[music]
Hi there.
We're here tonight to move some beehives.
Going to talk through a few different
methods of doing that.
One of them is moving hives in a way
that you can do that during daylight hours.
We would close them up at night when
they were all home, but we may end up
needing to move them from a distant location
and keep them contained so that during daylight
hours they can't fly.
So one way of doing that is to
use a screen bottom board.
This is our screen bottom board here
that provides the entrance and you
can see the screen in here.
If we go around to the back of this colony
we can see that it's open in this area right here,
so this gives us a good amount of ventilation.
We just saw a wax moth run in there.
That's cool, tripping around there.
So this is going to give us some ventilation
and moving bees, there is a big danger of them
over heating, so we need to provide lots of
ventilation, so we either leave the entrances
wide open, or if we close them up
we make sure they have good flow through
ventilation, so we are going to have air going
through here and when we open up the top of the
hive we will have air flow right up through the top.
We've got a screen on a frame here, so that that
air can move right through the top and
give them good ventilation.
We're moving a hive that's got a lot of bees in it,
so we've got two empty supers
and the full brood chamber here.
We've screwed this frame down and we've strapped
it in place to keep these supers from shifting
around and the bottom board is screwed on,
so everything is fixed together in a way that means
if things shift apart while we are moving them bees
are going to be getting out and that will be a problem.
So to keep the bees from flying out
what we do is puff some smoke at the entrance here
and we are going to shove a little bit
of this foam rod into the upper entrance.
Cut that off and that blocks off that upper entrance
and then we are going to put some foam rod,
it's called backing rod, we'll put that in the
entrance here and that will keep the bees from going
in and out and we basically seal up the hive
as far as bee access is concerned,
but they will have good ventilation through
the screen at the back and the screen up at the top.
So we talked about the foam rod here,
this backing rod, kind of hard to get,
we've got it through log home building
supply manufacturers, but it's an inch and an
eighth rod foam.
A screen like this eight mesh screen is
easy to get, any hardware store has it
and it's a good substitute for that foam rod.
What you do is cut it to shape or to length
and then bend it to shape, it's got a bit of a 'V' there
with two flanges on it and then we just shove that in
the entrance,
push that in into place there.
It closes off the entrance but gives them ventilation.
Even without a screen bottom board, if you
have that and a screen up at the top that would be
adequate ventilation, but the problem with
these push in screens like that it's really tough to
seal bees in, but that is one alternative there.
Now we are going to go back and we are going
to move some hives that won't be screened in at all,
we'll just load them up on the back of the truck
If we do that when it is dark and we unload them
when it is dark if they need to get our of the
hive and ventilate they can do that they can pile up in
front of the hive, but they never overheat if they
have full access to their entrance, but this is just
a way of doing it if you need to move them
inside a vehicle or if you need to move them
where daylight hours are involved with that move.
If you are moving them inside a vehicle be
very cautious of how you do that and make sure
you have a smoker with you, make sure you have
all your beekeeping equipment and make sure
the hive is secured in a way that it can't come
apart and it can't move around in your vehicle.
OK, we'll load up the truck in a moment here.
We are going to load these beehives up on our truck.
You can see they have an entrance down at the
bottom, these are the double nucleus colonies
that you might have seen in a video we did on
"Double Nucleus Colonies."
We are moving these out into a new apiary,
setting up a new apiary and we've got about 25 of these
nucs to move out.
The first thing we do is puff some smoke at the
entrances and these have an entrance on either side,
so I'll puff a little bit of smoke there.
You can see they have a super on them and
that's why we have these straps on them, these
straps are called kevlock straps you can get them
from Mann Lake Bee Supply, fantastic straps,
but we've got that on to hold the super
in place and the bottom board is screwed on,
so it can't come off and everything is secure, that
is really important when you are moving beehives.
So we give them a little bit of smoke and then we
set the smoker.
Dave's going to smoke the next hive so it's ready to
go when we go to pick up the hive
and then I'd like
to talk a little bit about the ergonomics of
picking up and moving beehives.
They are heavy, they are awkward and we are
going to do it two people on a hive, so we need to
communicate as we are doing this, so we are both
going the same directions.
Going two different directions with a beehive
doesn't work out too well take my word on that one.
OK, so we are going to get a hand underneath
towards the front of the hive.
Dave's using his left hand, I'm using my right hand,
then we are going to get a hand in the hand hold
at the back of the hive and we are going to tip up.
Pretty heavy.
Alright so we are using our legs, not our back
we'll stand up and we're going to go straight
over towards the truck.
Because we are holding it at the front of the hive
and the back you can see how we can tip the hive.
If we each had a hand underneath the bottom
board we wouldn't be able to tip it like that
to access the level of the truck.
So we'll set that up like that,
Dave's going to go and smoke the next beehive
while I position the hive on the truck.
Slide that over to the middle and then we'll
get another beehive.
Again hand near the front, the other hand in the handle
on the back so we can tip it.
If you are loading a truck you want to have any
hives that are higher towards the middle
so that if you are tying it down or strapping it
down you can secure it very well.
We'll get that there and move on to the next.
We'll just carry on, we smoke a few hives
ahead and then pick up the hives.
They are good and heavy, this is great.
We try to put entrances towards entrances.
A little different with these because they
have an entrance on either side, but if we
load them with entrances towards entrances,
if the bees come out to ventilate they are all on
one end of the box and they are not on this end
and that end and all over the sides.
When you are picking them up to unload
them if the bees are all over the place then
they are all over you too and that is obviously
not desirable.
So we'll just you can keep that in mind if you are
loading hives that have an entrance only on
one side.
Hi guys.
So we finally got to our new yard and we are
ready to start unloading our beehives here.
So we'll just kind of go over a couple of steps to
prepare to get the hives off the truck
and just a couple things you can kind of do to prepare
yourself and keep yourself as safe as possible.
So the first thing to kind of remember is when you
are unloading and that's really the bees have
kind of already been picked up vibrated and
moved, so that is when they are more likely going
to be traveling around and looking for you,
so protection is kinda more important on the
latter part of the whole move, so at this point
when we really get moving these we might
gear up depending on how the bees are,
but that is really when you want your protection.
So they are on the trucks and the first thing to do
when you are starting to unload them, these bees
have traveled a little bit and they are starting
to wander out now that the truck has stopped,
so we actually the first thing we do is start a
smoker and then puff smoke down the alley ways,
the corridors we've kind of created where the
bees will be.
On your full sized hives like Paul talked earlier
you're going to have your entrances faced together
so that's where you are going to want to puff your
smoke, but again like you saw earlier on these
double nucs they have entrances on both sides
so we are just going to go along,
puff smoke on all the little corridors,
just getting all those bees back into their entrance
and we might do that two or three times.
Now a lot of this is going to depend on the
temperature you are moving these bees in,
so the warmer and the more humid it is the more
patient you are going to have to be with your bees
and the more protection you are more likely
going to have the hotter it is.
So of course we decided to do this on one of the
hottest nights and we'll see kind of how that goes.
The only other thing to notice is we did keep
these lids on when we were moving them
and that kind of forces and air gap in between
the colonies, so they are not slammed up
against each other and that is really important
just for ventilation, so we don't have these bees
closed in and they are allowed to kind of crawl
out as need be just so they have a little
bit of air.
So I think that's all the little pointers for
moving them, the only last one is the truck
or the car if you have that.
We have it off here just so that we can talk and do
our little bit of filming here, but normally when
we come to a yard and we are ready to unload
we actually keep the vehicle on and the reason
for that is just the vibration effect of the
vehicle tends to keep the bees a lot calmer,
so when we actually get going we will turn the truck
back on just again to kind of do everything we
can to keep them calm and keep ourselves
safe so then we can move them,
and we'll get going at that right now.
We are ready to unload here as you can see
I've got a red head lamp on that gives us the ability
to see.
Bees can't see the red light so they won't come
out after us.
We don't use white light or they will be all over us
so we are going to pick them up just the same
way we did to load them, they've already been
smoked, they are nice and calm and we are walking
over into our brand new bee yard.
So there they are in their new home.
They will reorient, come morning they
will fly out slowly reorient
to the landmarks and there is an alfalfa field
coming into bloom just on the other side here.
So good night girls and good luck.