August 2014 - Page 2 of 4

15 Aug

Mid WINTER SPLIT required to prevent swarming. See all the drones at entrance? http://www.mahakobees.com/blog. At a glance we could see hyperactivity at one of the hive entrances. It is middle of winter in Australia, but the bees don’t mind. There is still plenty of flowering trees and plants around, and the temperatures range from 5C (41F) at night to 26C (79F) in the day. In the sun, it can easily get to 35C (97F), so the honey bees are very active. Yes, the queen slows her laying, yes the drones are mostly evicted (see our DRONE EVICTION video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWSBfbAixo0&list=TLv0QzyBZoGSnAy635ZPGocQaJdtWePfqP), and there is no honey flow, but none the less, if the hive is doing well, they can swarm and we certainly need to add honey supers at least once. In fact, several hives have 4 full honey supers on top of a single brood box with a queen excluder.

Clearly, this is not your typical winter activity for most beekeepers around the world, and we are very lucky to be located here in Australia, because we rarely worry about preparing bees for overwintering, we never need to feed our bees any sugar water or pollen patties, and as you can see, we can even encounter the odd swarming situation and need to split the hive or manage the colony to prevent it.

In this short clip, we ended up removing plenty of the drone comb and splitting the hive into a small nuc. A video on how that went mid winter and how the new hive progressed with making a queen and establishing themselves as a strong hive will be released soon. It’s on the cutting table now. So we invite you to subscribe and click the thumbs to show support. We release new videos weekly so join us if you like bees, are a beekeeping enthusiast, or just like to learn what all the buzz is about.

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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 “Call to Adventure”. We appreciate your kind contribution – (incompetech.com).

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

13 Aug

09 Aug

06 Aug

QUEEN CELLS CUPS – original Beeswax cell vs fake Plastic cups. Beekeepin…

QUEEN CELLS – original #BEESWAX made by bees vs man made PLASTIC queen cups. Visit our beekeeping blog and beekeeper supplies store at http://www.mahakobees.com/blog.

We take a look at queen cells or otherwise known among #beekeepers as queen cups. The bees frequently make their own original beeswax versions inside the #beehive, usually due to the beehive is either ready to split the colony and #swarm into a new location, or for supercedure of the aging or otherwise under performing or in the sudden absence of queen bee. In the case of a queen dying for some reason, the colony is not queen right, and as such they must quickly create several queen cups or cells and place any freshly laid eggs inside and begin feeding the select few royal jelly. The queen cell is much larger than a normal worker bee cell or in deed a drone cell. The egg and subsequent bee larvae that was destined to become just another worker bee will now be fed exclusively large amounts of the honey bee produced royal jelly, and this will trigger it to develop into a queen bee rather than the worker bee. Nonsense you say? Well… in a way, you are right. This is kind of a miracle on many levels. Not only will the egg develop into an entirely different creature physiologically, but its lifespan will also increase rather dramatically. A typical worker bee will live for about two months and perhaps longer during the winter months, whereas the queen bee can live for six or more years!!! Yes, rather impressive! And all because it was fed a different diet! That’s it. No other magic. No wander many scientists are studying this amazing substance and are hoping to find a formula to this elixir of life.

In any case, we look at the difference or similarities of the original honey bee made queen cell which is entirely made from beeswax to the exact specification that is consistent in all hives right around the world, and the fake, man made plastic queen cells or cups beekeepers use in larger operations to produce new queens in large quantities. Beekeeping often requires new queen bees to build up populations for honey flows and other pollination services, and in such circumstances, it is faster and financially viable for #beekeeping operators to simply purchase already fertilized queens. It saves time and increases production.

What amazes us, among all the other amazing facts about the bees, their colonies, social interactions and natural instincts is their ability as a collective to monitor their colony as a complex collective and manage all their workers, drones and queen bees without any other input. Completely by instinct it seems. Unless we are missing something and cannot see the writing on the wall or listen in at the #bees frequency or dimension. Beekeeping is an eye opening hobby. We encourage you to join a beekeeping association, subscribe to our channel and click the thumbs up to help us spread the word about honey bees and their tremendous importance in our lives.

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 “Undaunted”. We appreciate your kind contribution – (incompetech.com).

06 Aug

Beekeeping BEGINNER TIP – How to light a BEE SMOKER quickly that smolder…

HOW TO light a long lasting bee smoker quickly and easily in only minutes, that will smolder for hours.

An essential skill for anyone starting out in the #beekeeping #hobby or beekeeping industry is to know how to start and use a Bee smoker. We have many beekeeping smokers available at our online beekeeping supplies store http://www.mahakobees.com/store.html ready for immediate shipping (mostly free in USA), so feel free to visit and get yourself a bee smoker or an entire backyard beekeeping starter kit if you are ready to indulge in this excellent earth saving hobby as an apiarist.

A bee smoker is essential for a #beekeeper. Most beekeepers will not undertake a regular hive inspection without a well lit bee smoker. The cold smoke masks the pheromones of the guard bees and alerts the bees that a fire may be approaching. This helps the bee keeper because the bees gorge on honey, fill their stomachs in preparation for an urgent migration if necessary. Once the bee stomach is full, they are less likely to fly around and sting the beekeeper doing the beehive inspection in their #apiary.

This video describes full instructions to light a bee smoker, items needed, and the step by step guide to a successfully smoldering beekeepers smoker. The steps outline using hay and wood filings, but also a layer of insulating cardboard (or ideally non-toxic paper as correctly noted by Honey-B-guys in the comments below), which protects the bee smoker itself, insulates the heat, and certainly maintains the smoldering coals a lot longer than usual. Make sure you pack the smoker well for a long and easily reinvigorated smoke with just a few puffs of the #bellows.

We trust you will find this beekeeping 101 howto video and if you do, we invite you to subscribe, share, and thumbs up below. We very much appreciate it.

Have a fantastic day

#MahakoBees