okay so today we're doing another subject-specific video it's going on
with my beads why are those honey beats collecting on
the outside of the hive what is a bee beard well we're gonna show you that
today is September 12th this was filmed September 11th
just before big rain storms came in and then I came out the following morning
and wanted to see how the beard of bees came through the rain storm so we're
looking at several hives here in the apiary and I'm gonna explain there is a
lot of nectar and pollen coming into these hives look at them they're all in
a hover right now it's been raining they brought in all they could
it's another beard look at this beard is that a big beard no I'm about to show
you what I found this morning which is the largest beard on any of my hives now
I've had hives fully covered in bees before but this is unique by the way
this is that large swarm that was in the tree just a few days ago and we hide
them up put them in a be smart design pipe stand give them a nice clean bottom
board put a box in there fully drawn comb and they're happy today I'm gonna
see how those do you look at this side now this is the one you may recognize a
little over 30 days ago we put better comb in here and we dropped in a swarm
of bees and we wanted to see if we could get them to build up past well guess
what they built up fast all right look at this beard of bees you're looking at
thousands of bees outside the Beehive why aren't they inside what's going on
well they've brought in a lot of nectar we are in a nectar flow this has been a
fantastic here and look at these bees just hanging outside because you know
what they're no good inside the hive the worker bee is inside the hive our
dehydrating the honey so they're moving a lot of air through there if you look
at this beardy beard from a distance it looks
like wow how can they even get air through that how could it be dehydrating
honey inside with all these bees clustered
outside underneath the hypervisor if you don't know what a high advisor is look
it up in my video selection I'll show you how to make one leave his vent holes
so they actually leave very clear pathways for the air to vent from inside
the hive so those bees inside were all lined up and then moving air across the
honey surface and they're getting it out of the hive and then dehydrating it and
that is compounded by the high humidity we have right now because we had every
rain storms in fact there was a lot of storm damage last night I thought a
large portion of these bees would have moved inside during the storm but they
didn't they stay it out here and they hovered right under that high visor and
they don't look any the worse for wear this morning but what I'm sharing with
you is look how they cling to each other that little Center strain of bees goes
all the way to the ground which leads me to another discussion we had a skunk
earlier not tonight I'm talking about several days earlier
and I made a video about that and we've put in a Scott deterrent and it's
working because during the night when all the bees are clustered outside like
this they are really open to attack by anything wasps hornets mammals
specifically skunks skunk would have had no problem getting to these and they
didn't another thing you want to look at here are the clustered bees a lot of
these are foragers look at the condition of their wings some of the worn and
tattered wings they are coming to the end of their useful season that means
you're gonna die how can we never see a bunch of dead bees on the hive well
usually sacred dead bees just don't come back if they do happen to dive inside
died inside the colony and it's a very few that do that they just get hauled
out by housecleaning bees house keepers and these bees what's amazing about this
is you just cling to one another look at this
I would you like to be the one that everybody's hanging off of and there are
several pounds of bees bees aren't light when you get a high population of these
in your eye you can have 15 20 pounds of bees in a full-size hide so remember
this is a new colony I would say they're doing fantastic what's your opinion they
have built up fast because we use better Tom for what is that that is synthetic
pre-drawn Tom that imitates actual krong beeswax and they went straight to work
started laying eggs storing pollen storing resources and the resource that
they stored now which pushes them all outside it's the one that increases
humidity inside the hive and that's nectar so the nectar has been passed
from field bees to what I call storekeeper bees and those story keep
the bees put it in the salads once it's in the cells it takes up twice the space
that it will ultimately occupy when it becomes honey and they have to dry it
out how do they dry it out well they have high humidity outside so they're
using airflow they're moving a lot of air across the surface of those honey
frames so the birds in the middle there's a ring of honey around that and
in that upper box the red box they I am happy to say have filled eight out of
ten frames solid with honey so what do you think their chances aren't getting
through winter I would say the chances are very good is the healthy colony of
bees and one of the biggest most dramatic looking beards I've seen on a
beehive I've had you know tall boxes that have been covered the whole fronts
been covered with bees but this is twofold one we get to look closely at
them and see how they cling to each other you know that this little dean
here I'm sorry the female she's not a dude but like just cleaning with her toe
and then her foreign limb clinging to the other one and then it just forms a
little chain of bees what don't you see out here carrying the load for everybody
you don't see any drones transit is inside waiting for that honey
to condense so that one of those nurse bees will feed it so we can fly out and
do some mating hopefully 1% might make it but the drums don't help they don't
clean the stuff they don't support the beard outside this is a very interesting
opportunity I wanted to share it with you just because it is so dramatic and
it does show how to control the venting process air is moving through here at up
to 10 miles an hour that's pretty impressive I'm going to show you also
the observation hive in a little minute in a moment here and that's because
they're moving a lot of air to you now this is why the skunk did not get my
beard of bees yeah because they're vulnerable
looking right here so this little ultrasonic unit that is solar-powered
and continue to evaluate them and I have four video cameras on the bee yard so I
can see what comes and goes at night and I wanted to see the behavior of the
skunk when it gets confronted with high pitched high frequency noises and
flashing lights and guess what this guy does n't even come to the beehives
anymore here's the observation hive it has a
tiny beard because the observation hive is only a deep frames it's kind of small
but it gives me an opportunity to look inside and see what's going on why are
they out there well the condition that we described before it's because they
have a lot of nectar in there and they're dehydrating it down so these
bees are out of the way now that's this is shot today the 12th so on the 11th
there was a bigger beard out there so what's going on in the environment where
are they getting all the resources that are loading up their hives well we have
the sunflowers of course but look at all the yellow stuff that is goldenrod so
we're in prime goldenrod right now what is coming in from the sunflower still
well the pollen the number one thing that's going to affect your colony
health is going to be the quality of the pollen a lot of people are writing to me
on YouTube and Facebook and saying that they're putting out supplemental pollen
substitutes now are ready so I realize all parts of the country
are not the same but I don't need to substitute anything here we have nectar
coming in by the boatload and we've got pollen coming in and we learned of
course this year that sunflower pollen specifically can benefit the bees when
they fight in a Zima so we can actually help them deal with that even though
it's not the highest rated protein from plants since it helps apis mellifera
with no Zima I'm a fan and the bringing in piles upon now you can see some of
this goldenrod is already turning brown a little bit so what I like to do and
what I've talked about through the year is a cascade of resources for the bees
so right now the goldenrod is gonna go out and see the little buds on the plant
next to it those are asters so the asters are gonna start to come in and
that's going to be a source of nectar and pollen although a lot of people
don't like a stir honey some people say it smells like socks and that it also
solidifies or granulates quickly I haven't found that but we'll we'll see
how that goes now here's the next cascade of resources that are going to
come in these are maximilian sunflowers they are
just now starting to open and bloom so this is exactly what we want we want the
sunflowers to provide things that clover then we want alfalfa then we want the
goldenrod and we want the asters and then the late-season for just gonna come
from these Maximilian sunflowers you can look down in the video description and
get links to where we get these things so and here's the Maximilian blooms you
get to open but I did notice that some of the peas here come in and they
started to get nectar even before the flower opens and here just happens to be
an early bloom at least and eight feet tall so they're way up there
and the stalks are stiff and they can handle the weather and some people
consider them invasive but it is a native sunflower and there are a lot of
resources you're gonna see the outer ring of tiny flower lights on this thing
will open first and you're gonna see hummingbirds and you're going to see
butterflies and of course the bees right now it's raining
everybody's back to the hive but this afternoon
by the time you're watching this I'm sure the rain will have stopped and the
forges will be back out at work and that new colony that we just hide that swarm
I'm going to be interested in watching them build up because you're gonna do a
fantastic job they have a 100% drawn out comb I gave them two boxes one deep one
medium we're gonna follow up on those watch the FAQ tomorrow we're gonna talk
about having to treat for mites that's right
thanks for watching today I hope your bees are doing great