Love it, very useful. After the coldest winter of my life here in Texas, I'm pleased to say all my hives made it.

I bought my bee gear off a guy that had hospitalization due to bee stings. He did not mention that it was all still full of bees. 3 double deeps and a 5 hour drive home in a hatchback. So far they are all still alive. Let’s just say I got for half the cost of a starter kit.

Excellent presentation and spot on. I have learned a few of these lessons the hard way. I have also learned that "experience" is that thing you get just AFTER you needed it. Heeding your words here will help folks bypass some very difficult learning curves. Keep up the good work!

Im going in to my 3rd year this year. Year one 2 hives, year two 7 hives, this year, 40 hives and as many splits as possible, with mite treatment being a priority as usual.

That was a great video - lots of great advice and food for thought! Thank you from an Irish Bearded Beekeeper. 😊

Love the breakdowns and specifics per hive quantity. You do great job with topics that dont have a lot of info in depth

BeeUtiful Bearded Beekeeping Wisdom shared in this video!!!!! What a brilliant video brother!!! Honesty, you nailed so many excellent points to to think about! ✌️🐝🐝🐝

Great advice. I agree with everything you have said. Relax the first year or two and learn as much as possible. You're right about the start up costs also. My first year I spent about $2,000 but I got 350 lbs of honey which surprised me. Gave 50 lbs away to friends and relatives and sold the rest for over $2,000 so it was a break even year. Now most of the sales of honey will be profit. Take care and have a good weekend.

First!!!!! You definitely have to account for all the background cost in the bees. Thanks!

I love your intro. Hello bearded bee 🐝 people !! 👋🤙🏼

Finally a POSITIVE outlook on beekeeping. This is excellent my friend. Beekeepers/Groups scare people from starting by emphasizing expenses and how bees die. I have an outlook like you do. Thank you for this video 👏👌🖐

Thank you bearded beekeeper. Very nicely done. Great info.

Wow man, thanks for this video. I've kept bees for about eight years now, always fluctuating between 1-6 hives. I finally buckled down last year and went from 2 hives in March to 33 now. Operator error cost me at least another ten, but that's been a huge learning experience that I think will pay off this year. My goal this year is to head towards a couple hundred and see what happens lol. This video is great for someone in my position because it takes all the info and scenarios that I have rattling around in my head and organizes it into a coherent format. I'll probably be watching it repeatedly this year to keep my head on straight. I've got around 50 five frame nucs waiting for bees and I'll have at least 50 more built, along with 130ish single deep setups ready to go by April. Hopefully I'll be dropping queen cells in the next 5-6 weeks and then crossing my fingers. Anyway, thanks for putting out this content and good luck with the upcoming season.

Thanks Brett for all you do, I take a lot of notes with your videos. Keep up the good work hopefully will see more videos soon.

You can take a nuc in the spring to sell and control swarming, will not affect honey production. Then you can nuc the production hive towards the end of the flow, take only 2 brood from each, helps control swarming again, the brood will not contribute to honey production and not needed in the dearth so grow that summer nuc to expand your own numbers.

Hi Bret I bought a couple of those small foam mating nucs with the intentions of just trying to use them to mate a few queens and move the queens out after she starts laying and just keep rotating cells in them as I create them. I was using 2-5 frame deeps last year to do some but I realized you need more resources and room to do it so thats why I was thinking of trying the smaller ones along with a few 2 and or 5 frames ( i have a few divided to make two 2 frame deep nucs I even split a 10 frame deep 4 ways to see which way worked best for me.... Time will tell thanks for the video......

Good info for those who are stepping into it a little deeper 👍

Excellent video. Appreciate all the tips!

Excited to find another bearded beekeeper! Seems like practically everyone I see is clean shaven 😏 I've done a ton of research but am not even a month into officially being a beekeeper myself. (Have already experienced a bee crawling around in my bushy beard, so I imagine that's why so many shave lol) I've subscribed and am looking forward to checking out more of your videos! 😃

Great video !!! Good coverage on most important topics. My 4th year, and my goal is growing my number of hives. Honey as a by product. Hope you have a great year, and hope spring arrives, and bee survive 😊

Very informative. Thank you.

I was able to make a decent amount of comb honey with out having to buy the comb honey stuff, i just user foundation less medium frames still used wedge but cut the wedges out and rubbed some bees wax on the bottom of the top bar. The way my bees are doing with out foundations i am doing the same with the deep frames. In my mind when it comes to cycling out old comb it will just make it easier to do. Just gotta make sure you put them between frames already drawn out. What you talk about in this video is where i messed up my first year, every time my bees wanted to swarm or the hive got crowded i would make nucs then post them up on craigslist or facebook and sell them, then that winter the two 10 frame hives i had did not make it out of january. Last year my second year i bought two package made nucs never will i buy them again, and then bought a couple of hives locally that was already over wintered, one guy i bought from said he used to sit out in a field many years ago and follow bees back to their hive and then remove them and put into 8frames so those bees come from locally wild bees. I did make some splits i mean that seems inevitable when first starting unless you have the money to just keep adding space to the hive but i kept those splits so far the only hives that survived was ones out of local over wintered stock. This will be my third year and i am hoping to go into winter with 10 or 15 hives made out of those over wintered bees. My number 1 goal this year is build up 15 healthy hives any honey will be a bonus even though i give most of it away for now. Also one thing i love about those overwintered bees is i never had to treat them mite counts was low when i checked in august the package nuc bees on the other hand those things was loaded with mights

Another great video. I started with 3 and as of last there was 82. I'm planning on selling nucs this year. I raised a few queens last year but still have a lot to learn. I did have some success but some downfalls too. I'm scared as hell right now. Winter seems like it's gone on forever now. So many variables can happen. I've done all I could to get them through but it still don't help not being worried. I can't imagine the wait in northern Michigan.

Very helpful video. Thank you!

Very helpful video!

Thanks for sharing this info. It was very helpful. Getting my first nuc in May.

Hi Bruce man i missed your videos. Good to see you. You are giving me the advice i need as a 4th year beekeeper with expansion as an issue. Keep up the good advice !

Some good info friend! Might I suggest doing something with your volume in your video's. It's really hard to hear you at times.

Great video with great advice! Thx for sharing your experience! Greetings from Belgium!

After I got into bees I was told it is like golf. It will be much more expensive than you think, take more time than you think, and will be more frustrating than you think. The 1st two definitely true. I’ve not found it frustrating even though a dead out is close.

Thanks for the video!

Another profit strategy.......make mead. It takes about 12-18lbs of honey (depending on alcohol content desired) to make about 6.5 gallons of mead. That's 33 bottles of mead that can be sold at $18-25 bucks each at the mass marketer scale. You can command a higher price. At the cheapest sold, that's $594 minimum. Granted, to sell alcohol, you need an alcohol license, but a meadery license is the easiest to get. A beer license is the hardest. Bartering with alcohol is allowed, though. I am not sure how much a hive produces a year on average, but I know it is easier to sell fermented honey than regular honey. Any corner grocery store carries honey, but next to no one sells mead in quantity, for it is rare and desirable.......and the ladies like it.

great info. pick one direction to go, or you go nowhere.

I use to have ten hives one of my best hives was an AHB they produced 6 honey supers with in 2 months of being removed from an old church they weren't too stingy but man I love those the others struggled not too bad but I lost all when the county sprayed for mosquitoes I miss them

My girls made it through the winter!

Thanks for the great video!

Explain honey sticks, looks like a lot of work. Never seen any supplies such as the straws or equipment to get honey in or sealed

Hi Brett. Do you buy your sugar from Walmart or do you buy it in bulk somewhere. I contacted Pioneer sugar here in Michigan. you have to buy 2000 pounds to get for 0.53 cents a pound. still not as cheep as Walmart. Any help on locating a good sugar source would be greatly appreciated. I need a good bulk source for sugar. Jody in Fowlerville mi.

Do you only treat with formic acid or have you used oxalic as well?

great video thanks!!

Great video I got a ton out of it. My question is I live in Maine I have two big colonies and two small ones. I have a 9 lb package arriving at the beginning of April an PhD two nucs ordered that are set to arrive in in mid to late May. I tried my hand at queen rearing last year failed and none of the cells took. I plan on trying again and I think I will be able to succeed this time. I want to have 30 hives in the next 3 or 4 years. How do you think I should get the word out about my queens? Also how do you think I can expand quickly but also rear 10-15 queens a year to keep my hives with young queens and sell a couple?

This video is great

Hello! I’m a new subscriber, can you touch base on making money with pollination services? Thank you

Sagan! 🤘🏻🤘🏻

This will be my first year I have built some new boxes I have built some hives what were you recommend for the first year I know build up but should I even offer one nuke

If you ever get the chance check out "A Canadian beekeepers blog" on KZfaq he's awesome to watch...😁

your volume sucks i can barely hear your narration.