14 Jul

the EVIL MoTHSTER MONSTER – every beekeeper’s nightmare


Th3 EV1L MoTHSTERThe EVIL MONSTER

a MUST see for every beekeeper. View the full video and many more on our http://www.mahakobees.com channel. See you there. 

 

We had an intruder visit our empty frame of brood comb. All beekeepers have spare frames, foundation, honey supers, entire hives in fact, always in preparation for capturing bee swarms, or to simply split their hives if and when required. This poses a problem for most beekeepers, because many pests love to utilize the frames whilst the bees are not. The comb and the frames remain unprotected and are exposed to many creatures, such as ants, cockroaches, mice, small hive beetle (SHB) and more worryingly the dreaded evil monster, the wax moth! Or as we refer to it in this video title, Th3 EV1L MoTHSTER! 


In this video, we take a close up look at the cocoon of this insect pest which has made its way into our stored #honey frame. Luckily, we were able to locate it and in the end, we had to dispose of it and several of its brothers and sisters. Once they hatch, the damage they can cause is extensive, and not only does it render the frame and comb useless, but there are bound to be more eggs in the nooks and crannies of the frame which may cause further problems to your hive down the track should you deploy these frames without proper treatment.


So, how doe one protect themselves against such a pest? What pest control precautionary measures can you take? Do you call in an exterminator? Do you use harsh chemicals? What is one to do if you find yourself inundated by these pests?


Answer is not simple and there are many different ways you can protect yourself. Definitely do not use any harsh chemicals. Remember, these frames are going to be used in your hives and they form the most crucial part of the bee colony. The comb itself should be free of any pesticides, sprays, or other harmful chemicals. To reduce the potential of a wax moth invasion, you need to clean the frames, do not leave them exposed to the outside world, keep them covered, check them regularly, and ideally, you would in fact simply cut out all the old comb and heat treat the entire frames. Another method that is often used and we found useful as well, is to freeze the entire honey supers with the frames inside. If space does not allow this, then you can freeze them frame by frame. This can be tedious though and time consuming. Each frame should be kept well below zero degrees Celsius (below water freezing point) for at least 24 to 48 hours. This will destroy most eggs or hatched baby larvae and in deed any other #pests and #parasites that may have found a way into your hive. 


NOTE: this will not treat or remove the dreaded foul brood. Burning your hives, frames and sadly destroying the bees themselves is the only way to combat this problem. There is much written about the various form of foulbrood, how to identify it, and the various ways to treat each variant. We may do a video on this in the future also, even though we do hope to never encounter this crippling disease.


So, once you have frozen or heat blasted your frames, place then in a dry, isolated, enclosed area, place a large and tough plastic bag over your boxes with frames, and depending on your views on treatments, you may choose to add a moth ball or two near or within the bag to reduce the risk of a wax moth chewing through the plastic. That however is not our practice, but others have suggested this in other blogs and videos. The choice is yours.


We hope you find this video useful, enjoyable and educational. We would be pleased to see you click the THUMBS UP for us and invite you to SUBSCRIBE. Your help and support is very much appreciated. Don’t forget to visit our MAHAKOBEES BLOG on http://www.mahakobees.com/blog.

MahakoBees


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Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey – Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák. You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/. Also, a big thank you goes to Kevin McLeod for providing his royalty free music “Hitman”. We appreciate your kind contribution – (incompetech.com).

09 Jul

His first QUEEN BEE sighting EVER!


His first QUEEN BEE sighting EVER! The Young Beekeeper

His 1st QUEEN BEE sighting! How EXCITING! Our young BEEKEEPER got his bee suit on, smoked the beehive, and searched for the honeybee queen. AND found her Royal Highness! Visit our blog on http://www.mahakobees.com/blog for many great videos and articles.


Beekeeping with kids is EASY. Yes, there are some costs to get started, such as the beekeepers suit and veil in a small size, but such a bee suit will cost you around $70, which if you buy it 3 sizes over your child’s current size will last you for many years. As will the small beekeeper gloves and any other items you may wish to purchase from your local beekeeping supplier or an online beekeeping store for your young budding beekeepers. If you have siblings, they can easily share and or pass down the line their suits as they get older.


Either way, it is a small investment for a fantastic cause as your kids will love the fact they are out there in the field with you working the hives in your apiary. They get to see nature in action, they feel like they are contributing, learning new skills, they gain an understanding of not only the honey bee life cycle, but the cycle of life in general. They will get to witness how the honey bee colony its social networks operate. Your children will also gain respect. They will quickly learn, that frustration, anger, or short tempered behavior will not get them very far in beekeeping, and a few stings later, they will automatically begin to adjust their actions and behavior accordingly. Oh and let’s not forget, they will also understand, that honey does not just drop from the sky by magic. It takes hard work by both the bees themselves and the beekeeper, but always make sure you reward your children for their hard work with plenty of the the amazing liquid gold so they can learn the different taste profiles honey has depending on which flowers are in bloom at that time. Honey will display different colors, density, aromas, flavors, and will be either in abundance or a scarce resource for the bees. All this will educate your child, you will spend quality time together, and make everyone feel good.


So what are you waiting for? Visit our Beekeeping with kids playlist for some inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfE6cWwwWKohLHWVc60tgnU3HzLUSGqXo


If you are new to beekeeping or don’t have a beehive as yet, then you should start by contacting or visiting your local beekeeping association, which will provide you with lots of useful information, such as your local council regulations, licenses or registrations you may need to adhere to, they will show you and tech you the basics, possible provide you with access to a beehive so you can test the waters to see if you are ready to embrace all the tasks of a beekeeper, and then, if all goes well, get a beehive. You can do this in a form of an established hive, a small starter hive or a nuc box, or purchase (or build your own hive) and order a package of 3,000 or so bees with a queen which you can then install into your new hive. There are also many interesting books we recommend you read, and we have a list of these on our blog: http://www.mahakobees.com/blog, so come and visit us and look around.


Have a fabulous day
MahakoBees


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Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey – Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák. You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/. Also, a big thank you goes to Kevin McLeod for providing his royalty free music “Cipher2”. We appreciate your kind contribution – (incompetech.com).

 

 

06 Jul

HOT knife vs HEAT gun part 2 – the VERDICT post extraction

HOT knife vs HEAT gun part 2 – the VERDICT post extraction

Well, the experiment is over. Our mind is made up. If you would like to know the outcome, click the video link HOT knife vs HEAT gun part 2 – the VERDICT post extraction  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00TydRGmm6U) or the thumbnail above and take a look at the results. We believe most of you will be surprised with the results.

So, let’s talk about the outcome. Is there a place for the heatgun in beekeeping? That is a resounding YES. Is it good, great, or fantastic at uncapping the honey frames? In our view, it is not. It works OK at the best of times, and only on very specific frames, where tiny air pockets exist in between the honey and the wax capping itself. In absence of such air pocket, the wax did not pop open or melt at all. It simply heated the wax, heated the honey (which is what you want to avoid if possible – although the hot knife also heats it, so the comparison is on par for both methods), and then the wax hardened again, thus sealing the #raw honey inside the cup/cell again, never to be extracted unless further uncapping process, such as the use of an uncapping fork is used.

There is a valid argument for the use of #heat gun for the uncapping process in that it reduces the need for beeswax cappings processing. This does take considerable time if you choose to harvest the cappings, strain them (to reduce loss of your honey harvest), then wash, clean, melt, filter, and refine a few times to produce a product ready for further utilisation or sale to the many beeswax dependent industries, such as cosmetics and candle making. You can watch our 3 part video series where we cover the beeswax processing for small home based quantities:

1)

 
 
2)

 
 
 
 
 
3)

 
 
 
However, the amount of beeswax that is left behind on the frame itself is substantial as it is not removed by the knife, leaving a mess on the comb itself. It also leaves the frame dirty and uneven. The hot knife tends to level the comb nicely to maintain a healthy bee space in between your frames and the comb is nice and straight to pull in and out of the hive as required during the hive inspections and honey harvests if done on a frame by frame basis. Then there is the much reduced efficiency of honey extraction to take into consideration. All beekeepers are aware of the hard labour that it takes to go to their apiary location, open the hives, inspect, collect the frames, transport back to the processing sheds, extracting the honey/beeswax and by-products, and so on. Then the trip back, re-deploy the honey supers and frames. The work is immense. Now if you use the heat gun, the yield is almost ¼ or more less than it otherwise would be using the more traditional, tried and tested methods. So yes, the honey and wax are returned to the hive, so nothing is essentially wasted (unless you are going into winter, in which case there is a problem with so much honey retained inside your frames, but that is a separate issue), but all that means, is that you will have to make the next visit much sooner, and extract on a more frequent basis as the bees will fill the frames much faster – obviously… as they are half full already.
If you choose to use the uncapping fork, then the uncapping time taken per side of the frame is about the same and the hot knife, AND THEN you have to deal with the tiny amounts of the uncapped beeswax anyway. Get all your gear dirty, get the strainer out, get the beeswax washed, dried, processed, filtered, and poured into molds anyway.
Lastly, you don’t have the by-product that can also bring in more revenue, or save on further costs by reusing your own beeswax for foundation if that is how you choose to assemble your honey frames.
To conclude, this little experiment was fun and interesting to do. It was certainly exciting at first to see all the beeswax cappings just pop almost instantaneously, and one would be forgiven for thinking they found a holy grail in the time consuming uncapping process, BUT… once the entire process was completed, it was clear that it was just that. A mirage, a fun experiment, and one that we will probably only undertake to show and teach others about the pros and cons in our educational courses.
We hope you found this 2 part HOT knife vs HEAT gun series educational, interesting and that we provided you with an unbiased objective perspective on the issue. We appreciate your support and trust we can see you come back regularly to check out our weekly video updates. We value your feedback and invite you to SUBSCRIBE. Enjoy your beekeeping!
 

Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey – Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák. You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/
Also, a big thank you goes to Train Robbin’Scoundrels for providing “their royalty free music “Murrow’s Boys”. We appreciate your kind contribution.
 
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