so as you can see we've got a lot of snow here at the way to be it's time to get out there in
the cold and by cold i mean 11 degrees fahrenheit which is 12 minus 12 celsius
and it's wednesday january the 26th the snow has quieted down the landscape
it's time for me to walk out there with my hive cleaning tool and make sure the entrances are open
so a lot of people want to see those updates let's take a look notice the
snow on top of the high visors keeps the snow from developing a heavy load over the entrances
a lot of people ask how often should i clean out those beehive entrances
well whenever it snows you need to get back out there no matter what the weather's doing
now we do have some dead bees at the bottom evidence that there are living bees in the hive
right to my right there is a motion activated noise maker so when the deer
walk through here at night they go off they only function at night they're set for that
and then when there's a melt off and spring comes and the bears come walking through you'll
notice there's a bunch of those noise makers in the background too my electric fence is down
at least around this apiary
so if a bear comes i'm counting on them not liking the noise that that makes
those landing boards are clear no need to scrape them out again because of the high
visors if you want to know how to make your own look down in the video description and
i have another video that shows you step by step what they are and how they're made pretty simple
we have more snow coming it's going to get deeper and the wind's gonna blow stronger
each of these landing boards is a minimum of 18 inches from the ground
so that should give you some idea as to the depth of the snow
you could wear snowshoes
i'd like to walk through the deep snow instead it gives you a little cardio workout
notice the landing board is clear this one faces east all the snow is on the high visor
still no dead bees on the bottom board here even though this colony is full of bees
these are all the south facing landing boards
could have gotten away without doing any cleaning at all but just a little super
official clean out here to see how many dead bees there are if any
and of course the nucleus colonies there on the end
need no cleaning out because there's no landing board and the snow is not blocking their entrances
now go to lower meadow here this one does have an electric fence all the way around it
found a nice amount of snow there i thought i could jump through it and sink in yeah we
went through a minor thaw and then a refreeze heading out to the horizontal long langstroth hive
and you can see the entrance is still open there can just get this ice out of here
good to go
some people have asked about this lands hive whether or not i put bees in it and i did and
it is occupied the entrance all the way to the right slightly open no need to clear it
no snow blocking it let's go check out the other legs draw the hives down here
so these do need my attention all the landing boards are covered and these do face south
but what are they missing no hive visors because of that
the full depth of the snow builds up on the front of the landing board there and blocks the entrance
so next year of course we'll put high visors on all of these hives
if i couldn't get out here and clear them off my advisors would have kept that
entrance partially open so good vote for that there were some dead bees this time
around so that's evidence that there are bees inside and that they were alive the last time
and the numbers of dead bees are not extreme we're talking 20 to 30 per hive
some hives i couldn't get any dead bees at all out of them and i know they're occupied
the snow itself is an insulator so it's not terrible if it banks up against the
side of a beehive because keep in mind if it's only 11 degrees fahrenheit with
snow banked up against it that's at 32 degrees so it's actually better
again who needs a treadmill you can walk around and check your bees
see this is completely blocked and again high visor in fact i might go ahead and
just put some of those out right now i've kind of satisfied the difference
so since i have high visors sitting on a shelf in the garage
let's just bring them out and put them on here
i would consider that practical test satisfied they do benefit your hives in winter
those of course are hive gates
if you don't know what they are i'll put a link to those as well down in the description
and this hive tool is by be smart designs
under five dollars
got a scraper and a hook
so now that we've cleaned them there's some things you should be careful about make sure that people
know where you are so if you're out here by yourself and you don't have your cell phone
with you what if you fell in the deep snow what if you were stuck and couldn't get out you're
exhausted after checking all your landing boards and you're hiking along as i am here
only to get bogged down in the snow after being exhausted from all the hard work you did cleaning
landing boards and down you go you're in jeopardy those short-tailed shrews could come at you under
the snow paralyze you and drag you away to feed their young in the spring so thank goodness you
have a hive tool by be smart designs that you can dig out you can flip the snow away from yourself
make enough space to get back on your feet maybe you're fatigued maybe you're undernourished
dig out all the way around before you waste
the energy to try to get back on your feet but you can't stay there
and maybe you're dehydrated so you could take your tool and use it to scoop valuable
snow that you could eat and regain your strength by rehydrating not the yellow snow the good stuff
yeah i can feel it i feel the energy coming back into my bones and muscles
i could get back on my feet saved by my hive tool i could even run
stay safe
take care of your bees put high visors on clear the entrances
you're the only one out there that can do anything for them they're waiting for you
you