that are going to be trapped.
As we put the lid on we'll make sure
there aren't any bees on the inner cover;
any bees that are up here will be
trapped in there when we put the lid on
and will then die,
so we clear them out of the way there.
We make sure there aren't any bees in here,
if there are then tap them off,
there is one that snuck in,
and then we just set the lid down in place there
and we've done our colony inspection.
So there you've seen a few ways of handling
the frames safely to avoid damaging
the queen and to enable us to be able to do a
colony inspection.
Coming up right next we'll actually
inspect each of these frames
to see what we can see inside a normal beehive.
Thanks very much. See you next time.