Nutrition is the most important aspect in beekeeping a beehive well fed is a
force of nature you need something really hard to put
them down. To assess problems in apiaries there are two essential questions
you need to be addressed before anything else. First, did your hives have
everything they need to thrive? In another words, are you sure they have the proper
nutrition? Quantity and quality, Second, do we know your mite count? if you don't
know about your nutrition and if you don't know about your mite situation
the problem in your apiary is you.
I'm Humberto Boncristiani and this is inside the hive.TV the show that takes
you into the world of bees, if you like bees I want to know more about them
please consider to subscribe and also hit the bell button so you don't miss a
single video. As a beekeeper you are supposed to do your best to verify if
the bees have everything they need. If they don't you need to move them to a
better location or enter with supplementation. And that applies to any
kind of beekeeping operation. Honey production to pollination services.
Starving bees don't produce anything.
What I wanted to share here today is something that happened already twice we
two experienced commercial beekeepers in our area and make me wonder if there is
other cases like that out there. I visit some beekeepers a couple months ago and
after assessing their colonies their hives and the whole situation to address the
losses they had, I was really suspicious about the feeding protocol they were
using I never saw such color and texture in the formulation they were
using that I decided to bring some samples to the lab and perform a
mortality test. So what I did was very simple I collect bees, a new
emerged bees, so I could control the age of them and I divide them into two groups
one group I give sucrose, 50% sucrose, the other group I give the formulation
provided by the beekeeper I give the same protein source for both groups and
I follow them over time to count mortality to see how long they live
the first thing I noticed was that in both groups they consumed the whole
thing in the group that have the formulation provided by the beekeeper
the bees were consuming a little faster they were enjoying that formulation a
little bit more for some reason that I don't know why but here's the thing
check this out. in blue we have the mortality curve of bees fed with sucrose
50% and in red we have the mortality of the bees fed by the beekeeper recipe
it's clear something was wrong with the formulation here the bees that received
the beekeeper formulation lived significantly less consuming whatever or
whatever was in there what happened I have no idea the ingredients were
spoiled the preparation was wrong the storage was inadequate the beekeeper
messed up there was a unfortunate mixer of components that create something
toxic I have no idea I try to get information from the beekeepers about
what is in it I was able to to get some part of the recipe but because I don't
know the whole story I don't know how the beekeeper handled those products I
we will not release this information here in this video just to protect the
brands involved.
the problem in situations like that as I said in the in the beginning of this
video the punch that you don't see is the one they're gonna knock you out. the
beekeeper will never suspect about their nutrition because the bees are consuming
the whole formulation. And please be careful with the premises that the bees
know what they're doing it's not always the case yes the bees knows a lot about
what is good for them but sometimes they make mistakes just like us
double-check your feeding maybe you have the same problem of this beekeepers are
having here. That's it for today I hope this can be helpful please share with
friends and family give me a thumbs up if you like this video subscribe if you
think I deserve such honor and I see you guys in the next video inside the hive
TV the show about bees see you guys next week bye bye