This video describes and shows one of the many ways you can light a bee smoker quickly and easily in only minutes, that will smolder for hours. Describes full instructions, items needed, and the step by step guide to a successfully smoldering bee smoker.
Decapping fresh honey frame wax cappings with hot knife closeup
This is a short clip of a fresh honey bee full timber frame being decapped with an electric hot knife. Rather a slow process, especially where the wax and comb have not been built up by the honey bees over and above the timber top and bottom bars. Those areas we decap with a decapping fork. We find the electric hot knife sufficient, but perhaps a steam hot knife would be better. Also a larger version would be nice. This one is cooled too quickly and does not reheat fast enough, so its slow and your hands get rather sore after a while. Before running the hot knife just under the wax cappings, we use a blunt knife to clean the frames and have them ready for use in the hives. This frame is a very light coloured but absolutely delicious tasting raw honey.
I may do a video later showing the entire process and the setup we have. Beekeeping is a great hobby, and we are only just learning so any feedback or suggestions are very welcome.
Have a buzzing day
Dear viewers,
This short video explains the use of a simple thing – just a SCREW to be exact – which literally will revolutionize the way you remove bees wax cappings from your honey frames. This is not my original idea, but I cannot recall where I have seen it in the past. Check out the video to see what I mean. Absolute MUST for small home hobby beekeeper.
A little more detail:
1)
we recommend you use a stainless steel screw as you are dealing with a consumable food, and it is raw, unprocessed honey, so stainless steel is a must in our mind.
2)
use a screw that is at least 5 cm in length (2 inches), depending on your thickness of the timber cross bar, and the type of frames you are using. You can’t go wrong by testing. Simply place the frame onto the screw, and rotate it in its fully vertical position. If it does not catch on the wooden cross bar, you got it just right. You may need to adjust by trial and error.
3)
We find this method is fantastic, simple, and saves you lots of back and wrist pains. You do not have to carry or continually counter weight the full capped honey frame, which can sometimes way up to 4 kilograms. However, having said that, it is still a relatively slow part of the honey extraction process and not suitable for any larger quantities of honey frames. If you have only a few hives, this is fine in a small hobbyist style homesteading environment, but the commercial decappers are far superior. Cost is probably the limiting factor, then space, and honey supply/demand that makes the commercial justification a little difficult to satisfy.
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Enjoy your day or evening
MahakoBees
Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey – Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák
You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/
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INCREDIBLE feeding frenzy! Parrots as pollinators “swarming”?
Hello everyone. We captured this short video clip of a large flock of native Australian parrots a little while ago and you may find it interesting. Especially in light of the short article below. Birds are better pollinators than insects. Interesting. Native Australian parrots
would definitely be one of them, and in this clip you can see how noisy they can be when in a feeding frenzy. Aren’t they beautiful though, and not the least bit concerned about me video recording them. Enjoy, share, comment, or subscribe if you wish to see more great videos in the future.
Interesting article:
Birds are better pollinators than insects
“Bees don’t see red very well at all,” Adrian told Australian Geographic. “By mapping the history of the flower evolution, it was possible to show that red flowers pollinated by birds actually evolved from flowering plants that used to be insect-pollinated.”
A possible advantage of attracting birds, is that some insects can be inefficient pollinators. The change in colouring, Adrian says, “enables plants with red flowers to get efficient delivery of pollen to enable sexual reproduction, and avoid having nectar stolen by insects.”
Professor Marie Herberstein, an ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, says the discovery about the interaction between plants and their pollinators is very interesting.
Marie says that while it has been known for some time that insects are attracted to blue, this is the most complete study showing that bird pollinators are attracted to red.
“This is particularly significant in Australia as we have more bird pollinators than any other continent,” Marie says.
From: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/03/red-flowers-the-trick-to-attracting-birds/
Dear viewers,
This was not planned, but during a quick visit to the hives, I noticed something strange yet wonderful. Can you spot the SNEAKY INTRUDER flying in and out of the beehive? Right past the guard bees? Its tiny, harmless and a very close relative to the honey bee. Leave your comments below. For those not searching, this is a clip showing honey bees up close at the beehive entrance fanning eagerly to cool and ventilate the beehive. You can also see some guard bees, and clearly not doing their job right, unless this is a unique relationship?
Thank you for visiting and watching. Please share this video and subscribe if you are enjoying our content.
Have a fantastic day
Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey – Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák
You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/
